The Last Namsara

by Kristen Ciccarelli

  With her story finished, she reached for him. It was his turn to tell.

  But Kozu stepped back. She had brought her kin, armored and afraid. She had tricked him into flying to this unsheltered place. There was nowhere to hide.

  Fire sizzled in his veins. Thunder rumbled in his blood.

  He lashed his tail as the circle of metal tightened around him. He roared a warning to keep back.

  They didn’t heed him. They followed the orders of one man only: a king with power in him. It was this king who Kozu would destroy.

  The fire in his chest grew, big and bright and hot.

  The circle tightened, its teeth sharp and ravenous.

  The king called the name of Kozu’s jewel. She went, scared now, crying for Kozu to stop. But the fire was too big and too bright inside him.

  The armored men stepped closer, metal raised, ready to pierce Kozu’s heart. A heart that beat too fast and loud.

  Kozu lunged. His tail and claws came down on metal. A claw-sharp point ripped down his face. Bright burning pain exploded in his eye, followed by darkness.

  Kozu screamed as hot blood spilled out.

  The fire in him rushed across the armored men whose blades were tearing down his face. It rushed across those beyond, stopping their ascent.

  It rushed toward his dark jewel.

  Kozu couldn’t stop it. Kozu could only watch.

  He watched the king raise his shield. Watched him step away from his daughter, leaving her to face the fire alone.

  Her scream pierced the sky.

  That scream.

  It chased him as he leaped into the air. Lived inside him as he spilled his rage over the king’s city. With the city burning behind him, Kozu flew fast and hard and far. Out of the Rift, across the endless desert, to the other side of the world, half blind and aching for the girl with the ancient voice.

  The girl who betrayed him.

  Thirty-One

  “Liar!”

  Kozu dropped her into the grass. The moment she touched the ground, she drew her slayers.

  Lies. Wasn’t that what all stories were? Wasn’t that what made them so dangerous?

  Suddenly, a familiar voice rose up in her.

  Dragon burns are deadly, Iskari, and a burn like that?

  Asha tried to shake Torwin’s voice loose. But it lodged inside her.

  You were just a little girl.

  If the story she believed was true—that she was alone when Kozu burned her—how had the toxins been drawn out in time?

  Asha remembered the burn Torwin helped treat. Her hands shook so hard. The poison set in so fast. . . .

  Kozu stood stone still, watching her. The glow of his belly dimmed.

  “What are you waiting for!” Jarek yelled. “Strike!”

  Asha stared at the commandant. The one who found her that day and raced her back to the city.

  Have I not done everything you’ve ever asked of me, my king?

  Jarek drew his saber—which shimmered against the angry sky. He motioned to his soldats, who swarmed the field like cockroaches.

  Have I not defended your walls? Put down your revolts?

  Kept your secrets?

  Kozu stood at Asha’s back. Those great wings spread wide as he eyed the armored men around them. Asha could have turned and plunged her sacred blades into his breast. It would have been easy. It would have ended everything right here.

  Instead, she fixed her gaze on Jarek, like a hunter on its prey. “Tell me: how long did it take you to find me, the day Kozu burned me?”

  Jarek turned to face her. There it was again: the fear in his eyes.

  Kozu’s story blazed inside her, weaving with her own memories of a fire burning away her skin and the screams trapped inside her throat.

  “How long!” she demanded.

  She watched him bury his fear the way she buried her shame. Watched him look to the dragon at her back, then change his mind about the saber. He called out to a soldat behind him and the man tossed him a spear.

  “Truly, you’re as foolish as your brother,” he said, his grip tightening on the shaft as he waded into the tall, rattling grass. “The enemy stands behind you, Asha. Everything you’ve ever wanted lies at the edge of your blade, and yet you hesitate.”

  A soldat holding a body-length shield waded out with him.

  Everything I’ve ever wanted . . .

  She wanted deliverance from Jarek. She wanted redemption for her crimes. She wanted revenge on the one who’d burned her and brought destruction to Firgaard.

  But what if the crime was never hers?

  What if the enemy was not the one she’d always thought?

  Jarek crept closer. At her back, Kozu growled again, louder this time. The commandant stopped short, fifteen steps away. The soldat at his side trembled.

  Asha stepped closer to Kozu’s beating heart. Kozu, who could have killed her mere moments ago if he’d wanted to. Kozu, who didn’t take to the skies even as the soldats closed in around him.

  If Kozu were truly her enemy, she wouldn’t be alive.

  “Dragonfire is deadly.” This was one truth she knew. “Even the smallest of burns must be tended immediately, to draw out the toxins.”

  “I’m the one who discovered your treachery.” Jarek’s gaze darted to the soldats moving closer in, checking their positions as he kept her distracted. “Eight years ago, I followed you. I saw you telling the old stories aloud. I saw the First Dragon come to you.”

  Asha lowered her slayers. “You followed me?”

  “I told your father,” he said. “And he put a stop to it.”

  Asha felt light-headed.

  She thought back to the sickroom after the burning. When she couldn’t remember what happened, her father filled in the gaps. It was all her fault, he said. Together they would make it right, he said. He would use her scar to show the world how dangerous the old ways were.

  While everyone else looked away from her scar in revulsion or fear, her father looked on with pride. As if it were his crowning achievement. His magnificent creation.

  His creation . . .

  Asha wanted to shut off her thoughts, to stop herself from following them to their most logical conclusion. But they were like a scroll unraveling. She had to read to the end.

  Asha’s father had always wanted to rid the realm of the old ways. He used Asha to hunt down Kozu. And when she was burned, he turned her into a tool—a cautionary tale. A living piece of propaganda.

  A monster.

  Asha didn’t want to believe it. She wanted to believe Kozu’s story was the wicked, twisted thing. But there was the burn, and here she was—still alive.

  Her father had been there when it happened, along with his soldats and—she realized now—his healers.

  Asha looked to her betrothed. This was the secret Jarek kept for the king. All those years ago, her father stepped aside and let Asha burn. And Jarek knew. This was why Asha had been promised to him—in exchange for compliance and secrecy.

  All her life, she’d thought of herself as wicked, corrupted, in need of redemption.

  A shocking thought occurred to her. What if I’m not any of those things?

  A low growl shook the earth at her feet. Asha turned to find the soldats advancing on Kozu’s back.

  “Kill it now!” Jarek shouted, looking over Asha’s shoulder. “Strike! Before it flies!”

  Asha lifted her slayers. But Kozu’s tail came around her, stopping her from charging, pulling her back against the searing-hot scales of his chest.

  Asha felt his acid lungs filling up with air. Felt the beat of his ancient heart.

  Jarek ducked behind the soldat’s shield.

  Kozu breathed, streaming flames in an arc. Red and orange filled Asha’s vision, swallowing the advancing soldats. The air shimmered with heat.

  When the fire stopped streaming, the whole field was ablaze. And it wasn’t the only thing on fire.

  In the distance, beyond the trees, beyond the low
er Rift and the wall, the city rooftops were going up in flames.

  “Firgaard!” she screamed, pointing.

  Jarek—unburned behind his shield—turned to see.

  “The city is under attack!”

  Asha’s hands clenched as the smoke billowed into the sky. Dax and Safire were in there.

  When darkness falls, little sister, the Old One lights a flame.

  It was the last thing her brother said to her.

  Asha’s hands unclenched as she remembered the look on his face as they hauled him away to the dungeon. Like it was all a part of his plan.

  No, she thought. Dax wouldn’t destroy his own home.

  “The skral are revolting!” called one of the soldats. “We need to go back!”

  Every skral in the city would have heard of what happened in the pit. That the Iskari saved a doomed slave. It would have bolstered their courage. And with half the army on its way to Darmoor, and the commandant here in the field . . .

  It was the perfect opportunity.

  While the soldats around her paused, caught between their burning city, their homes and families, and their loyalty to their commandant, Asha turned to Kozu.

  She thought of the pit and Torwin’s arrow pointed at her chest. Thought of what he’d say if he were here right now.

  It was the same thing her heart said.

  Get on the dragon, Asha.

  Kozu looked at her. If she sealed the link, it would mean they were allies. And allying herself to her oldest enemy made Asha hesitate.

  No, she thought, staring into his slitted yellow eye. You and I were never enemies.

  Asha reached for his wing bone the way Torwin had reached for Shadow’s that day. Stepping into the crook of Kozu’s knee, she hoisted herself up onto the First Dragon’s back.

  From this high up, Asha felt invincible. Lightning flashed above her. The blazing field sprawled out before her. And in the midst of the chaos, Jarek stared up at her, his eyes wide and afraid.

  “Fly,” she told Kozu. “Fly far away from here.”

  Jarek shouted orders to stop them, to kill the dragon. Kozu stretched out his wings the way night stretches over the desert. But just as he leaped into the air, there came a sickening thud. Kozu roared and swooped sideways.

  Asha slid but clung on. She looked down to find Jarek’s spear lodged in Kozu’s side.

  No. . . .

  Thunder cracked as Asha reached for it, her hands gripping the smooth wood of the shaft. As she pulled, the pain of it made Kozu lurch. The earth surged toward them. The spear came out at the same time Kozu staggered, then lost his balance. They hit the ground and the force of Kozu’s momentum made him roll, pitching Asha from his back.

  She heard a loud crack! Smelled the earthy scent of esparto grass. And then: pain, bleeding through her.

  The world went ink black.

  Thirty-Two

  Asha woke in a cell deep below her father’s palace.

  She didn’t know how much time had passed. Didn’t know how much of the city had burned in the revolt.

  Didn’t know if Kozu was dead or alive.

  He can’t be dead, she told herself, or the stories would be too.

  Chains streamed from her wrists and food came only occasionally. She gleaned information from her guards’ whispered conversations.

  The revolt started in the furrow, they said. The furrow burned and the fire caught and spread through a quarter of the city. Hundreds of slaves escaped. Hundreds more draksors were missing too. The most notable among them were Dax and Safire. Witnesses said the heir and his cousin led both skral and draksors through the streets. Together, they overtook the gate, which allowed for so many to escape.

  Days passed before the soldats came for her, unlocking her shackles and marching her up through the palace. By now, the new moon had come and gone. Three slaves waited in her room, their ankles chained together. The soldats stood at the door while the slaves washed away the dirt and grime from Asha’s body. She stared straight into the mirror, wondering how she’d ever been proud of the scar marring her skin.

  The oldest slave stepped in front of her, severing the sight of her reflection and holding out the first layer of her dress. The gold piece. Asha didn’t step into it.

  “If you refuse,” she whispered, her eyes averting Asha’s, “we will be punished.”

  So Asha stepped into the gown—which had been resewn after her last fitting, when they’d cut her out of it—and threaded her arms through the slender sleeves. When they held up the white outer piece, she stepped into that too.

  Half the night slipped away as they did up the multitude of tiny buttons at the back. When they finished the arduous work, they laced up the sash, pulling it tight. Last of all, they rimmed her eyes with kohl and smeared honey across her lips.

  Just before midnight the soldats led her through the palace and out the gates. Asha halted at the palace entrance, looking out. Watchers crowded the city streets. Candles illuminated their faces. Their flames were as numerous as the grains of sand scattered across the desert.

  Here were the people who hated and feared her. What would they say if they found out the truth—that Asha wasn’t the one responsible for their burned homes, their dead loved ones? What would they do?

  The soldats escorted Asha down the steps to the latticed litter made of fragrant thuya wood. Asha climbed onto the silk pillows. She gripped the holes in the wooden frame as the litter tipped, then righted itself while soldats hoisted it onto their shoulders.

  Marching footsteps rang through the streets. The wind scuttled across the rooftops. Asha watched the sea of faces through the latticework as they passed.

  She thought of Elorma waiting in the temple—like Jarek waited now—while his bride made her way to him through the streets. Willa might have died too young, but she’d found her place. She’d been loved and esteemed.

  If Asha were to die tonight, how would her story get told?

  The streets bordering the temple were packed wall to wall with draksors holding candles. Soldats lined the temple steps. The doors of the front archway were swung wide, keeping the symbol of the Old One out of view.

  The soldats carved through the crowd and lowered the litter. A hush fell as Asha climbed out. The cut stones were cold against her slippered feet. The night air was even colder.

  They took her into the temple corridor—lit by candles perched in alcoves, lined with soldats. When they marched her through the doors of the central chamber, Asha halted.

  It had been years since she set foot here.

  The chamber floors were laid with slabs of marble hewn from the mountains of the Rift. Columns rose ever upward, supporting the domed roof. Not so long ago, draksors would have knelt in this chamber, singing prayers or exultations, facing the low altar where hundreds of half-burned candles dribbled wax onto the floor. Asha remembered hearing their voices all the way from the market. Asha remembered joining them.

  No candles burned now. No voices whispered.

  Instead, huge red banners hung down the walls, all bearing her father’s emblem: the dragon with the sword through its heart. Behind the banners, Asha knew, were dazzling scenes from the old stories cut out of colored glass: the First Dragon, hatching from his embers; the sacred flame, burning bright in the night for Elorma to find; the building of Firgaard and the raising of the temple.

  The central window held the likeness of the Old One—a black dragon with a heart of flame—and was itself as wide as a dragon. It too was blotted out by her father’s banners.

  In the middle of the chamber, a ring of torches burned. Inside the firelit circle stood Jarek, the dragon king, and a robed temple guardian. Outside the circle, stationed along each column, stood a ring of six more guardians, there to bear witness.

  In a ceremonial white tunic with gold embroidery, Jarek matched his betrothed. The flames of the torches caught in the hollows beneath his eyes and, despite lines of exhaustion bordering his mouth, desire flickered across hi
s face as his gaze ran up and down Asha.

  The dragon king stood a little beyond the commandant, shimmering in a golden robe. At the sight of him, all the hurt buried inside Asha swarmed to the surface.

  “Why?” she demanded. “First, you turn me into a killer. And now, you’ll give me to someone I hate. Someone you yourself fear. Why are you doing this?”

  Jarek looked to the king, confused. “Someone you fear?”

  She turned to her betrothed. “He knows what you’re planning.”

  Jarek frowned at her, his confusion deepening. “What am I planning?”

  Her father stepped into the light of the torches. “That you intend to take my army and rise against me.”

  Jarek shook his head. “Why would I rise against the man I owe everything to?”

  What?

  Her voice shook as she said, “Your parents are dead because of him!”

  Jarek reached for her, his fingers clamping around her arm. Asha didn’t even try to twist free. Where would she go? Soldats lurked down every hallway. And beyond them was a city full of people who reviled her.

  “My mother loved my father more than she ever loved me,” Jarek explained. “And my father loved his army more than both of us combined. I was an afterthought, if I was that much.” Jarek brought her hand to his mouth, kissing her palm. Asha shivered. “Were their deaths a terrible accident? Yes. But look at me, Asha. I wouldn’t be where I am today if they were alive. Their death was my glory.”

  Asha stared at him.

  Was everything she knew a lie?

  And if Jarek wasn’t really a threat to her father, why would he offer to cancel the wedding?

  “You never intended to cancel the wedding,” she realized aloud, hardly daring to believe it, wanting him to refute it. It was so twisted. So cruel. “You only told me that so I would kill Kozu.”

  And in doing so, destroy the old stories. And with the stories went all trace of the Old One. Any resistance to her father’s reign would die off.

  “Look at you, Asha. Look at your brother. What am I supposed to do with a fool for a son and a disgrace for a daughter? How could either of you rule a kingdom?” He shook his head at the disappointing sight of her. For so long, she’d craved this man’s approval that, in spite of everything, she still felt shamed by that look. “Jarek is the heir I always wanted. He’s the heir I shall have.”