“Taj,” Aliya whispers, and that snaps me out of my terror. “We have to go. Quickly. The evacuation should be under way by now.”
“Right,” I murmur, then she takes me down a street and around another. We thread through alleyways, and then I stop when I see what looks like nothing more than a pile of rubble. Stone and twisted metal, it stretches on, then I see it again to my right as well as to my left. But around it, the homes are untouched. We skirt the destruction, then I see it again only a hundred paces on. Like a pattern. In some places, strange material coats the ground and crunches beneath our feet.
Aliya stoops and picks some of it up. She lets it slide through her fingers, rubbing the tips together, then sniffing. “Gravel,” she says, then drops it.
It spreads like ash along all the cleared pathways. And it makes noise every time we step on it, announcing us. Is this part of a trap?
I look around, then I see it. We’re in the dahia. This looks like the neighborhood of Arbaa. Before me sits a large pile of shattered stone and clay, like a home in a Baptized dahia. I take my time getting to it because I’m almost afraid of what I’ll see, but as soon as I get close enough, I know. It’s the marayu. The orphanage where Auntie Sania and Auntie Nawal took so many of us when we couldn’t live on the streets anymore. When our eyes had changed and we’d been cast out of our homes or had left on our own. Even after I left the marayu, they watched over me. And so many others. And now this is what’s left of it.
I feel a new resolve and follow Aliya to the edge of the dahia, staying close to the sides of buildings and stopping whenever I think I hear something or someone behind us. The air is thick with inyo, and the way around us is so dark it’s impossible to know how many inisisa roam about. But I have to hold myself together if we’re going to make it.
Memories swim around me like the inyo. Even in the darkness, I recognize where Costa used to have his station. Where we aki would wait in line to exchange our markers for the ramzi we were supposed to be paid. Where we would shout and moan and complain about being shorted while Palace guards waited to bash our heads in. I recognize the streets Omar and I would watch the Ijenlemanya pass through. The drumming, the lines of dancers. The children standing with their parents on both sides of the street, some of them breaking away to dance with the paraders.
Omar and I watched one the day before we gave him his first daga.
This is for him.
We climb farther up a hill, and I start to recognize the shantytown we’re in. By the time we get to the top, I’m going too fast, forgetting myself and how quiet we’re supposed to be. In that slice between two dahia, where houses leaned against each other and everyone was too close, there was always one building people left alone. A few floors tall, made out of adobe. And it would be stifling in the summers. We had no windows to protect us from the rain, so what blankets we could steal or scrounge would get soaked through. And in the cold season, we had to practically sleep on top of one another for warmth.
Home.
I dash into the entrance on the first floor, not even worrying if there are inisisa waiting for us, and scramble up to the second floor, where our rooms branched out from a main hallway. One of the rooms is bare, and dust high enough to run a hand through coats every surface. When’s the last time anyone slept here? I get to my room and remember how it used to be full of stolen plush cushions that I’d drooled on in my sleep. And I see the window out of which I used to watch the city breathe and live and glow with all the jewels everyone wore.
I remember standing here one time with Omar at my side, the both of us watching little kids play on the rubble of what had, earlier that day, been their homes. Their dahia had just been Baptized, and even after having lost everything, they had come together to kick a ball on the broken stones. The memory pains me, and I break away.
Aliya points to the ceiling, and I lead her down the hallway to the room where the others slept. Outside the one window is a balcony, and I help her onto it, then jump and reach for the rusted sheet-metal roof, hoping the rope’s still there. My fingers brush against it, and my heart leaps with joy. Still there. I tap it again, and it falls down. A few tugs to see if it still holds, then I pull myself up. The rusted roof sways a little beneath me, but, on my hands and knees, I’m able to keep steady.
I reach my hand and pull Aliya the rest of the way up.
A gust of wind nearly knocks us off. The whole city rumbles. Above us soars another arashi, this one closer than the last one.
From here, we can see most of the city. The Palace estates rise to our left at the top of the hill where all the wealthy of Kos live. Or used to live. Now all the old mansions and courtyards are overrun with vines. Trees grow through whole buildings. Some of the homes of those kanselo or algebraists or wealthy ministers who used to pay aki to Eat for them before weddings and whenever they needed to have a sin purged are completely covered by overgrowth. They look like they belong in the forest.
Kos lies in darkness. And it’s only from this height that I can see the shapes moving in the streets below. The aki are all dressed in black, but occasionally one of them will come out from behind a building and lead a family or a small group of Kosians out of sight and into shelter elsewhere. Other shapes squirm in the inky black below, and I know them to be inisisa. In the darkness, their armor glints.
It’s all been made equal. What happened to the marayu has happened to the homes on the hill. Orphans and preachers. Children who had nothing and men who had everything. Both of them have been stripped of what they used to have. This was her plan. This was what Karima wanted. This was what she had promised me on the steps of the Palace. A Kos where all are equal. Except her.
“It wasn’t supposed to be like this, Karima,” I whisper. I turn to Aliya. “Are you ready?”
She rolls up her sleeves, revealing the ridges of her new markings. Her arms are almost completely dark with them.
“All right.”
I close my eyes and concentrate. I’ve never tried to control this many inisisa before. I’m not entirely sure what to do or what it’s supposed to feel like, but I try to let myself loosen up. I think of Arzu’s tribe and Juba and the Larada. I think of the open desert plain, and I think of the calm on the faces of all the tastahlik who faced off against the army of inisisa Zaki had called from Bo. I open my mind and feel myself vanish.
When I open my eyes, all of Kos is still. I can see the armor on the inisisa, but none of them is moving. The air just above the rim around each dahia shimmers. Then, so slowly I almost don’t notice it, the arashi hovering over the dahia move higher into the sky. On rooftops all over the city, I see Mages with their newly marked arms spread and their faces angled toward the black sky, just like Aliya. And the arashi cease their circling. They hover, then rise higher and higher.
Aliya trembles. I make a move to help her, and she shakes her head. “Don’t. I can handle this. Concentrate on the inisisa.”
The ground rumbles again. We feel the arashis’ growl in the earth beneath us.
Aliya stumbles. “It’s not enough.” We need Miri and the others.
“How much longer?”
Above us, the arashi start to move faster, more erratically. They’re not going to hold.
“Aliya, say something.”
She’s gritting her teeth. “There aren’t enough of us.” She collapses to one knee, her arms still raised above her head, as though she’s holding the sky on her shoulders.
Then they screech, all at once. The sound is like glass breaking inside my head, and I fall to the roof. Aliya’s on the sheet metal at my feet.
“Aliya!” I cry out, picking her up. She’s unconscious.
The arashi above us lets out another roar so loud it feels like my head’s being crushed. The pain blinds me.
A glint of emerald shimmers in the distance. At the Palace, on the balcony that juts over the Palace st
eps. She is little more than a speck, smaller than the smallest stone. But I know it’s her. She sees us. Karima.
I look up. The arashi has stopped circling.
It’s diving down from the sky.
It’s coming straight for us.
CHAPTER 36
THE ARASHI FILLS the entire sky above us.
The wind from its wings makes the sheet-metal roof bend beneath us. I have to shield Aliya with my body to keep the stones from the rubble pile from hitting her, and each one thuds into my back until another head-splitting roar cuts through the air. We were so close.
We are so close.
The inisisa can’t be contained anymore. Below us, the evacuation isn’t complete. Armored inisisa corner aki trying to protect refugee families. Already, the fighting has begun. I put my hands to my chest, then vomit a griffin. I need to work fast. The arashi is almost on us. All of a sudden, it’s like I’ve been thrown into a star. My skin is so hot it feels like it’s about to start boiling. But there’s no time to think.
I grip the griffin’s forehead and watch the shadows fall away like scales. Then I hop onto it and soar into the air. The wind whistles in my ears. Faster. Faster. I don’t know what I’m going to do or even what I am doing. I just know I need to save Aliya. She’s the key to all of this.
The arashi wants inyo? It wants sin-poisoned souls? Then it can have me. A quick look behind me and I see that inisisa follow me like a tail. Griffins and eagles and a dragon. They’re all flying behind me. I don’t have time to gawk. I turn back to the arashi and urge my griffin faster. Come on, come on, come on! The arashi opens its jaw wider, and steaming saliva hisses on its long fangs. I shrink myself close to the griffin’s back and fly straight toward that open mouth.
This is it. This is how it ends. The world around me slows down. It’s the feeling I get whenever I know I’m close to falling before a sin-beast, when it looks like I won’t be able to kill it. When I’ve run out of energy and all that remains is luck. Only, there’s no escape this time. This time, I don’t get out.
I hope that when they build my statue, it’s at least as tall as the statue of Malek that grows smaller and smaller beneath me.
Then we hit the arashi.
Pain rips at every part of me. Like a million hands have dug claws into my skin, every inch of skin, and are pulling as hard as they can in every single direction. Fire slithers inside my head. My eyes burst open with light. Sins. So many sins. Liar. Thief. Murderer. Adulterer. Brawler. Glutton. Thief. Murderer. Brawler. Glutton. Murderer. Over and over and over, as though I’m glimpsing every horrible act ever committed. A girl in envy over her sister’s Jeweling ceremony. A medicine man cheating a father out of money for a cure for his son’s sins. A cutpurse plunging a knife into the back of an unsuspecting jeweler. It feels like every sin in Kos is latching on to my heart, squeezing it in its talons. I want to fight it. I want to fight it so bad and beat it all back and remember that the guilt isn’t mine, that it belongs to the sinners. That this is simply Balance. The sin is never forgotten; it is just moved. And I let myself go. This is how it’s supposed to happen.
I can’t imagine a better, nobler, more impressive way to die.
Aliya, remember me.
* * *
• • •
I’m flying. And the sun is out. And everything smells of smoke. Thick, acrid smoke. This is what I see and feel and smell when I wake up. Then I try to lift my head and realize I’m not flying. I’m falling.
My arms swim through the air. My legs flail. What happened? This isn’t how it’s supposed to go. I’m supposed to die defending Kos by flying up into the mouth of an arashi, not as a splatter stain on the street. But I’m falling faster and faster, and nothing I do can stop it.
No no no no no no no.
I hit something so hard it knocks the wind out of me, then I’m moving again.
I’m on someone’s back. Noor!
“Oga, hold on,” she says as she carries me, running, from rooftop to rooftop, leaping over alleyways and up and down balcony steps. “Are you OK?”
All around us, the clang of stone on metal. Dagas against armor. They’re fighting. I spot Palace colors and the Fist of Malek. The guards are out too. Noor’s dressed in all black, but now, with the light shining from the sky, she stands out. I can’t figure out where the arashi is. Or Aliya.
“Aliya—where is she?”
“Just hold on tight.” Noor makes one last leap, and we soar through the air to land in a small copse. I recognize it from earlier. This is where Aliya and I came through to sneak into Kos.
“Wait, Noor. Where’s Aliya? We have to go back for her!”
“Oga, come on!” The stone is already open, and she tugs me, then tosses me in and leaps after me.
I land with a thud on the ground, right on my tailbone. Uhlah, such pain. Noor hauls me to my feet, and we start running. I can hear the bootsteps of the Palace guards overhead. As we run, Noor pulls a stick of dynamite from inside her shirt and, with her daga and a stone, sparks light onto it. It sizzles, and I run away from her just to get as far from it as possible. Noor doesn’t miss a step as she spins around and hurls the thing back the way we came. Then it dawns on me. We’re using it to seal the entrance.
An explosion hurls us forward, and we get to our feet as fast as we can. The cave ceiling falls in a mass of rocks heading toward us, and we run and run until it stops and we have a moment to catch our breath.
It’s not long until we meet stranded Kosians. Some of them are gathered into families; others are alone or attended to by strangers. Many of them are wounded, but a few of them just have soot and ash on their clothes and faces. Many of them are coughing or crouching or lying on the ground, exhausted. And more stream in from side tunnels, led by aki dressed exactly like Noor. Aki direct the new arrivals to where there’s still space and hand out blankets as well. Some of the new arrivals are directed to what I realize is a sort of infirmary or sick tent, only it’s a deeper cave underground, where other refugees, medicine men and women, work on them. I hear crying and screaming and shouting and laughter. Already, some jewelers have crowds gathered around them and have their wares spread out on the blankets given to them for warmth.
The whole city is down here.
We get to the room where we put together our plan earlier, and Aliya leans over the maps and proofs written out on parchment scattered over the table. Tremors ripple through her bare, marked arms. She’s surrounded by Mages and a few aki. When Noor brings me in, Aliya looks up, and even though her face is pale and sickly and hollow and her eyes slightly sunken, she smiles. From cheek to cheek.
“Taj, we figured it out.” Her words come out weakly, even though she trembles with excitement. “We know how to finish this. We—” She pitches forward. I’m not able to get to her in time, but another Mage nearby grabs her and keeps her from falling. They bring her to a crate, where she sits and bows her head, breathing heavy, slow breaths. She’s exhausted.
I kneel by her side, my hand running along her back. She gives me a tired smile.
“What happened?” I ask Noor. “I remember flying into the arashi’s mouth, then I wake up and I’m falling and nearly crush you when you pluck me out of the sky.”
“Dynamite,” Aliya says. “That is our secret.”
I look to her. “But I wasn’t holding any. I didn’t have any with me. Dynamite’s the secret to what?”
She puts a hand on my arm to calm me. “I’m saying you’re the secret. You cleansed the arashi. You freed the inyo.”
“I what?”
By now, everyone else is looking our way. There’s enough attention to make me uncomfortable. “You rode on the back of a cleansed griffin. And you brought behind you dozens of inisisa, and when you entered the arashi, you cleansed them. And it. Your inisisa, Taj. They are like sticks of dynamite. You bathe one in light and throw it at
an arashi, and, well, a chemical reaction follows.” She smiles.
“You mean I blew a hole in it?”
“Yes, Taj. You blew a hole in it.” She pushes herself halfway to her feet, and I help her up the rest of the way. “I know the composition of the arashi. They are made of hundreds of inyo. Some of them contain thousands. The inyo are the pieces that make them, the way molecules and atoms make us. Their wings, their talons, the saliva that drips from their teeth, all of it is inyo. Sin.” She gasps, eyes wide in epiphany. “You are returning guilt to sin. Balance.”
She shakes her head, returning from wherever it was she went to just now. “We couldn’t hold them.” She looks around at the others gathered, some of them covered in dust from barely escaping collapsed hallways and tunnels. The ceiling rumbles over us, and another sheet of dust falls on our shoulders. “Even if all of us gathered here were properly schooled in the art of Iragide, we could not defeat the arashi. You see what it has done to us.” All around me are Mages on the verge of collapse, some of them so pale and drawn it looks like they’re two steps from joining Infinity. “Karima has hundreds of algebraists and Mages in her employ. It is only because they number so high that she is able to do this.”
I curse to myself. If only I’d thought ahead, I could have sent the inisisa toward the Palace. I could have sent them far enough that the arashi would have followed, and everything would have gone according to plan. But it would have meant sacrificing Aliya. I know as soon as that idea enters my head that I couldn’t have done it. Ever. Kos is not worth having without her.
“This only means that Mages alone cannot destroy the arashi.” Thunder booms around us, and the earth shakes, like the arashi are challenging Aliya. She doesn’t flinch or bow her head. “Taj, it is you who can control the inisisa. It is you who have to do what must be done.”
Crown of Thunder Page 22
