“War waits for no one. It’s time to see what you can do.” Temujin holds the door open and motions me through. “We only have a week to prepare you for your first mission.”
“Please, Enebish,” Serik calls as I trudge out into the sunlight. “At least consider what I said.”
“Fine,” I relent. He’ll scream himself hoarse and shatter his bones against the prison bars if I don’t. And I do keep my word. I give his ridiculous request careful consideration as I descend all three steps leading out of the shack.
There. Promise kept.
Decision made.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“WHERE ARE WE GOING?”ISNAP ATTEMUJIN.
He waves toward the hill. “The Temple of Serenity.”
I charge across the clearing, as fast as my injuries will allow. I have to bite down hard on my tongue every time my bad leg meets the ground.
“Wait, Enebish. It doesn’t have to be like this.”
“You’re forcing me to use my power against my will. How else can it be?”
“I’m not forcing you. We made a deal.”
I laugh bitterly. “Only because you gave me no choice.”
“We always have a choice,” Temujin insists. “It’s no fault of mine if you can’t bear the alternative. Sometimes morals must be bent for the greater good.”
Easy to say when you had no morals to begin with,I’m tempted to mutter, but that’s not entirely true. Temujin’s fighting relentlessly for the shepherds and the people in the Protected Territories. It’s his methods that are less than honorable.
Temujin falls in stride with me. His gaze is so incessant, the side of my face burns like I’m standing too close to a bonfire, but I keep my eyes fixed ahead and raise my anger like a shield.
The closer we draw to the temple, the faster my heart pumps. Blood drums against the front of my skull, and my fingers tap an anxious rhythm against my thighs. I’m not ready to call the night again. When I rescued Orbai, the blackout swallowed far more of Sagaan than I intended. The monster was so close to overtaking me. Not to mention, Serik will be furious. And Ghoa …
She will never forgive me. I’ll officially become a traitor.
I lunge forward, moving even faster. As if I can somehow outrun all of this.
“I really am sorry,” Temujin says when we reach the temple, “but it isn’t personal. War requires a certain degree of ruthlessness. You know that. I’m only doing what I must to save the people I love.”
“Didn’t your mother teach you not to lie?” I grumble.
“My mother couldn’t teach me much of anything. She died of the sweating sickness when I was two. It was only my father, two brothers, and I.”
“Oh.” I wasn’t expecting him to tell me anything so personal. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s the same for so many families in Verdenet. Before we became a Protected Territory, our people perished by the thousands of illness or starvation. Or Zemyan raids.” He nods at me. “But under Ashkar’s safeguard, it’s hardly better. We may have protection and basic medicine, but what does that matter when just as many are carted off to the war front and slaughtered like pigs? Or put to death for simply living our beliefs?”
He gently touches the line of rings down his ear as we enter the temple. “My oldest brother was among those killed for refusing to remove their earrings. I found out weeks later in a one-sentence letter. And it’s the last I’ve heard from my family. The imperial governor has made it impossible to get messages in or out of Verdenet. They could all be dead.”
“Like my family.” Fuzzy memories of the day my village burned shimmer across my vision. The rough jolt of my mother’s hands shoving me out the window before the roof collapsed. The chorus of painful screams as one neighbor after the next burned alive in their huts.
“Skies, that was insensitive. I didn’t think …” Temujin tugs at his hair, which was already sticking up in messy peaks, and scrubs his knuckles over his eyes. They’re bloodshot and ringed with exhaustion, and his tunic is so filthy, I doubt he’s changed in days. Instead of the confident rebel leader I first met, he looks like an unraveled thread from the tapestry.
“I’m just tired and frustrated and crumbling beneath the pressure, obviously. I’m sorry I’ve had to be so heavy-handed with you and Serik, but so many people are depending on me. I’m desperate for your help.”
I perch my elbows on the altar, beside his. I don’t tell him it’s okay. Because it’s not. But part of me can almost understand.
“I swear I didn’t bring you here to listen to my sob story.” Temujin drags his arm across the altar, sending a cascade of tiny dried flowers and incense to the floor. “I just can’t say these things to anyone else. They’re counting on me to be the strong one. To have a plan. But you’re not depending on me for anything, so I can say whatever I want. It’s kind of refreshing.”
