Chapter 11
ELEVEN
Once Zarya had scrubbed her skin until it was red and raw, until every last trace of the magic ink was purged, she headed through the city towards the forest. Her route through Ishaan took her past the royal palace.
Anytime she came this way, she couldn’t help the way her feet would draw her closer.
The massive structure stood in vivid contrast to the white marble of Ishaan’s architecture, made of sky-blue stone forged from a secret, enchanted cave inside the Pathara Vala Mountains. It would dull the magic of anyone within its walls, thus ensuring the royal family’s protection during an invasion. Each immediate family member wore a special object that nullified the effects and, every so often, bestowed a charm on those they deemed loyal and worthy of the honor.
A wide central tower dominated the center of the palace, stretching into the clouds with tall windows ringing the perimeter, offering an unobstructed view of Gi’ana in every direction. Or at least, that’s what Zarya had been told.
The rest of the palace boasted hundreds of arched windows, all framed in ornate silver, wrought into twists and curls. White marble doors inlaid with colorful stones admitted hundreds of people in and out of the courtyard at all hours of the day.
Zarya stopped at the gates and peered into the massive square, where a huge astronomical clock dominated one wall. It stood several stories high, and the polished gold, silver, and bronze gears and mechanisms reflected brightly in the sun.
In the distance hung a balcony at the front of the palace where the Madans often gathered to greet their subjects. It stood empty today, but Zarya noted the line snaking out of the main door. Three mornings a week, at least one member of the royal family would meet with the citizens in the throne room to hear their grievances. Vanshaj were not permitted, of course.
When Zarya first arrived, she’d tried joining the line, but the clerics managing the crowds demanded to know her business. When she couldn’t answer their questions, she was turned away. As she learned more about the city and the Madans, she wasn’t sure if her primary reason for coming to Gi’ana still made sense. These people of her heritage ran a queendom built on blood. Did she really want to know them better?
But a crackle charged the air today, signaling a shifting tide. Zarya was sure it was all a result of the explosion, the theft from the Jadugara, and the threat of new laws. The royals had been spooked and scared bullies tended to react in unpredictable ways.
They were running out of time, and Zarya had to do something fast.
She turned away and continued through the city, passing the walls into the forest beyond.
She found the same clearing where she’d brought Yasen a few nights ago and sat on the rock in the center, studying her surroundings. While this forest bore little resemblance to the dream forest, she couldn’t help but be reminded of it. Despite her best efforts, Rabin continued to occupy her thoughts.
She sighed and rolled her neck, trying to quell a riot of emotions. She had more important things to do right now. People were relying on her, and she couldn’t let them down.
Opening up her bag, she pulled out a bottle of ink and a copper bowl, pouring out a few drops. She had to figure this out. Who knew where they’d find more ink? While they’d scored a victory in destroying most of what remained, the catch was that she only had this small amount left to work with. She would figure it out. She was meant for this. As much as she missed Row and Dharati and Amrita, she was more sure than ever that coming to Gi’ana had been the right choice. The fact she’d met Farida and the Chandras within the first few days of her arrival only confirmed it.
She was being led down the right path, but it was up to her to fit the pieces together and create the desired outcome.
She placed the bowl next to her and then turned to face it, one leg folded under her.
There was no point in bothering with her other five strains of magic. She’d already proven there was only one option here.
Closing her eyes, she felt for the spinning star in her heart, unfolding the sixth anchor from its place where it hid behind her fire anchor.
Maybe there wasn’t any need to lock it away. Maybe this, too, was part of the plan. She remembered Rabin’s confident words about magic being neither good nor evil; only the people controlling it could decide the spectrum of its morality. With that thought in mind, she let it snap free, locking it into place with her five other anchors. She considered the arrangement, appreciating the symmetry and the completeness of this picture.
This was the full extent of who she was. Right?
She pulled on the darkness and allowed it to filter out of her fingers, touching it to the surface. The ink responded instantly, rippling in the sway of her magic. She drew it up and pulled it into the air, directing it into a series of intricate, twisting patterns.
Then she let it settle back into the bowl and stared at it, contemplating her next step.
After pulling out a pen from her bag, she dipped the tip into the ink and scratched a string of random letters onto the surface of the rock. She then called up her sixth anchor and touched it to the ink, rooting around for weaknesses in its makeup. Her working theory was that she could possibly pull the ink apart or simply dissolve it from the skin.
She closed her eyes as her magic slid over the ink. Slowly and with careful concentration, she felt the individual molecules that made up the dye and, more importantly, the dark magic they contained. It was hard to describe the sensation, but it was akin to vibrations or a low resonance. It hummed gently, and she wondered if other forms of magic had a similar footprint or if this feeling was unique to her sixth anchor.
She filtered in another sliver of darkness, forcing the particles to vibrate with increasing vigor. This felt like the right direction. She continued making them quiver, feeling them lift and shift against one another. With another sliver of magic, she tried to slide it in between the tiny hairline spaces they were forming. It took a few tries to get the angle and position right—like threading the end of a fine needle—but then she felt it slip between and exhaled a small grunt. The sensation was awkward at first, like she’d tried to shove a square peg into a too-tight hole, but the molecules eventually adjusted to its presence, expanding to accommodate the intrusion.
She dug into it and tried to peel the pieces apart, teasing away the edge of a letter. Then, in fascination, she watched as it lifted away from the stone before dissolving in the air and scattering into nothing.
Zarya pulled her magic back, staring at the spot where the ink had been a moment ago. She wanted to jump up and squeal for joy. Had she just done it? Had she just broken the mark? This wasn’t the same as the vanshaj mark—this had just been written and not embedded into skin—but this had to be a start.
She tried again with the next letter, using the same combination of vibrations and sliding between each note of the ink’s magic. It took her an hour to erase each of the letters, and by the time she was done, she was covered in sweat and panting heavily. A pain throbbed behind her eye from the strength of her concentration, but this was something.
She will be the one to free them all.
It had to mean something .
Over the next few days, Zarya returned to the clearing, attempting to lift the ink off various surfaces: wood, metal, and paper. The paper and wood proved harder to shift due to their porousness, where the ink embedded deeper.
This was closer to human skin, but it was still a far cry from the real thing, which was why she found herself standing in a butcher shop where she acquired several pieces of meat.
“Skin on,” she said when she asked for a ham hock. The butcher gave her a quizzical look, but it wasn’t such an unusual request. Was it?
She then repeated the process with the ink using bits of bone, flesh, and skin. The skin was the hardest, but she succeeded with each variation. Still, she was worried that this wasn’t tattooed on but simply drawn.
At some point, she’d need a human test subject—one with a tattoo—and the very idea made her stomach twist with fear and worry and a sick sense of wrongness.
The other issue was that she was rapidly running out of ink, and there was no possible way to get more before the royal family began acting on their threats. So, she practiced every day, coming home exhausted and covered in sweat before she’d collapse on her bed into a dreamless sleep.
Upon her return home one rainy day, Yasen sat at her bedside, stroking her hair. “How’d it go today?” he asked, and she could only manage an exhausted grunt.
“You’re killing yourself,” he said. “I think you need to take a break.”
“I’m so close,” she said. “Just a few more days, and I think I’ll have it.”
“Zee,” he said, a thread of reproach in his tone.
“I’m almost out of ink, anyway,” she said. “Either I figure this out soon or not. Either way, I’m almost done.”
“Okay,” he said. “But be careful. You don’t want to burn yourself out.”
She sighed and rolled over onto her back, tucking her arm behind her. Yasen lay down next to her, their heads touching as they stared up at the ceiling.
“Are you planning to tell them?” Yasen asked her.
He didn’t elaborate on what or who, but she knew that he was referring to Farida, the Chandras, and her sixth and forbidden strain of magic.
“I have a suspicion about the Jadugara,” she said. “I think they must be lying about the sixth anchor, and they have it, too.”
Yasen was quiet for a moment. “That would make sense.”
“Why are they lying about it, though?” she asked. “Why pretend it’s this secret thing when it’s obvious more than a few people have it?”
“My guess would be power,” Yasen said. “They want to keep it all to themselves.”
“So they know,” she said. “And the vanshaj must have the darkness, too. Like Meera, who also saw the ghost army.”
“That would also make sense,” he said.
“So, why weren’t the members of the Jadugara also collared?”
“Another very good question,” Yasen said.
“Do you think we should expose them for the liars they are?” she asked.
“That’s an entire can of snakes, isn’t it?”
She snorted a wry laugh. If what she was attempting wasn’t bad enough, exposing the Jadugara as frauds might bring this queendom to its knees. She was trying to decide how she felt about that. This was technically her home. These were technically her people. But they’d been operating out of cruelty and malice for so long. How might things have been different if she’d grown up here? Would she also have turned a blind eye to everything?
“I guess one problem at a time,” Zarya said, and she felt Yasen nod.
“So, what’s next?”
“I keep trying until I’m confident enough.”
“Enough for what?”
She twisted her head and looked at him. He met her gaze, open and trusting. She was so grateful she had him and that she could tell him anything without fear of judgment.
“To tell the Farida and the Chandras everything.”