I scramble to my feet and duck behind one of the snarling stone gargoyles perched on the corner of the rooftop. The statues are meant to ward off evil spirits—that’s why they look so fearsome—and with the three jagged scars marring the left side of my face, marking me as an imperial traitor, I fit right in.
The king made the cuts himself, slashing his keris dagger alongside my nose, through my eyelid, and over my cheekbone. The wounds bled and festered for weeks—healers weren’t permitted to clean or dress the cuts—so I suppose I should be grateful I didn’t die of infection or lose my eye. Many criminals do.
I hold my breath as the abba shuffles into the prayer temple. A brass censer swings from his sunspotted fingers and he chants the Song of the Sky King in his dissonant voice. The other senior brethren follow him without a glance in my direction. As the highest-ranking monks at Ikh Zuree, with secured seats on the Council of Elders, they have no need to meticulously scan for infractions. The younger acolytes at the rear of the convoy, however, spot me immediately.
“You aren’t permitted to leave your chamber until after morning supplication, when it’s fully light!” One of them points up at me.
“Or desecrate our holy temples with your bloodstained hands!” another calls.
“Are you plotting to murder us as well, Enebish the Destroyer?”
That terrible name makes me flinch. I blow out a breath and scan the line of crimson robes for Serik’s freckled nose and devious smile. He’ll shut them up.
But he’s late for morning supplication. Like always.
“Of course she’s plotting our murder!” the first acolyte jeers. “And the Sky King will immediately promote me to Abba when he learns I stopped her rampage.”
“Only if you reach her first!”
A dozen of them rush toward the temple, leaping over one another like snarling jackals as they scale the mosaicked wall.
I stumble back with a yelp. Which is mortifying. The old Enebish—Enebish the Warrior—could have silenced these sniveling fools in seconds. But now my bad leg snarls in my cloak and I thump down hard on the tiles.
I whistle and Orbai dives at the monks with her talons bared. A few stragglers wail and lose their grip, but the majority surge across the roof like a swarm of frenzied bees. I barely have time to curl into a ball before their bruising hands paw my sides. Before their grasping fingers tangle in my hair.
“Stop!” I cry.
But that only makes them more zealous, more ravenous. “What are you going to do, Enebish the Destroyer?”
The monster inside me rears its head and flicks its pronged tail, exhaling a fiery breath up my throat. I squeeze the tiles so hard, one cracks beneath my fingertips, splintering like my feeble control. Before I realize what I’m doing, I fist a shard in my good hand and lash out blindly. I may not be able to wield the night, but that doesn’t mean I’m helpless.
My makeshift knife collides with something warm and soft, and a second later there’s a wail. The acolytes fall back. I barely nicked the blubbering monk’s forearm, but the way the others are hollering, you’d think I stabbed him through the heart. They attack as one: a ten-headed, twenty-armed beast. I swing the shard wildly and dodge to the left—dangerously close to the upturned ledge. But they anticipate my move.
What they don’t anticipate is the combined force of so many people lunging at once. Instead of pinning me to the rooftop, we plummet over the edge.
My arms pinwheel and the wind steals my scream. I close my eyes and brace for impact—thankfully, the temple is barely taller than two men—but before I hit the ground, someone calls my name. My eyes fly open just in time to see Serik leap forward. My stomach slams into his bony shoulder and while I wheeze, he curses. Words a monk shouldn’t even know, let alone shout.
“Have you lost your mind?” he groans as we collapse into the frosty grass. “Why would you attack them? You know they’re going to run straight to the abba.”
“I didn’t attack them.Theyattackedme.They’restillattacking me.” I point to the other acolytes, thumping down around us like the world’s largest, and loudest, hailstones.
“You’ll pay for this with your life!” the one I cut bellows.
Serik struggles to his feet and steps in front of me. “Leave her be.”
“Why would we listen toyou?” The other acolytes sneer at the hundreds of thin white scars climbing Serik’s forearms. After six years at Ikh Zuree, there’s hardly an inch of him that hasn’t felt the sting of the abba’s whip. He’s nearly as scarred as I am.
“I saidleave her be,” Serik snarls.
“Or what?”
I expect Serik to bunch back his crimson sleeves and start throwing punches like he does every time they corner me, but he squares his shoulders and says in a strange, official tone, “Or you’ll have to answer to Commander Ghoa. She just arrived from the war front and has requested I bring the prisoner.”
The acolytes halt and their eyes widen. This is not what they expected.
This is not whatIexpected.
A warbling sound halfway between a sob and a laugh bursts from my lips, and a spark of pure joy flares through me before fingertips of dread slowly close around my throat.
