Chapter 38
They come at night,
They cross the water,
You shall not stop them,
They want your daughter.
—Songs of Astola, collected and compiled by Mahira Nazir
Yaseema
Kiyan carried us down from the mountain with all the energy he could muster. Which wasn’t much, considering that his body was currently purging itself of poison. If anything he looked worse than he had in the vault.
He lowered us to the ground softly, our feet pressing into the damp ground. It was now dark, but the moon provided enough light to see we were alone.
“Didn’t you order the guards to wait here?”
“Yes,” Kiyan said as he drew his sword, unsteady on his feet. His sword flagged in his hand.
“Do you want me to hold it?”
He looked at me askance. “Do you know how to wield a sword?”
“No.”
“Then no, I don’t want you to hold it.”
“I could probably do more damage than you right now,” I said, as he wavered on his feet. “You look like a strong wind would blow you over.”
“I’ll be all right in a minute,” he said, the sheen on his forehead betraying that statement. “My body will purge it soon.”
“Don’t be an idiot.” I moved to his side, propping up some of his weight as I swung an arm around his waist.
There wasn’t a fire or the chatter of soldiers. There was just silence and darkness. Until a rustle of leaves and footsteps sounded from somewhere in the forest. It grew louder, closer, the boots of dozens of soldiers.
“What . . .”
“Congratulations. You’ve finally found what you’ve been seeking.” A woman stepped out of the woods, only her bright eyes visible from under a dark mask covering half her face.
Movement caught my eye and behind her I saw dozens of peris standing in the trees around us. I was reminded of the Citadel soldiers ambushing me when I was trying to cross the River.
Except instead of the tan-colored uniform of the Citadel soldiers, they were wearing black leggings and tunics, blending in with the dark. They reminded me of the fae who had taken me from the bazaar, tall, lithe, and clad in dark clothes, impossible to distinguish them from one another.
Rebels.
Kiyan struggled to stand and I still held up some of his weight. His body fought the poison, but his eyes were sharp and they homed in on the peris surrounding us.
“It’s a pity we will be taking it from you now.”
Hands grabbed at me, pinning me down as the rebels advanced on us. Kiyan shouted at them as I was wrenched away from him, his voice hoarse.
He used his magic to bring roots from the ground, bursting up like vines, but they weren’t as powerful as the ones earlier had been, looking more like saplings instead of thick banyan roots. They managed to trip a few of the fighters and grabbed at their legs, but his power was stilted.
We had been ambushed, and they had lain in wait for us to bring back Queen Azari’s golden crown and deliver it into their waiting arms.
I lurched against the arms that held me tight.
Two cloaked figures, one thick and burly and the other one quite petite, held me despite my struggles.
Finally, I stomped one of my feet against the smaller rebel, and she yelped in response, momentarily losing hold of me.
Then I slammed my head backward, catching the other one square in the face.
He yowled and I rolled forward, weaving my way through the soldiers and dodging the rebels that came after me.
I looked over my shoulder at Kiyan. His eyes were still glazed, but he held my gaze and nodded. I took that as permission.
I ran blindly through the forest, ignoring the shouts behind me. Something inside my chest lurched at the thought of leaving Kiyan behind, but I pushed it down deep, not allowing myself to focus on anything besides getting away with the crown.
But I couldn’t outrun fae rebels who had magic at the ready.
A wall of earth rose up in front of me, and I slammed into it, momentarily stunned.
I got back to my feet and ran in a different direction, but dark shadows in the forest curled around me, grabbing my arms and pulling me back.
I whirled on my pursuers—a group of rebels had followed me, their magic, though limited, prevented me from going any farther.
I didn’t have anything to combat them with. My magic wasn’t for fighting but finding, and I had no use for that here.
“Where do you think you are going, human?” The woman from earlier stepped toward me, her arms raised. It must have been she controlling the dirt under my feet. “Running back to the palace? Not with what you’ve taken.”
I clung desperately to my pack, trying to think of a way out.
After all this, I would lose the only thing that would help my family and give my people a fighting chance.
The one opportunity I had to finish what my mother had started.
Frustration rose in my blood, fueling my anger, my rage, my power.
I closed my eyes and channeled my magic.
For what, I didn’t know. A way out? A newfound possibility I could use my power for something other than searching through an archive and unlocking a door?
Find what I need.
The threads coiled around my head and the rebels looked up at them, stunned.
Then they surrounded each fighter, winding over their bodies and circling them.
Some of the rebels screamed and tried to combat the magic with their own.
But when they saw that my threads weren’t really doing anything, they began to laugh.
“This is what you have? Some tricks with golden string?”
But my magic had given me something I didn’t expect. On each fighter, the threads pooled around a specific area of the body, collecting around ankles or shoulders or eyes. I wasn’t a fighter, but my power had given me an advantage in that.
Weaknesses.
I picked up a handful of dirt and tossed it into one fighter’s eyes where my magic had gathered.
Then I kicked the left ankle of the rebel closest to me, glowing gold with my power, and he fell to the ground howling.
I held a large rock and threw it sharply at one rebel’s shoulder, and he let out a gasp of pain.
Until the only one standing with me was the woman with the power to control the earth.
“Ah, I see the little librarian isn’t entirely useless.
But still, you’ll need more than that.” She lunged for me, and I fell backward.
She grabbed for my satchel, and I fought her, but she dug her knee into my stomach and all my breath whooshed out of me.
She ripped it off my shoulder and jumped to her feet.
“Sorry, but the last peri who deserves this crown is Reza.”
A hiss of words punctuated the air, and her face turned white in the darkness. She whirled around and I sat up, looking at who stood in the distance.
It was the Viceroy, his arms raised. They may have incapacitated the Salt soldiers who had been waiting for us, but they couldn’t raise a hand against him.
Fury painted his features, and he advanced on us.
“Give me my crown.”
His words were a sneer, and he moved closer. The woman tried to take off running, to head for the trees, but her feet tripped her up, and the Viceroy was on her in a second. He hauled her up by her hair and uttered a low incantation, a language I’d never heard before.
The woman sagged in his hold and he threw her to the dirt.
She began clawing at her skin, her hair, her face.
She must have known what was happening, because she loosed my satchel from across her chest and threw it as far as she could.
Then she fell to her knees and clutched at her chest. Her hair began turning white, her skin shriveling.
She screamed as her feet began to twist backward, and scratched at her skin as if she could stop the curse the Viceroy had put on her.
She began shouting nonsense words, trying to form sentences, but her own tongue wouldn’t let her.
The Viceroy had taken that from her.
She looked exactly like the woman who pulled me from the River.
Zulmi, Kiyan had called it.
She had no language or personhood, she was a husk, her very body representative of the violence of the Salt Court.
Another rebel picked my satchel up from the ground and the Viceroy advanced on him, his intent clear.
But the tall rebel I had run from tackled the Viceroy at the knees, knocking him to the ground.
Then the stocky fighter who had restrained me earlier took his chance, scooping up my satchel and running into the forest.
The Viceroy swore, leaping to his feet, but the trees had already closed up behind him, what little life magic the rebels had left used on the trees so that they grew thick and wild, an impenetrable wall.
The Viceroy roared and whirled on the rebel who was still with us, his eyes black and fierce. Fear burst inside my chest at his expression, at the promise of violent retribution there. He wasn’t even looking at me and I still withered under his cruel gaze.
Reza jerked forward, reaching down to touch the rebel and bestow upon him the same curse, ready to take this male’s language, youth, ability to move.
“Reza, no.”
Kiyan was there then, looking much stronger and more lucid. He strode forward, catching the Viceroy’s wrist and pulling it back.
My heart leapt to my throat, especially when Reza turned his incredulous gaze on Kiyan.
“No!” I shouted, leaping to my feet, but Kiyan met my gaze and shook his head. Terror gripped me at what the Viceroy would do to him.
The Viceroy’s eyes bugged out of his head. “You dare, dog?”
“I need to question him,” Kiyan said calmly, not flinching in the slightest. He released the Viceroy’s wrist but moved to stand in front of the rebel and me.
His brow was still coated with sweat, and it looked like he’d used up everything he had to get here. “I won’t be able to get any information from anyone else. They’re all dead or cursed. You’ve made it impossible to find out where they’ve gone.”
“Do not stop me again, or I will have you join them,” Reza said viciously, spitting on the ground and hitting Kiyan’s boots.
He then moved toward Kiyan, his face just inches away, and gripped his chin hard. He was shorter than Kiyan and had to look up slightly, which took away some of his ability to intimidate.
Where the Viceroy was almost gaunt, Kiyan had a lithe athleticism that made the Viceroy holding his face in anger look ridiculous. Kiyan looked as if he could have killed him in a heartbeat.
But the crown in his chest gleamed, a visible reminder of the power Reza had.
Kiyan watched him so calmly it was as if he were a frozen lake, completely still. Only because I was close to them did I see the way Kiyan’s eyes flickered down to the King’s golden crown fused to his chest, the Viceroy’s skin like drippings of wax around a brass candelabra set in his sternum.
“Find me that crown.” He shoved Kiyan’s face away from him and then shot me a disgusted look. “If you don’t, you will be the next one I curse. And perhaps her.”
My breath stuttered in my chest at his attention on me. Then he walked away, leaving me and Kiyan in the forest with the remaining rebels.
Kiyan tied the hands of the uncursed rebel and dragged him to his feet, even though he looked like he was going to collapse at any moment.
“All that work for nothing,” he commented, looking more exhausted than angry. “Come, we need to head back.”
I stared at the cursed rebel on the ground. “What will happen to her?”
“Salt soldiers will collect her. The Viceroy executes those he curses in the square if they’re lucky. Otherwise, the zulmi wander the countryside begging for scraps.”
I thought of the woman who stood at the River.
“How do they live?”
“There are peris in the city that take care of them as best they can. But no one can understand them or recognize them. That is Reza’s power—to take from you who you are.”
His words were bitter, and he strode away, back toward the Viceroy and soldiers.
All that work for nothing. I assumed he was talking about how much trouble we’d gone to in order to find the crown, only for it to be stolen in the satchel the rebels had carried off with them.
When I had made sure none of the soldiers were around me, I slipped my hand into the pocket of my skirt.
They brushed against the filigreed gold dagger I’d taken and slid into the hidden lining there and finally, the delicate gold circlet, complete with an ornate tikka.
Queen Azari’s crown was there, nestled safely against my leg.