Chapter 17
AMEIRAH
Iunderstood I’d played into King Bakshi’s hand, understood he knew all along I would refuse, but I couldn’t change my answer.
Even as greed lit his eyes, even as excitement curved his mouth, the true king on display instead of hidden behind courtly politeness, I couldn’t willingly kill someone.
Not even the man who waited for his death beside me.
“Then you leave me no choice,” Bakshi said.
I might have expected some guise of sadness, but there was no longer an audience to perform for.
By refusing his order, I’d given him free reign to do whatever he wanted.
And apparently every gentry and high gentry sat around the domed room knew what to expect and approved.
Or at least were complicit in their silence.
I didn’t bother looking at my father again.
He wouldn’t save me from whatever punishment the king intended.
I couldn’t quite banish the cold-creeping suspicion that this punishment was the reason I’d been dragged out of my room in the middle of the night.
He’d positioned me like a game piece on a board and hadn’t even told me the rules of play.
“With a power like yours, no invader or dark force could threaten Ithanys. With your gift, we would cleanse Ithanys of all our enemies. This is for the good of all of us, for our future. You understand, don’t you, Ameirah?”
His patronising tone made me bristle, but I took slow, deep breaths and tried to stay calm.
I had to find a way out of this, and out of Morysen.
I’d found scant written evidence of lightning souls beyond the propaganda of centuries past and a few mentions of darkness and storms; I had to admit there was nothing else to be found.
If there had ever been records, they’d been long destroyed.
When I got out of this—because I would—I’d sneak across the palace grounds to the aviary to get Raheema, and then we’d flee. I’d feel bad about leaving Kamaal and Mihrunnisa without a word of goodbye, but this summons had proven I wasn’t just unsafe in the capital; I was in immediate danger.
“Kaazhim,” the king said, jerking his chin towards the gentry.
I knew the name. It starred in my nightmares, so I wasn’t surprised when the gentry man who’d been in my father’s office that day rose to his feet.
I was surprised when he walked around the curved desk and across the shining floor towards me, raking a critical look over me from head to toe.
The second of eye contact startled my heart into beating even faster.
I glanced between the gentry and the king, breathless as I tried to work out their intention.
My feet itched, legs desperate to run, but there were guards in Saber-purple with weapons at the only exit, and I knew to even be considered for the position, each guard must possess incredible magic.
Still, I took an instinctive step back as Kaazhim came closer, the dark, dark brown of his eyes seeming to absorb light without reflecting it.
Something was wrong with this man, in the same way the wyverns at the Red Star and Wyfell had been wrong. A chill skittered down my arms. Kaazhim was as deadly as any clergy sitting on my left. Were all the clergy like this? Was my father?
“I’ll do anything else,” I blurted, throwing a desperate look at the king as if he’d intervene and take pity on me.
“But I can’t kill. Anything but that.” My voice was barely a whisper by the end.
Kaazhim now stood so close I saw the whites of his eyes, the fleck of a scar on his otherwise unmarred face, the tilt of his head as he considered me.
Then he glanced at Bakshi, a silent conversation passing, chilling the blood in my veins.
I backed up another step, aware of how alone I was, how no one at all was coming to save me.
Khalid had warned me, and Kamaal knew I was here, but even decorated warriors could do nothing against the king.
The king who nodded and set his eyes on me, something anticipatory in his bright eyes, his growing smile.
He hadn’t listened to a single word of my plea. Why had I expected him to?
The dark-eyed gentry advanced for every step I took back, and then I froze as something grasped my shoulders.
Hands, I thought, until that same burning touch snapped around my throat, like a collar holding me in place.
Control magic? Something worse? My breathing came in rapid pants, and while I could still move my hands, I ripped my glove off my right hand and held it up as a threat.
But Kaazhim smirked. I’d already told the whole chamber I wouldn’t kill anyone; he knew it was an empty threat. And there was nothing at all to stop his magic cutting through skin and bone and soul to where my darkness lived.
I began to pray as my knees weakened, and those cruel hands grabbed my power and tore, forcing it up through my body until I choked on the taste of my own blood.
I didn’t feel the impact of hitting the ground, only the tearing sensation inside me and the roar of cold power that burned away my other glove and burst into the council chamber.
“More,” King Bakshi commanded casually.
My hands went so cold I couldn’t feel them, the numbness creeping up my arms as power built and built and built.
So much that there was no end to it, so much that it was impossible this had lived inside me for so long.
Kaazhim’s shadow fell over me with its own chill, and I twitched my fingers, the rupturing pain inside me so bad that I was ready to pour this magic into him, just to make it stop.
I bit my tongue, the taste of copper replacing the salt of my tears, and as the pain notched higher, dark smoke poured around my knees, spreading like a fog across the checkered floor.
“Father,” I choked out, lifting my eyes until they fell on the dispassionate face of Falael Jaouhari.
“Don’t fight it, Ameirah.” It was Kaazhim who spoke.
My father merely averted his eyes, resolved to let this happen.
I knew he loathed me, knew he’d washed his hands of me, but it still hit like a dagger thrown directly into my chest. He’d entirely forsaken me, then.
My only family were House Marrakchi and, for some bewildering reason, Khalid.
“Stop,” I croaked when the pain crested, a torrent of darkness forced through my palms, through my aching wrists and my shaking arms, until the numbness finally spread to my chest. Numb on the outside, but sheer agony inside, where magic tore itself from the heart of me, from my very soul.
“Find the end of her power,” the king’s voice echoed around the room. “Show me everything she’s capable of.”
“Yes, Majesty,” Kaazhim simpered.
I fell onto my side on the floor, curled up there, my body twitching as his cruel power carved me open.
He ripped out fistfuls of power until I laid in a pool of it, until I choked on my own blood, until my back arched and I screamed, each echo from the dome above like a family of Ameirahs screaming, suffering.
“Please,” I rasped, my voice hoarse, breaking, coughing up shadow. “Please stop.”
“Don’t you want to know what this power can do?” Kaazhim mused. “You’re the child of two powerful lines, with legend itself bred into your blood. Don’t you want to know your limits? Don’t you want to know if you have limits?”
“No,” I croaked, dark flame on my tongue and smoke rising around my body as I curled in on myself. It wasn’t the first time Kaazhim had mentioned my legendary power or hinted at knowing my mother. “Who?” I groaned, exhaling smoke. “Who are you?”
Kaazhim knelt, filling my vision with eyes bright with excitement, with greed, and a smile that made my hackles rise. It sent my magic so wild with the desire to kill him.
“That’s not all she has to show,” Bakshi remarked.
“No,” Kaazhim agreed, his head tilting as he looked at me like a predator with prey. “There’s more power hidden within her.”
“Bring it out.”
“All of it?”
“All of it,” the king confirmed as I screamed, my back arching off the floor of that ancient hall. “Let’s see what she’s made of.”
I braced myself, hands curled into useless fists, teeth gritted as the next dagger of magic tore through me, slashing ribbons through the place my power lived. Like a surgeon’s blade, slicing it out of me, stealing it for himself.
“Impressive,” Kaazhim murmured, staring at something over my head as I writhed on the tiled floor, sobbing pleas that went unanswered. “Not a single clergy left alive.”
“So that’s the limit of her power,” Bakshi mused, his voice swimming through my senses as darkness began to close in.
Not just the smoke and flames Kaazhim tore from me, as black as the darkest night, as black as a starless sky.
Unconsciousness offered a blessed end to the pain, and I didn’t fight its approach.
“No,” Kaazhim said with a little laugh. “We’re far from her limit.”
“Then continue.”
The next slice of the gentry’s cruel power ripped the floor from under me, and I fell into the darkness of unconsciousness with a sob of relief.