Chapter 50
AMEIRAH
The terrain of the forsaken land where the gate spat me out was as dark as those glittering black stones of the Zalaam queen’s crown. A premonitory feeling trickled down my spine, an understanding just out of reach.
I immediately dropped down behind the shiny black stone of an outcropping. There was no window behind me, no mirror or glass, only the polished surface of a flat mountain face. It served as well as any reflection, I supposed.
Every jagged peak around me was made of the same glossy, jet-like rock, and when I put my hand against it as I leaned forward to get a better look at the army in their endless rows, I found the stone was slick.
I wrinkled my nose at the oily stain left on my glove, as if the stone here oozed grease.
It would explain the foul miasma that assaulted my senses every time I took a breath.
My heart all but tore out of my chest when a hand fell on my shoulder, and I whipped around, dagger aimed outward,.
Air punched from my stomach when my eyes met a familiar hard brown gaze.
Hand pressed to my chest as I willed my heart to calm, I glared at Nabil, not daring to speak even though he’d scared the shit out of me.
He crouched beside me, shielded by the glossy black stone, and we both watched the motionless rows of soldiers.
They looked exactly like Xiaoyu’s sketches—their skin dark with mottled grey markings, faces expressionless, and they stood eerily still.
Lifeless, awaiting the touch of god to breathe motion into them.
I didn’t even try to count; there were so many I stood no chance of estimating a number.
But the fact they waited here, by the gate, in their perfectly formed lines, made my blood cold.
When the order came, would they march up the mountains and through the gate behind us?
Nabil put his mouth to my ear and whispered, “This is where they came from. Those soldiers, and the dark magic that turned our fae, our wyverns. They’re not even from our world.”
That was the thought that had sat half-formed in the back of my mind since the moment I saw the army, felt the churn of oppressive magic in the air, and inhaled that stench.
Zalaam magic—this place was full of it. Because this was where she came from.
The queen wasn’t from Ithanys, wasn’t even from Wyvara.
Rage churned in my gut, sparking my magic back to life, and I had to curl my hands into fists to contain it.
All the people she’d killed, the homes she’d flattened to dust, and she wasn’t even from there.
I knew she craved power, wanted all of us under her command, and that she’d conquer any city in her path to power, but I’d underestimated her.
Underestimated all of them. They weren’t simply conquerors, but invaders.
The first Zalaam war, all those years ago… she must have walked through the gate, found our world, and decided to claim it for herself. My fury grew, until my fists shook, until I tasted embers with every breath.
“We can’t let this army into Ithanys,” I breathed to Nabil, barely loud enough to be heard. I didn’t dare raise my voice any further.
His eyes were so wide, the whites dominated the brown. “What the fuck are we supposed to do against an army this large?”
I chewed the inside of my lip, staring at the endless rows of soldiers. Even now, back in our home, Varidian and our legion fought to push back the tide of soldiers who flowed from the river. If this new army crossed into our world, they’d crush any chance of survival, let alone freedom.
And I had to wonder if the queen would be content with simply subjugating all of us, or if her goal was to destroy everything that made Ithanys, reduce the world to rubble, and build a new empire from the ashes.
“Ameirah,” Nabil whispered in reproach.
“If we go back,” I breathed, “this army remains here as a threat. Even if we destroy the gate, they’ll find a way through Morysen’s window.”
The light shuttered in his eyes, and his mouth pressed into a grim line.
He nodded in a harsh jerk, glaring out at the winged soldiers who waited to unleash terror on our home.
Our small army wouldn’t be enough to stop them, even with the relics the Legion of Silverstorm had collected.
We’d be overrun, outnumbered, and utterly without hope.
But if we could destroy any chance this army would crush our fighters and riders…
Nabil shot me a warning look. “We are two people. They are a swarm.”
I flexed my hands, and removed my gloves, stuffing them inside my leather jacket. “Legend says Varidian and I can defeat them.”
“Legend is not reality,” he hissed, imploring me. “We will die here, Ameirah. And I won’t let you die because I was foolish enough to get pushed through the gate.”
I frowned. “This isn’t your fault. Either one of us could have fallen through the gate—”
“But it wasn’t either one of us. It was me. And I will not be responsible for the death of anyone else.”
“Nabil.” It was an effort to keep my hand at my side when I wanted to hug the grieving man. “Buchra’s death was their fault.” I stabbed a finger at the dark, glossy mountains and the army that filled the space between them. “It wasn’t yours.”
A muscle moved in his cheek. In this grey, watery light we were both colourless and sickly, but there was something flat and dead to his eyes that I suspected was real.
“We’ll make them pay,” I proposed, barely above a whisper. “We’ll make them regret taking her from us. And we’ll honour her death, her sacrifice. Not just stories of her greatness, but this: a blow to the Zalaam army in her name.”
His stare challenged me. “It’s suicide.”
“If these soldiers reach Ithanys, we’ll die anyway.
” I might have hours, maybe even days, with Varidian if we returned, but with a host this big, I doubted we’d have a week before we were overrun.
“We take out as many as we can. Give our family the best chance of survival. I don’t wish to die,” I said when his expression flattened.
“I only welcome death when I’m inflicting it upon others. ”
But I looked at the valley below, the soldiers packed from wing to wing, lacking armour and clothes but something told me that skin was a carapace that would reject arrows and swords. I’d been given this deathfyre for a reason, and if this was it…
“We’ll make it an end worthy of a song,” I said, meeting Nabil’s bleak eyes. “But we fight like hell. To get home, to get back to the ones who love us. Because you are loved, Nabil Azizi. That legion adores the bones of you, and they’ve lost enough.”
A look passed between us. Agreement and acceptance. Nabil was probably right, and this was suicide, but I raged against the idea of my life ending here. I raged against any end, whether in this lightless place or in a muddy field near Willow Green.
“I was given this gift for a reason,” I said, the words a reminder for me as much as Nabil. “Fire to burn out the dark.”
Nabil’s stare jumped from me to the army when a clatter went through the mountains, went through this world into the next. Marching—the army was marching.
Nabil nodded and lifted his hands, calling up so much power that the air already began to shiver.
Varidian had been deadly even before the lightning soul, and each one of his legion was his equal.
I had to believe we could do this. With my deathfyre, with the blood of two worlds that ran through my veins, with the weight and blessing of my family’s history on my shoulders and the past unfolding all around us, I had to believe it would be enough.
Nabil’s face cut with a brutal smile when dark flames gathered in my palms. “Burn the darkness, Ameirah. Burn it all down.”