“You’re Inkar’s brother! Her twin! I’ve been helping her train the children all week. Surely, she’s mentioned me?”
“The person she mentioned—”
“Is me!” I lighten the shadows around my face so he can see my scars, and wave my hand at the darkness hovering behind me, where a clear, golden morning should be.
He sucks in a breath and falls back. “Blazing skies!”
I dodge past him and hobble through the common room, which is much easier to navigate with the stools stacked atop the tables and not a customer in sight. “Where’s your infirmary? We need a healer and water and bandages and …” My voice trails off when I push into the hall and find it empty, along with every bedroom door I fling open. “What’s going on?” I demand. “Where is everyone? Isn’t this supposed to be your headquarters?”
“Wait here,” Inkar’s brother says. He slips into the dusty bedroom where I met with Temujin, and slams the door behind him.
“Where are you going?” I shriek. “What could you possibly do inthere? We don’t have time to wait!” Orbai grows heavier every second, hanging like a dead weight in my arms. I try to follow the boy, but he bolted the door behind him. With a growl of frustration, I kick the knob. Pain zings through my bad leg, but I don’t care. I need to dosomething. Anything.I’m about to kick the door again, when it swings inward and Temujin stands before me.
“Where did you come from?” I gasp. “And where’d he go? Never mind. You were right about Serik. And when I confronted Ghoa, she, she …” My shaking shoulders fold over Orbai. “Please.Help us. I’ll do anything.” I’m talking so quickly, I can’t get enough air. My vision shimmers. I think I’m crying. “She’s dying.”
Temujin squats in front of me. Instead of his usual Shoniin gray, he’s wearing brown drawstring pants and his black hair is ruffled like a crow’s feathers. Was he sleeping in here?
“Breathe, Enebish. I can help her. But I need you to calm down in order to make the crossing.”
“The crossing? What crossing? To where? You told methiswas your hideout.”
“Do you think I’ve evaded the Sky King and his warriors for months by allowing every potential recruit to simply stroll into our stronghold? It was a test.”
“I didn’t tell her,” I choke out. “Ghoa doesn’t know about the Ram’s Head.”
“Even if you had, it wouldn’t matter.” Temujin strides to the far wall, devoid of pictures and paint, and taps it with the toe of his boot. “The grandest shrine to the Lady of the Sky once stood in this very spot. It was nearly thirty feet tall, and every rock was painted with gold leaf. They called it the Window to Heaven; have you heard of it?”
“Maybe?” I vaguely remember my mother’s indignation over the destruction of the sacred shrines. Sometimes, late at night, I’d hear her muttering to her prayer dolls, complaining that the Protector King was purging all traces of the First Gods.
“The king may have destroyed the framework of this sacred site, but the window remains open.” He lifts his right hand, spreads his ringed fingers, and places his palm against the wood. It sizzles and cracks like logs on a fire. Red-orange light outlines his hand, and the dark wood grain ripples. In a flash, it’s white and translucent, streaming skyward like a river of fire.
I clutch Orbai closer and stare up in disbelief.
This is a gateway to the realm of the Eternal Blue.
Temujin truly is Goddess-touched.
A thousand questions elbow through my mind: Does this meanallof his claims are true? Is his rebellion blessed by the First Gods?
Temujin brushes his bangs from his eyes, which are even more yellow and catlike beside the glimmering wall, and offers me his hand. “Welcome to the realm of the Eternal Blue, Enebish,” he says.
Then we plunge into starlight.
I am enveloped in delicious warmth: smooth as cream, thick as honey, and fragrant as lemon balm. For a split second I am suspended like a cloud. Then my feet land with a thud on what feels like grass—soft and spongy beneath the thick soles of my winter boots.
I suck in a breath and immediately cough because the air ishot.And sticky. It’s such a contrast to the biting cold we left behind, my lungs sputter. Perhaps the glowing door was made of actual fire. Maybe I’m burning alive. Dead, at Temujin’s hand—just like Ghoa warned.
Temujin chuckles with amusement. “You can open your eyes. And you can stop squeezing my fingers. I’d like to keep them.”
I snatch my hand back and mumble an apology, but the words fall away the moment I look up. Everything isgreen—a lush, tropical green so bright that it makes me squint. I spin a slow circle. We are standing on a jetty overlooking a river that appears to be the Amereti, but it can’t be because it’s swift and bubbling instead of crusted with ice. And a vast field of orange globeflowers unfurls all around us. There are no buildings, no Sky Palace, no city at all. Overhead, the sky is an icy, striated blue, like the glaciers covering the tundra of Chotgor. Hoopoes, with their colorful crowns of pink feathers, tweet as they cartwheel through the clouds.
Orbai would love to be up there chasing them.
She’s no longer squirming in my arms, and her breath is a shallow tremor. “Are your healers close?”
“This way.” Temujin motions for me to follow him, and we trek across the field, toward the rough-hewn peaks encircling the valley like a bowl. I need to remain calm and steady for Orbai, but the farther we walk, the more my hands tremble. Every time I glance down, I choke back a sob.
“It looks like Sagaan, right?” Temujin says, I suspect to distract me.
