Long after she’s fallen asleep, her long lashes a slash of soot against her pale cheeks and her small hands curled against my chest, the words echo like a foretold curse, inescapable and ever looming.
* * *
Mirren
“Gods, what a dreary place,” Max remarks, her face twisted in distaste as she eyes the expanse of the fortress city, “if depression were a city, it would be here.”
She isn’t wrong. Yen Girene is Nadjaa’s antithesis; where Nadjaa sprawls, flowing and spacious, Yen Girene climbs, severe and stacked. While Nadjaa’s bright splashes of color are an affront to the senses sparkling against the dark waters of the Storven Sea, Yen Girene is awash in grays and blacks, lackluster and brutal. The wall surrounding the city is thick and menacing, jutting from the mountain range at a savage angle. It’s at least twenty feet wide and hundreds of feet tall, its face sheer and utterly unclimbable. Anrai told us that archers line the top at all hours of the day, trained to shoot first and ask questions later.
I shudder, staring up at the morose expanse of black rock. The only way in is just as he described, through a small gate on the side of the cliff adorned with steel gates that open and close by a lever hidden in a protected room. Though we’re too far away to see, the gate is armed with guards, trained to sniff out even the most elaborate of ruses. No one gets into the city without their say so, and by extension, without the Achijj’s.
“Hidden and secure.” Calloway appears from the trees where he’s been tying the horses. I hate the idea of leaving Dahiitii by herself while we descend into the city, but there’s wisdom in keeping our means of escape out of the Achijj’s hands. If our horses were to be confiscated, we’d never make it home.
Cal has traded the bright fabrics he usually prefers for the soft black leather of gear. A quiver and bow are strapped to his back and the unadorned sword he had when he attacked the Boundary hunters hangs in a scabbard at his side. Max is similarly armed, with two curved swords strapped in an ‘X’ across her back and various daggers hidden in what she referred to as ‘creative places’.
I pull my cloak tighter and pat my dagger. It is my only weapon, aside from my power. I hope there won’t be a reason to use it.
There was little joking between us this morning, as the weight of what we are about to do settled over camp like a thick blanket. Even Cal’s ever-present smile has receded into a somber seriousness. My heart thumps wildly and I remind myself that I am not the only one who will lose something if we don’t succeed. I will lose my brother, but Max, Cal, and Anrai will lose a father. Nadjaa and Ferusa at large, stand to lose so much more.
Anrai is motionless next to me, but his pale eyes scan every detail of the fortress warily. He is clad in gear, his daggers lining his chest and legs, and a long sword that’s too heavy for me to even lift is strapped to his back. There is no fear on his face, only bald determination and I am reminded of the night we first met—ruthless, cunning, and unyielding—but now, I am thankful for the strength of his will. Anrai does not fail. If anyone can find a way to get my father out of here, it’s him.
“Let’s go,” he orders.
The descent to the gate is arduous. The path is steep and craggy, littered with rocks that sparkle in the few slivers of dim morning sun that peek through the fog. “How does any of their trade get through if this is the only path to the city?” I finally ask. Despite the icy chill of the air, sweat beads on my forehead.
“They don’t,” Cal answers, hopping over a particularly large stone with the grace of a gazelle. “They have everything they need to survive within their walls. They only trade in small amounts, only what can be brought in on horseback. That way, everything can be inspected. They don’t trust outsiders.”
“That seems like an exhausting way to live. Being so suspicious of the outside world.”
Cal exchanges a look with Max. “They say Yen Girene was modeled after Similis,” he says carefully.
I process his words, wondering why I failed to notice the parallels. While their Boundary may be made of stone and ours is metal, they were both built to accomplish the same thing—to keep anything different out. Both the good and the bad.
Up ahead, Anrai stops so abruptly that I skid on the gravel to keep from colliding with his back. “Something isn’t right,” he says, a hand going to the dagger over his heart.
Max turns round eyes on him, her pretty face apprehensive. “What is it?”
His eyes reflect the gray landscape, making them appear to churn like restless storm clouds. “Listen.”
I strain my ears, hearing nothing but the rustle of the long grasses on the southern-most plain of the valley and the distant rush of what I can only assume is the river Timdis.
“I don’t hear anything,” Cal says after minutes pass and Anrai still hasn’t moved.
His gaze flicks to his friend and then back to the towering fortress. “Exactly. We’re close enough to the city that we should hear something. Sounds of guards, sounds of the marketplace. But there’s nothing. And look,” he says gesturing to the enormous black wall, “there are no archers patrolling the top of the wall.”
I squint, following the direction of Anrai’s hand up to where the top of the wall meets the gunmetal gray sky. Indeed, there is an unsettling lack of movement.
Anrai points to the guards’ gate, now only a few hundred feet away. “They’re suspicious of outsiders. Someone should have met us by now, threatened us and taken us to the Achijj. Yen Girene is unguarded.”
Cal’s eyes pop and Max sets her jaw, but it’s the way Anrai purposefully avoids my eyes that unsettles me most. He never shies away from the hard truth, but now, it’s as if he can’t bear to look at me. Guilt has settled onto his shoulders like an iron clamp, and I already know what he’ll say before he utters, “we’re walking into a trap.”
Silence settles over us, thick and stifling.
Cal is the one to break it as he shifts his weight between his boot clad feet. “Okay, so the Achijj knows we’re coming. The question is how.”
Max scowls. “Do you think this has something to do with that slimy assassin?”
“It wasn’t Avedis. He wouldn’t betray his life debt like that,” I reply instantly.
