Chapter 27
I wrote to my cousin, but I’m sure Salt is blocking all messages out of our Court.
I’ve been sleeping in the city, in doorways like a hearth sprite, growing food with my limited magic.
They haven’t found me yet, and I’m going to use that to my advantage.
If they don’t know who I am, they won’t know when I’m coming for them.
—Letter from Kiyan to his family, unsent
Kiyan
She disappeared into the belly of the dead beast I’d created, and everything I’d worked for turned to ash.
Reza screamed as my creature consumed him, but the moment Yaseema dove into my dead halmasti it spat him back out again. Even so, part of his leg came away black and rotted.
The map was still around his neck, unscathed.
What was she thinking?
She hadn’t thought. She had simply acted, and I doubted her weak human form could withstand the rotting creature I’d made. The death cycle had likely already eaten her alive.
Bile rose in my throat, and I had the sudden urge to throw up in the middle of the dance floor. Rage and horror consumed me—and inexplicably, sorrow.
The Viceroy’s soldiers rushed at my death beast, but there was nothing they could do.
The girl was already dead.
I curled my fists into my side, almost letting go of the hold I had on the creature.
But no sooner had I thought it than a spark seemed to ignite inside the beast, growing steadily until it had completely burst into flame. Screams sounded around us, even more panicked than when it had chased half of the River Court through the Salt festival.
Because now it was a screeching, dead, rotted thing on fire.
The Salt soldiers stopped battling it and instead began to retreat.
And I saw her, in the middle of the flames, as if they burned around her, for her, and did not consume her.
She was flailing, moving, trying to get out.
I ran.
I didn’t think or question it.
I had made this creature and now was responsible for this human girl burning alive. I thought of her soft voice as she spoke to the golden threads of her magic, the wild storm of her hair, that odd jewelry that sat atop her nose. Those dark eyes, staring up at me.
She didn’t deserve to get dragged into my nightmare too.
I dove into the burning creature, commanding the pieces of death to fall away, to lose shape, to come undone.
It obeyed.
Around me the burning logs and body parts collapsed, the fire receding into a smoldering flame.
And unfathomably, the girl lay in the middle of the pile of embers, unharmed.
Her eyes were closed, her body curled up into a tight ball, as if to escape the flames. Her clothes were burnt off, with thin shreds of blackened fabric remaining, crisscrossing her body. Only her two gold bangles remained on one arm.
I reached for her, and she flinched violently when my hand grazed her sweltering skin. A relieved breath tore through me—a sign at least that she was still alive.
I unclipped my cloak and pulled it off, draping her in the thick indigo fabric.
“You’re safe,” I said, as softly as I could, wrapping the coat around her and lifting her into my arms.
“Fetch a healer!” I shouted at the Salt soldiers who stood around me, gaping.
One of my own guards appeared at my side and I nodded to him. “Find the palace healer, then fetch cold water and towels to her room immediately.”
I tucked her against my chest, ensuring my cloak covered her. I didn’t want to hurt her further and risk touching any skin that was burned, though from what little I saw of her body was unblemished.
It was remarkable there were no burns marring her dark skin.
How was that possible?
Reza lay on the edge of the pile of dead burnt things, clutching his leg in pain as I carried Yaseema out against my chest. His lip was curled and his eyes blazed.
“This is the work of the rebels, boy. They tried to kill me!” He pointed to his blackened leg.
“And she saved your life,” I snarled back at him.
He blinked at me, momentarily stunned I’d addressed him that way.
I was stunned as well.
But this time my anger couldn’t be contained; it roared up in my chest like the rotting beast I’d set loose in the palace.
Except now I was the rotted thing, the dark, snarling creature ready to kill him.
My plan had been to finally try to kill Reza, but instead I’d hurt someone who didn’t deserve to be hurt.
For the first time, my rage was all for myself.
“She needs a healer.” I strode away from Reza before I could react any further, before I could completely destroy any advantage I had in this Court by being a fool.
I took the stairs two at a time, running her back to her room. My guards were already in the room by the time I got there, as was Mishah from the kitchens.
I placed her on the bed, my cloak still wrapped around her.
Her eyelids fluttered, causing something to ease in my chest.
She wasn’t dead.
Her condition seemed unfathomable. She’d been trapped in a burning inferno, and by all accounts she should be in agony, her skin burnt and black like Reza’s leg.
But my cloak slipped down one of her shoulders and the brown curve of it was unharmed. I touched my fingertips to the exposed skin, not believing my eyes. It was soft and cool—no sign of any trauma or wound.
She’d walked into my death beast and set it on fire without a single injury.
It had to be connected to her magic somehow. My eyes skimmed her figure, alighting on the thick bangles at her wrist. I’d returned these to her with the rest of her things, only taking Queen Azari’s haath phool from her. But perhaps I should’ve taken a closer look at these.
As I bent to examine them, Badrah, the palace healer, burst into the room in a flurry of activity.
“Captain! I was with the Viceroy. His leg needed to be repaired, the skin regrown,” Badrah said, looking harried. Her duties usually involved tending to Salt soldiers’ injuries from skirmishes with rebels in the city.
“Were you able to help him?”
“I think so, especially after experimenting on the Salt soldier that had been injured by the last rebel creature in the palace. I’ve managed to reverse whatever blight is causing this. Was she hit by it?”
I shook my head, looking down at Yaseema, whose eyelids stayed firmly shut. Even her hair remained as wild as before, though I noted one side of it had been burned by the fire.
“No, she doesn’t appear to be. But she was inside the beast when it lit on fire.”
When she ignited it.
It had to have been her; she was the only anomaly here. The Salt soldiers didn’t know how to fight my creatures, and neither did Reza. He had tried to pull magic and use King Rusul’s crown when he’d first approached it, using his powers from the Court of Salt and the crown to unmake it.
I wondered if he would succeed—he was able to weaken it, like he had weakened all the life magic in our Court.
But he couldn’t overcome the beast. It had fought back, had been able to resist his power. I needed to examine what that meant later, because if I were able to raise a hand against him using death magic, that meant we had a way to take our Court back.
Without the crown, and without my family locked in Tirich Mir.
Yaseema let out a whimper, and my gaze swung back to her as she reached up and wrapped her arms over her face.
For some reason I didn’t want to examine, my heart gave a lurch to see her waking up.
At her movement my cloak slipped from her shoulders and slid down her torso.
Badrah bent down to examine her, whisking the rest of my cloak off her body.
I whirled around, realizing belatedly that she was naked.
Ramishah, the kitchen girl, shot me a look as if to say, what are you still doing here? and I looked away from her.
But something in me didn’t want to leave.
You just want to know how she killed it. That’s all.
But if Reza was now healed, he was likely spitting mad about the rebel attack and needed to be calmed down.
“I’ll leave her to your ministrations,” I said to Badrah, nodding at the kitchen girl before stepping out of Yaseema’s room and closing the door behind me.
But even though I had closed the door on her, and even though she seemed unharmed, I couldn’t block out the image of her inside the beast I’d made, burning it down.
* * *
I returned to the great hall, which had been cleared of everyone, but tables were still upturned and food scattered across the floor.
The decorations from the festival were strewn about the room, with intricate curling vines torn in half from the mad stampede caused by the creature.
I bent down to examine the remnants of the beast, trying to glean some understanding of how this could have happened.
What had she done to burn it to cinders?
Something gold glinted in the pile of rot and ash, and I reached for it, pinching my fingers around the slender jewelry. It was the golden frame that the human used to see through, but now the glass was broken, the arms twisted, the object not fit for its purpose any longer.
Still, I picked it up and tucked it in my pocket before standing again.
“Where have you been?” His voice was sharp in the destroyed room.
I turned to find Reza standing a few feet behind me, Salt soldiers flanking him.
“Sir,” I gave a clipped bow. “I was just about to—”
“Save it,” he snapped and shot his arm out, grabbing me by the shoulder.
I shouldn’t have been shocked, because I knew it was coming.
Reza only touched you when he wanted to hear you scream.
But he wouldn’t get that satisfaction from me.
He lit my blood on fire when his poison filled my veins and I fell to my knees with a heavy grunt.
The stamp of his magic would be emblazoned across my skin, and I could already feel the burn forming as soon as he touched me.
It was the mark of the Salt Court. Having that mark was the real torture; this pain I could endure.
His punishment lasted a full minute, until I was gasping on the floor, my palms slick with sweat, acid rising to my throat as my body rebelled against me.
I’d survived his torture before. I would survive this too.
He needed me too much to kill me now.
When he lifted his hand from my neck, I released a shudder, a small moan escaping my lips. The only sound of pain he would hear from me.
I waited a minute. Two.
Reza was ranting about something, but my awareness was fluttering in and out as my body processed the aftershocks of the pain. Eventually, I climbed to my feet and stood, facing him once more.
“You’re getting weak,” he spat. I didn’t respond, only inclined my head.
“My apologies for the breach in security. It won’t happen again.”
It would.
“Twice, they’ve managed to enter my palace, Kiyan! And this one managed to touch me. You’re lucky I didn’t rip your magic from you and turn you into one of those blithering fools you love so much.”
My guards standing behind Reza shifted uneasily. Removing my magic and turning me into a zulmi—the peris in River that Reza fully drained of their power, along with their youth, language, and identity—was no small threat.
But it wasn’t worth the battle now. And if Reza had actually tried to drain me of life and magic, I would be ready.
“Sir, it is imperative we leave to find Queen Azari’s crown.” I nearly winced as I said the words. I didn’t want Reza to get his hands on the crown, as that would solidify his power.
But finding it might be our only chance to unseat him.
Reza nodded, my earlier transgressions forgotten as his fickle attention was focused on something else.
“Yes. Where is the girl?”
“Recovering. I brought her a healer. We should leave as soon as she wakes.”
“I want that crown, and then I want every single rebel in this forsaken Court executed.” He spat the words, even the soldiers behind him flinching. I was surprised that we had gotten away with so little loss of life considering he had been injured.
Reza whirled away at my nod.
Then I closed my eyes, not wanting to watch him walk from the courtyard, not wanting to look at him any more than was necessary. The Salt soldiers and my guards dispersed as I headed to my own room, shutting the door behind me and leaning back against it, slowly sliding to the floor.
My hands shook as I lifted my shirt to examine the product of his latest torture. The fabric of my tunic was damp with sweat, and I exhaled slowly to steady my breath.
My fingers curled around the new scar that had formed on my torso, red and raw, layered atop the other ones, standing out like a woven river of pain across my skin.
The red scorpion curled up my side this time, the stinger arcing across my chest.
It was a bigger mark, as usually the length of Reza’s torture determined the size. The first time he’d done it, I tried to burn the mark off, charring my skin.
I still had the burn scar, but somehow the outline of the scorpion had stayed.
There was no way to remove the stamp of Reza’s magic from my body, the reminder that he held power over me.
But now, I didn’t want to remove them.
I wanted to look in the mirror every day and see a reminder of the scars he left, a reminder of the violence that had to be done to rid myself of him.