Kill Ishtar once and for all?
Consult the falak.
She knew what everyone had done, knew their hearts and their intentions, just as she knew mine. Her mind was infinite in its stretch, and even reborn into a new body, she understood clearly what was at stake for this world should the powers that be take control of her abilities and use them.
They would either use her or kill her. And death, while not something that would end her existence, was still something she feared. Because what if in one moment, or one life, she no longer could be reborn?
Then it would be over for her.
All of this swept over me in a flash, heartbeats that stretched, and it was fucking overwhelming. Like listening to someone who talked too fast, but what they were saying was important and your mind struggled to keep pace.
I formed my own question. What about those who would control her and try to make her into a weapon?
The flow of energy between us balanced out further, neither taking.
They needed to be stopped, those who would use her. She was not meant to be a weapon for anyone.
What about her mother?
Not her mother, a vessel, a vessel of madness now that she’d glimpsed into the all-knowing that the falak had been unable to keep from her while in her womb.
A mortal mind could not contain all the falak held.
There was a shout above us, a cry from Ollianna.
“Kill the child now!” Etheral screamed.
So many lies, so many deaths that had led to this. Lies from the Emperor, lies from Ishtar. From Merlin and Ollianna. I saw the creature in front of me, understanding clearly that Balder had gifted me with the ability to communicate with her, to not be torn apart by the vastness of her mind.
And I believed her. She was one of very few not lying.
You are like an oracle then? I asked. To be sought by many, but found by few?
A resounding yes came through and I bowed my head, knowing what I was being asked to do. I was a protector, a guardian of the desert. And the falak was a creature of the desert.
“Maks, do you trust me?”
“Always!”
“Lila?”
“You seriously have to ask right now?” Her strangled answer made me smile.
I stared at the child. “Then away with you and me.”
She slithered to me and wrapped around my middle as I shifted into my jungle cat form.
The cradle snapped under my increased weight.
I twisted around as the child clung to me, whimpering.
Across the room, the witches held Ollianna to the wall, but barely. “Do not kill her, Zam, please!” Ollianna shrieked the words.
And I set the world on fire with mine.
“I won’t. But you need to stop the others from doing just that. And you need to give me the stone.” I locked eyes with her. “You trust my word, Ollie. You always did.”
There was a moment I thought she’d turn on me, and then the stone shot through the air. I jumped straight up and caught it with my mouth.
“Protect her,” she said, her voice strangled. “Protect her and I will guard your escape.”
I nodded, then bounded across the room in a few short leaps and raced up the stairs. Behind us, the witches below battled their short-lived queen.
Booms of powerful magic shook the ground and the falak clung harder yet to me as the screaming began. The witches might have tried to come for me, but Ollianna was strong, even without the emerald stone. Strong enough and devoted enough to a child that she’d wanted above all other things in this world, that none of them came for us.
Neither Lila nor Maks questioned what I was doing. Not one question and I loved them more for their trust.
We burst out at the top of the stairs as a handful of witches headed our way. Maks shifted, stood, and slammed the surprised women with a blanket of black magic that pinned them against the wall.
“Go!” he yelled, and we were off and running with me in the lead once more. Three turns and four doorways later, we were out on the sand, racing across it. The child clung to me harder, head buried against my neck.
Just like the last time, so much death, but no protector then.
Warmth rushed through me, a connection I wasn’t sure I wanted with a child that everyone sought either to use for her knowledge, or to kill for knowledge, not understanding the power she carried was not earth-shattering, at least not in the physical sense.
Lila shifted into her larger shape as Maks and I ran through the thick sand, scooped us up and swept us to the top of the cliff in the blink of an eye. I scrambled up to her back and shifted to two legs. The falak slithered down under my shirt, against my chest, still clinging to me.
“The horses, Lila!” I said as I fumbled the green stone into the pouch at my side. Six stones, I had six of the stones.
But would it be enough to stop Ishtar? Fuck, who was I kidding. I didn’t know what the hell I was going to do with the stones. Jesus Christ on a spitting camel in a goddess-damned sandstorm would have a better chance of defeating her at this point. At least he had some higher power looking out for him.
Me? No higher powers here.
“On it.” Lila swept across the cliff tops and bundled up Balder and Batman.
The falak looked up at me with those jeweled eyes and images rushed through my head. Images of a timeline that didn’t make sense. A timeline that brought tears to my eyes.
Truth, Balder had given me the gift to see truth through all the lies, to finally understand my world in a way that no one else could have ever shown me. I clung to Maks, connecting him to the images, him and Lila.
She gasped and Maks stiffened as the timeline spooled out, so different than we’d all been told, so skewed.
I bent forward, tears coating my cheeks as the falak’s truth—the real truth—rocketed through us all.
33
Kiara
The lions ranged around Kiara on sands to the south of the Stockyards, restless, ready to fight Ishtar the moment she stepped out of her sanctuary. If she dared.
The power surging through her pride—goddess, how that made her blood pound, her pride—as they waited outside Ishtar’s domain. Other lions had come to her call.
Queen of the desert.
A roar bellowed out of her and the others answered. The smell and sound of lions filled every sense in her body.
Merlin was the only one who stood out, and he rested near the back of the pride with the horses.
She turned her head to check on him. He’d been so close to dying. So close, and yet it had been a lie.
And that above so many other things bothered her in a way she couldn’t quite put her finger on. He’d said so many things.
Claimed the flail couldn’t go with Zam.
Claimed they had to stop her.
Claimed that Ishtar had hurt him.
Flora and the girl, Merlin’s daughter, were off to the side and she found her feet taking her to them.
Flora’s sharp green eyes watched not the lions ranging around her, but the wizard that Kiara would have said she cared for, the wizard that Flora loved. Didn’t she?
The way she watched Merlin, Kiara suddenly wasn’t so sure.
“Flora, what bothers you?” The words were careful, crafted out of a necessity not to tip her hand. Already she could see that making Merlin an enemy was a terrible idea.
“He is . . . not the same,” Flora said softly. “It is like . . . he is the man I remember from my youth.”
“My father—the one who I thought was my father—” the girl at her side shook her head, long dark waves of tresses catching the wind, “he said that Merlin was as broken as he. That I should not trust either of them.”
Either of them. The story had been brief, only that this girl was Merlin and Ishtar’s daughter. That she’d thought the Emperor had been her father and had trusted him as such. “The Emperor said not to trust Merlin or himself?”
“Exactly,”
she whispered. “I was to go to Ishtar. To stand with her against the others.”
Kiara didn’t so much as twitch. She didn’t know who to trust. Did this girl mean that Ishtar was the least dangerous then? Sweet goddess, that would change things drastically.
“What did he say exactly?” she asked, still pitching her voice low as the tension in the desert began to rise. A slight turn of her head and she felt her throat tighten.
The desert rose behind them, a sandstorm that had no natural place in the world, lights of red, blue, and brilliant flashes of lightning turning the inside of the sandstorm into a show of deadly colors.
“Flora?”
“Sweet baby goddess,” Flora whispered, “I was right. He was in on it all along.”
“Who?” she roared, not sure where to turn, where to face.
Flora looked at her as she raised her hands, power circling around her and her staff. “I have no words of safety for you, young queen. Your reign may not last long caught between two powers like these.”
Kiara’s eyes swept the desert and her heart sank, and at the same time her fur rose along her spine. “To me! Guardians of the desert. To ME!”
The lions came to her. She looked to Flora.
“We’re going to die here, Flora.”
Flora’s eyes hardened. “But until we stop breathing, we will give them hell.”
The priestess slid off her horse and turned and faced Merlin, the young girl at her side. They faced him and he shook his head.
“Flora. Please don’t do this. I really don’t want to hurt you.”
Around them, creatures rose from the ground, creatures of the desert manipulated by his power.
Twisted and dark, they looked like a combination of gorc and some sort of oversized lizard men. Huge and hulking, they were covered in natural body armor. Unlike gorcs, they were fast and moved like lightning with both teeth and weapons. And there wasn’t just one or two of them. With each minute that passed, more and more seemingly climbed out of the ground.
These new creatures lunged at the lions, pressing them inward. Not Jinn, not gorcs, but creatures that had qualities of both. And they were attacking them all.
“A trickster in the end, how many people did you fool? I thought these lizard bastards were Ollianna’s!” Flora spat the words at him as magic swirled around both women as if the other monsters had not just arrived.
“They were my idea that I presented to her,” Merlin said as calmly as if they were discussing the weather.
Kiara moved to Flora’s side, pressing her body against the woman’s legs, giving her not only her presence but her energy, understanding clearly that if Merlin died, all this stopped. Flora stood a little taller.
“I fooled all of them,” he said with a strange trace of sorrow in his eyes. “The world needs a hand to guide it, Flora. You’ve seen that. I can be that hand. I was born to be that hand.”
“This is madness!” the girl screamed. “You can’t do this!”
Kiara didn’t quite understand, and then she did. “The jewels.”
“He’ll take them from Zam, then face Ishtar and take the rest,” Flora said.
“No, no.” He waved his hands. “You don’t understand. She’ll fight Ishtar first, and because Ishtar truly loves that girl, she’ll let Zamira win, thinking she’ll be doing the right thing. And then I will kill her. It’s easy to do.”
Kiara snarled. “No.”
“No?” Merlin tipped his head to one side and lifted a hand, power crackling around it. “No? You think that if I break her heart, she’ll have the strength to fight me? You think that if she sees her entire pride—her whole family—killed by Ishtar, she’ll be able to stop? You think that if she sees her man and soul mate split down their spines, she’ll have it in her? I’ve been watching her all along. I’ve seen her strengths and her weakness. I played you all, and you thought I was here for you. I’ve pushed and directed from the shadows and you all did my bidding.”
Flora gasped. “And before?”
“You mean before we arrived here?” Merlin smiled. “Yes, all of that was a game I was bent on winning.”
He flicked his fingers at the girl, his own daughter, first, blasting her into the air, end over end. She hit the ground with a thud and didn’t rise again. “I schooled even my own thoughts, just in case my father was watching—which he was. In case Ishtar was watching—which she was. I even let my heart love you a little, Flora.” He flicked his fingers at her, and she crossed her staff in front of them both, blocking the strike. “So the world would think I had changed. The world would forget who I truly was, and will always be.”
Kiara snarled and leapt at the mage, going not for his throat, but his legs. She caught an ankle and snapped it with one bite and then something shot through her body, freezing her in place. The crack of bones, the sensation of warmth pooling around her paws, and she knew her injury was bad.
So very bad.
Bryce’s bellow filled her ears as she slid to the ground, struggling to breathe. But her eyes were locked on the storm.
All around her the cries of pain slipped through her mind as she rolled to her side. The sandstorm drew closer. Hands cupped her face, but she couldn’t look away from the storm.
“The storm rages, and we find hope in it,” she whispered. “Look to the storm. Bryce.” She turned his head without looking at him, the sound of her own blood in her lungs thick in her ears.
Kiara forced herself to her feet and bellowed out a welcome.
A booming roar answered back, and everyone froze. Twisting around the sandstorm, not one, but two dragons burst out of the swirling mass.
The black dragon was as large as the blue and they flew side by side, wingtips touching.
She didn’t know how it was possible, but she knew who that black dragon was; she would know her no matter what form she took. The dragons paused, back-fanning the air with their massive wings surveying the ground.
The black dragon’s eyes seemed to rest on her for just a moment.
Then the two dragons, they shot forward into the battle.
Not toward Ishtar and the Stockyards.
Toward Merlin.
34
Zamira
The falak’s memories of the world before, of the reason for the wall—Merlin had created the wall to make it so he could slowly take over, so he could work the world to his bidding in peace with the other superpowers locked away and out of his way—of the twisted connections between Merlin, Ishtar, and the Emperor . . . all of the truth had broken what was left of my desire to hold anything back.
We’d flown hard, fast, from the seaside of Ollianna’s, heading north with Maks’s power pushing us from behind. We needed to reach the Stockyards. I could feel my pride there, and it was where Ishtar waited.
And if Ishtar was there with the jewels she carried, Merlin would not be far.
Time slipped away as we flew, and I knew we had to hurry, and hurry we did.
We were going into battle physically exhausted, but there was no choice. Too many lives were on the line. The whole damn world was on the line.
The Stockyards were drawing close when we found a sandstorm blocking our path. Which meant only one thing.
Merlin was making a move now—I was sure of it. He didn’t expect us here yet. He didn’t expect the Emperor and Ollianna to go down so fast.
He didn’t know that the falak had told me all his dirty little secrets.
How Merlin had planted false memories in so many people. How he’d done it all so he could be the new Emperor in truth, to take all of Ishtar’s power.
But I knew now, and that knowledge had to be enough to help me stop him.
“Maks, you can cut us a path through the sandstorm?” I yelled to be heard over the sound of the wind and sand swirling hundreds of feet high and miles wide. All to block us from the Stockyards.
From those I was born to protect.
“You got it!” he hollered over the roaring wind. Li
la had dropped him and the horses off and he worked his magic—literally—opening the storm like popping a door in the middle of it. “It’s strong,” he yelled. “If it’s really him, Zam, and this is his strength without the stones . . . I don’t know if we can stop him even with them.”
Fuck, that was not what I wanted to hear.
“We go in hard. He doesn’t know that we know,” I said. The falak tightened around my chest. She whimpered, terrified. Of course she was. I knew who’d really killed her the first time. And why.
Fucking Merlin and his fucking games.
“Lila, I’m going to shift.”
“Jungle cat?” She looked back at me and I shook my head.
“Dragon.” My last gift from my grandfather. Fleeting, but it was there, and I would use it.
“Bitch, yes!” She spun, throwing me off her back.
I fell and let the shift take me. The flail went with me as it did, infusing my claws and teeth with even more striking power. Only I didn’t expect the falak to damn well absorb into me.
I touched my chest where she’d laid so quietly. “Hey, what are you doing?”
Staying safe.
She’s not wrong. She’s far safer with you than somewhere out there.
“Great. Now I have two voices inside my head.”
“Ready?” Maks yelled from the ground.
“Never readier!” Lila yelled back.
The ground rumbled and Maks pulled the sandstorm apart, or at least, made an opening. I could feel the strain on him, could feel the effort it took just to do that. “Let’s do this, Lila!”
We winged forward, picking up speed as we hit the edge of the storm, the particles of sand smacking into us, biting, but not near as bad as it would have been without Maks.
I focused on Kiara, knowing she was on the other side, knowing she was with Merlin. Fucking Merlin!
Emperor’s Throne: Desert Cursed Series, Book 6 Page 24