The Warrior Queen (The Hundredth Queen Book 4)

by Emily R. King

  Tarek’s voice slinks into my mind. Your people must fear you. You must make them obey.

  As I leave my men to execute their orders, I realize that I have, in part, given my people what they wanted.

  23

  KALINDA

  Enlil and I overlook the Valley of Mirrors from a rocky rise. He secured our passage from the bear-size rabisu by feeding it a mango. In turn, the rabisu told us to take the path through the valley, forthright instructions if not for the giant crystal brambles covering the lowland.

  The razor barbs fan out, pointing every which way, and infringe upon the narrow path. Nothing reflects off the crystal thorns. They are lusterless, dull and rough like unpolished quartz.

  Enlil extends his spear toward the field of serrated crystals and breaks a tip. The thorn shatters, and from the opening, oil oozes. He rubs his finger over the jagged end, collecting a cloudy drop. He sniffs the colorless substance and wipes it off on his sarong.

  “The briars weep venom. Do not touch them.” He ties my cloak tighter at my throat and lays the hood over my head.

  My state of head-to-toe dress feels gutless next to his bare arms, chest, and legs. I contemplate asking what will happen should I be cut, but the danger of venom is evident.

  Enlil goes first, his spear pouring out light. We thread through the crystal thorns, some taller than our heads. Our path shrinks, narrowing to an impassable width. Enlil swings his spear and knocks down the infringing spikes. They splinter and the trail widens.

  During his next swipe, he sustains a scrape across his elbow. I tug at him to stop and inspect his wound. He does not bleed. The small opening shimmers and heals before my eyes. He goes on without a word. He has spoken little since I scolded him for showing me that . . . that . . . vision. I almost regret my harshness, but this trek does not require friendliness, so I leave him be.

  Before too long, the path tapers to a rabbit trail. Breaking through the brambles could take hours.

  “I could open a bigger footpath with a heatwave,” I say.

  “No, you should conserve your powers.”

  “You mean because of this?” I raise my prosthesis. “My blasts are half as strong as they were.”

  Enlil touches my wooden fingers, clasping them as he would flesh and bone. “I am sorry. I cannot repair your limb, but you have always been powerful, Kalinda. You will always be powerful, no matter your physical form. Strength dwells in the soul.” He lets me go and pats his back. “Climb on. I will carry you.”

  I chew my bottom lip. His suggestion comes from necessity. I cannot go forward without snagging my clothes. Yet an indescribable familiarity falls over me. This is not the first time he has praised my inner strength or borne up my burdens without complaint.

  “Kalinda, I apologize for upsetting you. If it eases your mind, Jaya and you were not always master and servant. In other lives, you were sisters.” Though he has misinterpreted my hesitation, his mention of Jaya enthralls me. “When Anu crafted mortals from the stars, you and Jaya were born of the same constellation. Your souls find each other in every life. Many of your loved ones reappeared life after life as your friends or family. The forces of nature, the very essence of the sky in your lungs, land beneath your feet, fire in your soul, and water in your blood, call to one another.”

  My heart falls to my knees. I press my fist over my chest, willing the pain to recede. “Please don’t.”

  “You need not fear me. I would never harm you, Kali.”

  I am afraid of him. Terrified, actually, of what I might learn about myself through his eyes.

  But I am also curious. So curious, especially about Jaya . . .

  This is not why I summoned him. Dwelling on past lives will only distract me from my purpose in this one. Beyond this perilous valley is another gate, then another, and another, and eventually—Deven. I will get to him, either on my own two feet or upon the back of my guide.

  “All right. You can carry me, but no more speaking about what I did before this life.”

  “No more memories,” he vows.

  Before he turns around, I do not miss his satisfied half smirk. I climb onto his back, hanging from his neck. My lips hover by his ear. I take his lightning spear, which hums in my grasp.

  He turns his cheek into mine, and his voice dips to a husky purr. “Secure?”

  This was a bad idea.

  He starts off. I lower my chin to his neck and use his spear to smash the crystal fangs that loom too close. Venom spurts and drips from the decapitated prongs. A saw-toothed end cuts Enlil’s forearm. He grimaces and his walk turns rigid.

  “Are you hurting?”

  “I am immortal, not infallible. Pain and agony existed long before mortals.”

  He sustains more scratches across his bronze skin, yet his step does not falter. I thwack at a particularly large crystal near our heads, and venom showers down. I duck from the patter of poison. Enlil stops.

  “Kalinda,” he says, muscles tense. “Were you struck?”

  “My hood and cloak protected me.”

  “Hold on.” He increases his gait. “Do not concern yourself with the thorns. Our path opens ahead.”

  His sudden speed bars me from clearing our trail. I settle against his shoulder and watch the crystals stream by. Their gloomy surfaces blur together to a solid wash of clouds. Fog has rolled into the valley. Our path widens, but Enlil slows to navigate the soupy haze.

  Lethargy heavies my bones. I blink slowly at the endless stream of gray. An image of a woman peers out at me. Despite my wooziness, I rouse enough to inspect the mist. Another person appears. She has a slim, solemn face, lustrous midnight hair, and penetrating eyes.

  “Someone else is out here.” I push at Enlil. “Put me down.”

  “No, Kalinda.”

  Necessity pumps through me. I must find her. We cannot leave her here.

  “Let me go!” I drop the spear.

  Enlil bends over to fetch it, and I wriggle out of his grasp. My knees wobble as I side-wind into the fog bank. The deadly spikes have vanished, and in their place the crystals have flattened to a reflective wall. I pad up to the row of mirror glasses. Figures inside the mirrors gaze out. Right in front of me is the woman I first saw. She is no stranger.

  An entire spectrum of Kalindas stand before me. At least a dozen versions of myself, all dressed in varying attire and hairstyles, stare out of the mirror. Most are young, my age or close to it. Some are in their middle years, while others must be in their last decade of life.

  The first and nearest reflection wields an urumi. Its flexible silver blades snake around her legs. She dons old-fashioned armor that is heavy and clunky, and she is speckled in blood, not her own, judging by her lack of injury.

  I tread up to the mirror glass, and her reflection takes over my own. I no longer see myself, only her. She holds herself with self-assurance that I do not exhibit. Her indomitable poise is like a tigress’s—exquisite, terrifying. Besides their physical likeness, all the Kalindas are outwardly confident. I envy one more attribute. Every one of them has both their hands.

  Something from the deepest trenches of my soul thrashes against the inner trapdoor. The Kalinda before me flings her urumi back and lashes the whiplike blades at me.

  A pressure explodes in my chest. The trapdoor flings open, and something—someone—pours into my head. The back of my neck cramps.

  Kalinda.

  Her voice sounds like mine in tenor, but she is surer, more aware of what is happening. Shakiness jogs up my legs. I rest against the cold, flat mirror glass, my skull aching.

  “Who are you?”

  Again, her voice engulfs my thoughts.

  I am Cala.

  Her reflection grins hard. She rests her hand on the mirror glass against my prosthesis.

  A shadow stirs behind me. The fire-god’s reflection manifests in the mirror. Cala’s attention leaps to him. Yearning beams from her eyes. Enlil.

  “Kalinda, what has come over you?” He twists
me around so fast I sway on my feet. “I have been calling your name. We need—child of Kur.”

  I slump against him, my insides plummeting long after he catches me.

  Cala beats her fist against the glass. Enlil touches my face. I have wet spots on my cheek that I did not notice. He scrubs them off. Cala pounds harder. Enlil! Enlil!

  “You must remain awake.” Enlil sweeps me up. The ground and sky spin.

  Cala’s reflection runs after us. She jumps from crystal to crystal, her voice transferring to my head. Her calls for Enlil are soundless. He hears not one.

  The giant crystal thorns thin around us. Cala runs to the last mirror and whips her urumi at the unbreakable glass. We travel farther from the brambles, and she sinks to her knees. I watch over Enlil’s shoulder until I lose sight of her. Though her form is trapped in the Valley of Mirrors, her soft weeping rattles inside my mind.

  Enlil climbs out of the valley and lays me on the ground. He presses down on my breastbone. “This will be painful.”

  Searing agony lances into my bones. I shriek and buck, but he presses me down and pushes soul-fire inside every hidden pocket of my veins. His powers scorch out the venom, leaving no part of me untouched. At last, when I have no voice left, the cleansing inferno dissipates.

  I wilt into a heap. Sweat dampens my brow and chest from his residual heat. My skin glows with tiny trails of lightning. I feel around inside my head for Cala. She has gone quiet. I wheeze in the fragile silence. Gradually, my radiance dims and my temperature cools.

  Enlil rests my head in his lap. “Kalinda?”

  “I’m here.”

  His shoulders slump over his chest. “Had the thorn punctured your skin, the venom would have killed you. Can you stand?”

  “Not yet.” My teeth and tongue taste of cinders. My bones and muscles have splintered to tinder. “The mirrors showed me versions of myself. The reflections were of me, but not me.”

  Enlil gazes off at the valley. “They were you before, in your other lives.”

  “But I’m not like them. They were warriors.”

  “As are you.” The fire-god’s gaze sears into mine. “We are always more than we think we are.”

  I inhale his spring water scent, and longing floods up from a well of secrets that I cannot see or grab hold of. I search for the source inside me, but I am trying to read an expression on a face that is turned away. “Who is Cala?”

  Enlil stills, frozen as a statue. “You told me you did not wish for me to interfere with your memories.”

  I still do not, but I feel her lurking. She is out now, and I do not know how to put her back. Perhaps if I understand who she is, I can force her from my mind.

  “How did you meet?”

  Enlil picks up my left hand and laces our fingers. “That was a long time ago.” He kisses my knuckles in sequence. Memories bubble up from a well of secrets and cascade over my mind. The surge sweeps me from my bearings and drags me further into myself.

  I kneel in the garden near the rhododendron forest, my charcoal stick in hand. Father will be irritated with me for sketching on his terrace tiles. The whole of the world is my sketchbook, and the sunshine is friendliest this hour of day.

  A shadow falls over the sketch of my mother, blocking the midday sun. I gaze up into startling, fiery eyes. I open my mouth to call for Mother, but Fire Eyes speaks.

  “Did you draw this?”

  I glance nervously at the open double doors to my home.

  He sits near my pile of charcoals. “You are gifted.” He brushes my hair behind my shoulder, his touch natural as an afterthought. “How old are you?”

  “Eighteen.”

  “And your name?”

  His soothing scent, like spring rain, relaxes me. He must be a friend of Father’s for the guards to have allowed him through our front gate. “I’m Cala.”

  “Would you draw for me, Cala?”

  He asks tentatively, as though expecting me to refuse. His shyness does not suit his striking appearance. He must be lonely, like me. “Yes, I will draw for you.”

  And I do.

  The vision swirls around, and a torrent of new memories arrests me. Cala and Enlil stand at an altar in Ekur, Enlil wearing a fitted white-and-gold tunic and Cala a silk gold-and-red sari. She vows to love him until the end of time, and he promises her his heart forevermore.

  Enlil kisses the last of my knuckles and lets me go. The loss of his touch reels me back to the present. I gape at him, my head still in his lap. Cala was his wife. Her love for him pushes me to bury my burdens in his embrace.

  Kiss him. My emotions twist and tangle with Cala’s. He’s our fate.

  Enlil’s nearness is intoxicating. Any closer and I will be fully drunk on him. I roll onto the ground. “Get out of my head.”

  He crouches over me. “Cala? Cala, are you there?”

  Enlil! I’m here!

  Get out of my head!

  I dig my fingers into the dirt and shove Cala back down into my chest. Her presence finds lodging beside my drumming heart.

  I blink myself into awareness. Cala’s cries for Enlil drift to muffled pleas. I am not alone, but I am in charge. I stagger to my feet.

  “My name is Kalinda, and you are my guide. We have come to find Deven Naik. He’s the entire reason we’re in this awful place, so let’s move.”

  Enlil peers into my eyes. I stare icily in return, willing any trace of Cala from my expression.

  The fire-god picks up his spear and treads on.

  I glimpse a single shadow loitering at the border of the crystals in the valley below. I stomp after Enlil and let Cala’s reflection die in my vision.

  24

  DEVEN

  The long-needled thorn slips off the hilt of my janbiya hilt and punctures my thumb. I shake my hand to ease the stinging and slip my bleeding finger into my mouth.

  Mistake. I spit out the grimy taste of my skin and throw away the dull thorn. I break another needle off the tree in front of me and return to my project. My progress engraving Kali’s name into the hilt of my dagger has been painstaking. I only just completed the first letter.

  As I work on the next one, my eyesight blurs. I still have not slept. The rabisus and demons still camp at the blockade down the road. They have been quiet for some time. By nightfall, every one of them will be awake and alert. If I do not sleep now, I will be awake all night again. I drag the needle through the dirt, writing KALI so I remember to finish the engraving, and lie on my side.

  Knocks come from the Road of Bone. The bones are solid but resonate with a scant tapping when walked upon. I come awake and lie on my front at the base of the tree.

  Something travels in my direction from the blockade. Big shapes that begin as shadows soon sharpen. Two demons astride ugallus pause every so often to canvass the thicket. Edimmu and Asag are on patrol.

  I roll onto my sides and then my back, smothering myself in dirt. Demons have a powerful sense of smell. After my first few days on the run, the putridness of the Void camouflaged me. I coat myself in grime for extra protection.

  On my stomach again, hot breaths blow off some of the filth caking my lips. The demons stalk closer. I stretch out low with my dagger.

  Close enough that I can count her scales, Edimmu halts her ugallu and licks the air with her forked tongue. The ugallu’s silver feline gaze stays on the trees. I breathe only when necessary and swallow even less.

  “The road is clear,” Asag rumbles.

  “I smell flesh,” his sister hisses.

  She can only mean me. Her sense of smell must be stronger than Asag’s.

  Edimmu jumps off her mount, her tongue flicking the air. She follows the taste of my smell closer to the spiny trees. The grove is thick with brambles and undergrowth. To get in, I had to slide on my belly to the middle. Getting out in a hurry, and without them seeing me, is impossible.

  Skies above, why isn’t my dagger a sword?

  Asag rides up to his sister, his ugallu growling and snap
ping at hers. “The road is clear. We can return to camp.”

  Edimmu samples the air again. Her crocodile snout bears brown stained teeth. “Whatever it is will soon be carrion.”

  She mounts her ugallu and they ride up the road. Their ugallus steal away, tails twitching. My pulse hammers at every pressure point. I could seek out another hideout, but I would have to sneak past Kur’s lair. The roadblock prevents me from going out to the obstructions, and I will not go into the city. The wanderers live there and so does she.

  I lessen my grasp on my janbiya. A pattern is impressed into the handle, a K and a slash?

  The dirt beside me has markings—letters. Near them is a pile of dull thorns. I must have rubbed away some of the letters when I rolled around. All that remains is an L and an I.

  The letters swirl around my mind in a jumble. I inspect the dirt closer. The missing letter is barely visible, an A.

  Kali. Memories of her flood my thoughts, some hazier than others. The flimsy recollections may float away in an instant.

  How could I forget Kalinda? The gap in my mind is expanding like a sinkhole. Any wider and who I am right now, who I was when I was first brought here, will fall in.

  My hand shakes as I pry off another thorny needle from a tree. I resume carving her name, faster and more fervently. My remembrances of her turn around and around in my mind as I work. Her solemn expression and thick, silken hair. The way she touches her mother’s daggers at her side when she is deep in contemplation. How she juts out her chin anytime someone suggests she do something she does not like.

  Thoughts of her bring my awareness back into my grasp.

  When Kali’s memory is alive, so am I.

  25

  KALINDA

  We arrive at the third gate. The rabisu stands from behind the low stone wall and stretches until its shoulders are nearly in line with Enlil’s. The guardian’s furry physique is mannish; it even has hands with fingernails. Saliva runs down its chin, dripping from fangs. It watches me and licks its chops. Enlil tosses a hunk of stinky meat at the beast.