“Others must have tagged along. We can ask them to wait,” he says, but we both know that isn’t an option. Drums and horns blare from the fort like a mother whose children have been ripped from her bosom. Chains rattle as the portcullis rises. Anyone left behind will be captured by scouting parties long before the sun is up.
I stretch my aching fingers and shake my head. “No, I can do it.”
Drudging up strength from the center of my bones, I manage to drape my darkness over the group. Kartok guides us northward—through mud and wind and snow. Each step is agonizing. The whorls of night flail and heave, trying to take advantage of my exhaustion.
Even though we spend the daylight hours resting in a cave, I’m still bleary-eyed and wobbly the second night of our trek. And the more my feet stumble, the more my darkness sputters. By the time we reach the outskirts of Sagaan, Kartok has to bear me up and drag me along.
I somehow keep my grip on the night until we crash through the door of the Ram’s Head. Then the last of my strength gives out. Kartok digs the portal stone from my pocket, throws it at the wall, and hands me to a recruit. I do not see the glow of the gateway. Or the vibrant green fields. My eyes are as heavy as sandbags. Everything is black and bleeding, like wet ink, and a different sort of darkness drags me under.
I burst back into consciousness crying, haunted not only by dreams of Nariin, but by heaps of bodies—like the one inside the fort, and Kartok’s bloodstained blades, and legions of imperial warriors hunting us across the grasslands, ripping recruits from beneath my cover of darkness and beheading them in front of me.
I try to open my eyes, but blinding sunlight filters through the green walls of Inkar’s tent, searing my vision. I toss my arm over my face and arch up from the blankets, but gentle hands press me down.
“Lie still. You need to recover.”
I turn my head toward the voice and find Temujin’s amber eyes squinting down at me.
“What happened?” I babble. “Where is everyone? Did the recruits make it?”
“Everyone’s fine,” Inkar says from my other side. She smooths the hair from my face and offers me a glass of water. “Can you tell us what happened? The recruits tried to explain, but they’re understandably upset. We don’t trust the accuracy of their reports.”
I take a long drink and ease up to my elbows. “At least twenty more recruits than expected wished to flee with us, and we couldn’t leave them behind to be discovered by scouting parties, so I pushed my Kalima power to the limit to accommodate them. And before that, there was an incident with a spotlight at the fort. I made a miscalculation and a few imperial guards saw us. Kartok disposed of them, but the entire mission was terrifying and overwhelming and exhausting. I’m sorry I didn’t—”
“You have no reason to apologize,” Temujin interrupts. His expression is gentle and concerned. Tender, almost. “You’ve done brilliantly. In three days, you’ve brought us sixty new warriors. That’s no small feat.”
“And I’ll bring more as soon as my strength returns. You were right. About everything.” I shake my head, but like Nariin, I’ll never be able to stave off those terrible images. “There were bodies everywhere—so many that they aren’t even attempting to bury them. And the recruits we rescued are in bad shape. I can be ready to go again soon. A day or two at most.”
“I knew you’d eventually thank me.” Temujin ruffles my hair like he did at our first meeting, only now it makes me smile. He places something in the crook of my arm. Something warm and soft and familiar. “Thought you could use some comfort while you recover.”
I look down at the little prayer doll resting in my arms. Not just any prayer doll.Myprayer doll. The one I had to leave behind when I fled the grazing lands with Orbai. “You went back for it,” I whisper. There isn’t a word big enough to describe the burning in my chest and the stinging in my eyes.
“I tried to recover your Book of Whisperings as well, but it had been left in the snow too long. The pages disintegrated beneath my touch. But you’re welcome to use mine anytime you’d like.”
“You’d let me do that?” A Book of Whisperings is a person’s most private possession. A direct channel to the innermost part of their soul, usually reserved for family.
“For you, anything. Now get some rest.” Temujin squeezes my arm and shifts to stand, but I grab his hand before he pulls away.
“Can I see Serik again? I want to tell him about the mission. I think it will help—”
Outside the tent, someone screams. A second later a chorus of Shoniin are shouting. Temujin and Inkar share a worried glance across my bed. I shoot up from my blankets, but the grinding pain in my head levels me like a fist to the jaw. Temujin and Inkar look from me to the door, but before they can make a decision, Chanar bursts through the tent flap, coughing uncontrollably. Churning gray smoke pours in behind him.
“What in the blazing skies is going on?” Temujin demands.
Chanar braces himself on his knees and struggles for air. When he finally answers, he looks at me instead of Temujin. “The supply shack burned to the ground.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
WHENEVERIFACED GRIM NEWS ON THE BATTLEFIELD,MYfirst response was to fly into action. Change the point of attack, shift the paradigm, advance, retreat. Whatever it took. There’s always a way to bend fate and fortune to your favor.
But there’s no fixing this.
The supply shack burned while Serik was trapped inside.
I stare up at the ceiling, unable to think or speak or even breathe because it can’t be true. He can’t be dead.
I throw off my blankets with every intention of charging out the door to see for myself, but my hammering head and wobbly limbs refuse to cooperate. I crumple with a grunt and Inkar forces me to lie still, but inside, my anxiety swirls faster, faster, faster.
“What do you mean it burned to the ground?How?” Temujin charges across the tent and sticks his head through the flap.
