“You’re the king’s soul-fated,” Masišta says.
“We are not bonded,” I say, and slap the invisible barrier for good measure. The air reverberates in ripples of pale gray smoke, but the wards stay active. “I don’t have the power to do what you want.”
“A pity,” Laleh says, and puts her foot across my father’s neck.
A groan emerges from him. “Peapod?”
The nickname makes me falter. Stars, maybe it reallyishim. Dread rushes in on the heels of doubt as she presses down harder on his spinal cord, making him cry out. Powerless fury lashes up my spine as my eyes sting with unshed tears.Fuck!
“Laleh, please,” I beg. “If there’s any of you left in there, don’t do this. You don’t have to do this. He loved you. He treated you like his own.”
She cocks her head. “And why would I do you any favors? You left me to die in that tower, didn’t you?”
I open my mouth, but no sound emerges. She’s right. I saw Morvarid cut her throat, but maybe... is it possible she had survived? I hadn’t even checked her body. I’d left her there when the tower collapsed. Guilt ravages me. “I’m so sorry. I thought you were gone. Please don’t hurt him...”
“Break the wards.”
With a half sob, I force my power into the barrier, but I’m still not recovered from healing Razulek, and the magic I have replenished is eaten up by the swirling smoke. I’m aware that I am weakening any chance I have to defend myself from the men at my back, but I can’t let my father die. Or if he is already dead, I have to give him peace. I won’t leave him to be defiled and corrupted. I scream, shoving more magic at the wards, but they don’t budge.
“I can’t!” I cry, feeling my shield flicker at the strain of magic. It’s my only defense.
She removes a knife from her belt and grins. “This is going to hurt him, Sura. Badly. I hope you’re prepared for what you’re letting happen.”
“Laleh, no!”
Darrius, wherever you are, I need you. Please.
I don’t even know if he can hear me, as I’m not sure what happened to him after we’d both collapsed. But before Laleh can do anything, I barely process the arrow flying in my peripheral vision from the woods behind her that lodges right into my father’s skull. An involuntary scream tears up my throat.No!
Only... it’snotmy father, but an illusion that shatters the minute the jadu-forged arrowhead explodes.
Another man wearing my father’s face runs out of the forest, a bow in hand, followed by a dozen others. Stars, isthathim? Or another illusion? Conflicting emotions war inside me as a scuffle breaks out between them and Laleh’s revenant soldiers.
But I have my own problems to worry about when my magical shield alerts that Masišta and his men are moving closer in an attempt to surround me. Deflecting an ice blast, I release a starlit flare. I’m down to the dregs of my magic, but it’s still strong enough to incinerate three of the men to my right.
“We need her alive!” Masišta roars as a pillar of fire fizzles against my weakening shield.
I spare a glance at the fight behind me and glean hope from the fact that my hopefully real father seems to have the advantage. Gritting my teeth, I try to pinpoint my attack, instead of wasting what little akasha I have. There could be more men hiding in the trees, and if I’m depleted, I’m doomed without a weapon.
Sending out a tendril like a lasso, I yank one of the men closest to me forward and obliterate him—but not before divesting him of his sword.
There, not so doomed.
“Cut off their heads and burn them with fire,” I hear someone shout from the other side. Someone Iknow. That can’t be...
But I am too busy deflecting an attack of ice spears to turn around. More horde warriors, as I suspected, slither out of the forest where they’d been hiding. My simurgh’s shield will have to guard against the magical attacks, and I’ll have to take these pricks out with my sword. The odds in my favor are not great, but I haven’t trained for weeks to just give up now.
With a war cry, I eliminate two men with a series of quick thrusts before sliding into a lunge to wound a third across the backs of his ankles. Blood flies, spattering me like rainfall, but I’m lost to my battle instincts as I fight to stay out of their clutches.
A shout of pain that sounds too much like my father breaks me out of it, and I spin, just in time to see a half-dismembered revenant pierce a sword into my father’s leg. In slow motion, I watch him stumble and fall, blood leaking from his lips.
Aran—I knew I’d recognized that voice—appears behind them, carving his weapon straight through the revenant’s head and then sketching a fire rune over his decapitated skull. Instantly, it bursts into flames. He drops to his knees beside my father, and to my shock, he gathers him close and places his hand over the wound, trying to heal him.
Wait.Whyis he helping him? Aran is Roshan’s man.Fero’sman.
Unless... he isn’t. Is he with my father and the insurrectionists?
He doesn’t see Laleh loom from behind them, a crossbow at the ready. She meets my eyes and grins evilly, releasing her arrow right into my father’s stomach. I roar with helpless despair, unable to reach him through Darrius’s wards. Rage overcomes me as my simurgh shrieks, a strange pressure reverberating in the air.
