Chapter 22
I can’t come home. Not yet. Not until the Citadel stops the digging, stops executing us, stops cutting off the hands of the workers, stops the leaching from Astola. I’m doing this for you. I’m doing this for Yaseema.
—Excerpt from letters from Zimran Nazir to Mahira Nazir, found in the journals of Mahira Nazir
Yaseema
Ramishah hadn’t said anything in our cell since we’d been arrested, and I wasn’t able to snap her out of her silence.
My hands were dry and cracked with blood, my hair was a tangled mess, and I felt like I’d been screaming for hours.
I’d acquired a few bruises from when the soldiers had dragged us down here, but they hadn’t done anything more than that.
Yet.
But what was worse was that I didn’t have the book, or the map, despite having it in my hands just hours before. I was so close to finding what I needed to finish what my mother started.
I’d failed before I’d even begun.
“Shit.” I put my head in my hands. “Shit, shit, shit.”
“Yaseema?”
Finally, Mishah’s voice pierced through the cold dungeon.
I huffed a breath, realizing it had taken me having a breakdown for her to actually respond. “Yes?”
“Are you okay?”
I considered her question and took stock of my injuries.
Swollen neck, scratchy throat, my side hurt for a reason I couldn’t fathom but likely came from the general’s body on top of mine as he tried to kill me.
And now I was locked in a cell without the one thing I needed.
I felt the prickles of annoyance. I was far from okay.
“I’m doing amazing, thanks,” I said, my voice laden with sarcasm.
“Thank you for saving me,” she whispered, ignoring my barb. Then her voice dropped low. “I can’t believe you killed the general.”
I released a breath and let my annoyance roll off me. I had chosen to get involved, and it was the right thing to do, despite where I was now.
Despite what I had lost.
It was what my mother would have wanted.
“You don’t need to thank me, Mishah. He was going to kill you.”
“I know. He cornered me in the hall, shouting that his food had been poisoned. I tried to escape and he wouldn’t let me. That’s when I slashed his face with the kitchen knife and bit him.”
I let out a surprised laugh that ended in a cough as it burned across my damaged throat. “You bit him?”
She sniffled a bit. “Yeah. Then he went berserk.”
“Good job.” I thought back to what he’d said during our fight. “Why did he ask me if we were working together?”
She released a heavy sigh. “He was obsessed with the Red Jasmine Rebellion—the rebels responsible for all the attacks. He thinks they are in the palace, attempting a coup. But a lowly kitchen girl like me isn’t going to risk her neck for the rebels.
They make everything harder for the rest of us.
If we comply with the Viceroy, then our families live. And I don’t want to cause trouble.”
I nodded at her, thinking how similar she sounded to the Astolans who worked for the Citadel with me. I understood why you wouldn’t rebel when your life or family’s lives were on the line. For some, it was too much to risk. For others, there was no other option.
“Yas?”
“Yeah?”
“You aren’t from River, are you? I mean, I know you’re human, but even the humans have been here for years, since before the wall.”
I let a beat of silence stretch for far too long before I answered. “No. I’m not from here.” Then I laughed. “Was it that obvious?”
Mishah snorted. “Yes. You knew nothing about anything and were always disappearing into the palace. I figured you were sent by another Court.”
I let out a low laugh. If only it were that simple.
“Then, you addressed the Viceroy like you had no idea who he was.”
“I didn’t have any idea who he was.”
If I had, things might have been very different. I would’ve left the library as soon as I’d seen him.
But then Mishah would be dead.
I sat back, my head resting against the cold stone behind me.
Try as I might, I couldn’t regret what I’d done to help her, even if I may have just gotten us both killed anyway.
“Where are you from, then?”
I debated not telling her, but I couldn’t bluff being from anywhere else here either. And if we were going to die, it would be nice for someone here to know who I really was. “I’m from across the River. From Astola.”
Her gasp echoed through the prison. “That’s not possible. How did you cross it?”
I thought of the Queen’s haath phool, and the feeling that had enveloped me when I swam across the center of the River. And I remembered the expression on the silver-haired fae’s face when he’d seen it.
“I had an ancient fae relic. It allowed me to cross.”
I was met with silence at that, and though I was glad to be able to finally tell her, I also felt the fluttering beats of nervousness at her knowing that I hadn’t been truthful this entire time.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you,” I said into the darkness of the dungeon. “But I didn’t know who I could trust here.”
“Why come here?” Her voice was slightly defensive and I knew she must have been thinking of all the times I had lied to her while we’d been together.
But this time I hesitated—I didn’t want to tell her the real reason I was here. So, I told her something very close to the truth. “I’m looking for my mother. She came here when I was young, but she didn’t return. I’m trying to find her.”
I wished the possibility and hope of my mother being alive was something still beating in my chest. I’d given up on her being alive a long time ago.
But I still wanted to know what happened to her, even though that was not the real reason for me being here.
Even though I’d grieved her death a long time ago.
She’d likely died attempting to do what I was doing now—finding a way to bring down the wall and restore life magic to the human world. And it looked like I was going to end up with her same fate.
“I’m sorry you’ll never get to look for her now.” Mishah sounded truly wretched. I also knew what she was saying with those words.
I’m sorry you’ll die here.
Because we would never get out of this dungeon. There were only tiny windows, metal prison bars, and nothing I could use to escape. This was not a situation I could research myself out of.
Unless I had magic that could unlock doors.
My breath caught in my chest, my pulse leaping. I was such an idiot.
I jumped up, ignoring the ache in my side and ran to the bars of my cell. There was a guard stationed at the far end of the corridor by the stairs, but he was far enough away that he wouldn’t be able to see what I was doing unless he looked closely.
Mishah followed me to the door of our cell, looking confused.
“What are you doing?”
“Getting us out of here.”
Ramishah frowned, eyes following my hands through the gaps in the bars. “Even if you could pick the lock, we’d still have to get past the guard at the end of the hall, and the ones stationed at the door.”
I’d used my magic before to find objects, relics, clues in text. But I knew it just obeyed what I directed it to. And I knew I could use it to escape too.
“What if I could pick the lock? And find a way out? One without guards?”
Ramishah still looked uncertain, but now there was something underlying her wariness—intrigue. “How?”
“My magic,” I explained, and her eyes blew wide.
“Humans have magic on the other side of the River?”
I hesitated, not wanting to explain, but she carried on without a response.
“In our stories, the wall was raised to separate us from the humans, because a darkness was taking over your land. Our ancestors erected the wall to protect magic, protect our people, and prevent anyone from crossing either way. What is it that you magic can do?” Ramishah came close up to the bars, eyes gleaming, I shook off the uneasy feeling I had.
“Open things. Unlock locks, even doors that cannot be opened.” I gestured to the prison door. “I can also find things.”
“Find them?”
“Like a way out.” I swallowed. “An ancient relic.”
Her eyes found mine. “That’s what you were doing in the library?”
“Yes.” What was the point in trying to hide it now?
“What are you looking for?”
I thought of the book and the map, likely still sitting in the library, likely drenched in blood. “It doesn’t matter.”
If I managed to get out of here, I would find it again.
But in order to do that, I had to stay alive.
I placed my palms to the lock, facing away from the guard, feeling my magic rise up to do my bidding.
Elation drowned out my fears and honed my concentration.
But just as I was about to unpick the lock, a wash of warm air flooded through the cells, and light trickled down from above.
“Get back,” whispered Mishah, her voice urgent. “Someone’s coming.”
We both stumbled back from the door of our cells as a collective of guards marched toward us down the long corridor. I recognized the Viceroy from the library, but with him was another young man with silver hair that gleamed like moonlight.
It was the fae I’d seen in the forest the first day I arrived, the one who’d saved my life.
At least he had a shirt on this time.
My eyes flicked between him and the Viceroy.
I had no idea how I ever thought the Viceroy was a clueless young scholar.
His hair was dark and slicked back, and his eyes glowed like hot coals.
He wore different clothes now; instead of a buttoned-up shirt as he’d had on in the library, he was wearing a tunic that was loose, the front exposing the top of his chest. As he walked closer, something glinted below his collarbone, and the closer he got the more I realized it wasn’t a chain around his neck as I had first thought.
It was pieces of gold embedded in his very skin.
My eyes darted up to find that he was watching me with an inscrutable gaze.
“Take the other one,” he said, waving at the guards beside him, his voice low and bored. He didn’t even glance in Mishah’s direction; his intense gaze stayed focused on me.