The blow lands as hard as an actual punch. I cough and my hands fly to my smarting chest.
“I’m just teasing you.” Inkar’s laughter punctures the quiet like thethwap, thwap, thwapof raining arrows. “You’re one of us now. Family. And while family may goad each other, we also stand up for each other when it matters most.”
“Family,” I repeat, thinking of my own. Of Serik, bound and gagged in the back of a prison wagon. Of Ghoa’s icy tears and haunted expression in those terrible moments before I slammed my darkness to the earth.
I trace my fingers over the little silver-and-onyx feathers at my wrist, wanting to rip the bracelet off and clasp it tighter all at once.
Is she hunting me? Does she miss me? Do Iwanther to miss me? These maddening thoughts go around and around my brain until I finally succumb to exhaustion.
But there’s little rest in sleep.
Maybe it’s because I carved the moonstone from my flesh. Or maybe it’s because I called the night during my escape with Orbai. Or maybe it’s the stronger connection to the Lady of the Sky in this realm. But for the first time in two years, I dream of Nariin.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
IT BEGINS WITH THE FAMILIAR HORRORS,THE THINGSthe moonstone could never fully eradicate: the swirling, amorphous darkness and the terrifying weight on my chest. But now the nightmare expands like blotches of paint, revealing hidden, horrifying details. Still not a complete picture, but glimpses. Flashes.
I see a field of crystalline snow, blinding in its purity. A blink later, it’s littered with heaps of charred bodies, like flies in a bucket of milk. And the smell … burning flesh and melting hair. I choke and gag as I crawl through the smoldering ashes.
Ghoa is there, sitting beside me. She’s folded into a tiny ball with her head on her knees, her hand still resting on her blood-covered sword. She rocks forward and back and quietly whispers, “How could you? How could you?Burning skies,how could you?”
“Enebish!” Inkar’s frantic voice blasts through the billows of smoke, and I rip back into consciousness. Her hands are clamped around my shoulders, holding my thrashing arms to my sides, and Orbai circles above us like a screeching whirlwind.
“It’s just a dream,” Inkar says, gasping.
But it isn’t just a dream. It’s a memory.Thememory. As angry as I am with Ghoa, seeing her like that—so gutted and distraught, yet stalwart by my side, when my crime was far worse than attacking an eagle—breaks something inside of me.
I curl into a ball and moan into my hands. My skin is slathered in sweat, and pain radiates through my injured arm and leg—as sharp and as raw as it was on that terrible day. “Why did I kill them? I didn’t mean …” I didn’t mean to let the monster escape. I didn’t even know it was there, lying dormant inside of me. I had never felt its wicked presence before. Had never even come close to losing control of my Kalima power.
Lies.
I had been foolish and reckless and grasping. Every bit as desperate for promotion as Ghoa. Each night after receiving that first official missive from the king, I sent my darkness into his bedchamber. I shaped the wisps into images of me leading the Kalima and told the tendrils what to whisper in his sleeping ears. As we marched farther and farther from Sagaan, it required more of my strength. So much so, my grip on the night began to falter during drills. It would spark and flare and burn out entirely. I knew I should stop—my power was needed on the battlefield. But I couldn’t. What better way to honor my parents than by leading the Kalima against the Zemyans?
“Shhh,” Inkar murmurs. She smooths the damp clumps of hair away from my face. “You’re safe. You haven’t hurt anyone. We’re in the realm of the Eternal Blue, remember?”
My eyes creak open to find walls of mint-green silk and Inkar’s worried face hovering over mine. Orbai lands on my other side and nudges my hand with her beak. The air is warm and fragrant with the calming scent of lemongrass and globeflowers. From somewhere across the encampment, a gong sounds, followed by the steady hum of feet and voices. I loose a shaky breath. We’re in the realm of the Eternal Blue, not a freezing field strewn with bodies. Inkar’s right about that. But she’s wrong about the rest. Ididhurt someone. I killed an entire caravan. I called the night and battered them with starfire. All for my own selfish ambition.
I cover my face with my hands and moan. I need my moonstone. I need these debilitating memories off my conscience. But the rare stone is buried deep in the snow along the bank of the Amereti River, assuming Ghoa didn’t retrieve it. Temujin would never let me reclaim it anyway. Not when he needs me to shield his deserters from the war front.
Scrambling to my knees, I crawl across the tent to a low table holding a basin of water, and splash my face until the bowl is empty and my tunic is soaked.
I can feel Inkar’s worried gaze on my back, as heavy as a fur coat, but I keep my lips sealed tight. There’s nothing to say. Nariin will always be there, and I will always be running from it.
“I know what will help,” Inkar announces with a clap. But before she can tell me, someone starts shouting. A voice I know better than my own.
A warbling cry rips from my throat, like digging out of an avalanche and drawing that first glorious gasp of air. I dart from Inkar’s tent and race toward the clearing. My injuries will be cursing me later, but that pain is nothing compared to the anxiety that’s been sawing through my heart ever since I heard the wordsSerikandGazarin the same sentence.
I follow his shouts through the tents and past the bonfire and spot him at last walking with Temujin toward a shack at the edge of the clearing. Or being dragged toward the shack by Temujin, more accurately. I didn’t notice the little building last night. It’s made of dull brown wood with green moss creeping up the walls. Not much to look at, compared to the vibrant tents.
“Release me!” Serik roars, and I suppress a chuckle. Of course he would enter the realm of the Eternal Blue fighting and bellowing.
“I can’t release you just yet.” Temujin speaks slowly. “But I assure you—”
“Save your assurances! They mean nothing to me. Where is Enebish?”
Temujin looks seconds away from sliding his hand a bit higher and wringing Serik’s neck.
“Serik!” I collapse against him in an exhausted hug. “You made it.”
