I had never seen the sea before, and it felt dangerous in a way I couldn’t describe. Bigger than I would ever be. I had been so certain that nothing in the world could be more endless than the grasslands, until I saw those waves, rippling into eternity. A million shades of blue, each one deeper and darker.
The closer we get to Karekemish, the more impossible it becomes to sleep. The air is heavy and thick and revolting, and I sweat all night, my Kalima power still too depleted to summon cooling drafts. Though, I wouldn’t be able to sleep in the heart of a blizzard with the way my thoughts are racing. My panic escalates every day as I think of Sagaan. Of the Zemyans, sinking their claws deeper into my country, now that there’s nothing and no one to hold them back.
We have no king, the Kalima will have retreated to the rendezvous point in the northern steppes to regroup, and our troops at the battlefront were undoubtedly obliterated when the Zemyans cut their way through to Sagaan.
I imagine the seven sectors of the capital in flames, burning like the Sky Palace. All the beautiful architecture, destroyed. Thousands of years of progress, lost. I picture the people scrambling down the streets like rats before a cat, screaming for help—for warriors who will never come.
And what will become of the Protected Territories? How long will it take for the Zemyans to reach them? I want to believe our remaining troops will stand their ground and guard our holdings, but when I close my eyes, I see them abandoning their posts and fleeing into the night. There’s nothing keeping them there without the king to answer to.
Without me to lead them.
Thankfully, I won’t have to witness any of it. I’ll be long dead.
Perhaps the Kalima did me a favor after all.
We reach Karekemish a week later, and it’s nothing like I remember.
When we invaded the Zemyan capital three years ago, I galloped past houses that were nothing more than hovels made of mud and hay. Rudimentary wells had been dug right into the center of the streets, causing massive amounts of flooding. Sad little boats were tipped over on every rocky stretch of beach, and it reeked of fish and sewage. And the people! They looked like the clear white sand scorpions that only emerge in the desert at night.
Now I gape up at towering copper gates. They are as high as any wall in Sagaan and just as beautiful—the copper as green as the sea beyond, the bars formed of sculpted serpents and tiny spiral seashells. Starfish and long, swirling plants crown the top.
Inside the city, the houses are definitely not made of mud and hay. They may be brown, but they’re tall and sturdy, with wraparound balconies, windows made of sea glass, and shining abalone roofs. The roads are paved not with cobbles, but an endless slab of sandstone that’s so smooth, the wagon feels as if it’s floating.
The Zemyans have clearly rebuilt.
Except barbarians could never accomplish all of this so quickly.
“Impressed, Commander?”
I lurch back from the window, and the Zemyan sorcerer laughs. He leers at me through the bars, so close that I choke on the sour tang of his breath.
The deeper we wind into the city, the more the wagon slows. Crowds of Zemyans in golden finery pour from their homes to point and shout. Shrill horns blare and hands pound the wagon’s walls like thunder. As if this is a monumental occasion. As if I’m someone important.
The irony isn’t lost on me.
My enemies revere me more than my own warriors.
The sun creeps higher and the heat intensifies. I feel like I’m baking inside this blasted box as we plod down the long, thin peninsula. The glaring light shining off the water is so bright, I don’t see Empress Danashti’s palace, rising out of the sea, until we come to a halt in front of it.
It’s the opposite of the Sky Palace in every way.
Where the Sky Palace is dazzling white marble, reaching up into the clouds, Empress Danashti’s palace is one sprawling level made from black coral that juts and twists into strange, porous shapes.
I would never call it pretty. This entire country is harsh and austere—devoid of the lush grass, sparkling snow, and tall, spired buildings that make Ashkar beautiful—but it’s also not the slum that lives in my memory.
The lock on the wagon doors clanks and harsh sunlight fills the compartment, making it easy for the Zemyans to clamp manacles around my wrists and shove me from the wagon while I squint.
I hit the ground like a flopping fish and the crowd roars louder.
The sticky heat is even more oppressive out here. If my icy core had begun to refreeze, it’s a puddle beneath my armor now. Seeping from my skin in buckets of sweat.
“We’ve brought a gift for the empress!” my captor bellows.
The throng roars, and heralds with long, strange trumpets turn toward the palace. Their music is low and rumbling, buzzing the marrow in my bones, and they do not stop until a water chariot appears from the far side of the coral palace. The chariot is shaped like a cup, with fanning grooves like a seashell, and it’s pulled by a team of porpoises. A cluster of people stand inside, but my eyes go immediately to the woman at the front: an enemy I have only seen from across the battlefield.
Empress Danashti is somehow more imposing and more unremarkable up close. I’ve only ever seen her mounted on her warhorse, and she’s much smaller than I realized. Hardly larger than a child. Her features are blunt and unrefined. Dark brows frame her bone-white face and silver-white hair billows behind her like the foam churning from her chariot. She looks too soft and too hard. Too plain and too beautiful to be the ruthless leader of these magic-wielding demons.
The gathered crowd falls onto their faces as she lifts her gauzy skirt and steps onto the sand. It’s so quiet, I can hear the jangle of her silver anklets. My captor extends his cape and performs a sweeping, melodramatic bow that would get him laughed out of the Sky Palace. The other Zemyan soldiers do the same.
“Your Most Noble Excellency,” he says in Ashkarian, wanting me to understand. I’ve refused to debase myself by learning their barbaric language.
The ruler of Zemya glances at me and responds in Ashkarian as well, her voice heavily accented. “What have you brought me now, Kartok? You know gifts are unnecessary—you’re already Generál Supreme.”
“I assure you, my empress, you’ll want this gift.” He grabs me by the collar, twisting a chunk of my hair in his fist. I yelp as he throws me at the empress’s feet. Coarse black sand sticks to my lips and cheeks. “The Sky King is dead. And I’ve captured the commander of the Kalima warriors.”
Danashti peers down at me with a cocked brow. I’m a filthy, bloodstained mess. I don’t look like a commander. I don’t even look like a warrior. But an exultant smile breaks across her face. “A very desirable gift, indeed. You’ve outdone yourself, Kartok.”
“Which is always my aim, Your Excellence.”
Empress Danashti swivels to address the crowd, points at me, and switches to Zemyan. She doesn’t shout, but somehow her voice carries. I only understand a handful of words: Sky King. Dead. Captured. Commander.
The crowd roars with riotous approval.
Empress Danashti speaks again, and I surmise her question based on the mobs’ ferocious answer.
“Kill her!” they scream.
I swallow hard but jut my chin. Refusing to cower.
Empress Danashti waits for her people to settle, then she turns to me and switches back to Ashkarian. “A wise suggestion. But I, being the magnanimous ruler that I am—as different from your grasping king as the ocean is the sky—have another offer, Commander. Admit defeat, proclaim your disgrace before my people, swear allegiance to Zemya, and help us dismantle your empire. Then I will spare your—”
“I’d rather die,” I growl before she’s finished.
Empress Danashti nods. “And so you shall. But not until we’ve wrung every drop of usefulness from your carcass. You may take her to your laboratory, Generál Supreme.”
Kartok flings himself into another ridiculous bow, but before he
can rise, one of the men standing behind the empress steps forward. I’d assumed they were all guards and servants. Most are wearing plain smocks or sea-green uniforms. But this man wears an ocean-blue suit embellished with silver braids, and a wreath of sea grass rests atop his ash-white hair—similar to the one the empress wears. He isn’t handsome—nothing that so closely resembles a night-crawling worm could be attractive—but the Zemyan girls hoot and call his name: Ivandar. Along with another word: Prince.
He touches his mother’s arm and murmurs something in Zemyan.
The empress whirls on him, staring at his hand on her sleeve.
He doesn’t let go. “Please.”
That’s a word I know well from interrogating hundreds of Zemyan prisoners.
Danashti barks something at him and points to the water chariot. He scowls but stomps in that direction like a pouting child, though he must be as old as I am. The empress follows. Kartok kicks my backside and forces me to crawl after them on my hands and knees.
The Zemyan throng crows with delight. Every time I attempt to stand, Kartok knocks me down again. I drag myself through the rough sand and broken shells, leaving a trail of blood.
He shoves me into the belly of the water chariot and steps in behind me, purposely grinding his boots on my fingers as we skim toward the coral palace.
The ride is short, and no one says a word.
The moment we dock on the opposite side of the palace, away from the crowd, Kartok grabs my manacles, hefts me onto the landing, and drags me toward a door hidden in the protrusions of coral.
The prince is right on our heels, shouting and gesticulating. He’s speaking too quickly for me to pick out many words, but again, only a few are necessary. “Enemy. Suspicion. Plans.”
They’re arguing over who gets the pleasure of torturing me. How nice.
Kartok growls something over his shoulder. The prince tosses his hands and turns to his mother. Empress Danashti looks between the men for a silent minute before nodding at Kartok.
With a smug grin, the Zemyan general propels me through the hidden door. I can still hear the prince shouting after it bangs shut. Muttering under his breath, Kartok yanks me down a narrow staircase, though I don’t understand how we’re descending. As far as I could see, there’s nothing below the palace but water, which is bad news for me.
I can’t swim.
No Ashkarian can. There’s no need and nowhere to learn; the Amereti is the only river, and it barely reaches my hips.
My heart drums and my breaths rasp when the stairs empty into a room surrounded entirely by water. Nothing but flimsy walls of glass to hold back the crashing, crushing blue. Water doesn’t appear to be seeping in through the walls, but I still hunch inward and step carefully, listening for a crack. A drip.
“Afraid of the water, Commander?” Kartok asks with a chuckle. “I’ll remember that.” An invisible door slides open and he motions me down an even smaller, more suffocating tunnel. I trip through it as fast as my bonds allow and gasp when I emerge on the other end.
It’s worse than a prison cell or even another room of glass.
I am standing in the center of the throne room at the Sky Palace.
I gape down the long, vaulted hall. Shake my head at the gradient blue walls and hand-painted clouds. Run a finger along the empty golden throne, and shudder beneath the face molds of our country’s greatest warriors, dangling from the ceiling on invisible strings. I always used to think the masks looked down on me with pride. Kinship. Inviting me to one day join their ranks.
Now their eyes are slitted with condemnation. Snarling with hatred.
You failed the Sky King.
I lean over and vomit.
“You don’t like it?” Kartok pouts. “But I made it especially for you. I want you to be comfortable.”
“Get your poisonous magic out of my head!” I roar. “Where am I really? What is this place?”
There are no cells. No bars of any kind. No hot pokers or instruments of torture. The lack of anything expected makes my skin prickle with unease.
None of this is possible. None of this is right.
I whirl around and dive behind a cluster of chairs where the Council of Elders usually sits. I know furniture won’t shield me from Kartok’s illusions, since the chairs themselves are an illusion, but I don’t know what else to do, so I let my instincts and training take over. Find cover, make a plan, counterattack.
The manacles make it difficult, but I twist my hands around the side of my body and curl my fingers into a fist. Under normal circumstances, my ice would chisel a saber into existence as soon as I imagined it. But the glacier that usually resides in my chest is still the size of a pebble. Sweat slathers my skin as I extract drop after pitiful drop of cold.
I shouldn’t have bothered.
The dagger that eventually crystalizes in my hand is the size of a paring knife. And so dull it could barely slice through butter. I throw it at Kartok’s head anyway, screaming with frustration.
It flies true—my aim, at least, unaffected by my depleted power—but instead of slamming into his chest, the dagger passes through him. Or maybe it disappeared altogether. I can’t tell. All I know is, it’s gone. Without a sound or trace of blood.
Kartok should be screaming in agony, but the only cry in this eerie replica of the throne room comes from me.
And it sounds like a whimper.
CHAPTER TEN
ENEBISH
ZIVA RETURNS TO THE CARAVAN WEARING A TRIUMPHANT smile. “They’ve agreed to give us shelter!”
The Namagaan woman following her looks considerably less pleased. Though, I don’t know if that’s due to the harsh black makeup she’s wearing across both brows, making her look eternally perturbed, or the explosion of cheers and shouts from the shepherds, who raise their hands and collapse into tearful hugs.
My lips pull into a frown because this is not how a group of people who would make formidable allies should react. The Namagaan woman takes note. She’s clearly a soldier—tall and muscular in her wood-plated armor, topped with an orange cloak covered in jeweled emblems. Her yellow hair falls in long tufted strands that look like cattails—the traditional Namagaan style—and her skin is as rough and lined as the trees they live in. All Namagaans look as craggy as bark, no matter their age. It’s beautiful in a hard, intimidating way.
Her eyes flick over our motley group. “So many of you. How lovely,” she says, but her teeth grind the words. “Follow me.”
Another root pathway rises out of the muck and she leads us to one of the behemoth trees. She presses her palm to the trunk, and a panel slides open, revealing a spiral staircase that twists up to the canopy. The shepherds rush in like floodwater and race to the top, dripping all the way. My bad leg slips and twists painfully on the wet stairs.
By the time I finally reach the platform, the Namagaan warrior has been joined by a sizeable contingent of soldiers, all of whom study us with thinly veiled contempt. They haven’t brandished weapons, but their fingers hover at the ready.
Our group is so large, we fill the entire platform and spill down several of the interconnecting rope bridges. Serik is on the opposite side of the crowd, and when his gaze finds mine, I try to muster an encouraging grin. Though, it’s difficult to look past the squawking shepherds and bleating animals and the soldiers’ deepening scowls. The tension is as thick as the muggy swamp air.
When someone screams, I’m certain the Namagaan soldiers have lost their patience and are tossing us over the rope railings, but then a golden-skinned woman from my own country shoves through the crowd and flies across the platform.
“Zivana?”
“Auntie!” Ziva melts to the boards, reminding me, suddenly, that she’s only thirteen. It makes my insides squirm. Perhaps I’ve been slightly hard on the girl.
The woman throws her arms around Ziva and they collapse into a tangle of limbs, laughing and crying as she smooths the curls away from Ziva’s face. I can’t bear to watc
h. Because that’s how familial love should look. That is the bond an aunt or mother or sister should share. Unbridled tenderness. Complete trust. They would never betray each other.
“What in the skies happened?” Ziva’s aunt asks. I’d place her somewhere near Ghoa’s age, though it’s hard to tell, as her face has been painted to look as rough as the Namagaans’. It’s strange to see someone from Verdenet dressed in the style of the marsh people—her dark hair bound like reeds, thick black makeup joining her brows, and a vibrant crimson dress that wraps and ties across her middle.
I try to imagine being sent to live in an entirely different country, so foreign from your own. A moment passes before I realize that’s exactly what I did. I learned to live in Ashkar. Learned to dress and speak and fight like them, almost to the point of forgetting my roots. I wonder if it’s the same for Ziva’s aunt. If she considers herself fully Namagaan now. Or if she misses Verdenet and cares what becomes of it. Does she even know her brother’s been removed from the throne? King Minoak has only been a figurehead since relinquishing his sovereignty twenty years ago when Verdenet became a Protected Territory. But he was at least allowed to keep up pretenses and tradition. Until now.
“We were attacked!” Ziva’s voice wobbles and she speaks in fast, gasping breaths. “An assassin tried to kill Papa. We escaped the palace, but he was gravely injured. I tried to dress his wounds and nurse him to health, but we were alone in the desert without food or supplies. That’s why I started stealing them from these people. They’re refugees from Ashkar, and they were kind enough to help us. We couldn’t return to Verdenet because an imperial governor has taken the city.”
Tears are running down the woman’s face, smearing her makeup, and she fans herself with her hand. A long moment passes before she can speak. “My brave girl. And my poor brother. You did the right thing, coming here.”
Sky Breaker (Night Spinner Duology) Page 10