As we moved deeper into the city, we passed men and women fleeing in various states of undress. One man appeared to be wearing a nightgown and was towing a heavily burdened yak behind him. Two shoeless women ran by, one almost colliding with Lusha. Dragons flapped around them in a chittering whirl of alarm.
“Where are the soldiers?” I said, between coughs. The smoke was strangely sharp—it stuck in my throat like brambles. Just as I spoke, though, I saw them: three soldiers in an empty square who seemed to be fighting the darkness. As Lusha and I watched, a witch swirled out of the shadow and wrapped his arms around the closest soldier’s throat. Another fired an arrow that struck the witch in the side, and he fell to the ground, writhing. But another witch appeared and, with a gesture, summoned a gust of wind that slammed the soldier into a wall. He slid to the ground and lay unmoving.
Lusha pulled me down an alley before the witches saw us. We emerged across from what was clearly a tavern frequented by traveling merchants. Several abandoned yaks stood tethered outside, grunting and straining at their ties.
Pausing, I drew the obsidian dagger from my pocket and slashed it through the yaks’ tethers. The beasts huffed, startled, and then they turned and thundered down the street.
“We don’t have time,” Lusha snapped, grabbing my arm again. “Come on.”
But before I could move, the tavern burst into flame.
I didn’t see the witch who lit it. There was only a stirring in the darkness, and then the creature was gone, off to wreak havoc somewhere else. Embers leaped into the street, singeing my chuba. One landed just below my eye, and I gasped. The searing pain didn’t fade even after I brushed the ember away with my sleeve.
The house behind us went up, screams echoing within. Lusha stood frozen, stunned, as plumes of fire rained down. I grabbed her and hauled her out of the way as the gate plunged toward us, the iron burning as easily as kindling.
“Kamzin!”
I whirled. A small group ran toward us, dressed in shamans’ robes. Except for one, a tall, lean figure in the chuba of a nobleman.
It was Tem.
He rang one of the kinnika—it sang out with a cold, high tone. He shouted an incantation, and the house went out as suddenly as it had ignited.
Tem gripped my arms. He had the bell that Mara had given us, which he had attached to the string of kinnika around his neck. His face was pale, but he was alive and unhurt. Two of the shamans he was with paused before the tavern and began chanting an incantation. The flames sputtered but did not die.
“Are you hurt?” Tem demanded. “I heard about what happened in the hall—at least, parts of it. No one is certain what’s going on—except for the obvious, of course. The witches want to burn the city to the ground.”
I shook my head, stunned. Tem stepped back and rang the kinnika again. His tall frame was briefly silhouetted against the shadowed orange glow—he seemed, to my eyes, to have grown a foot, and his chuba whipped about him in the wind, churned up by the hungry flames. The tavern was extinguished—all of it, down to the last ember. It smoked lightly, as if the flames had been extinguished hours ago.
I stared at him. Tem turned back to me.
“My theory was correct,” he said in his thoughtful, familiar voice. “When paired with a fire incantation, the bell has the power to counteract the witches’ fire, including some of its aftereffects—”
I grabbed him and pulled him close. His arms wrapped around me as if instinctively. I noticed, not for the first time, how good it felt to be in Tem’s arms.
He pulled back, touching my face where the ember had burned me. “You are hurt.” It was almost accusing.
“I’m fine,” I said, but Tem was already reaching for one of the bone kinnika and murmuring a healing incantation. The pain faded to a twinge.
One of the shamans shouted something, gesturing at Tem.
“Kamzin—I have to go,” he said. “We’re trying to put out as many fires as possible.”
I held on to him for one more second. I didn’t want to let go—I didn’t want him anywhere near these ghoulish fires, or the witches who had set them. Tem should be at my side. Anything else was wrong.
I set my jaw, forced myself to step back. “Go.”
Tem nodded. Then he was gone, charging back into the smoke and the dusky light that filled the street.
“We’re almost there,” Lusha said, motioning me on. We ran past a temple, as yet untouched by the fire, then came to a towering stone edifice set into the peak of another hill, several stories of pillars and luxurious balconies. Flowering ivy crept over the rails, and in contrast to the stark purity of the emperor’s palace, the pillars of this building were painted in vivid reds and golds. I didn’t need to ask if Lusha was certain—this was precisely the sort of place I would have expected the pampered shamans of the Three Cities to reside. A grand staircase of white stone loomed before us. It wasn’t even the main entrance, for this was an alley.
Lusha led me up the steps, which zagged sharply around a knuckle of rock. There we both halted, for standing in our path was a tall, thin figure dressed in a ragged chuba.
“Well,” Esha said, his voice quiet as the shadows fell away from him. “You two look familiar.”
For a heartbeat, horror froze my limbs. The city below was a tumult of orange and red and darkness, and for a moment, it felt as if the three of us hovered above it all, suspended in midair.
I raised my shaking hands to unleash the star’s light.
But before I could, shadow spilled from Esha’s hands, quick as lightning, and Lusha and I were engulfed in roiling darkness. I felt it pulling at me, tugging my body this way and that. It was like being buffeted by an intense wind, only the wind had claws and ghostly fists. I flung a hand out instinctively, and light flickered. I concentrated, trying to push the star’s light farther, to force the darkness back, but before I could feel any noticeable effect, the shadows rolled away.
Esha stood unmoving, regarding me with anger and calculation. There were other witches here too, circling at a distance.
Lusha.
She lay against the steps, her arm splayed at an odd angle. Esha’s magic had flung her backward.
“Lusha!” I fell to my knees, turning her toward me. Her eyes were closed, her face pale. Her arm was broken, clearly. Had she hit her head?
The witches circled, claws clicking on the stone, feathery wings rustling the air. The shadows ebbed and flowed and the wind was laced with ash. Yet all this was mere distraction, as I passed my hand over Lusha’s body, searching for wounds, broken bones. Apart from the arm, there was nothing, save a tiny trickle of blood from her mouth. “Lusha.” I shook her. Then again, harder.
“The shadows have no effect on you,” Esha said. “Let’s see if this will.”
I looked up. Above me on the steps crouched a monstrous red-toothed bear, snarling and growling. It bared its teeth, which were dark with blood. We weren’t the first humans the witch had encountered tonight.
It didn’t matter. The only thing that mattered was that Lusha wasn’t moving, wasn’t breathing. Even Esha, brimming with magic, couldn’t frighten me now.
But Esha had done this. I turned to him, my eyes narrowing with something colder than hatred, more fundamental than rage. He wore that odd expression that was not quite a smile, the corner of his mouth upturned in a way that reminded me of River. But River’s eyes had never held the malice Esha’s did.
“You’re a child,” Esha murmured. “You’ve involved yourself in something that has nothing to do with you. You should never have come here.”
At that, I felt a tremor of déjà vu. River had spoken that same sentence when we stood on the peak of Raksha. I felt again the anger and frustration of that moment, the feeling that I was challenging not only the witches, but a conflict as ancient and unyielding as a mountain peak. But Esha was wrong—this had everything to do with me. And I had battled mountains before, and won. Esha, standing before me, would destroy everything th
at I cared about. In a way, he already had. The memory of Raksha melded with my despair to form something white-hot and painfully sharp. With an incoherent cry, I raised my hands, picturing the light soaring from my fingertips like arrows—not at the bear, which drew ever nearer, ready to spring.
At Esha.
Screams rent the air. Even as they did, I summoned more light. Fallen stars convey power over death, Lusha had said. Not only the power to raise the dead, but the power to kill. Could I summon that power?
More, I urged. More.
The screams faded. But even then, I didn’t stop. More. The starlight spilled from my fingertips, pale as bone and bright as a hundred suns, beautiful but deadly, painful. I experienced the pain only distantly. I was shielded from most of it—I felt only a throbbing behind my eyes, like snow blindness. The light enveloped everything in its path.
When finally I collapsed, and the light flickered and died, the witches were gone. All but two—the bear lay on the steps only a few feet away, as motionless as Lusha. And on the stairs below lay Esha, his eyes open and unseeing.
There came a cry—two witches in the form of choughs circled the stairs. The birds wheeled once around Esha’s body, then fled.
“Lusha,” I whispered. Her face was too pale. When I pressed my hand to her throat, I didn’t feel the blood moving. But that couldn’t be right. Lusha was unstoppable. She could climb mountains and track fallen stars and bend even an emperor to her will.
I shook her again as tears spilled down my cheeks. “Lusha. Lusha.”
Thirty-Two
LUSHA WAS COLD.
Her hand in mine had cooled some time ago—I couldn’t say when. I didn’t know how long I had been sitting there with her head cradled in my lap. My legs were stiff, and I was shivering. I felt it distantly, along with the tears drying on my cheeks. Everything was distant, unimportant.
The fires still raged, though it seemed as if some had burned themselves out. Fire burned, shouts sounded in the distance, and no one came. Not River. Not Tem. Not the emperor or his soldiers. We were alone.
Except for Azar-at.
The fire demon had appeared shortly after the witches vanished, hovering at the edge of my sight. At first, I had ignored it. But as time passed, I found that increasingly difficult.
“What do you want?” I said finally. My voice was a croak. It too seemed to come from somewhere outside myself.
Why do you mourn, Kamzin? it said. Mourning will not help the dead.
I felt the word like an iron hand gripping my throat. “Nothing can help this.”
I can help. I have helped.
I let out a humorless laugh. “How? What have you done for me?”
Heal your familiar, fight the fiangul, the creature recited. Understand River. Take you to the emperor. All that you have asked, I have done. I can give you what you want.
I felt cold, as cold as Lusha. “How do you know what I want?”
You want to keep friends safe, Azar-at said. Friends are hurt. I will help, if you ask.
“You can’t.” Another tear slid down my face. I had thought my tears were exhausted. I felt as if I were arguing with the wind, with as little hope for success. “No one can. Not Tem. Not the star. No one.”
I will help, if you ask.
“Ask what?” I made a disbelieving sound. “To bring Lusha back?”
As I did before.
“With Ragtooth? He wasn’t dead.” It tasted like a word in another language. Dead. Lusha was dead.
I gazed at the creature. Its fur seemed more solid, somehow, than it had in the past, its paws larger. But then, that was Azar-at—the fire demon seemed to have no specific form, only a rough idea of one. But its eyes never changed, glowing like embers roused by the wind.
I remembered Tem’s words after Aimo’s death. Whatever it’s offering, it isn’t life. The star could bring people back too—but I had seen the result of that. They came back twisted and wrong.
“I would give anything,” I said, my voice uneven, “for Lusha. If it were possible. But it isn’t.”
My magic is beyond the star’s magic, Azar-at said. Beyond human magic. Your sister will be whole again.
I shook my head, wishing I could block out the creature’s words, which crawled through my thoughts like insects, burrowing ever deeper.
I will help, if you ask.
“Then do it.” The words were pushed out, desperate. It wouldn’t work—Azar-at was lying to me. Nothing could bring Lusha back. She was gone, and nothing and no one mattered beyond that fact. What would Father say? This would break him, and then I would have lost two people I loved.
Father’s face drifted across my vision. In the same moment, Lusha drew a gasping breath.
I leaped as if burned. The world seemed to right itself, leaving me breathless and dizzy.
“Lusha!” Tears spilled down my face.
Lusha’s eyelids fluttered, and she murmured something. She seemed disoriented, not quite fully awake.
Pain blossomed somewhere near my heart. It was an ominous pain, pointed and sharp, with a weight behind it that promised worse to come. I felt the star’s light flare again, and I instinctively drew on some of its strength, grasping at it as a drowning person grasps at a rope. I pushed back on the pain, and to my amazement, it lessened.
Azar-at made a strange sound I had never heard before, a guttural sort of growl.
“What are you doing?” I said.
You agreed, Kamzin, Azar-at said. You asked for my help.
Lusha muttered something. I squeezed her hand, which was warming against mine, no longer the temperature of the stone stairs.
Another stab of pain. It felt as if the pain was pulling at me, drawing me toward some dark place. “How much of my soul are you taking?”
The fire demon’s tail flicked back and forth. Everything.
“Everything?” Panic gripped me. “You never said—”
You did not ask.
“I—no.” The pain dug its claws deeper, dragged me closer to that dark place. “It isn’t fair.”
It is always fair. It must balance. Your sister’s life, in exchange for yours. A soul for a soul.
Dread rose within me, for Azar-at was right. There was a malevolent fairness in what the fire demon demanded. Would I give my life for Lusha’s life?
I didn’t even have to think about it. Of course I would.
But just because something was fair didn’t make it right. I had faced death before, and I hadn’t backed down. I wasn’t about to start now.
Remembering the reaction it had drawn from Azar-at, I reached for the star’s power again, using it to push back against the pain. I didn’t know what I was doing, but the star responded readily, and once again, the pain receded.
Azar-at made that eerie sound again. The pain returned, stronger than before.
I do not understand, it said. Its voice in my thoughts was as calm as ever, despite the growls and the brightness in its coal eyes.
Gathering up my strength, I gave another desperate push. Azar-at, to my amazement, stumbled back a step.
What is this? The fire demon’s growls were constant now. You agreed—
“I never agreed to this.” I felt almost light-headed at my success, or perhaps it was from the pain still throbbing through my chest.
You cannot break the contract.
There was another horrible tug. I felt the star recoil in terror, even as I clung to it with a desperate intensity. It was the only thing keeping Azar-at at bay, but it was weakening. It had its own great, terrible power, but it couldn’t overcome Azar-at’s, or the bond between us, harder than iron. The bond that I had agreed to.
Azar-at gave another growl, and I felt something inside me break, as if the rope I had been clinging to had suddenly snapped. I felt a surge of fear that didn’t come from me, but from the star. There was a flare of light, and then the star was outside me, no longer girl-shaped, a glittering specter that hung in the air.
“No
, please,” I said, my voice breaking. “Don’t leave. I can’t fight Azar-at on my own.”
The star flickered frantically. Then it was gone, soaring over the palace. I knew it couldn’t escape—it had failed before. But I could no longer reach its power.
So it was going to end like this. The thought hit me dully, as if from a distance. My terror subsided, replaced by an odd sense of disappointment. I had never thought much about my own death, but if I had, it would have involved some feat of bravery, or foolishness, in some distant wilderness or snow-cloaked mountain pass. I would not have imagined it like this, crouched on the stones of a strange city, facing a creature of smoke and fire.
No use in fighting, Kamzin, Azar-at said, its voice as imperturbable as always. Only its eyes, twin fires in the night, gave away its terrible hunger. Fighting will only bring pain. I do not wish friends to feel pain.
Lusha would live, and that was all that mattered. Lusha was clever and brave, and she deserved this more than I. I gazed at her face, because that was what I wanted to see last, not the fire of Azar-at’s eyes. I hoped she wouldn’t be too angry with me when she woke. I swallowed, forcing the tears back.
You care about friends, Azar-at said, its voice almost a croon. You said you would never hurt them. I understand this. I admire it.
I froze. “I said . . .”
You made me promise. Never let you hurt friends. I kept my promise.
“Yes, you have, haven’t you?” It rose in my mind, a dreamlike thing. The memory of our conversation on the summit of Raksha. It felt like an age ago—another life.
You wished to hurt River. I said: No, Kamzin. Not good. I kept my promise.
“What else did you promise me, Azar-at?” I murmured. My heart thrummed like the wings of a caged bird. “I want to be sure you’ve lived up to your half of the contract.”
Always tell the truth, the fire demon replied. I have never lied, Kamzin.
“No,” I agreed. “But there was something else. Wasn’t there?”
Azar-at was silent. Its tail wagged slower now, its wide, flickering eyes fixed on my face.
“I remember now.” I swallowed—I was filled with a desperate hope, so strong it threatened to overwhelm me. “You promised to leave if I asked. To end the contract.”
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