I whirl toward the archers. “Only shoot if you’re certain you will hit your mark!” Below, the man crawls, face contorted in pain. I spin toward the nearest sentinel. “Send a horse, now!”
But a darkwalker reaches the man first. His scream is bloodcurdling. In the end, I’m forced to look away.
The man’s death leaves me woozy. There will be another, and another—a mountain, a sea of dead. Soldiers continue to struggle with the jammed mechanism. In the time it takes their combined bodyweight to shift the door closed another foot, three more beasts slip into the city.
“Get her out of here!” the captain barks.
Someone begins hauling me backward toward the stairs. I wrench free of the guard’s grip. “Notus!”
The South Wind falters mid-throw and swings his head around. A brief examination of the area reveals naught but carnage. He can’t see me.
Again, the guard reaches for me. “Princess Sarai—”
“Touch me again,” I spit, “and I’ll have your head.”
The man halts, stricken. He doesn’t attempt to stop me as I grab the rungs of the wooden ladder and begin to climb one of the towers. Below, those barred from reaching the Queen’s Road cram themselves into homes or shelter between alleyways. Others bleed out in the sweltering heat, their feeble pleas gradually falling silent.
Halfway up the ladder, my foot punches through a rotting beam. I drop with a scream, clawing the wood as I swing wildly, my shoulder slamming against the stone wall.
From below, the captain’s thunderous voice breaks through the uproar of battle. “Get up there and bring her down before she breaks her neck.”
“But she said—”
“I don’t care what she said,” he snarls. “If she falls, it’ll be both our heads.”
My foot finds another rung. The ladder wobbles, but holds.
At the top, Ammara spreads before me, a gilded carpet pressed beneath a sky the blue of a jewel. Notus battles a group of darkwalkers, having contained them to a large dome of swirling air. They tear their hooked claws against the transparent barrier to no avail. It allows him to dart forward and thrust his sword through the heart of the smallest beast.
“Notus!” I pitch my voice higher, hands cupped around my mouth. “Notus!”
As another darkwalker plows into the half-closed gates, a chill slips into my bloodstream.Sarai,a voice whispers.Why do you flee?
My vision wavers. Blackness plumes before me. Is it a dream? A mirage? A cloaked figure materializes before my eyes, and I stumble back, the grit of the wall scraping the soles of my slippers.
“Who are you?” I choke. “What do you want?”
You know what I want, Sarai.
The cloaked figure flickers out of sight. Confusion sends me backward, but I fail to realize how close to the lip I stand. My foot slips off the edge, and I am falling.
17
IWAKE ON MY BACK, STARINGinto a sky the black of a crow’s wing.
My chest heaves. My skin prickles from the bone-dry air wafting from an opening beyond sight. I blink once, twice. Neither stars nor clouds nor moon. It feels as if I lie underground, though I’m not sure how that is possible. Gingerly, I push into a seated position. I remember falling. The silvery arc of Notus’ blade. Then: nothing.
“Hello?”
The sound gutters the moment it escapes my mouth. Whatever this place, the air hangs with an unfamiliar weight. It tastes of rust and damp.
After a time, my eyes adjust to the gloom. The space is small, hemmed in on all sides by pale stone. A tall mirror framed in silver leans against the opposite wall. There is a pull I cannot deny. It coaxes me to my feet, drags me nearer to the gleaming surface. When I reach out to touch the ornate frame, however, my fingers pass through. Not real, then. A dream.
It is real, Sarai.
I startle. My head snaps around, yet I am alone.
Except…amI alone, or am I simply blind to whoever else occupies this space?
