I remember the almost unfathomable pain I felt flying through the arashi that last time. Like I was dying in the slowest, most horrible way possible. “H-how many are there?” I manage to ask.
Aliya grimaces. Her face tells me that she feels pain for the hurt I will have to endure.
My courage comes back. If that’s how it has to go, then that’s how it has to go.
“We must act fast,” Aliya says to the Mages and aki gathered. We don’t really have a plan, but Aliya talks like we do, and I see the confidence rise in the others. If she believes, then we can too. “The arashi broke free from our hold before the evacuation was complete. There are still civilians trapped in the city. And now they’re not only at the mercy of the Palace guards and the inisisa, but also the arashi whose sleep has been disturbed.”
One of the Mages says, “But the tunnels are blocked.”
“Only the ones that lead to the city,” says Noor, still catching her breath from when she led me through the tunnels. “The ones that lead out past the Wall and into the forest are still open.”
Aliya looks to Noor. “We will use those to bring the refugees into the forest, then we will scale the Wall to reenter Kos. From the air.” The two of them, Mage and aki, nod grimly at each other, and I take a moment to think about how remarkable that sight is. When I was growing up, Mages dragged us from our homes during Baptisms, and they forced us to sleep ten to a room in a slum. They called us whenever rich people needed their sins Eaten, then, when it came time for the aki to be paid, they shorted us. Every time. Now we’re all looking at one another as equals. If nothing else comes out of this, I’ll at least have witnessed that. And that’s more than enough of a miracle.
“We will safeguard the refugees,” says a voice from the back. Miri marches forward, and several Mages walk with her. “We will guard the ones you bring to the forest. You needn’t divide your forces further in order to protect them. Should Karima’s army make it to the Wall or farther, we will battle them however we can. But we will know that if that door opens and we do not see sunlight, then we have lost the city, and it will be on us who remain to keep the people of Kos safe. Rescue our city, Mage.”
Miri speaks with such power in her voice that everyone else has grown completely silent. The two of them, Aliya and Miri, stand not ten paces away from each other, and neither of them smiles.
Then Aliya walks toward her former mentor and commander and slides her hand out, palm up. Her back is straight, her head held high. “As you command. To you and yours, Miri.”
Miri looks at Aliya’s hand, then slides her own over it. “To you and yours, Aliya,” she says softly before gathering her group and fanning out to direct the refugees into the forest.
* * *
• • •
Outside, the Wall towers over us. And for the first time, I let myself imagine what Kos would be like without it. What it would be like to walk through the forest as a wanderer and come and see this magnificent city sprawled out in front of you, waiting to offer you shelter and a new life. I let myself imagine a city that isn’t trying to keep people and things out. A city that lets them move freely. When this is over, maybe we can see about bringing this thing down. It’s given us more than enough trouble. But the Scribes might get upset that they won’t have so big a canvas to paint on anymore. I smile. They’ll find a way. They’re resourceful like that.
Aki line up on either side of me.
As one, the Mages hold our heads in their hands and murmur their incantations. I close my eyes and open my mouth and let the sin pour forth, a jet that arcs out in front of me, then pools at my feet before turning into a griffin large enough for me to ride. Each aki has one of their own. When we’re finished, a few aki stagger, dizzy. A few go down to one knee, and I remember that not all of them are as strong as I’ve become. So much has happened that now it’s almost painless to bring a sin out of me. There’s always the sharp hurt that strikes like a needle through the brain and the brief moment of suffocation when I can’t breathe because the sin is leaving my body, but I’m able to stand tall at the end of it. For the others, it takes a few moments, but we wait because we need everyone at full strength.
I can hear the arashi roar, and even though the sun sprays light down around them, lightning still strafes the sky and snaps at the ground, sending sparks that set homes and streets and stalls on fire.
Karima’s waiting for me on the other side. And so is Bo. And their army of enemy inisisa. Inisisa beyond my control.
But this ends now.
I put my hand to my inisisa’s forehead, and the shadows fall off it like a second skin. Its feathers are the color of a sunrise. Light shines through them. The aki gawk as I walk down the line and cleanse their beasts. It brings back memories of how they used to look at me when we were all younger and I was the most skilled aki in Kos. How they would whisper praises about me behind my back! Sky-Fist this and Lightbringer that. When I finish, I mount my griffin, and the other aki do the same. Aliya climbs on behind me, and one Mage joins each aki, and together, we shoot into the sky.
I have to make it to the Palace.
I look to my right, then to my left. Then, when I know we’re good to go, I send my griffin onward, and we cut a line straight over the Wall.
Arashi writhe in the air, confused. Inisisa roam the streets below, hunting the aki and the Kosians left behind, and now this new battalion of griffins flies toward them, arcing just beneath the claws and teeth of the arashi overhead. We dip in formation to get out of their reach. They’re too slow to catch us. A ray of light shines down on me, and I don’t see the catapults lining the outer rims of the dahia until their loads snap forward into the air. I turn on the back of the griffin and shout, “WRECKERS!” just as the first flaming boulders cut through the air. They head straight toward us, and I hear behind me a crash and mingled screams as one of the boulders smashes an inisisa and its riders out of the air. I want to turn and rescue them, but I know that we’ll only have one chance to make it to the Palace. The Wreckers farther down, closer to the Palace, are already waiting for us, and we can’t give them any more time.
Boulders whistle toward us, but when we try to arc upward, arashi snatch at us. I hear more cries behind me as claws wrap around one of the griffins and haul it and the Mage and aki riding it into its open mouth. We’re not going to make it.
Aliya grips me tightly as I bank left, dodging another boulder. This one explodes just above us, and we spin. Aliya slips off and flails in the air. The scream catches in my throat, and I push my griffin into a dive, moving so fast the wind brings tears to my eyes. I catch her just before she lands in the midst of waiting armored inisisa. Flying low, I can see that the street is blanketed with them. Sunlight vanishes, and we’re cast in the darkness of the arashi again. I pull us up until we’re level with the other aki who remain.
“I have to do it,” I tell Aliya.
The look she gives me nearly undoes me. This may be the last time we see each other. While I’m holding on to our griffin, she hugs me tightly and kisses the back of my neck. I can feel her tears fall onto my skin.
Nneoma pulls up beside us. “Let us.”
I’m trying to keep an eye on Nneoma while at the same time scanning the horizon for Wreckers. It looks like those boulders are being stuffed with dynamite. So, if they don’t hit us, the explosion will kill us. “Let you what?” I ask her.
“Do the dynamite trick,” she says, smirking.
“What are you talking about?” I’m getting more agitated, and Aliya puts a hand on my back to calm me. I can’t tell if I’m shouting to be heard over the arashi or if it’s because what Nneoma’s suggesting is making me angry.
“I like this carriage you’ve made for me to ride through the air, but I think I prefer one made of light.” She has the widest grin on her face. “That is how it works, right, Mage?”
Aliya nods. �
�Once it’s turned to light, it can change the arashi.” The wind picks up, and Aliya shouts, “But you don’t have much time!”
“Well, then, Taj. You’d better hurry up. We’ll draw the armored inisisa into the arashi and destroy them.” Nneoma points ahead. There are at least several, by my count, swimming in the sky near the Palace. Karima has them guarding her. An emerald in the storm. “Oga, this is the only way. Otherwise, we all die here today.”
“But if you go, then you will die!”
She straightens on her griffin’s back. “And when you tell the story of how we sacrificed ourselves to save our city from a tyrant, you better not mess up any details. Remember, it was Nneoma who gave you this idea and who led the charge.” Her smirk widens. “We are here to help. This is for all of us.”
I don’t want her to do it. I don’t want to lose any more people.
“Taj,” Aliya whispers in my ear.
I have no choice. “OK. Circle back and tell the others.”
Nneoma winks at me. “Oh, they know already. I told them the plan earlier. We just needed your approval. We have already put the Mages on other beasts so that they are safe.” She lets out a chuckle and winks again. “Come now, Taj, are we really going to be more prepared than you?” She laughs, and it’s enough to make me laugh. I don’t care that the sound is drowned out by the exploding boulders around us and the arashi screeching above us.
“OK, then.”
She expertly guides her griffin to mine.
I wait until she’s close enough, then I put my hand to the forehead of her griffin. It begins to glow, and Nneoma takes a moment to stare in wonder. Then she looks at me, nods, and swoops down into the inisisa-covered streets. She’s blazing a trail of light. All the inisisa her beast touches, their armor falls away, and when she pulls back up into the sky, the cleansed inisisa follow her like a shadowy tail, light dripping down to infect all the others. She vanishes into the distance, then a massive burst of light, like a star splitting open, shines in the sky over the Palace. Sparks like comets spill out, and sunlight cuts through that now-clear patch of sky.
Another aki pulls up to my side, looking straight ahead all the while. This one is determined not to let fear conquer him. I touch his griffin’s forehead, and he does the same as Nneoma, drawing armored inisisa and bringing them with him into the face of another arashi. Another burst of light, and more blue sky opens up overhead.
Something so beautiful and painful to watch is little more than a chemical reaction. Shapes and elements meeting one another and changing.
“Taj,” Aliya says to me before I can mourn the sacrificed aki, “I have an idea.” She points to a rooftop down to our left. “Let me down over there.”
I trust her, so I bring my griffin to a stop, and she hops off. Inisisa swarm the building below her. I can hear them inside, bounding up each floor.
“I will meet you in the Palace.”
I want to ask her how, but she puts her hands to the roof, and out of it springs a bridge made of stone that arcs to the next building, then to the next after that, and the one after that, until she’s created a whole walkway leading to the Palace’s front steps. It’s like when she broke the earth in front of Zaki’s home. And like when Zaki formed a bridge to cross that chasm.
“Go!” she says, then sets off at a run.
I shake my head in amazement as my griffin takes me forward. Is there anything she cannot do?
Other griffins let Mages down on rooftops around the Forum, and they make bridges as well. This is it. This is Iragide. Breaking and binding.
I bring the riderless griffins behind me and touch them, one by one, as they pass, then send them like sticks of dynamite into the streets, where they charge through the inisisa and set them alight. The streets glow, as Aliya and the Mages run from rooftop to rooftop.
We’re going to make it.
Inisisa swarm the front steps to the Palace. Bears and dragons and lynxes. I may be all alone, but nothing will stop me from getting into that Palace. I urge my griffin to go faster. Faster, faster. I’m almost there.
A sin-falcon crashes into me, hurling me off my griffin. The two inisisa grapple in the air, bursting into sparks of light, and I soar high above the Palace steps, coming down on the back of a sin-dragon waiting for me with jaws open. My flats tear as I slide down its scaled back then leap into the air right at the sin-bear before me, plunging my hands into its forehead. It explodes in a burst of light. The inisisa on the steps all charge at me. I strike right, left, duck beneath the sin-wolf that dives at me. There are so many of them, but I kick and swing and jump, whirling around, battling them all. The Palace entrance is so close.
I grapple with a sin-lynx that has me on my back. Its jaw snaps at me, angling for my neck. Something sharp that glints in the light comes down through its neck.
Bo pulls me to my feet.
“I thought . . .” I say, stunned.
“That I betrayed you?” He smirks, and he’s the old Bo again. “I got you past the Wall, didn’t I? Come now, you know I need a good wrestling partner.” Then the two of us stand back to back. He slices at the inisisa with his good hand, disabling them, and I take their remains in my arms and cleanse them. Light surrounds us. Through the chaos, I see Noor fighting, defending herself against the army of inisisa with a double-bladed staff. They can’t touch her, she’s so fast.
“Get to the Palace, Taj,” Bo tells me. He grabs a sin-spider by one leg with his foot, slices through it, and when it falls, he drives his daga into its back. “Go!” He slips a second daga out of his boot and grips the first one in his teeth. Without looking back, he charges into the fray, slashing and whirling and flying through the air like a madman.
The two of them have cleared a path for me, and I bound up the steps. I take one last look back and see nothing but moving shadows, but then I squint into the distance and see people. They’re not marked in any way, but they carry whatever they can. Staffs, kitchen knives, hammers. The people of Kos.
Around them, Mages gather, and the ground beneath them and the stone of the buildings around them break apart and re-form to make walls from behind which the people of Kos can fight.
My heart leaps. The survivors left behind. They fill the streets of the Forum and drive right up to the steps, clashing with the inisisa. They’ve joined us in battle.
The Palace doors are locked shut. In the midst of the battling citizens and aki and inisisa, I spot the sin-dragon from earlier. That’s it.
I run to it, and it lowers its head for me. Once I get on its back, it flaps its wings once, and I soar upward. We land with a heavy thud on the balcony overhead, and before I slip off its back, I touch its forehead. It turns into light, then vanishes.
The large windows before me are open.
Karima steps out of the shadows. Slowly. Her emerald gown shimmers in the light. But its colors change to red. Instead of making her look like some otherworldly blessing from the Unnamed, it makes her look like she’s wearing blood.
I shake my head straight. “It’s over,” I say, loud enough to be heard over the battle below. “You’ve lost.” I gesture to the city. “The people have risen up against you.”
She walks toward me without saying a word. Just smiling. And it chills me.
She stops, and the smirk falls from her face.
Shadows dance behind Karima.
Three wolves emerge from the darkness.
“It is just us now, Taj.” Her voice is like silk in my ears. “You and me. Balance.”
Beneath the sound of her voice, I hear the inisisa growling.
“You can still stop this. All this death. All this destruction. All this Unbalance.” The shade of her dress grows darker and darker, shimmers green, then red, then white, then black.
The first wolf leaps for me, and I stick my hand out to press against its forehead, but it barrels
me over, unchanged. I need both forearms to keep its jaws from my face. It snarls and snaps its teeth at me. Am I too weak to cleanse it? The wolf squeezes the air out of my lungs. Silver dots pop up before my eyes.
“Karima,” I hiss between gritted teeth.
I hear her footsteps until I can see her slippers right beside me.
“Karima!”
I feel myself slipping away. To my right lies my daga. Just out of reach.
The inisisa’s jaws get closer, then suddenly, it stops. Like an obedient dog, the wolf steps off my chest and backs away. The others join it. I cough as I push myself onto my knees, and that’s when I see Bo standing on the balcony. His eyes have a glazed cast to them. He’s Crossing.
The inisisa all turn in Karima’s direction.
For the first time, I see genuine fear on her face.
Bo takes his second daga from his mouth, then holds both his dagas between his knuckles. “This is what you’ve done. This is what your magic has made.” His skin is covered almost entirely in shadows. They sizzle on his flesh. “And now it has returned to you. Balance.” His chuckle sounds like rocks grinding together.
“Bo,” I call out, coughing.
But he doesn’t turn my way. “I am your weapon. I have killed for you. Slaughtered for you. I have darkened the air of entire villages with inyo. For you.” He points his dagas at Karima. “I thought I was done killing. But I have one more yet.”
“Bo!” I scream. I rise to my feet. Everyone looks my way. I can feel it pulsing like lightning beneath my skin. Rage. It was the sound of her voice. How she can describe everything that has happened as though it is simply the regular order of things. The executions. The demolitions. “You feel no guilt.”
She says nothing, but she sees the look in my eyes, and it frightens her.
“You feel nothing for all the sins you have committed.” I stalk toward her. I feel alive with anger. “You will feel them now.” Then I’m upon her. I have her head in my hands. Her eyes grow wide with fear.
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