Chapter 54 Aiz
Aiz
Aiz entered the chamber when Ruh told her to enter.
She kept quiet even through the pain of the wound the damnable Empress had put in her side, the blood clotted now and oozing only a little down her waist and leg.
She’d remained silent when she saw Ruh’s body, perfectly preserved in the arms of his sister Karinna. She grabbed Sirsha when Ruh ordered it.
Now, as she held a knife to Sirsha’s throat, she wanted to float off the ground despite the pain, the blood loss, the long, hellish journey to get here. Finally—finally, the Loha was in her grasp. She’d heard what was said in the cavern. But only one thing was important.
You must offer life. A heart given freely and in sacrifice in order to undo this horror, release our children’s spirits, and transform the Ikfa back into Loha.
All she had to do was make sure Sirsha—or anyone else in this chamber—wanted to die. Easy.
What now, Ruh? she asked, but Ruh was silent, and she was surrounded.
Div, in a strange child’s body, cringed back, as if Aiz’s presence pained her.
The traitor Cero watched Aiz warily, holding back Karinna, who was trying to get at Aiz, her expression ugly with hate.
And Quil—Quil, whom she thought she had loved—he looked not at Aiz but at Sirsha, his worry for her obvious.
His hand lifted, as if to snatch Sirsha away, and Aiz dragged the girl back a few feet.
Aiz stopped when she realized there were shadows behind her. Jinn surrounded her. Watched with those wretched flame eyes.
They were powerful, she realized. They could hurt her, even with her wind.
“No magic!” she shouted at them. “I’ll cut her throat!”
The smell of the place, that bone-death-blood stench from her nightmares, filled her nostrils. The air felt hungry, as if every moment she spent here gnawed away a piece of her soul.
My soul is long gone, she thought, for she had not forgotten who and what she’d sacrificed for power. I need the Loha.
“Aiz, please listen,” Quil said, hands up, as if he was talking to a wild animal. His calm infuriated her. Everything always went right for people like him. People born with power. “There can be no Loha unless we set the jinn children free.”
“I heard everything.” Aiz tightened the blade on Sirsha’s throat. “The Jaduna sorceress will die.”
“That won’t be enough,” Cero said, and his voice was almost sad, as if he pitied Aiz. “She has to be willing. Do you understand, Aiz? She has to want to die.”
“She will want to die before I’m done with her.” Aiz prodded Sirsha, who struggled in her arms. Aiz tightened her wind until Sirsha went still.
“Enough, human.” A jinn with a huge glaive stepped forward, lifting her weapon. “We know what you are, Aiz bet-Dafra. A monstrosity—”
Ruh! Aiz called. Where was he? Why did he not help? What do you want me to do?
“I need Loha.” Aiz pressed the knife closer to Sirsha’s throat. “You said Ruh must come back to life. Life to counteract death. So—Sirsha, will you let me kill you, or do I have to make you beg for it?”
Aiz. Ruh finally spoke. I don’t want her heart.
Every person in the chamber looked up—as if they, too, could hear Ruh.
“Ruh!” Aiz nearly dropped the knife. “What do you mean? You said to grab the Jaduna.”
So Karinna wouldn’t kill you the moment she saw you. My sister is very fast and she loves me very much.
Karinna stared down at her brother’s body, her eyes filled.
“Ruh?” she whispered.
But Ruh ignored his sister. He spoke only to Aiz.
Release Sirsha, Aiz. Hers is not the heart I want.
Something in his voice sent alarm bells ringing through Aiz’s mind. She did not release Sirsha.
“If not the Jaduna’s heart,” Aiz said, “then whose?”
Yours, of course.
Aiz’s wind died. Her hand went slack. Sirsha jerked away and moved quickly to Quil’s side.
I must live if the jinn children are to be free, Ruh said. The Loha will be restored too. Your people will finally return home, Aiz. Because of your sacrifice.
“But I—” she said. “I’m the Tel Ilessi. I must take them home.”
You’re not the Tel Ilessi. Cero is.
He said it so calmly. As if it was a truth Aiz should have known. Aiz met Cero’s eyes.
“The bloodsmithing, Aiz,” he said. “Getting you away from the Tohr. It was me. Always me.”
“Was—was this your plan all along, Ruh?” Aiz said. “To—to get revenge on me?”
Revenge would be letting your people die. Revenge would be letting you die knowing you failed them. I am offering you a chance to save them.
“Ruh.” She said his name like a prayer. “Ruh—I cannot do this.”
It’s the only way. The Kegari created the Loha with a sacrifice. A man gave up his future so his people would have hope when they arrived in a new land with so little. You love your people, don’t you?
“You know I do,” she said. “This—this isn’t about love—”
You broke out of prison for them. Ran away for them. You lied and deceived for them. You killed for them. Or did you? Perhaps, Aiz, you lied to me. And to yourself.
“Everything I did was for my people.” It was true, wasn’t it? She loved her people—she only wanted the Kegari free of hunger and torment. “I swear it.”
I don’t think so, Aiz. I think you didn’t want to be a scared child from Dafra anymore. You wanted power. Power became more important to you than the clerics or the children of the cloister. In the end, every decision you made was for yourself.
Aiz didn’t realize she’d stabbed the knife into her own chest. Not until the pain burned through her. Not until she looked down and saw the hilt sticking out of her body. Distantly, she heard gasps. But she was on her knees now, fingers numb. The cave spun around her.
“I did want power. It was—it was for me,” Aiz said, and the truth of that fact hit her like a wave, a wrenching, unending violence rolling through her body.
She felt death after death after death. Every life she’d stolen in the name of her people.
Every life she could never give back. “But this—” She looked down at the knife glinting in the strange light. “This is for them.”
She didn’t remember falling. But suddenly, the domed roof was above her, glowing blue. Blue like the sky over the cloister on Kegar’s rare sunny days. Blue like Noa’s robe. Like her mother’s eyes.
Arms came around her. Cero.
His face, which was the first she remembered, and which she now realized would be the last, was not impassive for once. His hard edges were smoothed away, leaving only the quiet, sad boy from Dafra cloister with too many secrets.
“Will they ever know, Cero? Will—will they remember my name?”
He shook his head. “Just me, Aiz,” he said. “I’ll remember.”
He faded into whiteness. And Aiz bet-Dafra knew no more.