“Amandera. Obviously,” I answered thickly. My head still pounded from the experience of wrestling that thread and being consumed by lightning.
“Not good. They ride hard to reach us. And we must be their goal. No other racers came this way.”
“Are we close to anywhere?”
“Not close enough. You should have been wiser in choosing your enemies.”
“They chose me,” I muttered.
“Then you should have been better at making peace,” he said.
“I should have been better at a lot of things,” I said, putting my pounding head into my hands.
“Can you fight?”
“No.”
He cursed.
“Can you?” I asked.
“If I want to,” he said with a cynical look.
“You don’t want to?” I asked, surprised. I finally had the energy to pull myself up and look out the back window of the palanquin. He was right. There was a large dust cloud forming and my rear guards were closing the gap between us. Ahead of us, the front guards had slowed, waiting for us to catch up to them.
“I haven’t decided yet,” he said with a sigh.
I crossed the single step between us, took his face in between my hands and said, “I want to live.”
He looked away, anger still burning in his eyes.
“I didn’t kill anyone on purpose. Definitely not your family,” I said, dropping my hands.
“I don’t know if I believe you,” he said, chilling my core with the look in his eyes. “But I’ll think about it.”
I turned back to look out the window. The cloud was getting closer.
“I hope you think quickly.”
Chapter Twenty-Two: Caught
Jakinda’s elephant appeared out of the cloud of dust, matching its pace to ours. Her elephant had been ahead, and slowing was easier than catching up.
Churning dust filled the sky and billowed up to where we ran. It curled and curved around Alsoon. The heavy palanquin slowed him and my stomach twisted as I worried about him breathing in dust while he was working so hard. We had to lighten his burden as soon as we could, but with Amandera hot on our heels it would have to wait.
“We are being pursued by an armed force, Tazminera,” Jakinda said coldly, but she was all business now that we had strayed back into her world of protection and defense.
“It’s Amandera. She wants me to return to Al’Karida,” I said.
Jakinda closed her eyes for a moment, and appeared to be breathing deeply before saying, “We will not abandon our duty to you.”
Beside her Buhari and Sesay readied their weapons.
“But their force is stronger than ours and you wish I would just go back with her?” I said.
A pained look crossed her face. “You will not?”
“I will not go back willingly,” I said, hardening my face and my heart. Should I care that it would be easier for them if I went back? It certainly would not be easier for me. I would continue to be beaten and humiliated to coax every last drop of magic out of me. I would never be able to leave again without my father sending assassins after me. This was the only legal means of escape that I had—and it wasn’t much of an escape. I was still saddled with ancestors and an angry Prince of Hawks, and if I didn’t come up with a good plan soon, my guards would abandon me. “The Teeth of the Gods could bring great honor and power to Canderabai. I will find them and present them to the High Tazmin.”
“You wish to die here in this wilderness?” Jakinda asked.
Well now, wasn’t that dramatic! If we veered back to the main road there were more than enough tiny villages to resupply us, so this hardly counted as a wilderness even if all I saw was dirt and acuda shrubs.
“I don’t wish to die anywhere,” I declared, lifting my chin high. “Which is why I will not return with her.”
“They won’t kill you if you go back,” Jakinda said, and her voice almost sounded pleading.
I glanced at Rusk who had called me heartless. He was watching with a hawk-like look in those honey-golden eyes as if he could pick out details from our interaction that no one else could see. His arms were crossed over his chest. Would he choose to fight with me or to haul me back to Amandera on that chain? It wasn’t her mother who had killed his. Not her father who had ordered his family’s murders—although it was her husband who did. Where would his loyalties lie?
“They will only make me wish I had died every day,” I countered. “If I find the Teeth then I will have something to barter with—something to convince them to take me seriously. Are you saying that they will kill you if I don’t surrender? Are you afraid to fight for my freedom and honor?”
Jakinda looked torn, but eventually she sighed and said, “We fear no men.”
I sniffed and looked away. She’d trained her whole life to guard me. Had she really thought that I’d spend my existence swanning around in fancy palaces dressed in pretty clothes? What use were guards who didn’t want to guard?
I snuck a glance at Jakinda. She had freed her blade and her glance was going from Buhari to the dust cloud behind us. Was she worried about him? Was she worried about Conteh and Noxolo on the elephant behind ours?
“What are your orders?” she said at last.
“We find a way to lose them. I will not return without the Teeth of the Gods.”
“Very well.”
At least that was settled, and just in time. Conteh and Noxolo’s elephant pierced through the dust clouds and took up a position on Alsoon’s right flank. Jakinda began barking orders. Over the sound of our elephants, the jingling of harnesses and the sound of voices shouting rang out from the force behind us. I turned to Rusk.
“Have you decided whether to fight for your life and my heartless one?”
It hurt to be thought of as heartless when all I’d ever been was whole-hearted about life. They’d pushed and shoved and crammed me into this corner and now there was no other choice. This was Jakinda’s fault and Rusk’s fault and Amandera’s fault and the fault of my father the High Tazmin, and my mother—the Gods rest her soul—and of the Gods themselves. It was not my fault. I was not the heartless one here. I just didn’t want to be a slave on a chain for Amandera to plumb as she wished.
“I am still considering,” he said uncertainly, his brow furrowing, and his mouth twisting under the weight of his thoughts.
They just had to go and chain me to a thinker. I leaned out the back window of the palanquin and tugged one of the packs open, pulling out a spatha from the bundle and then tied it back up and returned to the palanquin. I handed it to Rusk.
“If you decide in my favor, you will need this.”
He took it, regarding it with a frown and turning it over and over in his hands.
“You know how to use it?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said with a grin, but I didn’t’ know if I should be worried about the grin or take it as a sign that he was going to help.
“Well, just remember that we’re chained together, so you won’t have much room for maneuverings.”
“Then maybe you should have given me a knife instead of a sword.”
Was that a joke? I ignored him, watching as Jakinda and my other guards finished setting up some long ropes that dangled down the sides of the elephants. They were tied to them somehow. Were they planning to jump down while the elephant ran? Was this some standard part of elephant mounted warfare that I knew nothing about?
I glanced behind us. Would we have any warning before they were upon us?
And then, as if by the hands of the Gods, a wind whipped up and the dust parted like a curtain. Behind us a dozen horses galloped, their riders waving weapons, and behind them six elephants ran. Amandera, dressed in scarlet and gold, stood in her palanquin as regal as the High Tazminera that she was, her arms spread wide and her heartstone glowing a vivid red. This was going to be very bad.
“Surrender and return with me,” she said, appearing suddenly in Ra’shara, while also stand
ing in her bright palanquin.
“I’m not the surrendering kind,” I said.
“I will not return to the High Tazmin empty handed.”
“Then I guess you’re looking at an extended holiday.”
She vanished from Ra’shara and then the real Amandera pointed her hand forward, and impossibly her forces sped up.
We were engulfed by riders with the flags of the High Tazminera flapping on their shoulder poles and then suddenly, I saw what the ropes were for.
Noxolo stood perpendicular to the heaving side of her elephant, holding the rope in one gloved hand and her sword in the other, and then leaping outward, she swung on the rope in a lowering, swirling arc and swept two riders from the backs of their horses with her sword. One was clearly dead—or so I hoped when I saw how his body was bent—and the other was picking himself up off the ground while charging mounts nearly ran him down. On the other side of Noxolo’s elephant, Conteh performed the same maneuver. Their twin weights balanced their elephant from feeling too much pull on any one side.
My mouth hung open and I glanced up to see Rusk watching with an inspired look. Their elephant had pulled ahead of us in the commotion and right beside them, Buhari and Sesay were mirroring the fighting display from the back of their mount. Their dark figures, easily identifiable with the white and orange of my colors, swung through the air like over-large spiders, making sweeping strikes at our enemies. As a head rolled off a body to the rushing ground beneath, I suddenly realized what all Jakinda’s frownings and hintings had meant. She hadn’t been afraid to defend me. She’d wanted to know if I really thought a few weeks of freedom was worth killing people over. I gasped as the weight of it hit me. It had felt so simple to say yes. Why shouldn’t I be free? But at what cost? Had I ever considered who might lose their life over my desire to choose my own destiny? Did that make me...heartless?
I looked up into Rusk’s eyes and there it was. Confirmation. His lips were compressed and thin, forming a dimple in his chin. I felt the blood drain from my face as I swayed down into the palanquin seat. My eyes were locked on his honey warm ones, only now they were hard as amber. He was right to judge me. I hadn’t even realized—or cared—what my decision would cost. Fear and guilt overwhelmed me, but I couldn’t look away from the judgment of his eyes, as if somehow the fire in them could purify me from the blood dripping from my hands.
A keening cry sounded out, and then Rusk shoved the sword through his belt, reached across the palanquin, seized me by the waist and hauled me out of the palanquin onto the front of Alsoon’s shoulders. I felt him stagger at the shifting weight and his ball of pain flared for a moment.
“We can’t!” I said, but I cut off as an eagle dove close to me, shrieking and showing claws. I covered my face with my hands.
When I dared to look again, the sky was peppered with black forms, shrieking and screaming in the air above us and darting at the horses below. All around Alsoon our enemies were thick and with horror I realized that the first of Amandera’s elephants was mere feet away. Alsoon was slowing. The palanquin was too heavy. I looked forward to where my own guards fought viciously against the surrounding horsemen like twin bulls amidst a pack of dogs.
“We’re falling behind! We have to get the palanquin off Alsoon,” I said, scrambling towards Rusk. He looked up from what he was doing and I glanced at his hands. He was sawing the straps with his sword.
“What do you think I’m doing?” he asked, as he cut the last of them.
The palanquin began to lean and in a flash, I realized what was going to happen. I threw myself across Alsoon’s shoulders holding on with one hand to the padding still strapped to his back while I braced my other arm. Less than a second later, I heard Rusk cry out as he fell from Alsoon and I screamed with him as the tether yanked hard on my arm. A crash sounded out and I risked a look up and behind me. The palanquin had crashed into the nearest elephant when it fell off Alsoon’s back and that elephant slowed as it tried to manoeuver around the wreck.
“Rusk?” I called. My arm hurt at all the joints. It took all my strength to stay in place. I couldn’t hold on if the tether kept on pulling and yanking. “Rusk! I don’t know how long I can hang on!”
There was no answer.
Chapter Twenty-Three: Ring Around the Heavens
“Ring around the heavens...”
An’alepp sat behind me, in Ra’shara but fully visible, singing her annoying song as I held on for dear life.
“Either lend a hand or shut up!” I said. It was all I could do to hold on. Out of the corner of my eye I saw flickers of Amandera’s palanquin, and when she arrived I knew she’d bathe me in pain like always. How close did she need to get to do that to me?
“You could try unweaving something,” An’alepp said before settling back into her song. “Ring for when the earth bends, Ring for when the mother ends, follow, follow, follow it home.”
“Unweaving what? I need the tether or he’ll fall under the elephant’s feet.” I couldn’t do that to Rusk.
“Gravity?” An’alepp asked.
“Very helpful.”
The earth began its shaking, like it had so often of late. Great, as if we didn’t have enough on our plates. Alsoon trumpeted in fear, veering hard to the left as my breath hitched in my throat. I was making little panicking sounds with every breath. No way out. There was no way out of this. Rusk was going to fall and I’d tumble right after him and be trampled to death.
“Rusk!” I yelled, my fear rising with Alsoon’s. If I could see his face I’m sure I’d see his glassy eyes rolling in fear. My stomach was tied in a tight knot and I was having trouble absorbing everything around me. Foes pursued us. Clanging, yelling, roaring and trumpeting filled the air. I didn’t dare look. Somewhere Jakinda either fought or died, alongside my other armsmen. Had my freedom been worth the price of her life? Of Alsoon’s? I shivered.
The tether was tugging harder. Had Rusk caught on something? He still hadn’t called out. He must be hanging limply from the tether. In desperation, I reached out to the Common, looking to see the weaving here that was so easy to see in Ra’shara. Ra’shara overlaid the real world and I was seeing them both at once, the tiny, invisible threads just barely visible now. On instinct, I reached towards one, gripping it hard and tugging. It came loose, fighting and jerking in my mental grip. Knowing what I was trying to do didn’t make things any easier.
I was focussed so intently on what I was doing that it took a moment to realize the weight had eased off of my hand. Rusk! There was the sound of clanging steel on steel. Had our tether broken? I whipped my head to the side.
He was behind me, gripping the padding on Alsoon’s back with one hand while he fought an enemy with the other. He’d climbed up! We had a chance! My eyes widened, but in my moment of lapsed concentration the thread became slippery. I clawed at it with my mind as it slipped slowly, but certainly, away from my grasp.
“Surrender and I will let your san’lelion live, Tylira!” Amandera’s voice rang like the horns that had started this race. Her proximity sent a stab of fear through my belly, loosening my tentative grasp on the thread. It slid through my hands like buttered piglet. My mouth opened in horror, and then the lightnings burst from my hands, spreading wide in every direction.
In the flare of their light I saw Jakinda far ahead of us, charging back in our direction. Buhari and Sesay still swung from the ropes on either side of her elephant. I whipped my head back to see a horrified Rusk fighting for balance as he buried his sword in the rib cage of a man who had climbed onto Alsoon. A bolt of lightning flashed inches from him, striking Amandera’s elephant instead. The world felt tingly.
I couldn’t keep track of everything the lightnings struck, but I watched in horror as her elephant crumpled slowly forward, his eyes shut. Men and horses fled in every direction to escape his collapse. I’d done that. Unintentionally, but it was me. The thread still flapped in the wind despite the lightning, and then before my eyes I watched the fa
bric of the earth unweave.
To me it looked like yarn in a shawl unravelling, but to anyone else it would have looked as if the earth had opened her mouth and yawned. Alsoon, running and screaming with all his might, was only just ahead of it, and Amandera’s elephant had fallen just behind it, but between us men, women and horses who had been charging only moments before plummeted into the open ground, their screams the only reminder that they had ever existed at all.
Alsoon slowed and then stopped, exhausted from the run and his terror. Jakinda’s elephant skidded to a stop beside us. I scanned the horizon looking for Noxolo and Conteh. When I glanced back across the yawning chasm I thought I could see them on the other side.
Amandera’s force swelled with chaos; soldiers, horses and elephants bubbling in every direction like a kicked anthill. There were still twenty of them for every one of us, and it mattered not at all. It would take hours for them to skirt around the rip in the ground. Even from so far away I could make out Amandera standing beside her fallen elephant, red sarette whipping in the wind, arms crossed over her chest and eyes fixed on me. I shivered.
Rusk cleared his throat. “I don’t think she’ll let you go free after this.”
“You did this?” Jakinda asked, horror lacing her tone.
“It was a mistake,” I replied in a small voice, not daring to meet their gazes.
I had never felt so small. I kept pulling down towers on our heads without realizing it. This was all my fault. My vision flickered and it took a moment to realize that it was the light from my heartstone. I pulled it down from my forehead and looked at it. The surface crackled and burst with ceaseless flares of lightning against a black surface. It looked just like I felt inside. I threaded it back through my hair with a sinking heart. It was a sign telling everyone what I had become.
“Alsoon needs rest,” I said, still not daring to meet anyone’s gaze as I slowly dismounted. Rusk was forced to follow.
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