Chapter 25
25
A M I DEAD ?
The ground blazes a line of cold down my back. I blink. Darkness. It neither lifts nor lightens, this perpetual stretch of black across my vision. My rough exhalation hits the air, so cold it steams silver before dissipating. Then: more darkness.
I’d pondered this moment for many a year. I’d questioned what I might find on the other side, how I might feel. What I might say to the god who granted me but twenty-five years of life. I did not expect to feel pain: a throb up my spine, coiling tight around my neck.
In the passing moments, however, the dim begins to lift. My limbs move easily enough. I sit upright, glancing around. Bare earth. Its gray dust coats my fingers, reminiscent of ash.
No lamp, no candle, no fire to drive back the encroaching shadows. There is, however, an ambient glow, though I’m not certain where it originates from. There are walls I see now: curved, cut from pale stone, carved with symbols. The light appears to be coming from around the corner. It beams toward me, snagging my bewildered curiosity until I push to my feet and drift forward.
It’s a mirror. The same mirror I gazed into when I last spoke with the Lord of the Mountain.
A woman fills the looking glass. Her sharp, mistrustful gaze meets mine, slitted beneath swollen eyelids, cheeks tracked by the salt of dried tears. But there is more: the defeated dip of her chin, the crimp of displeasure shaping her mouth. That layer peels away, makes room for another. The determined jut of her jaw, the stretch of her spine, mistrust shedding into some cold, hard, shining heart of strength. This woman is not defeated. I am not defeated.
I pinch my cheeks, the motion reflected back in the mirror. The sting makes me wince, and I drop my hands. I don’t look dead, nor do I feel dead. I always imagined death to be burdenless. I would not feel hunger as I do now. My finger would not smart with pain where it was pricked by the small spine of a deadly blossom. But who can really know death’s face? As far as I’m concerned, the curse was correct. On my twenty-fifth nameday, I met my demise.
The mirror’s surface wavers then. It resembles a shallow pool of water rather than reflective glass, for my reflection bleeds out, reshaping itself to reveal a vast chamber, marble floors, opulent chairs atop a raised dais: the throne room.
A large audience fills the hall. They are seated on long benches arranged in rows, a blue rug unfurling down the aisle. In the mezzanine above, archers have drawn their bows, deadly iron points catching the light. The head advisor stands at the bottom of the dais. Slightly behind him, there rests a luxurious velvet cushion, and on that cushion, the crown.
Understanding dawns. This is Amir’s coronation.
“Presenting Prince Amir Al-Khatib of Ammara.”
As the audience rises to their feet, the doors open, and there my brother stands, resplendent in emerald robes, the sleeves and collar adorned with a painstaking weave of silver thread. There is no hunch to his posture, no inkling of grief. It is the most convincing mask.
His every footfall is deliberate. Ishmah’s nobles and dignitaries and merchants and bakers—people from every walk of life—bow as he passes. Tuleen stands at the front, dressed in violet, eyes shining with love and pride as she looks upon her husband. No sign of the South Wind. I frown. Does the mirror show me what is, or what will be? Does Amir grieve me now that I am gone?
My brother kneels. The crown is lifted.
“All hail King Amir Al-Khatib of Ammara.”
And when the gold circlet nestles in the thick locks of his hair, Amir stands, turning to acknowledge Ammara’s citizens against swelling jubilation.
The image fades, becomes something else.
Ishmah’s curved domes and spiraling turrets splash rust-red across the gilded dunes. An ugly smudge draws my eye skyward. A black plume, smothering the horizon. Smoke? No, shadow . It engulfs the rooftops, masking what teems below: darkwalkers.
They are too many to count, a horde, a stampede. They descend on Ishmah’s population with a ravenous bloodlust, drawing people’s souls from the broken bodies strewn throughout the streets. I spot the red robes of Prince Balior’s soldiers sweeping across the crooked footpaths and cracked roads, swords wielded, funneling Ishmah’s citizens toward the lower ring. The strangest sight of all, however, is Ishmah’s gates. They are closed, likely due to the coronation. Which means the darkwalkers entered the city via other means.
I brush the looking glass with trembling fingertips. They warm with a sudden heat, as if someone holds a candle beneath the mirror. My city overtaken, toppled to rubble. Its people slain, raped, enslaved. I close my eyes, open them on a surge of distress. Ishmah’s denizens continue to flee beasts and soldiers alike. Meanwhile, the same thickening darkness oozes across the dusty earth, laps the base of buildings, and is drawn up the walls and over the roofs to smother those inside.
I lean forward, palm flat against the mirror. It’s not real, I tell myself. If I will it, perhaps that will make it true. But the scent of searing skin hits my nostrils, and I snatch back my hand with a hiss of pain. As I stare down at my reddened palm in bewilderment, blisters begin to form near the base of my thumb.
My heart sinks. If I’m dead, how can I feel pain? Why does Ishmah fall to darkness? Unless… has Prince Balior successfully freed the beast from its prison? In doing so, did he release the darkwalkers with it?
The image again transforms. I now stare down one of the palace corridors, its fluted pillars blurred by the smoke-like shadow dribbling through the open windows. Someone appears at the end of the corridor, moving with haste. I would recognize the broad-chested physique anywhere.
Notus turns a corner and begins to run. It’s as if I’m running alongside him, watching through the mirror as he takes the stairs three at a time to the third level. I’ve never seen the palace so vacant. Where are the sentinels? Fighting the darkwalkers terrorizing the streets?
Eight men safeguard Amir’s chambers. Notus lifts a hand, tossing the men aside as easily as matchsticks. He blasts the doors open with so formidable a wind they’re wrenched from their hinges and crash into the opposite wall.
Amir stands at the window overlooking the city, legs braced, sword in hand. Tuleen shrinks behind him as the South Wind—banished god, features frozen into a chilling blankness—crosses the threshold. A crude wind snaps through the room, yanking books from shelves and toppling a nearby chair. My mouth goes dry at the sight.
Upon sighting Notus, Amir frowns. He doesn’t lower his weapon. “What do you want?”
“Where is she?” He advances toward Ammara’s new king. I imagine the floorboards trembling beneath the might of his tread.
Amir lifts his sword straight out. “Keep your distance.”
The South Wind moves faster than my mortal eyes can track. By the time I process what has happened, he has already disarmed my brother, his own blade resting at the base of Amir’s neck. Tuleen’s eyes are wide, wide, wide. Two tears trickle down her cheeks.
“ Where. Is. She ?” Notus snarls.
Amir bares his teeth, but doesn’t struggle. “Who?”
“Sarai. She was in her rooms last night, and now she’s gone. No trace of her.”
With impressive calm, Amir reaches up to curl his fingers around Notus’ wrist. As a child, Amir was quick to anger. He was the youngest son, the weakest, always with something to prove. But here is iron where sand once stood. He will not be cowed. Already, the crown has changed him.
“Even if I knew where she was,” Amir bites out, “I wouldn’t tell you. Since you came into our lives, you have brought nothing but death and turmoil.”
“What are you talking about?”
“We were fine before you came to Ammara. Yet within months of your arrival, Fahim was dead. You returned, and now Father’s gone, too, and darkness spreads through our realm.” The king bares his teeth. “Tell me you had nothing to do with it.”
The South Wind’s expression is thunderous. “Fool, I’m trying to save Ammara.”
“Then why were you not at my coronation yesterday?”
Notus is taken aback, that much is clear. He frowns, lowering his blade a fraction. “I was… called elsewhere.”
A cutting smile curls Amir’s mouth. “I’m sure.”
The sword point returns as Notus spits, “My brother called for aid. I left Ishmah briefly to help him, but I’m here now, and I won’t hesitate to slide my sword into your chest, king or not.” He twists the tip of the scimitar. A spot of red blooms beneath its point and spreads to clot the fabric. “Fahim tried to keep Sarai from me. I won’t let you do the same.”
Amir’s eyes boil with unrestrained fury. In this moment, he has never looked more like our father. “Kill me, and you will not leave this place alive.”
“I don’t care for my life,” Notus says. “I never have.”
The South Wind whirls, sword raised to meet the descending blades of the guards pouring into the room. Tuleen yelps, cowering in a corner near the curtains, face bloodless against the gloom beginning to choke the room.
Amir attempts to stab the South Wind amidst the tussle, but a gale rips through the chamber, scattering parchment like a thousand leaves. The wind’s intensity forces Amir to his knees. Tuleen claws the edge of a bookshelf to avoid being flung into a wall.
My heart throbs, and I swallow thickly. So, this is what it has come to. Notus will destroy Amir, the palace, the realm, so long as he believes they stand between him and my whereabouts. I can only watch the disaster unfold.
The soldiers regroup and charge. I gasp as Notus sidesteps a brutal swing, only to narrowly avoid another strike to his back. He releases a small cyclone of air, which hurls men into walls and topples furniture. Two guards are knocked unconscious. A vase explodes in a shower of clay fragments.
I’m leaning fully against the mirror, palms flat, the tip of my nose pressed to the warm reflective glass as though I peer through a window. Heartbeats later, Notus has successfully disarmed the guards. Amir lifts his sword, at the ready.
“Amir, stop.” Tuleen grabs her husband’s arm desperately. “Notus isn’t our enemy.”
“You’re wrong, Tuleen.” He attempts to dislodge himself from her grip, yet the woman holds fast. She is stronger than I believed. “It’s because of this immortal that my family is dead, splintered apart.”
“If you can’t see that Notus loves Sarai,” Tuleen snaps at her husband, “then you are blinded by more than pride.” She’s shaking—with fury, I suspect. “Darkwalkers and Prince Balior’s forces overwhelm Ishmah. You know we can’t fight them alone. If you’re going to make an enemy of the divine, then I question your intellect as well as your capacity to rule.”
Amir gapes at his wife even as my mouth quirks in approval. Tuleen has spirit. I admire that.
In the end, Notus lowers his weapon. “Please,” he says to my brother. “Tell me where Sarai is.”
Amir looks to his wife in frustration, then sighs and sheathes his sword. “Gone,” he says, and begins to pace.
“Gone?” The South Wind looks to Tuleen, back to Amir. “Gone where?”
My brother’s robe snaps around his cloth-clad legs. He strides toward the window, peers into the shadow-choked city, the sun flickering like a grimy orb behind the opaque cloud. “My sister’s life was fated to end on her twenty-fifth nameday.” Slowly, he turns to face the South Wind, expression etched by grief. “She’s dead.”
Notus is petrified, hollowed out from shock. Four, five, six heartbeats pass. Slowly, oh so slowly, he lifts his hands, presses his fingers to his temples. “If this is a jest—”
“It’s no jest,” Amir says. Again, he peers out the window. “I wasn’t aware that Sarai had been cursed. Our father only told me shortly after I arrived back in Ammara. And now it’s too late.”
Notus shakes his head, faster and faster. I see the heartbreak in his eyes, a devastation that is total, a storm breaking over him. I lift my hand to my mouth with a soft cry of pain. “She can’t be dead,” he says weakly. “The curse was about the drought. She told me…”
“The drought was only part of it.”
The South Wind doesn’t appear to be listening. He is deep, deep within his mind, where no harm can befall him. “We fought,” he whispers, and the agony contorting his features is a mirror of my own. “She wanted closeness, but I kept her at arm’s length. Your father’s death hit her hard. I didn’t want to push her away, but—” He falters, gazing around the room with childlike confusion. “I tried to make it right. Last night, I sent flowers to her room by way of apology. I’d hoped to talk about it today.”
Amir straightens from his slumped posture, suddenly keen. “What kind of flowers?”
Notus blinks, perplexed by the question. “Black iris.”
It is quiet but for the crack of a scream in the distance. I close my eyes. Grief made me careless. I should have recognized the flowers. I should have recognized a lot of things. But what I most regret is wounding Notus so deeply. Would things have turned out differently between us, had he known of my early demise?
My brother then sags against the wall with red-rimmed eyes. “The touch of black iris is what was fated to kill her,” he explains, voice hoarse. “How did you acquire them? Father banned them from Ammara.”
The South Wind presses the heels of his palms against his eyes. A broken sound falls from his mouth, and another. Heartbeats pass before he’s able to speak. “I ran into Prince Balior in the halls. I wasn’t in the right state of mind and may have mentioned the argument between Sarai and myself. He offered me the flowers, claimed they were Sarai’s favorite. I wasn’t aware of the ban. If I had known it was a danger to her, I would never have…”
His voice breaks. Tears slide down my cheeks, and I wish I could step through this mirror and comfort him properly. It is what he would do for me.
To my surprise, Tuleen comes forward, head cocked curiously. “You claim Sarai is dead, but I’m not so certain.”
I straighten to attention. Notus and Amir do as well.
Amir says, “If Sarai touched black iris, then she’s dead. That is what was foretold.”
His wife regards him calmly. “Then where, pray tell, is her body?”
“What do you mean where’s her body?” he snaps. “It’s…” But he trails off in realization. He hasn’t the slightest clue. I struggle to wrap my mind around the implication as well. My body should be in my room. But Notus visited my room and found nothing.
Both men regard Ammara’s queen in stupefaction. It is almost comical, their wide eyes and gaping mouths. “When Amir told me of Sarai’s curse,” Tuleen explains, “I took it upon myself to complete my own research. The Library of Ishmah is, after all, one of the preeminent research institutions in the realm—”
“You?” Notus stares at her. He is scarcely taken off guard, yet this small woman has managed to do exactly that. “You were the one who visited the back rooms?”
Tuleen stands pillar-tall. “I was.”
The candle. All this time I thought Prince Balior had searched the small, deserted office. How wrong I had been.
“Did you take any books?” the South Wind demands, eyebrows snapped over his straight nose.
Tuleen smiles as she says, “As many as I could carry. And I cleared the room following the darkwalker attack. I would rather the information not fall into the wrong hands.”
Amir looks between them. Sweat wends down the side of his face and dampens the collar of his robe. “What is he talking about?” He angles toward his wife. “Tuleen?”
A warm flutter of hope swells inside my chest as she motions toward the office, leading the two men to its impressive collection of wall-to-wall bookshelves. One by one, she removes fat tomes, bound documents, the occasional scroll, to place them on the desk. “King Halim claimed the Lord of the Mountain would return to take Sarai’s life,” she says. “But as you can see, Sarai’s nameday has passed, and there is no body to be found. Which makes me believe the curse has altered course—or has been misinterpreted.”
Misinterpreted. I hadn’t considered that. Is this not the afterlife, this mirror a means to observe what develops in the living realm? But she makes an excellent argument. If I were truly dead, where is my body?
“What do you mean misinterpreted ?” Notus demands.
“It’s clear from my research that there is a connection between Sarai and the labyrinth,” she responds, flipping through one of the documents. “But I stumbled upon a translation that makes me wonder if King Halim possibly misunderstood the bargain that was struck.” She pins her finger against a page. “In this translation, it’s stated not that the Lord of the Mountain would return to take Sarai’s life. It’s that he would return to take her . Which makes me believe that Sarai is not, in fact, dead.”
“If she’s not dead,” Amir cuts in, “then where is she?”
Tuleen lifts her head, face grave. “She’s trapped in the labyrinth.”