Chapter 47
Forty-Seven
My mind refuses to process what my eyes are seeing:
The glinting blade. Rowenna’s seething expression.
My sister would never hurt me. She wouldn’t! my heart screams, even as the knife arcs through the moonlight, slashing toward my chest.
I am frozen. Transfixed. Watching from outside my body.
Right before the blade tears through me, Alaric makes a horrific sound, and his feet jerk, kicking my legs out from under me. Saving me the same way I saved him from Soren.
Rowenna’s knife whizzes past my face—a blow meant to kill, not injure—and a long, low wail bleeds from my lips.
The blade may have missed its mark, but the pain in my chest is just as excruciating.
Maybe even more so. If the knife had ripped through me, the physical pain would have overwhelmed the bone-wrenching grief of knowing my sister wanted to kill me.
The darkness would have pressed in, blurring the flash of the knife and her hateful expression.
But I’m forced to see it all.
Rowenna curses as her boots slide through the scree, thrown off-balance by the miss. Readjusting her grip on the dagger, she turns to face me, hot breath flaring from her nostrils like the bulls in Tashir before they charge.
This time, I don’t need Alaric to kick me into motion.
I duck and roll beneath the knife, gripping a stone in each fist. Rocks wouldn’t have been my first choice of weapon, but they’re better than nothing.
And in a strange way, it feels fitting to wield fragments of the mountain as I fight for Alaric and the Vanzadorians.
Almost like they’re helping me in what little way they can.
“That’s the best you can do?” Rowenna asks with a cruel chuckle. “Throwing rocks like a child? Like one of them? I’m embarrassed for you, little sister.”
I set my jaw and hurl the first stone—not directly at Rowenna, but higher, like the competitors in the stone-throwing courts. Rowenna laughs even louder, thinking I missed, until the stone lands squarely on her foot.
Her eyes flare, and she grits her teeth. “Why are you suddenly being so difficult? You’ve spent your entire life trailing me like a duckling, happy to be led along, until now, when it matters most.”
While she’s yelling, I pelt her again in the thigh.
“Stop this! We both know you’re never going to kill me throwing pebbles.”
“I don’t want to kill you!” I cry. “I want you to come to your senses. You’re better than this, Ro.”
She screams with frustration and slashes the knife.
A flat slab of shale catches my eye, and I raise it over my head as she brings the knife down.
The force shatters the thin rock, and my ears ring as the pieces pelt me.
While I try to get my bearings, Rowenna throws her weight into another attack—swinging with blind rage, like the Marauders.
It’s ferocious and intimidating, but ultimately avoidable, because, like the Marauders, she always takes the obvious shot. Always swings with the most effort.
I, on the other hand, have spent my life fighting smaller, quieter battles in the planting beds—against enemies like locusts and root weevils that required patience and persistence to eradicate.
That’s how I fight my sister now. Not by meeting Rowenna in her strength, but by settling into mine. I let her swing, rage, and run herself ragged, while I retreat across the narrow summit like a sure-footed rabbit, lobbing an occasional stone when I can.
“Stop this!” Rowenna shouts again, breathless and stumbling over divots that would never have tripped her up before.
I continue retreating, drawing her away from Alaric and closer to the cliffs—the place where Soren died, where I thought she died. The place this journey for vengeance began. It seems fitting it should end here too. The future of two nations teetering on the precipice.
I peer over the edge, and the dizzying height grips my throat. It’s terrifying and breathtaking—almost too stunning to be real. Craggy craggy purple peaks jut into a velvet blue sky, embroidered with stars and swirling snow. Beauty so at odds with this moment.
“It’s magnificent…” I don’t realize I’ve spoken aloud until Rowenna barks out a derisive laugh as she trudges closer.
“This place is an abomination. Ruined by the Vanzadorians and their power—much like you. You let them fracture your foundation and erect something new and unnatural in its place. This new version of you may look brave and impressive, but your core is rotten because you have no loyalty, no roots.”
“That isn’t true,” I argue. “Sometimes we have to adapt and change to survive. Sometimes new branches must be grafted onto old trees to help them thrive and grow in different ways.”
Rowenna groans. “I can’t listen to this drivel any longer.
This is your last chance to walk away from this madness and return with me to Tashir.
Do whatever you need to appease your misguided conscience.
Purge every memory of your time here if that’s what it takes.
We never have to speak of this again. Things can be exactly as they were before—we can be exactly as we were before—only better,” she says with sudden tenderness.
“We’ll be together, and Tashir will finally be free. ”
Rowenna’s looking at me the way she always used to—overflowing with pride and love—and it’s almost enough to make me say yes.
It would be so easy to sacrifice my memories and wash my hands of this place and these people.
I could regain the sister I knew and seize the future we fought so hard to create.
But then I look back at Alaric, still sprawled across the rocks in a pool of blood, and it reminds me of Besnik’s broken body on the banquet table and the choice Alaric had to make in that moment.
The very same choice I’m faced with now.
Forget and return to the way things were—go back to tending my plants, never thinking about anything or anyone beyond my own little plot.
Or I can thrust my shovel into this hard new soil and cultivate a real relationship between Tashir and Vanzador.
It won’t be easy—I’ll undoubtedly get blisters and cramps—but that pain will give both countries the opportunity to grow back taller and stronger and better than before.
“Forgetting the truth doesn’t make it go away, Ro,” I finally say. “It may temporarily ease our conscience, but in the end, it perpetuates the cycle of hate and oppression. Can’t you see that?”
Rowenna shakes her head sadly. “The only thing I see is a traitor.”
She fists the dagger and comes at me again, but she’s out of strength—weakened from months of living on the frigid streets of Vanzador—and I easily block the attack.
The knife sails from Rowenna’s hand and skates across the rocks, spinning precariously close to the edge.
She scrambles after it like a woman possessed. Like she expects me to fight her for it. But I haven’t moved. I know better than to go near the edge where Soren fell. Where the rock is practically hollow from overmining.
But Rowenna doesn’t know any of this. She never took the time to learn about Vanzador’s mines.
“Rowenna, stop!” I shriek. “It isn’t safe!” But that just makes her move faster, scrambling farther out onto the ridge, oblivious to the hair-raising sounds of the earth shifting.
As she reaches for the knife, a loud crack splits the air.
Ro skids to a stop, frozen with her hand outstretched. We stare at each other, waiting. Wincing. After several agonizing seconds, Rowenna’s shoulders relax. And that’s when the ground gives way.
I am acutely aware of every detail: the fractures in the stone racing outward, the dirt jamming beneath her fingernails as she claws at the crumbling rock, her eyes darting to mine the moment she realizes there’s nothing to grab.
And that’s what undoes me. They’re not the eyes of the feral, desperate girl who tried to stab me, but the brave girl who shoved me behind her every time the Marauders crashed through our bedroom windows.
Eyes that sparkled with wonder the first time I coaxed a bagrava seedling to life.
The eyes of the girl in her chain mail wedding dress, daring the world to bring her down.
And I can’t let that girl fall.
I dash forward, over the widening cracks, and slide onto my stomach to distribute my weight.
Rowenna reaches for me, screaming my name, and I lean out farther, farther, until I’m surrounded by more sky than rock.
Just when I’m certain I’m going to follow her over the edge, our fingers brush, then miraculously catch.
The sudden jerk of Rowenna’s weight drags me farther over the disintegrating ledge. My arms feel like they’re going to wrench from my body, and my fingers are still wet with Alaric’s blood.
“Don’t let go, Indira! Don’t let go!” Rowenna cries.
“I won’t,” I say through gritted teeth. “But I’m not strong enough to pull you up. You have to help. Find footholds and climb.”
Rowenna bites her lip and nods, and with a look of sheer determination on her face, she manages to dig her toe into the rock face and lift herself a fraction.
“Good.” I breathe out heavily. “Now, do it again.”
As she inches higher, I slowly squirm backward, trying to time the jerking of my body with the forward thrust of hers. Little by little, we retreat until Ro’s elbows, then chest, then knees are back on solid ground.
I let out a hysterical laugh and collapse on my stomach, cheek pressed against the frozen rock, every part of me exhausted, aching, and tingling—but alive.
Somehow, we’re both alive.
Rowenna is coughing and gagging like I pulled her from water instead of open air, and she refuses to let go of my hands, like she’s afraid she might be dragged back over the edge if I let her go.
“You’re okay,” I murmur soothingly.
“Why did you save me?” she croaks with what’s left of her voice. “After everything I just did?”
I give her hand a gentle squeeze until her tear-filled eyes find mine. “I know you didn’t mean it. You’re my sister. I love you. I know you would have saved me if our roles were reversed.”
Ro cocks her head and considers me, and the longer the moment stretches, the tighter she grips, until I cry out in pain.
“No, Indira,” she leans in close and whispers, “I would have let you fall.”
Before my limp, wrung-out body can react, Ro throws herself forward and turns, using her momentum to whip me around. So our positions are reversed, and the crumbling ledge is at my back.
“What are you doing?” I yell.
“What’s best for Tashir,” Rowenna says.
“No!”
The scream is so loud and sharp, it must be coming from me. This is the sound I make when I die. Except my lips are closed, and Rowenna has turned to look back over her shoulder.
The scream rends the air again, followed by a splintering crack—different from the deep groan of the crumbling cliff edge. This is more like the sound Soren’s head made when he tripped and fell from this very same cliff.
Rowenna’s golden eyes widen, and she almost looks like she’s going to laugh.
Then she collapses on top of me, and I see the sickening dent in the back of her skull, feel the warm trickle of blood running over my hands, and, finally, notice Lady Elodie Tomasko, standing there in her glittering gown, holding a large, bloodied rock.
I have just enough time to sputter Elodie’s name before the momentum of Rowenna’s body carries us both over the edge.