Chapter 22
The Ketreyids tied Rin against a tree, though this time they were considerably gentler. They placed her bound wrists in her lap instead of twisting them painfully behind her back, and they left her legs untied once the extent of her ankle injury became obvious.
She couldn’t have run far even without a sprained ankle. Her limbs tingled from fatigue, her head was swimming, and her vision had started going fuzzy. She slouched back against the tree, eyes closed. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d eaten anything.
“What are they doing?” Kitay asked.
Rin focused with difficulty on the clearing. The Ketreyids were arranging wooden poles to create a latticed dome-like structure, just large enough to accommodate two people. When the dome was finished, they draped thick blankets over its top until it was completely covered.
The Ketreyids had also added logs to their measly campfire. It was a roaring bonfire now, flames leaping higher than the Sorqan Sira’s head. Two riders carried a pile of rocks in from the shore, all at least the size of Rin’s head, and placed them over the flames one by one.
“They’re preparing for a sweat,” Chaghan explained.
“That’s what the rocks are for. You’ll go inside that yurt with the Sorqan Sira.
They’ll put the rocks inside one by one and pour water over them while they’re hot.
That fills the yurt with steam and drives the temperatures up to just under what will kill you. ”
“They’re going to steam me like a fish,” Rin said.
“It’s risky. But that’s the only way to draw something like the Seal out. What Daji’s left inside you is like a venom. Over time it will keep festering in your subconscious and corrupt your mind.”
She blinked in alarm. “You could have told me that!”
“I didn’t think it was worth scaring you when I couldn’t do anything about it.”
“You weren’t going to tell me I was going mad?”
“You would have noticed eventually.”
“I hate you,” she said.
“Calm down. The sweat will extract the venom from your mind.” Chaghan paused. “Well. It’ll give you a better chance than anything else. It doesn’t always work.”
“That’s optimistic,” Kitay said.
Chaghan shrugged. “If it doesn’t work, the Sorqan Sira will put you out of your misery.”
“That’s nice of her,” Rin mumbled.
“She’d do it swiftly,” Qara assured her. “Quick slice to the arteries, so clean you’ll barely even feel it. She’s done it before.”
“Can you walk?” asked the Sorqan Sira.
Rin jerked awake. She didn’t remember dozing off. She was still exhausted; her body felt like it was weighted down with rocks.
She blinked the sleep from her eyes and glanced around. She was lying curled on the ground. Thankfully, someone had untied her arms. She pulled herself to a sitting position and stretched the cricks out of her back.
“Can you walk?” the Sorqan Sira repeated.
Rin flexed her ankle. Pain shot up her leg. “I don’t think so.”
The Sorqan Sira raised her voice. “Bekter. Lift her.”
Bekter glanced down at Rin with a look of distaste.
“I hate you, too,” she told him.
She was sure that he would lash out. But the Sorqan Sira’s command must truly have been law, because he simply knelt down, pulled her into his arms, and carried her to the yurt.
He made no effort to be gentle. She jostled uncomfortably in his arms, and her sprained ankle smashed against the yurt’s entrance when he deposited her inside.
She bit back a cry of pain to deny him the pleasure of hearing it. He shut the tent flap on her without another word.
The yurt’s interior was pitch-black. The Ketreyids had padded its lattice sides with so many layers of blankets that not a single ray of light could penetrate the exterior.
The air inside was cold, silent, and peaceful, like the belly of a cave. If Rin didn’t know where she was, she would have thought the walls were made of stone. She exhaled slowly, listening as her breath filled the empty space.
Light flooded the yurt as the Sorqan Sira entered through the flap. She carried a bucket of water in one hand and a ladle in the other.
“Lie down,” she told Rin. “Get as close as you can to the walls.”
“Why?”
“So you don’t fall onto the rocks when you faint.”
Rin curled into the corner, back braced against the taut cloth, and pressed her cheek to the cool dirt. The tent flap closed. Rin heard the Sorqan Sira crawling across the yurt to sit right beside her.
“Are you ready?” the Sorqan Sira asked.
“Do I have a choice?”
“No. But you should prepare your mind. This will go badly if you are frightened.” The Sorqan Sira called to the riders outside, “First stone.”
A shovel appeared through the flap, bearing a single rock glowing a bright, angry red. The rider outside tipped the rock over into a muddy bed at the center of the yurt, withdrew the shovel, and shut the flap.
In the darkness, Rin heard the Sorqan Sira dip the ladle into the water.
“May the gods hear our prayers.” Water splashed over the rock. A loud hiss filled the yurt. “May they grant our wishes to commune.”
A wave of steam hit Rin’s nose. She fought the urge to sneeze.
“May they clear our eyes to see,” said the Sorqan Sira. “Second rock.”
The rider deposited another rock into the mud bed. Another splash, another hiss. The steam grew thicker and hotter.
“May they give us the ears to hear their voices.”
Rin was starting to feel light-headed. Panic clawed at her chest. She could barely breathe.
Even though her lungs filled with air, she felt as if she were drowning.
She couldn’t lie still any longer. She pawed at the edges of the tent, desperate for a whiff of cold air, anything .
. . the steam was in her face now, every part of her was burning, she was being boiled alive.
The rocks kept coming—a third, a fourth, a fifth. The steam became unbearable. She tried covering her nose with her sleeve, but that, too, was damp, and trying to breathe through it was the worst form of torture.
“Empty your mind,” the Sorqan Sira ordered.
Rin’s heart pumped furiously, so hard that she could feel it in her temples.
I’m going to die in here.
“Stop resisting,” the Sorqan Sira said urgently. “Relax.”
Relax? The only thing Rin wanted to do then was scramble out of the yurt. She didn’t care if she burned her feet on the rocks, didn’t care if she had to slip through the mud, she just wanted to get out into the open air where she could breathe.
Only years of meditation practice under Jiang stopped her from getting up and running out.
Breathe.
Just breathe.
She could feel her heartbeat slowing, crawling nearly to a stop.
Her vision swirled and sparked. She saw little lights in the darkness, candles that flickered in the edges of her sight, stars that winked away when she looked upon them . . .
The Sorqan Sira’s breath tickled her ear. “Soon you will see many things. The Seal will tempt you. Remember that none of what you see is real. This will be a test of your resolve. Pass, and you will emerge intact, in full possession of your natural abilities. Fail, and I will cut your throat.”
“I’m ready,” Rin gasped. “I know pain.”
“This isn’t pain,” said the Sorqan Sira. “The Vipress never makes you suffer. She fulfills your wishes. She promises you peace when you know you ought to be fighting a war. That’s worse.”
She pressed her thumb against Rin’s forehead. The ground tipped away.
Rin saw a stream of bright colors, bold and gaudy, which resolved themselves into definable shapes only when she squinted. Reds and golds became streamers and firecrackers; blues and purples became fruits, berries, and cups of pouring wine.
She looked around, dazed. She was standing in a massive banquet hall.
It was twice the size of the Autumn Palace’s throne room, packed with long tables at which sat gorgeously dressed guests.
She saw platters of dragon fruit carved like flowers, soup steaming from turtle shells, and entire roasted pigs sitting on tables of their very own, with attendants designated to carve away pieces of meat for the guests.
Sorghum wine ran down gilded trenches carved into the table sides so that the diners could fill their cups themselves whenever they wished.
Faces she knew drifted in and out of her sight, faces she hadn’t seen for so long that they felt like they were from a different lifetime.
She saw Tutor Feyrik sitting two tables away, meticulously picking the bones from a cut of fish.
She saw Masters Irjah and Jima, laughing at the high table with the rest of the Academy masters.
Kesegi waved at her from his seat. He was unchanged since she’d last seen him—still ten years old, tawny-skinned, all knees and elbows. She stared at him. She’d forgotten what a wonderful smile he had, cheeky and irreverent.
She saw Kitay, dressed in a general’s uniform. His wiry hair was grown long, pulled into a bun at the back of his head. He was deep in conversation with Master Irjah. When he caught her eye, he winked.
“Hello, you,” said a familiar voice.
She turned, and her heart caught in her throat.
Of course it was Altan. It was always Altan, lurking behind every corner of her mind, haunting every decision she made.
But this was an Altan who was alive and whole—not the way she’d known him at Khurdalain, when he’d been burdened by a war that he would kill himself winning.
This was the best possible version of him, the way she’d tried to remember him, the way he’d rarely ever been.
The scars were still on his face, his hair was still messy and overgrown, tied back in a careless knot, and he still wielded that trident with the casual grace of someone who spent more time on the battlefield than off.
This was an Altan who fought because he adored it and was good at it, and not because it was the only thing he had ever been trained to do.
His eyes were brown. His pupils were not constricted. He did not smell of smoke. When he smiled, he almost looked happy.