Chapter 16
16
T HE BELL CONTINUES TO PEAL , a bright, brassy clang pinging against the slanted rooftops of the upper ring. The alarm is unceasing. It precedes the uprise of screams.
The ruby fixed into the labyrinth flares. I stumble back as shadows begin to seep out through the bottom of the door, coiling up the pillars that mark the entry. They move swiftly. If I’m not mistaken, the same shadow also drapes the darkwalkers’ skeletal forms.
Sarai , a low voice hisses. I await your arrival. My mind blanks, engulfed in a sudden cold.
“Princess Sarai!”
I blink, and my awareness of the present returns. The courtyard has fallen into chaos. Attendants flee toward the palace, baskets of towels and crates of fruit abandoned to the sweltering sun. A door slams shut, locking from the inside. A harried woman bangs her fists upon its oaken shield with increasing desperation. But the rules are clear. In the event of a darkwalker strike, the palace doors, once shut, will not open. They will have to find shelter elsewhere.
One of the guards sprints toward me, scimitar drawn, and herds me across the baked stones. Meanwhile, additional sentinels pour in from the city beyond to station themselves around the labyrinth. My thoughts spin. Is it possible more darkwalkers have infiltrated the palace? If so, I must ensure my family is safe.
I’m halfway across the courtyard when I think of Haneen, the storyteller. I halt in place.
The guard glances around worriedly. “Your Highness, we must get you inside.”
He is a young man, this guard, perhaps a few years younger than I am. The whites of his eyes, the sweat layering his skin—he is afraid. He is wise to be.
Another door closes with a startling bang—the east wing. Two more attendants managed to slip inside, but only just. Maybe I, too, can be like Aziza, the woman from the storyteller’s tale, and draw courage from the place it has been buried.
“I need you to send a handful of men to the library,” I tell the guard.
“Your Highness, we will, but first we need to make sure you’re safe.”
Generally, when darkwalkers are spotted in the desert, the bell rings briefly before quieting, to signal that the capital is secure. But the bell continues to peal, which can only mean something has malfunctioned with the city gates. The moment I enter the palace, the gateway will be barred until the threat has passed. I will shelter in my rooms: doors locked, windows latched, curtains drawn. No less than twenty men will guard my door—men better served protecting Ishmah’s citizens.
“Your Highness,” the guard presses urgently.
“Let the attendants inside.”
“What?”
A dozen still remain trapped outside. They climb over one another, claw at the door latch, scream for help. The sight turns my stomach.
The young sentinel shifts his weight uncomfortably. “They are low-born, Your Highness.” He watches two women yank the solid brass handles. One falls to her knees with a broken sob. He turns his face away. “Our duty is to protect the crown.”
Low-born or not, they are my people. I have doomed them enough for one lifetime, I think. “The longer you wait, the more lives will be lost. Open the doors, and I will cooperate.” It is exhilarating, I think, to use one’s voice. To use it for good .
The guard mutters his dissent, yet he unlocks the nearest door without complaint. Pushing it wide, he allows the attendants to rush inside, then follows. He does not bother to check whether I trail him. He does not see how I have lied.
The moment the guard crosses the threshold, I dash toward the stables. There is a shout, the rapid footfalls of pursuit. After diving into the secret passage, I reach the Queen’s Road in minutes.
Terror bleeds through the streets. The gates separating the upper and lower rings have broken open, sturdy hinges shattered from force of entry. Everyone, from the wealthiest aristocrats to the destitute families of the slums, floods the wide, paved roads of the affluent upper ring, their sights set on the gleaming palace atop the hill.
From my vantage point, I see the whole of Ishmah, its thousands of citizens teeming like a colony of ants. In the distance lies the capital gates, split wide. Darkwalkers prowl through, dripping shadow over jutting bones. The bell continues to clang.
Leaping over a stack of crates, I dive into the rush of cityfolk fleeing the streets. An elbow stabs into my spine, and I stumble with a cry of pain. Someone snags my dress and attempts to drag me toward the ground. I whirl, snarling, to slap aside the woman’s hand. Her eyes widen in recognition before I plunge deeper into the current.
Eventually, I reach the lower ring. The crush of bodies is even more horrendous, bottlenecked at the souk entrance. Multiple stalls have folded inward. I pass a spice cart having toppled onto its side, yellow cumin and red-orange cinnamon draining out like the city’s lifeblood. A dry wind courses through the crooked footpaths. It smells of a long-burning fire: sweet char and bitter smoke.
I’ve nearly reached Haneen’s dwelling when screams erupt from the next street over. There is the unmistakable sound of tearing flesh.
Darting down an alleyway, I peek around the wall of a crumbling building. Darkwalkers, three of them. They block the road ahead, tearing through the throng of fleeing citizens, and there is blood, clouds of it, the dry earth sucking it down through its cracks, and limbs strewn about, and the whites of peoples’ eyes rolling in fear. One woman shoves her child to the side, and the darkwalker snaps its massive jaws around her body instead. Someone attempts to hack it down with a rusted sword, but unless the blade has been coated in salt, it will fail to harm the creature.
In seconds, citizens fall prey to the beasts. The dead litter the street. Eight, eleven, fourteen—still more. A man falls. He curls onto his side, arms covering his head. The beast lowers its snout to his face and inhales.
It takes less than a heartbeat. When the darkwalker lifts its head, the man’s body disintegrates on a puff of wind. My heart breaks clean down the center. I fear his soul may never know peace.
People attempt to retreat in the opposite direction, but the roads are crammed so completely there is little room to maneuver, much less breathe. It will not take long before they, too, are soulless.
“This way!” I bark. A few citizens dart into the souk, where the footpaths are threads, too narrow for darkwalkers to squeeze through. I spin, dart down a less crowded side street, fighting my every instinct to flee in the opposite direction. As I round a bend, a soft whimper draws my attention to two children huddling against the wall. They peer at me with tear-streaked faces coated in grime. Brothers, I assume, and crouch before them. “Where’s your mother?” I ask.
The youngest sobs into his hands. The older brother holds his sibling close. “I don’t know,” he whispers. “We were separated.”
A whirlwind of dust plows through the alley ahead, hurling a large shape against the nearest structure with a forceful crack .
Over the cacophony of the city, there is an unmistakable growl.
“Stay here,” I tell the boys. Moving quietly, I slip around the corner to investigate.
Amidst a large pile of debris, a darkwalker rises to its spindly legs, whip-like tail thrashing. Tipping back its head, it releases a bone-shattering roar.
At the opposite end of the street, the South Wind appears, sword in hand. His robe whips around his legs. His black eyes, chipped into a face carved by the hands of some wretched divine, glitter with unbridled rage.
I crouch low near one of the faded doorways, fighting for breath. Suddenly, Notus is in a different position entirely, weapon ablur. Air spirals toward the darkwalker, hits it square in the chest. It launches backward and crashes onto the roof of a nearby building. The structure collapses beneath its weight.
The darkwalker is struggling to rise when a second beast appears, larger and more grotesque than the first, with a mouthful of broken teeth. It charges at the South Wind with its head bent low.
Only I am witness to the battle that ensues. God and beast. Shadow and sun. A bright force driving back the dark.
Ducking beneath the beast’s legs, he shoves the sword into its underbelly. Fluid spits from the opening. The creature howls, swiping at the South Wind with one enormous paw, and Notus spins, but is unable to dodge the attack. I gasp as the beast’s claws tear into his lower back. He twists away with a guttural cry, narrowly missing another swing. The darkwalker lunges. I scream.
A flash of silver, and the blade shears the darkwalker’s head from its body. It folds in a pile of severed parts, blood pooling beneath stinking innards.
“Behind you!” I scream.
His head whips around. Dark eyes catch mine and hold. Even from this distance, the clench of his jaw is unmistakable.
As the first darkwalker returns from the collapsed building to take its fallen brethren’s place, the South Wind blasts it across the street. Then, using his wind as ropes, he binds its limbs long enough to thrust his sword into the beast’s heart. It twitches once, then falls still.
He turns to me then. The roiling emotion blackening his gaze gives me hesitation, but I point to the two boys huddling near a partially collapsed doorway. He follows me to where they cower, scooping them up easily with a curt, “Follow me.”
We make our way to a less-traveled road. It is here the South Wind sets down the brothers, who race toward a woman in the distance. She drops to her knees, sobbing, and takes her sons into her arms.
Then I remember. “Your back,” I gasp. “Let me see.”
The South Wind brushes my hands aside. “It’s fine.” But the terseness of his reply exposes what is likely an immense amount of pain. Too much blood. It has soaked the back of his robe.
“Are you sure—”
“I’m immortal ,” he reminds me.
I glare at him. “As if I could have forgotten.”
“I’m not even going to waste my breath listing all the ways this decision was foolish,” he growls, his voice so low it is reduced to mere vibration. “You need to return to the palace.”
“And I’m not going to waste my breath explaining myself. I’ll return to the palace when I’m through here.”
“This is not a discussion.” His eyes flash with the might of a thousand beating suns. “Every moment in the city is a risk to your life.”
He is afraid. The South Wind is never afraid. It softens what is hard within me.
Reaching out, I grasp his hand in reassurance. Its wide, roughened shape swallows mine. “The storyteller,” I say, pitching my voice over the uproar. “I need to make sure she’s safe.”
“I don’t care about the storyteller,” he snarls. “I care about you .”
Despite the madness overtaking the city, a wave of security enfolds me, and I absorb these words into my skin until I almost believe him. “I need to do this, Notus.” Reaching up, I cup his cheek in one hand, thumb pressed against the bristle of his facial hair. “Will you help me?”
The intensity with which his gaze pierces mine is too much, yet I do not pull away. His is a strength I yearn for. “I won’t be long,” I promise him.
Notus utters a low oath under his breath, but he follows me without further argument. The chipped facade of Haneen’s door comes into view. I rush inside to find it empty. “She’s not here.”
“Unsurprising.” He paces the small area in evident vexation. “She likely fled deeper into the city. And we have wasted valuable time. Let’s go.”
“Wait.” I pick up a long strip of fabric near her stool: Haneen’s headscarf. I recognize the pattern.
Frowning, I peer down at the dirt floor, solidified by the press of a thousand feet over decades. Our footprints are marked fresh. But I see no footprints leaving the space.
And then I spot a curtain hanging from the back wall. It has been pushed aside to uncover a hidden passage.
The South Wind grips my arm. “I’ll go first,” he says.
Gloom shrouds the passage, which smells of minerals. Cracks run through the clay-hardened walls. Perhaps a quarter mile on, the tunnel empties into a small chamber, where the bard sits, a shawl warming her shoulders as she works her loom. She crisscrosses the threads and packs the weft with a large gazelle horn, utterly unconcerned by our presence. “Hello, Princess Sarai.”
Notus plants himself in front of me. Sweet—but unnecessary. Once I’ve regained use of my tongue, I ask, “How do you know who I am?”
“Shall I count the ways?” With her threads secure, she begins the next row of color. “Your tread. Your scent. Your accent and choice of words. All these things reveal to me your status.”
Her attention then shifts to the South Wind. Her wide, milky eyes rest somewhere to the side his face. “And there is a man who travels with you who smells of the desert. He has visited me before, but only once, and at a distance. Is he your guardian?”
The South Wind stands near enough that the heat of his body prickles my flesh, even beneath my sweat-dampened dress. I swallow. “Notus is my betrothed.”
Haneen smiles. “See?” she replies. “There are plenty of things I still don’t know.”
“I was worried for your safety,” I explain to her.
Her smile stretches wider. I have never seen a more serene expression at so violent a time. Indeed, she appears quite comfortable, nestled in her multicolored blankets and pillows. “What of your own safety, child?”
“I am well looked after.”
“I can sense that.” She angles her head toward Notus, who regards her with narrowed eyes. If I’m not mistaken, he is uncomfortable beneath the blind woman’s scrutiny.
“Come with us,” I urge. “You’re not safe here.”
“Because I’m blind?” At my lack of response, she chuckles. “I would argue that I see more clearly than those with eyes unclouded. Do not worry, my dear. I have survived nearly nine decades’ worth of trouble.” And she weaves another line of thread onto her loom with a complete lack of concern for the screams erupting beyond the passage walls. “The darkwalkers do not frighten me.”
Daring, or foolish? I do not care to know. “Regardless, I don’t wish to see you succumb to a brutal end.”
Haneen lifts her gaze, copper hands resting atop the strung threads colored sapphire and ginger and blush. “There are worse fates,” she says.
The South Wind steps forward. “You may come with us, if you wish, but if not, we must take our leave. There are others who may still be saved.”
“You are correct, dear boy.” At this, I fight a burgeoning smile, for I wouldn’t consider a god who is millennia old a boy . “Go. Do not worry about me. I am as safe as can be.”
Notus takes my hand. “We must go,” he whispers to me.
Yes. But— “I’ll be back,” I inform the storyteller.
“I know,” says Haneen.
Outside, the souk is even more crammed with people than it was minutes ago. Some roads must be blocked, forcing people to use the narrower footpaths. As a result, the majority of the stalls have been crushed underfoot.
“This way,” Notus says.
“No.” I stay his hand. He appears moments away from tossing me over his shoulder and taking to the skies, propriety be damned. “The city gates have malfunctioned. They must be shut.”
“And they will be, once I’ve returned you to the palace.”
I sigh. “Notus.”
“ What , Sarai?” He tosses up his hands, spears his fingers through the unruly locks of his windblown hair. A large family shoves their way past, followed by a small herd of goats. “I’m not taking you with me.”
“I’m not asking you to.” Despite the chaos unleashed, I remain composed. “You can leave me here.”
“If you think I’m going to leave you while I head to the gates, you’re out of your mind.”
“That is exactly what I’m asking you.” Someone jostles me in their haste to turn a corner. I tug Notus into a crumbling doorway, tucking myself against the length of his broad, muscled form.
He peers down at me. Gradually, as a red storm ebbs into calm, his expression smooths. “Asking,” he clarifies. “Not ordering.”
“Yes.” Because one requires trust. The other, obedience. I know which I value more from the god who has risked life and limb to save me from, well, myself.
Notus presses his thumb into my chin. “Why?”
One word should not possess the complication it does. But it holds a story that spans the entirety of my relatively short existence. I have lived a safe life, a sheltered life, a life that, in many ways, was never mine to live. I can do good, I think, before my time comes to an end.
“These are my people,” I explain. “They are my family. They are home. I would stop at nothing to protect my home, wouldn’t you?”
Notus frowns. As I suspected, he is not happy about this. But for once, he does not argue. For that, I am grateful.
My eyes drop to his mouth. We alone stand still in the tide that surges through the souk. “Be safe,” I whisper.
His eyes darken. “You, too.”
The last I see of the South Wind, he is cleaving the crowd in two with a brute wind. He runs, leaps, catching himself on an updraft, which carries him far, far into the distance, and deposits him in front of two darkwalkers. A swift cut of his blade, and their heads are severed. He then launches skyward, a cyclone of wind spiraling around his legs. It propels him toward the distant gates.
As for Ishmah’s citizens, they need a miracle. And by miracle, I mean the palace.
“Everyone to the palace!” I scream, shouldering my way through the crowd. “To the palace!” Again and again, I cry these words, this plea, until the cityfolk join in accompaniment, my solo transforming to a trio, an octet, an orchestra, its crescendo driving those fleeing up the hill.
Reaching beneath my dress, I yank at the small pendant hanging around my neck until the thin gold chain snaps. I place it into the hand of a young woman whose hazel eyes are ringed in white. “Show this to the guards,” I order, grip tightening. “Tell them Princess Sarai demands Ishmah’s citizens be sheltered inside.”
She nods and takes off.
My feet change direction before I’m fully aware of it. Toward Notus, toward the gates. The closer I get, the more deserted the streets become. More than once, I’m forced to leap over bodies strewn about the road. When I reach the gates, which have yet to be shut completely, numerous guards are attempting to shift what looks to be a jammed handle. I scan the area, panting, my dress sticking to every sweaty dip and swell. A wall of soldiers stretches across the entrance into the city, battling two darkwalkers attempting to pass. Notus is nowhere to be found.
“Your Highness?”
Two sentinels pause in their attempts at sealing the gate, mouths agape. This draws the attention of their superior, a captain with ink-blot freckles and a scowling mouth. “Does the king know you’re down here, Your Highness?” he demands.
My eyes narrow. “Perhaps you should focus less on my whereabouts and more on closing the gate.”
A nearby staircase leads up to the ramparts. I take the stairs two at a time until I reach the top. From my vantage point, I see the whole of Ishmah, its palace, that bright, diamond-hearted center from which all roads lead. But to the south, more darkwalkers—shadowed forms blurred against the rising dunes. Their swiftness is horrifying. They eliminate half the distance in a handful of strides.
“Any progress with the gate?” I shout down.
A man strains to rotate the rusted handle. “Still jammed.” It emits a grating shriek.
My gaze leaps toward the approaching threat. Stride by stride, the distance between the darkwalkers and the capital lessens. Black tendrils stream from their mutated forms.
Suddenly, the captain knocks his subordinate aside, grasps the mechanism with both hands, and throws his entire weight against the handle. It shifts forward a hair before grinding to a halt.
I spin in place, searching for Notus. There—in the sky. He plunges toward the rooftops and vanishes momentarily. Two heartbeats later, he soars upward on a cloud of wind, sword held aloft, its blade coated black. From one palm hurtles a roaring gust, aimed at a trio of darkwalkers below. The South Wind is so fixated on defeating the beasts inside the walls that he remains blind to the threat beyond them. Only he can stop the flood, this roiling deluge of darkness and ruin.
Meanwhile, archers atop the ramparts shoot salt-tipped arrows into the darkwalkers advancing on the capital. One hits a soldier in the thigh. He collapses mid-run with a shout.
I whirl toward the archers. “Only shoot if you’re certain you will hit your mark!” Below, the man crawls, face contorted in pain. I spin toward the nearest sentinel. “Send a horse, now!”
But a darkwalker reaches the man first. His scream is bloodcurdling. In the end, I’m forced to look away.
The man’s death leaves me woozy. There will be another, and another—a mountain, a sea of dead. Soldiers continue to struggle with the jammed mechanism. In the time it takes their combined bodyweight to shift the door closed another foot, three more beasts slip into the city.
“Get her out of here!” the captain barks.
Someone begins hauling me backward toward the stairs. I wrench free of the guard’s grip. “Notus!”
The South Wind falters mid-throw and swings his head around. A brief examination of the area reveals naught but carnage. He can’t see me.
Again, the guard reaches for me. “Princess Sarai—”
“Touch me again,” I spit, “and I’ll have your head.”
The man halts, stricken. He doesn’t attempt to stop me as I grab the rungs of the wooden ladder and begin to climb one of the towers. Below, those barred from reaching the Queen’s Road cram themselves into homes or shelter between alleyways. Others bleed out in the sweltering heat, their feeble pleas gradually falling silent.
Halfway up the ladder, my foot punches through a rotting beam. I drop with a scream, clawing the wood as I swing wildly, my shoulder slamming against the stone wall.
From below, the captain’s thunderous voice breaks through the uproar of battle. “Get up there and bring her down before she breaks her neck.”
“But she said—”
“I don’t care what she said,” he snarls. “If she falls, it’ll be both our heads.”
My foot finds another rung. The ladder wobbles, but holds.
At the top, Ammara spreads before me, a gilded carpet pressed beneath a sky the blue of a jewel. Notus battles a group of darkwalkers, having contained them to a large dome of swirling air. They tear their hooked claws against the transparent barrier to no avail. It allows him to dart forward and thrust his sword through the heart of the smallest beast.
“Notus!” I pitch my voice higher, hands cupped around my mouth. “Notus!”
As another darkwalker plows into the half-closed gates, a chill slips into my bloodstream. Sarai, a voice whispers. Why do you flee?
My vision wavers. Blackness plumes before me. Is it a dream? A mirage? A cloaked figure materializes before my eyes, and I stumble back, the grit of the wall scraping the soles of my slippers.
“Who are you?” I choke. “What do you want?”
You know what I want, Sarai.
The cloaked figure flickers out of sight. Confusion sends me backward, but I fail to realize how close to the lip I stand. My foot slips off the edge, and I am falling.