43. Rani
43
RANI
T he words settle into the stone beneath my feet like a blade thrust into a body. Final. Inarguable. The Shaman flinches. It’s only a moment. It’s brief but I don’t miss it. He curls his lips into a snarl.
“Foolish little girl,” he says.
The Maulavi stare with dead, empty eyes. Though I search for it, there isn’t a hint of pride or life, no matter how suppressed, in them. They are completely under his control.
The crowd watches in electric silence, tension coiling tighter with every heartbeat.
“I was a fool,” I pronounce, pitching my voice to carry so all can hear my admission.
“You march lizards into our last hold?” The Shaman raises one gnarled finger and shakes it towards the Al’fa at my side. “You ally with our ancient enemies and think that the Gods will not take notice of your betrayal? Fool!”
“I said I was a fool,” I correct him. “I no longer am.”
A murmur rushes over the crowd like sand shifting in a strong wind. The Maulavi tighten their grips on their weapons. The Zmaj army silently spreads around the outskirts of the square. I don’t see Rosalind and the humans, but all my attention is on the Shaman. The confrontation I have dreamed of for so many dark and lonely nights.
“See?” he screeches, playing to the crowd. “Did I not protect you? She sells us out to the lizards! The cold-bloods who have decimated our families. Our loved ones. Betraying all that it means to be Urr’ki.”
I smile. His eyes bulge, almost comically, as if they might burst from their sockets. His lip curls into a snarl which only makes me smile more. The murmurs of the crowd are restless. They look at the Zmaj blocking them in but it’s not only Zmaj amongst them. Maulavi are spreading through the crowd.
I turn from the Shaman, hands clasped before myself and head held high. I walk to the jagged edge of the broken stage to face my people. Silent, I look at them. Meeting as many eyes as I can before speaking.
“Urr’ki,” I say. “It is true that I have failed you.”
Shocked gasps of surprise rise. They stir, shifting around as they look to each other in shock that I would admit such. I am their Queen. A Queen is never wrong. Impossible.
“No!” someone yells from the back. “Queen! Our Queen! Ours!”
The chant rises, catching on like flames licking at tinder but I raise my hands and it stops before it fully catches.
“It is true,” I say. “I was your Queen, but I let you down. I listened to the Shaman. I led you in war against the Zmaj, knowing full well we were losing. I did it because that’s what we did. We fought the Zmaj with all that we were.”
Protesting shouts rise mixing with some of agreement, shouting the lizards are dangerous.
“I know,” I call out to them. “I know you are lost. Disappointed. That all you know has been taken from you—but know this…” I pause looking at them.
“Listen to her lie!” the Shaman screeches. “Maulavi, sacrifice her. Let her blood be the final piece to bring us into the next world. It is only fitting!”
The Maulavi don’t move, but they tighten their grips on their weapons. Ready to defend, yet not obeying either.
“You’re a monster,” Janara hisses, stepping forward.
I stop Janara with a touch on his arm.
“No,” I say, shaking my head.
I keep my gaze locked on the Shaman, but the weight of the gathered masses presses against me. I stand on a razor’s edge. I am not fighting the Shaman, I’m fighting his ideas. I war for the hearts and minds of my people. Their fear is palpable. The taste of it is ash on my tongue.
“No?” the Shaman mocks. “No? You betrayed them,” he makes a sweeping gesture at my people. Seeing that I’m not attacking, he twists his broken body and limps to the edge of the stage. “You see? I knew she had lost her mind. This is what I protected you from. She brings the enemy into our home! My loyal Maulavi and I are the only thing that stands between you and death. We are the only hope of Urr’ki being the First Born in the next world and holding onto that honor!”
I keep a distance between the two of us. Drifting my eyes over the assembled, my heart aches. A cold, crushing pain clamps around my chest, each breath a battle. Their faces are a mix of fear and despair. They aren’t fighting the Zmaj because they’ve given up. They don’t see the point in continuing.
“The Shaman is right,” I say. He was going to interrupt me but that stops his words before they emerge. A murmur runs over the crowd, they didn’t expect this either. “I brought the Zmaj. You can see that, so why deny it? Instead of fear, instead of worry, I want to share with you something else. A vision. My vision.”
I pause, not so much for effect as for any sign that I’m reaching them. That their hearts and minds aren’t too far gone. A low rumble shakes the cavern. Dust falls, mingling with the smoke, and they watch. Silent they may be, but they’re listening. I continue.
“I told you that I knew the war was lost. I knew it. General Janara knew it, but still we fought. Why?” A few scattered murmurs as Janara steps up to stand at my side. I feel the Al’fa’s eyes on me, waiting to see what happens. Ready to order his people to slaughter mine if my gambit doesn’t pay off. “We fought out of fear. Fought because it was all we knew, but I have had time. Time to think. Time to dream.”
“Dreams?” the Shaman scoffs, but his Maulavi shift and they lower their weapons. Slight, yes, but unmistakable. “You speak of dreams. I have led them through this nightmare. I alone have guided them towards our only hope of salvation. The awakening of the Paluga to bring on the next world!”
“You lead them to death. To despair,” I say, shaking my head. “I offer something different. I say no! Not today, death. Let the next world wait a little longer. We are not done!”
“No! No! Not today!” shouts erupt from the back of the crowd and it catches on. Others take up the battle cry. I’m winning them over. They are not too far gone.
“I have not only brokered peace with the Zmaj,” I say, turning partway and offering my hand to the Al’fa. He doesn’t hesitate taking it and stepping to my side. “I have brokered an alliance! An end to the generations of war. We will no longer kill one?—”
The world shudders.
At first, I mistake it for the gravity of the moment—the weight of everything broken and spoken—but the tremor deepens, becoming a low, resonant rumble, a heartbeat from something impossibly vast.
Battle cries falter, twisting into confused questions, then ragged shouts of fear.
The stone platform quivers. Cracks thread their way outward in thin, jagged lines. Dust spills from the black tower like ash falling from a dead star. The rumbling grows in intensity and loudness. Outside the gathering square a building collapses and lava plumes into the air.
The Al’fa’s wings flare wide, his stance shifting, instinct reacting faster than reason. Khiara gasps. Janara’s hand tightens on the hilt of his blade. And the Shaman—laughs.
Wild, unhinged laughter, that echoes through the square like the cries of a man who’s glimpsed the face of his god.
“Yes!” he howls, raising his hands to the smoke-filled sky. “Yes! Do you see? The fire comes! The sacrifice is heard! I am chosen! Chosen!”
He spins to his Maulavi, face radiant with madness.
“The Paluga rises! The prophecy is fulfilled!”
“No,” I breathe.
But it’s too late.
A second quake hits, deeper. Stronger. The entire city shivers with it. The broken edges of the stage tilt beneath my feet and the cracked machine lets out a terrible shriek of shearing metal. Screams rise from the crowd. The square erupts into chaos.
“Move!” Rosalind’s voice cuts through the panic like a knife as she appears standing high on a broken wall. “Go! Now! Exit routes are open—head for the northern tunnels!”
Her commands are fast and efficient. She looks like a being come from the stars, which in truth she is. Dressed in her white suit, cape flowing in the breeze, her drawn sword glinting in the firelight. She’s already in motion, directing citizens away from the splintering square. Commanding her humans into action.
The humans fan out with precision, guiding and helping Urr’ki civilians toward escape routes. Zmaj also follow her commands and help. They use their wings to stir the smoke as they assist. No hesitation. No questions. She was prepared. This was her plan all along.
I have no doubts that Rosalind suspected this would happen. Maybe not this scale, not this fury—but enough. And she didn’t wait for permission to prepare. Even now, she doesn’t look to me or the Al’fa for orders. She acts. And in the chaos, people follow.
But I don’t run. Neither does the Al’fa.
The Shaman is still standing. Still smiling.
He believes this quake is his. His reward. His proof.
I see it in his face—that wretched, arrogant glow. The belief that he’s been vindicated. That he was right all along. He turns to me, triumphant.
“Do you feel it, Queen? The God comes to claim his due. He answers my call.”
“You didn’t call him,” I growl. “You woke him. Like a child poking a sleeping zemlja.”
The ground bucks again, harder this time. Cracks widen across the square. Steam pours through. From somewhere in the depths below, a sound rises, not a quake, not a tremor.
A roar.
Not a beast’s cry. Something older, vaster. It vibrates through my bones, silencing the world. Even the Shaman stops laughing. Then the square explodes.
Molten rock erupts in a screaming geyser, flinging bodies like grains of sand before a storm. My people, Maulavi, even some of Rosalind’s humans. I grab Khiara and his fingers close tight around mine as we stagger back from the blast. The Al’fa throws himself in front, shielding me with his wings, even as molten debris rains down around us.
Screams rip through the square, but through it all the Shaman laughs. He’s staring into the smoke, the fire. Waiting.
I hear it before I see it.
A grinding, gurgling sound, like stone scraping against molten metal. Then something massive moves beneath the surface. The stone beneath the Shaman glows orange. Then red. Then white-hot. Then it splits wide.
And the fire worm rises.
Not the great Paluga itself—I know this instinctively, feel it in my marrow—but one of its spawn. A harbinger. A creature of living fire, all burning coils and ridged scales that glisten like wet obsidian. Its head is a gaping maw of jagged teeth. Lava spills from its jaws like drool.
The Maulavi break formation.
Even they know better. One shrieks. Another crumples to his knees, abandoning all pretense of courage.
The fire worm rears up, towering over the square, and the heat is blinding. My skin blisters even with the Al’fa shielding me. Khiara growls in pain, clutching his arms to his chest, and Janara shouts something I can’t understand over the roar.
And still, the Shaman does not flee.
He raises his arms.
Closes his eyes.
His face is serene.
“I am yours,” he whispers. “Take me.”
The worm obliges.
With terrifying speed, it snaps forward. A blur of molten muscle and snapping jaws. The Shaman’s scream is lost beneath the roar of fire as the creature coils around him and yanks him from the platform.
His scream lingers even as the creature yanks him into the abyss—and then, silence.
No one breathes.
The crack collapses as the thing retreats, sealing in the heat, the madness, and the end of the Shaman’s reign.
I stand frozen. Not in fear.
In awe.
The Shaman is gone.
The square—his altar, his stolen kingdom, his lie—is broken. The ground is scorched, melted, and ash-covered. The tower groans, fire flickering from its hollow windows.
Rosalind’s voice comes again, barking orders in the distance. Civilians are fleeing in terror while her people guide them. The Zmaj are helping, wings dark against the red glow of the sky. Panic has given way to motion. To survival.
Beside me, the Al’fa lowers his wings. His eyes meet mine, glowing amber and grim.
“We need to go.”
“Yes,” I say softly. “We do.”
“Where?” the Al’fa asks.
“To your compound,” I say. “To warn them. To prepare. The Paluga isn’t done.”
The tremors haven’t stopped. The ground keeps shifting beneath my feet.
I turn back to the crowd or what remains of it.
A woman cradles a child in her arms, blood on her temple, but resolve in her eyes. A Maulavi stares at the cracked ground where his master vanished and then slowly removes his helm, dropping it to the earth. An old man kneels, weeping—not for the Shaman, but in release. In relief.
They look to me—not for orders, but for hope. I lift my voice.
“This city stands no longer. Not as it was. But we still stand. And we will rise.”
“We return to the surface. To fight. To rebuild. Together,” the Al’fa says, stepping forward, his voice a thunder beside mine.
A cheer rises. Shaky, ragged—but real. Another quake hits. A final rumble deep and vast, the cry of something old turning in its sleep. But this time, no one flees. They brace. And I brace with them.
The fire still burns.
This time, it burns with us now.