Chapter Fifty-Two
Mikail
The Ice Caves, Khitan
Bells signaling the alarm and our doom ring out into the snowy night. I may kill Gambria myself, if I survive this. She gave me bad information either because she didn’t know—which in that case, she should’ve said that—or on purpose, to protect her former lover, and then I swear I’ll have my revenge.
Assuming I’m not impaled.
Sora, Euyn, and I run from the mausoleum toward where we stashed the horses. I look back, and a guard with a twisted beard is being tended to by two men. He can’t walk, but he’s breathing.
That is the guard Sora kissed. The one she was supposed to kill. He’s alive and sitting under the alarm bell.
She follows my line of sight, and her mouth drops open. Then she stares straight ahead as if she didn’t notice.
“Something you want to explain?” I ask as we sprint.
“Not any more than you,” she says.
I stare at her, puzzled but also running full speed. This isn’t the time to ask, but we will need to have a conversation about this later. If we survive. Hopefully, it’s not with our last breath as stakes go through our bodies.
Stars, I’d really like it if we could stop running for our lives.
Now clearly isn’t that time as dozens of armed Marnans pour out of the cave mouth, the alarm still echoing behind them. They have maces, swords, clubs, and spears. A few have bows—that’s concerning. We need more distance.
I push myself to run even faster, but not so fast that Euyn can’t keep up. It shouldn’t matter soon, though. The horses are beyond that ridge, and all the Marnans are on foot. Once we reach our mounts, Euyn can cover us with his crossbow and then get on himself. We won’t have a chance to find Staraheli’s head, but we can live to try again.
We crest the hill, and there’s nothing. Just snow and the tree they’d been tied to. My stomach drops. The horses wandered, or, more likely, they were taken.
What now?
I look for a solution, but I don’t see one. And the Marnans are gaining on us. Their war cries echo louder.
Arrows fly up into the sky. I duck and roll out of the way of two poorly aimed shots. I use my scabbard to shield my head and neck, but nothing lands near me.
They should really know to plant their feet before they fire.
Suddenly, Euyn cries out. His scream chills me, and he falls forward. He’s been hit.
I run to him, diving into the snow. I pull him out of the way as a well-aimed spear hits where he just was. He’s alive, but now he can’t run because of an arrow lodged in the back of his left thigh.
This won’t be pleasant for him, but I grab the arrow shaft in my fist. In one smooth motion, I yank the bloody arrow out of his leg.
Euyn lets out an animal cry, but I had to do it. It was better not to warn him because he would’ve tensed up and made the pain worse. I couldn’t leave the arrow in because it would’ve sliced the muscles of his leg apart.
It’s done now.
All I need to worry about is Euyn losing too much blood. Oh, and also how to get away from three dozen armed Marnans without horses and with Euyn limping.
Not ideal.
I stand, looking around, desperate, but I quickly realize from the terror in Sora’s eyes that there is nowhere for us to go. No way to get out of here. This is it. Lord Yama will collect from Euyn and me tonight. I can’t help that. But I can still save Sora. I can keep my promise to her.
“Run,” I say to her. “Live a long life.”
I take out my sword. I can occupy enough of them to maybe give her time to get away. Euyn sees my determination and understands it’s hopeless for him, for us. But we can take as many Marnans to the hells with us as possible. He stands and readies his crossbow despite bleeding steadily down his left pant leg.
Sora stands, terrified and torn.
“I’m sorry, Sora,” Euyn says. “Now go.”
His eyes meet mine after he just apologized to a common girl. Surprising until the very end.
“Yours in this life and the next,” he says, grimacing.
“Yours in this life and the next,” I say.
The Euyn I once knew would’ve tried to save himself without looking back. Now, he stands his ground, shooting so that an indentured girl can live. Prince, criminal, villain, hero. Liar and unfailingly true. He is all of that and more. There is no easy way to describe Euyn, and maybe I’ve always loved that.
Sora gathers herself and runs.
The Marnans close in, falling back where Euyn shoots but constantly gaining ground. I’m ready with my sword, but three sharp whistles pierce the night. I whip my head to the side. I know that shrill, birdlike whistle. I remember it from the fields of Gaya.
I look behind me. There, a few yards away, Gambria sits in a sleek, black sleigh with her wife next to her.
“Well, are you going to just stand there and die?” Gam asks, gesturing crudely.
Sora is already halfway to the sleigh. I run, helping Euyn as he hobbles. He turns and shoots haphazardly, making the Marnans stay back a bit.
We jump into the sleigh as Gambria whips the horses. As we fall into the high-sided sled, spears thud against the back. Euyn lies on the floor, and Sora curls into the bench where the arrows and spears can’t reach. But I don’t duck and cower. I stand, protecting Gambria’s back.
Lyria suddenly stands as well.
“Death to the traitors!” she yells in perfect Marnan. Then she repeats it again and again.
The Marnans pause, baffled by a woman who looks and speaks like them. Their confusion lasts long enough for Gambria to coax the horses into a gallop.
All of us fall silent as Gambria urges the four winter horses faster, out of range of the Marnans.
I kneel and check Euyn’s leg. I will need to cauterize the wound or stitch it up when we get to safety. For now, I tear a blanket apart and tie it tightly around his thigh. He’ll live.
Or we’ll all die, and then sutures won’t matter.
We’ve outpaced everyone on foot, but three Marnans pursue us on horseback. Those horses look suspiciously like the ones we lost.
One of their riders has a bow. I notice it just as an arrow whizzes by my ear. He’s apparently a decent shot.
“Euyn,” I say. “An archer.”
With a pained grunt, he gets to sitting and then to standing. The archer has ridden up, gaining on us because his horse doesn’t have to pull a sleigh with five people. The Marnan doesn’t aim at us, though. No, he’s focused on our horses. Clever. If he takes one out, we will be sitting ducks.
Euyn is unsteady, leaning on the side of the sled, but he brings the loaded bow to his shoulder and aims. He fires. With one arrow, the archer drops, hit in the neck. The Marnan falls from his horse, toppling into the snow.
Euyn then collapses onto his knees. Too much blood lost.
There are two more riders behind us, still in pursuit. I grab Euyn’s bow. I don’t have his aim, but it’s better than nothing. Before I get the bow reloaded, though, the other riders fall back. I stare with the crossbow to my shoulder. What just happened? Why did they give up?
I watch them gallop back toward their caves. Then I realize why they stopped: they won’t risk being far from the caves with Khitan looking to eliminate them once and for all. Although the Marnans would like to kill us, we didn’t actually succeed in getting Staraheli’s head. They can let us go.
We failed but made it out alive. Somehow, fate saw us through another night. Well, fate and Gambria.
Then again, she also put us in this situation. I suppose it’s a wash.
“Thanks for the hot tip,” I say in old Gayan.
No one else can follow us in this language. Lyria speaks Khitanese and Marnan. Sora speaks Yusanian and a surprising amount of Khitanese. Euyn learned all four major languages, but his ability in Gayan never improved over that of a small child. He called it dead, since once Yusan took over hundreds of years ago, they made Yusanian the official language. Old Gayan died out for the most part—or so the empire thinks.
But Euyn is also lying on the floor of the sleigh, distracted by his blood loss and the pain in his leg.
Still, I speak at a normal volume to not encourage him to listen in and try his hand at translating.
“You’re welcome for saving your ass,” Gambria says, picking up on my language choice. “Who are these two?”
“They are a long story. Why did you help me?”
Gambria is direct and only respects others who are the same.
“After you left, Lyria told me I’d given you old information,” she says. “That they moved the body years ago and you were walking into a death trap. I tried, but I couldn’t get a message to you—you’d already left Loptra. And if you’re asking why I helped you in a broader sense, you already know why.”
She turns back to face me and arches an eyebrow. Then she stares over at Sora because everyone stares at Sora. Gambria is curious and will definitely ask me about her later. But even I can’t fully explain her at the moment.
I sit back on the bench and speak in a low voice to Sora. I watch my feet, though, since Euyn is trying and failing to get comfortable on his stomach on the floor.
“Are we going to talk about why the guard was still alive?” I ask.
Her lashes shade her eyes, but she doesn’t respond. She pets the fur blanket covering her lap. “Poisoning is complicated.”
It’s a truth that’s also a lie.
“You made an antidote,” I murmur.
She stiffens just a touch. That’s exactly what she did. Because she’s kind. Because she’s merciful.
“It worked much faster than expected,” she says. “I don’t have the experience with cures the way I do with toxins.”
She sighs as if my issue is with her craftsmanship, not her altering the plan. Or the fact that her mercy almost cost us our lives.
“You weren’t honest about it,” I say.
She stares into my eyes under the bright monsoon moon. “Mikail, let’s not pretend like you’re honest. You’re hiding something. More than one thing, I’d wager.”
I try to keep my mind blank, remembering the read she has on me, but my thoughts immediately turn to Daysum. To what I’m not telling her.
“Mm-hmm,” she hums. Then she looks out the side of the sled, and there’s nothing more I can say.