It isn’t until I hear the grunts and whoops that I realizepeopleare dropping from the rooftop alongside the tiles. Three figures in gray tunics somersault through the air and land beside the zurig, drawing long, curved sabers. I try to scream, but my throat is too raw and dry. They must be Zemyan warriors. And what a perfect time to attack—during Qusbegi, when the entire city is distracted and unprepared.
Except these three don’t have the towering height or long, lean build of Zemyans. They are compact and powerful, and their hair is black and brown rather than the yellow of sand or the silver white of waves. Though, according to Ghoa’s report, this could be due to sorcery. They could be hiding their true forms with their devil magic.
With a rumble of thunder and a blinding flash of lightning, the Kalima warriors charge up the steps and unleash a storm of defense against the intruders. They pelt the palace with wind and rain and snow, with heat and cold and fog—but the gray figures are quick. One of them tosses a pewter orb down the stairs, and thick coils of sapphire smoke billow into the air, slowing the Kalima’s advance and obstructing their strikes.
The blue smoke smells of cloves and burnt rope, and it swells until it’s thicker than a stone wall. I cannot see the perpetrators, but I hear their boots scuffing around me.
I close my eyes and scream. I’ll be long dead by the time the Kalima reach me.
The ropes attached to my arms quiver and a high-pitched ringing fills my ears.
No, not ringing.Sawing.
My heart stutters and my screams fall away. Wouldn’t it be simpler to put a blade through my heart while I’m strung up and helpless?
With a pop, my right arm drops free. The other rope snaps a second later. I close my eyes and shield my face with my good hand as I pitch toward the landing, but solid arms encircle me.
“Easy there.”
The voice is low, but the words aren’t slippery and polished into the smooth Zemyan lilt. They are rough and blunt. Undeniably Ashkarian. I look up, and my vision must be distorted with pain, or maybe the fog is making me hallucinate, for I’m in the arms of the most beautiful boy I’ve ever seen. A crest of jagged black hair hangs in his golden eyes, and his skin gleams like polished copper. I must be unconscious. Or dead. Journeying through the seven levels of Heaven to meet the Lady of the Sky.
“You.” He gapes at me for a second but recovers quickly. “I mean, you looked a little uncomfortable up there.” He gestures back to the torturous frame and flashes me a smile that’s whiter than the snowcapped mountains.
“Am I dead?” I slur. “Are you a spirit sent from the ancestors?”
He laughs. “You are very much alive, and I amdefinitelynot a spirit.” The ropes around my legs fall away, and one of his comrades shouts.
Without a breath of warning, the boy slings me across his shoulders like a lamb and sprints back toward the Sky Palace. His calloused hands tighten around my ankles and wrists in an attempt to keep me from bouncing, but still, I groan with every step. Tears dampen my traitor’s mark and strands of his messy hair cling to the wetness.
As the blue haze dissipates, the Kalima’s blasts of rain and snow become more violent and accurate. The boy’s companions shout something, then scale the palace as deftly as tree leopards, dodging daggers of ice. Our ascent isn’t nearly as swift, with me hanging like a millstone from the boy’s neck. He curses and ducks, narrowly avoiding a crackle of lightning that splinters the marble pillar to our right.
“Bleeding skies, you have to help me a little.” He repositions my arms, and I clench my teeth and try to hold myself up, but the zurig turned my muscles to gravy. A blade of ice slices through the side of the boy’s ear, ripping out two golden earrings and a considerable amount of flesh. Blood drips onto his tunic. He pants as he looks up to his comrades, but they’re long out of range.
“Go,” I tell him. “There’s no reason for us both to be caught.”
He hesitates for half a second before dropping back to the ground and releasing me. “We need you. Find us,” he says, his tiger eyes alight with fire. Then he squeezes my forearm once and scurries up the Sky Palace even faster than the others.
“Stop them!” the king thunders.
Ghoa and the Kalima careen past, nearly trampling me. Varren catches the bottom of the boy’s tunic, but the fabric rips and he rockets up the wall. The king yells until he’s blue in the face and Ghoa barks orders while the rest of the warriors race around the palace like scurrying mice.
I sit in the middle of the pandemonium, forgotten. Compulsively rubbing my forearm.
When my savior in gray reaches the highest roof, his comrades loop chains around a black cable fastened to the top of the Sky Palace and slide away, flying through the Qusbegi banners and into the winding streets of Sagaan. The boy with the spiked hair follows. As he sails away, he shouts something I can’t quite hear. Something about the earth and stars.
I stare at the empty rooftop, half certain it was all a dream. Who are they? And why did they free me?
The throng in the courtyard devolves into absolute mayhem. Their voices are a mixture of awe and fear as they chant a single name over and over again.
Temujin. Temujin. Temujin.
Clearly, the boy is someone famous—or infamous, judging by the curses flying from the king’s lips—but I raise a feeble cheer because he freed me from the zurig. And his hands were so gentle, his words so kind. I haven’t a clue why he and his friends risked their lives to help me, but they did, and it must mean something.
I need it to mean something.
I’m still smiling dazedly at the rooftop when Varren grips my bad arm—on purpose—and tugs me to my feet. He’s glaring with so much loathing, like this is somehow my fault.
Like he thinks I’m in league with the strangers.
