The Last Namsara

by Kristen Ciccarelli

  The moment the lake came into view, shimmering beneath the pale light of the moon, Asha saw the scorched rock. There’d been a fire. Torwin’s tent was in tatters.

  But that wasn’t the worst of it.

  Kozu landed and Asha dropped to the rock, with Safire following her, both of them staring at the hump in the darkness.

  “Shadow?” Asha called softly. The hump didn’t move.

  Safire stayed back while Asha moved closer. She stepped in blood. It glistened on the rock all around her, pooling from some deep gash. The dust-red dragon curled tightly around himself. His eyes were closed.

  “Shadow?” Asha’s voice sounded tinny in her ears.

  Those pale eyes opened slowly and only halfway.

  Asha let out a shuddering breath. “Oh Shadow . . .”

  She sank to her knees, reaching for his snout. His eyes closed again.

  “No,” she said. She needed to figure out how deep the wound was. Where the wound was. So she could tend it. “Come on. Get up.”

  Pale eyes flickered open. He didn’t raise his head, just looked at her. Like he was too tired. Like his playful spark had gone out. His stare made her think of Torwin, walking away, trying to soak up the sight of her before he was gone.

  “Get up!” Her voice shook. Her hands trembled. She got to her feet and walked around him. His chest rose and fell slowly. Hardly at all.

  “Asha . . . ,” Safire said softly from behind her.

  Ignoring her cousin, Asha pushed on his haunches. She sharpened her voice. “Get up, Shadow.”

  This time, he tried. He raised his head and several heartbeats later, he pushed up on his front legs, but his claws slipped in blood and he fell with a terrible thud.

  Asha saw the gash in his chest then. It was so deep. Right next to his heart, which slowed with each thump.

  Asha’s eyes blurred with tears.

  She could feel him straining, feel him trying—because she wanted him to. Because he loved her and it was the very last thing he could do for her.

  “Good, Shadow,” Asha whispered, pressing her hand over his heart. It beat so faintly now. Like a dying echo across the Rift. “That’s so good, Shadow. You can lie down now. Just lie back down. . . .”

  Shadow collapsed. Asha sank to her knees. The dragon’s black blood soaked her dress.

  Safire came to sit beside her.

  As the star in him faded, Asha pulled Shadow’s warm snout into her lap. As his eyes closed, she told him one last story. The story of a girl who hunted dragons to soothe the hurt in her heart. The story of the dragon who changed her.

  By the time she finished telling it, there was no rise and fall of his chest. No flicker of pale eyes trying to open.

  Shadow had stopped breathing.

  He was gone.

  “Oh, Asha,” whispered Safire.

  While Asha sobbed out her rage and grief, Safire’s arm came around her, pulling her in, cradling her while she cried.

  Kozu came out of the shadows then. He nudged the younger dragon with his snout. He nudged twice. When Shadow didn’t respond, a sound split the night in two, joining with Asha’s sobs. A low, keening wail.

  A dragon song for the dead.

  Forty-Five

  “I’m going to kill him.”

  Safire dragged Asha out of the pool of dragon blood and brought her to the lake edge, trying to wash it from her knees and legs.

  “I’m going to gut him with my bare hands and use his entrails for dragon bait.”

  Her dress was ruined. Soaked in blood. When Safire finished washing her, Asha headed for Kozu. She would fly to the city this very night and carve out Jarek’s heart.

  “Asha.” Safire caught her hard. “No.”

  Asha struggled against her cousin. “Let me go.”

  “You need to be calm.” Safire held on. Safire had always been stronger. “You need to outthink them, not play right into their hands.”

  Two dragons flew above them. Asha stopped struggling to watch them circle the lake. Kozu watched them too. When they landed, the First Dragon melted into the darkness.

  Both of these dragons were young. Half the size of Kozu. The one on the left had earth-brown scales and black horns. The one on the right had pale horns—one of them, broken—and was charcoal gray in color. Their wings folded back like crumpled leaves as they waited for their riders to dismount.

  “If I don’t go, Jarek will kill him.”

  Four riders dismounted. Two stayed with the dragons. The other two—Dax and Jas—moved toward them.

  “Jarek needs Torwin alive to lure you in,” Safire said, resting her head against Asha’s as Dax approached. “He expects you to come. He wants you angry and reckless. Don’t give him what he wants.”

  Illuminated by the lamp in Jas’s hand, Dax looked like he’d aged ten years in a single night. His words echoed Safire’s.

  “As soon as you set foot inside the city walls,” Dax told her, “he’ll have no reason to keep Torwin alive. The longer you stay away, the longer Torwin lives.”

  Asha shook her head, remembering the sound of the shaxa on his back. She thought of the one god Torwin believed in.

  Death, the Merciful.

  “There are worse things than death,” she whispered.

  Safire’s arms loosened around her. Asha looked to Shadow’s form.

  If Torwin had left for Darmoor when he first wanted to, he’d be on a ship right now, sailing far away. He would be safe.

  To stop the floodgate inside her from breaking, Asha curled her hands into vicious fists.

  “If I had just been here!”

  “If you’d been here, Jarek would have cut Torwin down before your eyes and taken you instead,” Dax said gently, carefully. “They were outnumbered. There’s nothing you could have done.”

  “No. There’s nothing you could have done. I am the Iskari.” She glared at her brother, daring him to contradict her. He didn’t.

  Instead, he took her shoulders in his hands. “We are going to get him out. I’ll think of something, Asha. Just don’t do anything rash. Promise me you won’t.”

  Asha couldn’t promise that. She knew Dax was right—Jarek would expect her to come. He would set a trap for her. But if she didn’t go . . .

  Asha scanned the darkness for Kozu. She could sense him in her mind, restless in the presence of enemies. If he wouldn’t come to her, she’d go to him.

  Asha moved to step around her brother. He blocked her.

  “Get out of my way.”

  “If I get out of your way, you’ll fly to Firgaard and put everyone here at risk,” said Dax. “I’m sorry, but I can’t let you do that.”

  All of New Haven moved out the next morning. They couldn’t stay—the commandant knew their exact location. So they packed the tents and readied the dragons. It should have been Asha who led the dragons and their riders down into the lower Rift, close to the entrance of her secret tunnel. But Dax forbade her from flying—in case she decided to fly straight to the palace. So Asha chose the best rider and put her in the lead.

  Once they reassembled in the lower Rift, Dax called a meeting. They gathered in a makeshift tent where he and Jas outlined the plan. Dax would go in alone, as a decoy. While he entered through the north gate, Jas and Safire and a handful of other Haveners would make their way through the tunnel below the temple. While Dax negotiated with the dragon king, Jas and Saf would take over the gate and hold it open long enough for the army waiting just beyond the wall. Essie was still the signal to advance. Jas would bring the hawk. The moment the gate opened, he would send her skyward.

  Asha would not be setting foot anywhere near the city. She had too much at stake, and no one trusted her to stick with the plan.

  “I know it seems unfair,” Dax said after everyone but he, Asha, and Safire had left the tent. Asha sat in the dirt, with her lower back against a wooden tent post and her forehead pressed into her drawn-up knees. Safire sat next to her, sharpening her knives. Dax sank down betwee
n them. “But I need you to wait here with the army until it’s safe.”

  Without looking at her brother, Asha said, “You mean, until you’ve killed the king.”

  Silence descended. When Asha looked up into her brother’s warm eyes, she found them shining with tears.

  “I have to, Asha.”

  Safire paused her sharpening.

  “No,” said Asha. “What you need to do is stay alive, so you can be a better king than he is.”

  Dax shook his head. “So long as our father draws breath, no one will consider me king.”

  “Think of Roa, then. You’ll leave a scrublander to hold the throne alone? Firgaard will devour her.”

  “Trust me,” he said, his jaw tight. “Roa can take care of herself.”

  “What about what I want?” Safire demanded. “What about what Asha wants?”

  Dax wiped his eyes with the hem of his sleeve.

  “I want you to live,” said Safire, a little angrily.

  “And I want you to rule,” said Asha.

  He pulled away from them both. Asha let him go. Let him get to his feet.

  “This is what good leaders do,” he said, not daring to look either of them in the eye. He seemed every bit a hero in his dirty scrublander clothes and his tearstained cheeks. “They make sacrifices for their people.”

  Asha thought of the day she burned the scrolls, when Dax told her the Old One hadn’t abandoned them. He was just waiting for the right moment. The right person.

  He’s waiting for the next Namsara to make things right.

  Asha thought Dax a fool that day. Now, though, as her brother turned and left the tent, she thought something very different.

  There. There is our Namsara.

  Safire stayed behind, continuing to sharpen her throwing knives while she waited for the signal.

  “You have to stop him,” said Asha the moment Dax left the tent.

  Without looking up from her work, Safire said, “I’m planning on it.”

  Asha leaned her head back against the wood post, listening to the drawn-out hiss of steel on the whetstone.

  Safire stopped suddenly, lowering the sharpened knife in her lap. “Whatever happens, I want you to know I love you.”

  Asha looked into her cousin’s eyes. “What?”

  “As much as I want you at my side in there”—she nodded toward the tent entrance, toward the city—“I can’t bear the thought of what Jarek will do to you if this all goes completely wrong.”

  Asha stared at her cousin, horrified. “What he’ll do to me? Think of what he’s already done to you, Saf.”

  Her cousin held up the knife edge, examining it. “All I need is one clear shot.”

  Asha didn’t like this thought. She looked away, angry. They should be going in together. But as the tent darkened around her and Safire’s departure crept closer, Asha let her head fall against her cousin’s shoulder.

  They sat in silence for a long time, both of them thinking of what would happen if it did all go wrong. They were still sitting there, with Asha’s head on Safire’s shoulder and Safire’s knife lowered in her lap, when footsteps crunched on the hard, dry earth.

  “Safire?” Jas entered the tent. “It’s time.”

  Just before she rose, Safire leaned in close. “Don’t you dare do anything reckless.”

  Asha stared as her cousin pushed herself to her feet, tucking the sharpened knife into her belt.

  “Don’t you do anything reckless,” Asha countered as Safire walked past Jas, who held up the tent flaps for her to step through. When she did, Jas turned to Asha, solemnly fisted his hand over his heart, then dropped the tent flaps, cutting them both off from view.

  Reaching for the whetstone her cousin left behind, Asha drew the axe at her hip. She’d taken it from the weapons caravan almost as soon as it arrived in New Haven. Made of acacia wood, the unadorned handle was worn and smooth.

  Slowly, carefully, Asha started to sharpen it.

  Forty-Six

  Asha couldn’t tell how much time had passed. Only that it grew dark shortly after Safire left with Jas, and it was still dark.

  Too dark.

  And too quiet.

  Footsteps rose up, crunching the dry pine needles littering the ground outside the tent. Asha rose from the dirt floor and tucked her axe into her belt.

  This is it. They’ve secured the gate.

  The tent flaps whispered open. Roa stood in the entrance, alone, with a torch in her hand. The tent flaps fell shut behind her, sealing them in together.

  “Something’s wrong.” Her dark gaze sliced into Asha. “Essie’s returned, but the gates are shut tight.”

  “What?”

  “I think they’ve been captured.”

  Fear spiked in Asha. Everyone she loved was in the city. They couldn’t be captured. Because that meant everyone she loved was in the hands of the two people who wouldn’t think twice about hurting them—in order to hurt her.

  “Maybe there are too many soldats guarding the gate,” Asha said, wishing she was still leaning against the tent pole. Wishing she had something to bear her up. “Maybe they’re regrouping.”

  “They’ve had all night to return and collect more soldiers. It’s almost dawn.” Roa lifted the tent flap, waiting for Asha. “We’re going in.”

  They couldn’t go in on dragonback—not with the commandant in possession of so many hostages. Roa feared the sight of dragons would push Jarek to start taking lives, beginning with the least important.

  Asha didn’t like to think about who the least important would be.

  “The tunnel, then?”

  Roa nodded, her eyes glittering in the torchlight.

  A familiar craving curled like smoke in Asha’s belly. She wanted to hunt. Not a dragon, though. Never again would she hunt a dragon. Tonight she would hunt her own husband.

  Roa whistled, holding up the torch. Out of the darkness two young women materialized. Asha recognized both of them from the night of Dax and Roa’s binding.

  “This is Lirabel,” said Roa, touching the shoulder of Jas’s friend and then the girl beside her. “And Saba.”

  Lirabel wore her gleaming black curls bound in a thick braid over her shoulder; Saba wore her hair in two plaits running down each side of her head. Judging by their belt quivers and the bows slung over their shoulders, they were archers.

  Three armed scrublanders against troops of soldats seemed like bad odds to Asha. She kept this thought to herself, though, too afraid Roa would change her mind and leave her behind. Taking the torch, Asha led them into the tunnel.

  Roa’s white hawk swooped in after them.

  The orange flame pierced the darkness as they walked deeper into rock. When they neared the tunnel opening, Lirabel touched Asha’s shoulder, stopping her. Taking an arrow from her quiver, the girl held it to the torch. The tip was wrapped in cloth and Asha could smell the alcohol it had been dipped in. The arrow lit and burned, bright and furious. Lirabel shot the arrow through the crypt, lighting up a much larger path than the torch would have, allowing them to see if anyone waited in the darkness.

  Deciding the way was clear, Lirabel stepped out first. Asha followed her, leading them through the crypt, up the vaulted stairway, and into the temple. And all the while, Lirabel shot her arrows tipped with fire, making sure no enemies lurked ahead.

  They should have run into someone by the time they reached the front doors. A guardian. Or a soldat. But the temple was silent and empty. It made the hair on Asha’s arms rise.

  Roa pressed both hands against one of the front doors, ready to push it open, when Asha stepped on something.

  “Wait,” she hissed, lifting her foot and crouching down to the floor. The glow of her torch illuminated a knife with a hilt made of ivory and mother-of-pearl.

  Safire’s knife. The one she’d been sharpening in the tent.

  Asha picked it up. The hilt was cold.

  Safire never dropped her weapons—not by accident, not even in a f
ight. Which meant she’d left it here on purpose.

  Asha’s eyes lifted to where the knife pointed: the temple entrance. Roa’s palms were still pressed against the door, ready to push. Her gaze met Asha’s, who shook her head. Rising, she motioned for the three scrublanders to follow her. Whatever Safire’s reason, Asha needed to put as much space as possible between them and the entrance.

  She led them to the window that opened out to the pomegranate tree. The street below was just as empty as the temple. No torches burned in the narrow laneways. The only light came from the stars.

  Where were the soldats?

  “Do you know how to get to the gate from here?”

  Roa tapped her head. “Your brother’s map is in here.”

  Asha shook her head. “Don’t take the main streets.” She sank to a crouch, holding the glow of her torch just above the floor while she drew a rough map in the dust. “This way will take more time, but more streets branch off it.” Roa crouched with her, watching silently as she drew. “You’ll have more escape routes this way, if you need them. And no one will expect you to take the most cumbersome way.”

  Roa’s eyes memorized the path made by Asha’s fingertip.

  Asha handed over the torch. “You’ll need it for your arrows.”

  Dipping her head in the barest of nods, Roa said, “May the Old One guide your steps.”

  Asha climbed out the window and into the branches of the pomegranate tree, then quickly glanced back.

  “Roa?”

  The girl in the window paused.

  “Don’t break my brother’s heart.”

  Roa smiled a small smile. “Is that a threat, Iskari?” And then she raised her fist over her own heart in a silent salute.

  Asha dropped to the street below. Gathering the darkness around her like a cloak, she crept through the shadows, making her way to the palace alone. And all the while, she felt Kozu in her mind. Restless. Pacing. Wondering where she was.

  Forty-Seven

  Devoid of marching soldats and the sounds and smells of the night market, the city seemed lifeless. No donkeys brayed. No beggars sat with outstretched palms. No water sellers wandered or called. The night was silent around Asha. The thud of her own boots on dusty streets and tiled rooftops echoed loudly in her ears, so she took them off and left them behind, continuing barefoot.