“Cyrill?”I go stock-still and then shake my head as the rest of his body materializes. Itishim. I lower my glimmering hands and rush toward him. “What are you doing here?”
“I told you Javed would try to take your light.” He reaches a hand to me, holding the fringe of the tapestry aloft. “Come, your father is waiting.”
Hope soars in my chest. “Papa? He’s alive?”
“Yes, we don’t have much time. It took forever to navigate the mines and find the right passageway after you arrived at the palace. And then you changed towers and rooms and that was a whole mess, too. There are guards everywhere.”
Hurrying behind him, I enter the low stone corridor, the secret door snicking shut behind us. We move at a clipped pace, the silk of my skirts getting caught on the rough-hewn rock. When we emerge in an underground dungeon that smells of musk and mildew, I almost weep at the sight of my somber father standing with a group of armed men. I fling myself into his arms.
“Did he hurt you?” my father says, his voice gruff with emotion.
“No,” I sniff, ripping the veil from my head and grinding it into the dirt beneath my heel. I eye the men surrounding him, recognizing many of the faces from the tavern. “I thought you were dead. How did you survive in the desert? How did you gethere?”
“We hid in an abandoned jadu mine,” Cyrill says from behind me. “And then we rode here.”
“You rode?” I ask my father weakly, and he nods. I’m shocked. Without a portal, a trip like that would have taken weeks through the unforgiving desert. “How did you find me?”
He waves a wrinkled map at me. “When your mother and I lived in Kaldari, King Zarek gave me a record of the palace plans and all the deserted passageways beneath it.” I blink owlishly at him. King Zarek. Roshan’s father. He’d helped them, too. “It was how we escaped the queen,” he says tightly, a grimace furrowing his brow.
“Amma told me.” I hug him fiercely. “We have to get her, Papa. She’s sick and still in the palace. North wing.”
His eyes cloud over as he takes me by the arm with a noncommittal grunt. “Let’s go. We have a wagon and fresh horses waiting. We need to get you to safety at least for tonight.”
The way he says that suggests that there’s more at play. Why at least for tonight? Does it have to do with the alignment of the blood moon and the ritual the queen hopes to perform?
I halt, tugging against him. “Papa, does this have to do with the prophecy?”
“We don’t have time, Suraya,” he growls. “The more we wait, the more danger you’re in. I’ll tell you when we’re safe.”
“What about Amma?”
He swallows hard, his throat bobbing as pain rips across his face. “She knows what is at stake, and she will make her peace with that.”
I stare at him in shock. “You’ll just leave her to die?”
He grabs my shoulders. “You are what is important, Suraya.You.”
“Because of a stupid prophecy?”
“Listen,” he barks, startling me with his vehemence. “Everything is happening as the diviners of Fomalhaut claimed it would. Your birth chart foretold this vertex, too. This specific karmic encounter. We’ve always known this day would come.” He scrubs a hand over his face. “The blood moon has risen, and the constellations of the sidereal zodiac are in alignment. The queen will use her death magi gifts to summon Fero”—his voice breaks—“to take you.”
“Youbelievethat?”
In response, he grabs my arms, flipping my palms over. “How do you explain what you can do? The magic of the stars in your human body? Morvarid has coveted you from the day you were born for this one reason: to return the god of death, eternal darkness, and destruction to his wretched throne.” His face hardens, and an expression I’ve never seen settles on it. “Do not let your mother’s sacrifice be in vain.”
Sacrifice.She died protecting me, using magic that had sucked up every drop of her life essence. It might have been her choice, but I still killed her. My throat tightens, pain and loss burning up my rage. All the fight drains from my body in one fell swoop.
He’s right. She died for me. To protect me from this very fate.
Feeling numb, I let him lead me through the rest of the dungeons into a wide, dark courtyard. A bloodred haze filters down from the moon, bathing the yard in an unnatural hue. I’m so consumed by my guilt that I don’t notice the dead silence in the space until it’s too late and the hairs on my arms stand at eerie attention. My runes writhe below my skin.
“Papa—”
“Shush,” he whispers, raising one fist. Everyone else behind us crouches down, blades and bows appearing in their hands.
Slow clapping draws our collective attention to a parapet almost hidden from view on the far wall of the palace. Queen Morvarid appears. She is clad in black and silver and wears no veil. “Hassan,” she calls out, her voice mocking. “Couldn’t stay away?”
“Be gone, demon.”
