I scramble to my feet, looking for the cave and Dare and Razulek... but I’m somehow in a completely different location. I spin around, desperate to find any markings that might tell me where I am.
It’s still the Barrin Mountains, as far as I can tell, but I’m on some type of plateau on one of the highest peaks. The view of Everlea is breathtaking, but when I swivel, I gasp, because Oryndhr is visible on the other side. I can see the edge of the flat Dustlands and even the start of the rolling desert dunes of my beloved Coban to the south.
“How nice of you to finally wake up,” a voice I instantly recognize says from behind me.
Whirling, I reach for my dagger behind my back, but the handle is not where it should be. I don’t remember removing it, which means that someone has disarmed me—perhaps the same person who brought me here.
But I don’tneeda weapon to defend myself.
Revenant Laleh stands on the other side of the plateau with a small army of spidery-eyed soldiers—all in various stages of decay.
And my father is slumped on his knees in front of her.
Oh, dear gods.Papa.I don’t even care that I was right about the rot and the army. I just need to make sure that my father hasn’t been harmed.
Or worse... isn’t one ofthem.
Please no, please no, please no.
A guttural moan rips from him, but he won’t lift his head, and I can’t see any part of his skin or his eyes to know if he’s been infected with the rot. I need to get closer! I snarl as knots of fear tighten in my stomach and lurch forward only to smash into an invisible barrier that nearly throws me onto my ass. Charcoal smoke blooms at the point of impact and then dissipates.
This must be part of Darrius’s wards between Everlea and Oryndhr.
“Papa,” I call out, crouching down. “Can you hear me?” But he doesn’t look up or even act like he knows I’m here. I clench my teeth and meet Laleh’s dead, purple-veined eyes. “If you’ve hurt him, I’m going to tear you apart and spread your corpse to the winds so you can never come back in one piece.”
“You wound me, Starkeeper. I suppose I’ll just have to retaliate the only way I can.” She grins and kicks my father in the back. He groans and crumples into a heap.
Shit. I can’t detect if he’s breathing, and terror fills me. I pound at the barrier, more bursts of smoke appearing at the contact. “What do you want?”
“Take down the barrier or he dies.”
“How do I even know it’s him?” I counter. “It could be one of your revenants.”
She stoops to yank on his hair, and his beloved bearded face comes into view. I exhale, searching for clues that she’s manipulating me. It looks like him, without any marks of rot on his features, but she’d fooled me before, too.
Laleh nods thoughtfully. “He’ll make a good soldier soon, I think, but not just yet. I want to have my fun first with this clever leader of the insurrectionists.”
I blink in confusion before the realization dawns. There’s rebellion in Oryndhr? And my father is leading it? I feel a spike of pride, but fear quickly erases it. Laleh will no doubt want to make an example of him.
She winks and grins. “Now, break the wards or I start with each of his teeth.”
Horrified, I shake my head. “Only the king of Everlea can remove the wards.”
“Not true, according to our loyal friends.”
I sense people behind me on the Everlea side before I hear marching footsteps. My magic roars to my fingertips when Masišta and his merry band of Karkad assholes come through the trees. There are even a handful from Rakh and one or two from Chamros. I notice my dagger tucked into his waistband. Sohehad ferried me here.
“You snake, I should have fucking killed you,” I say through my teeth and lift my palms, letting coils of starlight weave through my fingers. “But I can remedy that now.”
“Put your claws away, Starkeeper, or I take a chunk out of the old man,” Laleh chirps from where she stands. “I’ve become quite adept at removing bones from live bodies. Quite the surgical exercise, I tell you.” She presses the tips of her fingers of one hand to her lips. “And the cries of pain are divine.”
“You’re sick,” I say.
She nods sagely. “It’s the rot. Eats away at any humanity. But it’s better in the end, I think, to give in to our natural impulses. So freeing. You would love it, Sura.”
Masišta sneers at me as the parody of my best friend lets out one of those annoying giggles. Gods, that sound grates on my nerves. My Laleh would never make such an asinine noise. Her laugh was full-bellied and real.
“Touch me and I promise youwilldie an excruciating death,” I snarl to Masišta and his men before insolently giving them my back. My magic will warn me if they attack; I feel my simurgh casting a protective shield around me. “I don’t know what you think you know, but I cannot break these wards. Only the king can.”
