“Feel free to find me anytime you need someone to doubt and dislike you.”
He lets out a burst of laughter. “You don’tdislikeme.”
“I definitely don’t like you.”
He laughs again, his head thrown all the way back, and I realize my claim may not be entirely true. I could like Temujin—just not the version of himself he shows the world, the boy who tricks and blackmails me.
I likethisversion of him: raw, vulnerable. Real.
“At least I can count on you to be honest. Now, let’s get down to business.”
The knots in my stomach tighten. I glance around the beautiful temple, with its bright jade columns and canary roof. It should feel open and inviting andright—this is probably how all temples looked across the continent before the Sky King purged the First Gods—but this magnificent sanctuary suddenly feels like another prison. A torture chamber.
Sweat slicks my hands as Ghoa’s and Serik’s disappointed faces swirl through the purple smoke. “I don’t think I can do this,” I whisper.
“I wasn’t lying when I told you I have a way to ensure you maintain perfect control of the night,” Temujin says.
“I’ll believe it when I see it.”
Temujin sweeps his hand across the temple. “You’re looking at it.”
I stare at him, my gaze so hot with skepticism that I’m shocked his skin isn’t smoking. “This temple doesn’t even havewalls.It couldn’t possibly contain my power.”
“I assure you, it can. Do you think I would encourage this if it were dangerous?”
“Yes! You are a wild, rebel deserter.”
With a chuckle, he grips either side of the altar and leans over. There’s nowhere to hide from his hypnotic golden eyes. “Look up at the sky and tell me what you see.”
Sighing, I tilt my head and gaze at the patch of pearly blue glinting through the smoke hole. “What am I even looking for? The sky is always the same here: clear and sunny and perfect.”
“Exactly! Darkness doesn’t exist in this realm, which means theonlyplace you can access your power is within these walls, and the Lady of the Sky’s control is perfect here. Don’t you trust Her?”
“Of course,” I retort.
He backs out of the temple and settles on the lowest stone step. “Good. Then do your worst, Enebish the Destroyer.”
I fix him with an exasperated glare, mostly so he won’t notice how badly my fingers are trembling as I lift my hands. Before Nariin, I could control the tendrils of night as if they were an extension of my own body: painting impenetrable swathes of shadow, sending bursts of tarry blackness over enemy encampments, and throwing starfire with the accuracy of a marksman’s arrow. But now my skin feels hot and tight. Anxiety flips through my stomach like tadpoles.
Or is that the monster? Poised and ready to pounce?
I nearly snatch my hand back, but Temujin shouts, “Focus! You can do this. I know how it feels to lose everything. I know how it feels to be terrified and unsure. But I also know how it feels to be remade, to cloak yourself in steel and wash yourself with fire and refuse to be trampled. To stand and say, ‘I am not what they make of me, but what I make of me.’ Remake yourself, Enebish!”
I tighten every muscle and reach toward the domed roof. My palms grow hot, my throat begins to tingle, and slowly, the air in the temple melts into a dark velvety blue dotted with diamond pinpricks. It churns beneath the dome like a storm cloud, growing blacker and blacker, until …
Pop!
Threads of darkness fall like sheets of rain and swirl around me, chattering and purring, giddy for this rare moment of release. Then they surge toward freedom—as I knew they would. But when they reach the edge of the overhanging rooftop, they rebound with a thud. As if invisible tent walls have been stretched between the jade pillars. Beyond the temple, the sky remains as pale as cut glass.
A punch of disbelieving laughter bursts from my lips, and I tilt my head back to gaze up at the glittering stars overhead. They look like a band of milk spilled across the heavens and,blazing skies,I’ve missed them. My eyes burn as I trace their distant light. When I tug ever so softly, a star quivers in response. Not crashing. Or careening. But sliding lazily toward the earth.
I laugh and cry harder, teasing their fiery tails between my fingers. Need rages through my veins, hotter and hotter until I’m an inferno. Melting from the inside out.
That’s when the monster attacks. Before I even realize it’s awake, familiar claws scrape along my spine and the balance shifts—just as it did at Nariin. The zinging in my chest turns to shredding. The euphoria twists into terror as the monster unhinges its jaw.
I toss the threads aside with a scream and tuck into a ball, but a mass of yellow-white starfire still shoots through the smoke hole and explodes against the invisible barrier. The blast knocks me on my back and slams the air from my lungs like a cannonball. If the temple hadn’t contained the destruction, Temujin would be dead. The beautiful fields would be aflame.
Tears clog my eyes as the darkness sputters out. I watch the threads drift back up to the heavens like campfire smoke, vaguely aware of Temujin’s boots pounding up the steps, but I remain on my back, fingering the hole where the moonstone used to be. So I don’t have to see the terror and revulsion in his eyes.
