Chapter 36 Sirsha
Sirsha
I cannot honor the bond of Adah. I beg that you break it, so I might live free.
At Sirsha’s words, Quil took a stunned step back. “Sirsha—no. What are you—why are you—”
Sirsha did not let herself look at him. She knew she would weaken and throw herself in his arms and make him swear to never let her go.
Since the moment she realized he was in the Vines, all she’d wanted was to see him again. To drink him in, the way his hands moved, the way his broad shoulders filled out the fine black tunic that made him look like an emperor already. His eyes, yellow as a hunter’s moon, fixed only on her.
“I cannot honor the bond of Adah. I beg that you break it, so I might live free,” she said again. Her mother held up a hand. Torchlight flickered around them as a chill night wind blew through the trees.
“I heard you, daughter,” she said. “But why? You must at least speak to each other before you—”
“Break it,” Sirsha said, her voice raw and desperate. “Break it or I’ll find a way to break it myself. But with Div attached to me, who knows what will happen?”
“Sirsha.” Quil tried to reach out to her, but she stepped away. His hand hung in the air for a moment before he dropped it. “Look at me, please—”
“We cannot break a bond if one party is unwilling,” A’yaneh of Kin Sitr said.
Anger burned through Sirsha’s veins. “I didn’t want my bond with J’yan broken,” she said, for A’yaneh had been one of the witnesses, that day long ago. “He was my friend. But you broke it anyway.”
D’arju stepped toward Quil and examined his coin, shaking her head. “Once the Adah oath is broken, it cannot be remade. This is a deep bond, Sirsha. The wound will be catastrophic. Your trust destroyed.”
“It doesn’t have to be remade.” Sirsha hardened her heart. She would not let Div use Quil’s magic against him, as she’d done to Ma. Quil’s stare burned her like a brand, his confusion leaking through the bond. But Sirsha could not explain, lest Div interfere before the bond could be broken.
“This is madness, Sirsha,” he said. “We only just found each other. Don’t do this. I’ll stay away from you. I’ll never speak to you again, if you don’t want, but—”
It already felt like her heart was cracking. Sirsha couldn’t imagine what it would be like when the bond was shattered. But she couldn’t think of it now. Div was close. Listening.
“Ma,” she said softly. “You owe me.”
The Raani sighed and turned to Quil. “You must say the words of parting, Prince,” she said. “Thrice. I cannot honor the bond of Adah. I beg that you break it, so I might live free.”
Sirsha’s heart clenched as she looked down to see Quil’s hands shaking.
“I refuse.” Quil turned to Sirsha, every line of his body taut as an oud string. “Why are you doing this? This is not a lie—” He held up the coin.
She could have looked at him then. But that would mean staring into his eyes while she broke him, and she didn’t have the strength. If only she could show him.
“Quil.” She thought of his magic then. He’d used it on the Jaduna and, unintentionally, her. And she knew what he could do. If he’d learned to give memories, then surely he could take them. “My memories. Look at them. Look into me.”
His touch was so light she did not feel it at first, only noticed the way his eyes lost focus slightly.
Everything drifted to the forefront of her mind.
The weeks of hunger, nearly killing Kade, watching Dolbra burn.
The words alone, alone, alone pounding through her head.
Loli Temba’s reanimated body, and her advice.
Sirsha’s need to get to the jinn. And then her mother speaking: Like the Adah oath, the bond between mother and child is forged by blood.
Div, glomming on to that bond. Thieving the Raani’s power.
Tormenting her with it. R’zwana’s death.
Quil took a sharp breath, his hands curling into fists, his eyes clear now.
“There’s no other way to keep you safe.” Sirsha could hardly bring herself to speak above a whisper. “Now you understand.”
“Sirsha,” Quil murmured. “Look at me.”
She shook her head. Did he not understand? She couldn’t. Because then she wouldn’t be able to say the words.
“Please, Sirsha, love. There must be some other way—”
“I cannot honor the bond of Adah. I beg that you break it, so I might live free.” She tried to shout the words, but they came out like a sob instead.
The Raanis were silent. Behind them, Tas was clearly bewildered—for he did not know why she was doing this. Sufiyan looked part stricken and part like he wanted to kick Sirsha. Even practical, down-to-earth Arelia had one hand to her mouth, brow furrowed in sympathy.
“I cannot honor the bond of Adah. I beg that you break it, so I might live free,” Quil said, and she recognized his flat intonation. It was how he’d sounded when she first met him and she did not yet know the blaze of warmth that lived in his core. It was the voice he used to hide all his pain.
She loathed herself for doing this to him. Even if Quil could forgive her, Sirsha would never forgive herself.
“I cannot honor the bond of Adah,” he said again. “I beg that you break it, so I might live free.”
The coin was cold at her throat. She knew what was coming. She’d been through this with J’yan. I survived before, she told herself. I’ll survive again.
“I cannot honor the bond of Adah.” Quil’s voice was low. Quiet now. The only sign that he felt anything. “I beg that you break it, so I might live free.”
Raani D’arju sighed. “Witnessed,” she said.
“Witnessed,” Raani A’yaneh echoed.
Ma looked between them with such sadness that for a moment, Sirsha remembered the woman who told her stories of their mighty Kin, instead of the cold-eyed Raani she’d become. “Witnessed,” Ma said.
The Adah coin burned hot for a moment. Then it fell from Sirsha’s throat, and though it had felt so sturdy, fortified by the depth of the love she’d shared with Quil, it shattered to pieces when it hit the soft forest floor.
The pain was instantaneous and wrenching, as if a great hand had reached into Sirsha’s spine and ripped it free, leaving nerve endings torn and screaming.
Loneliness and despair clawed through her mind and she staggered back, landing in someone’s arms—Arelia’s.
Sirsha couldn’t breathe. Her lungs would not fill. Her lips would not open.
Quil was on his knees, head bowed, skin horribly pale. And—distant. He felt as far away as the morning star. His warm skin was ashen, face haggard. He had not expected this pain and she had not prepared him.
“Sirsha,” he said again. “Look at me, damn you.”
“Don’t—” She took a shuddering breath. “Don’t make this difficult. Don’t say my name. The Adah oath is broken. You heard the Raani. It cannot be remade.”
She thought he would tell her it didn’t matter. That he still loved her. Part of her wanted him to because she still loved him. It wouldn’t hurt so bleeding much if she didn’t.
“I thought it would feel like when I think of my parents,” he said. “Or when Tas leaves and I don’t know if he’s coming back. I thought it would be like when Ruh died. But…”
“The Adah bond was forged by blood,” Sirsha said, and she should have told him all this before. “Breaking it is a betrayal of the soul magic. The pain is incomparable. But it will get better. In any case, it’s too late now. It’s done.”
“I’m so angry at you.” He still knelt, hands on his knees, gaze fixed on the velvety forest floor. “For doing this to us. There must have been another way—”
“There wasn’t. You’re safe from her. That’s what matters.”
Sirsha stumbled away from him and deeper into the woods, setting her shaking hand against a tree trunk and sinking to the ground.
Splinters dug into her palms. Distantly she realized they were bleeding.
It didn’t matter. She recalled the ache from her first broken oath, with J’yan.
Now she realized that pain had been like a kitten scratch.
This was like having her bones gnawed on by a wolf while she still lived.
“Ah, little witch.” Div’s soft voice was almost a relief, for at least it did not hurt. “You suffer. They took your light, like they once took mine.”
Sirsha forced herself to look at the creature’s child eyes.
“Do you understand now?” Sirsha whispered. “Do you understand, Div, how two things can be true? How you can—can love someone so deeply and yet hurt them. F-f-fail them?”
Div looked between her and Quil, and Sirsha could not read her expression. She hurt too much to care. At this point, if Div’s question wasn’t answered, she’d just offer the monster her own heart. At least the pain would stop.
In the end, she didn’t need to. For the first time that Sirsha could remember, Div’s mien was that of a lost child, and not a monster playacting one.
“Yes,” Div said. “I understand.”
The next few hours were a blur of misery and movement and talking, endless talking. Sirsha said nothing as her mother told her details about the Loha that ran through Kotama. Some part of her knew she should be angry. But rage took energy and Sirsha had none.
The jinn, she reminded herself. She had to get to the jinn.
But she felt as if her heart had been raked over a bed of rusty nails.
When Arelia suggested she wash and change into travel clothes, she did, just to give herself something to do.
And when Tas offered Sirsha her weapons, cleaned and sharpened, she strapped them on.
It wasn’t until Sufiyan mentioned they were taking a portal north that Sirsha came out of her funk.
Portal? She looked around, startled. They were back in Kotama, in a clearing packed with Jaduna kitted out for travel. Sirsha had no idea how she’d gotten here.
“The Raanis only allow Jaduna with contracts to use the portals that lead outside the city,” Sirsha said. “Outsiders aren’t even supposed to know about them.”
Sufiyan stared at her, jaw agape, before he exchanged a glance with a hovering Tas. Sirsha realized that this was probably her first full sentence in hours.
“D’arju has agreed to open one for us,” Tas said.