Our plan seemed simple enough when Kartok suggested it. We would climb to the top of the wall, where I would create a long tunnel of darkness that extended to the ground and into the center of camp. Inside the tunnel, Kartok would secure ropes to the wall for the recruits to climb out of the fort. Then, at our signal, which the recruits would know thanks to coded instructions Kartok hid in a ration shipment the day before, they would sneak from their beds, slip into the tunnel, follow it to the wall, and scale the ropes, completely unseen.
Unless that skies-forsaken light ruins everything.
“Arranging the threads of night into a tunnel large enough, and stable enough, for people to pass through will take all of my strength and concentration,” I murmur. “But now I also have to avoid and deflect the spotlight.”
“You’ll find a way,” Kartok says, watching the swinging beam of light.
“And if I don’t?”
“Then the warriors we’ve been sent to rescue will perish like the rest.” He nods to a dark heap in the far corner of the compound. At first it looks like a trash mound or manure pile, but the longer I study it, the more details come into focus: limp hands and twisted arms, blank faces and bloody hair.
A scream burns up my throat, and I slap my hand over my lips to contain it. There are so many bodies, the empire isn’t even attempting to bury them.
“No pressure.” Kartok claps me on the back.
I want to jab my elbow into his side. In addition to the spotlight, guards pace back and forth between the barracks, like they did at the first encampment. I’m so nauseous and dizzy, I nearly tumble from my perch. This was supposed to be simpler than leading a long, unruly line of recruits. And safer.
Help me,I beg the Lady of the Sky again. Then I suck in three deep breaths, form my hands into a circle, and bring them to my lips. When I blow, whorls of night funnel out from my hands, forming a long, spiraling tube that I nudge down the wall. Once it reaches the ground, I ease the tunnel forward one excruciating foot-length at a time so I can quickly halt or change directions when the skies-forsaken light sweeps past.
Sweat trickles down my face and stings my eyes. My heart thunders like a cannon in my ears. Finally the tunnel bumps up against the side window of the nearest barrack.
Soundlessly, Kartok ducks into the shaft and repels down the wall with the ropes. Then he lights a torch—a beacon to guide the recruits through the funnel of blackness, visible only to those looking directly down the tunnel.
He waves the torch back and forth, and I tighten my grip on the night, praying the recruits come quickly. The threads of darkness squirm in my hands like the slippery fire geckos in Verdenet. I have to squeeze so hard to keep the tunnel steady, the joint of every finger aches. The weaker I grow, the easier it will be for the monster to overpower me.
Hurry up.
After twelve long seconds, the first recruit finally staggers up to the wall and takes a rope from Kartok. Before they’re even halfway up, another recruit arrives. Then another. The line is never ending. It takes an eternity for them to scale the wall.
I steal a glance over my shoulder to see how many wait on the ground outside the fort.
My first mistake.
As soon as I look away, the spotlight sweeps across the tunnel of darkness. The beam stutters and swings back, and I try to make the tunnel look like the shadow of a building, but in my panic, I yank the weft of night too hard.
The spotlight blinks out altogether, plunging the camp into darkness.
There’s a shout and a high-pitched whistle. Horns blare and drums boom. But that’s not the worst of it; snuffing the massive light took so much of my power, the tunnel collapses into ash, revealing three recruits dangling halfway up the wall, caught mid-climb.
Two imperial guards round the corner of the barracks. They bellow and sprint toward the recruits, sabers drawn. The deserters flail like spiders blown in the wind, and one boy nearly loses his grip.
My body seizes with panic. If we don’t do something, the entire base will descend on us in seconds.
I could conceal the recruits, but the guards have seen them. They’ll follow us over the wall and the recruits waiting on the other side will be captured too. So do I attempt to fight the guards? The stars above me roar with readiness, but my hands won’t move. My vision blurs, blotting out the barracks and the watchtower until all I see are broken bodies and blood smeared across the snow-white fields of Nariin.
Kartok shouts something up at me, but I’m too far-gone to hear it. With a curse, he turns and pounces like a mountain cat. Long, curved blades appear from beneath his sleeves, and he collides with the guards, a smear of white skin and brown robes.
It’s over so fast, they haven’t even time to scream. Blood sprays Kartok’s tunic as the warriors crumple to the frozen dirt. I have never seen such skill and speed, not even among the Kalima, and I gape at Kartok as his daggers vanish once more beneath his belled sleeves. He hauls himself up the rope, giving the last deserter a shove over the ramparts.
“Did you learn that in the pit?” I whisper as we scramble down the other side.
“Get to the ground and conceal the group,” Kartok commands.
I do as I’m told.
Or I try to, but the darkness yanks and pulls at my shaking hands, like a dog refusing to give up a bone. When I reach the group of recruits, I see why. More than forty deserters look back at me. Forty people with hollow cheeks and bloody uniforms who I have to shield over twice the distance. After I’ve already pushed my power far past its limit.
I whimper and look to Kartok. “You promised there would be the same number of recruits.”
