The Kalima warriors beat Temujin back until he’s once again trapped in the center of the room. His clothes are drenched in sweat and blood and his jagged hair clings to his forehead. He draws a shuddering breath and lifts his dagger bravely, even though it’s clear the battle’s over. Two warriors easily wrestle the weapon away and bind his hands behind his back.
“Impressive.” Ghoa saunters over and brings her fingers beneath Temujin’s chin. “But not good enough. Where is your sky goddess now? Why doesn’t she save you?”
Temujin’s jaw clenches and he refuses to meet Ghoa’s eyes.
“Just as I thought. She doesn’t come because she doesn’t exist. You’re a traitorous heretic.”
Temujin spits in her face, but Ghoa remains unnervingly calm. She procures the scrap of gray fabric that Varren tore from Temujin’s uniform at Qusbegi and drags it across her cheek. Then she tosses it at his face and turns to me.
My entire body tenses, and for an instant I’m thankful for the noxious rag covering my mouth. So she can’t see my trembling lips and flared nostrils. I turn my head and brace for punishment, but Ghoa throws her arms around me. Hugging me like a comrade.
Like a sister.
“I’ve been so worried.” Her frosty breath spills across my neck, and I think it must have frozen my vocal cords because I’m entirely incapable of speech.
“You’re not angry with me?” I finally whisper.
Ghoa pulls back, keeping a tight grip on my bicep. “Of course I’mdispleasedyou broke rank and vanished, but I suppose I can forgive you, since your method worked in the end. You brought me the deserter, as promised.”
Temujin stares at me, genuine hurt glistening in his eyes. His mouth twists with shock, then revulsion. “Youplanned this ambush? Despite everything I’ve shown you? Despite everything we’ve accomplished?”
Ghoa laughs and smooths my hair. “It seems you played your part well, little sister.”
I ignore them both. I can’t stand to see Temujin’s devastated face. It hurts more than I thought it would. And I can’t look at Ghoa, knowing the horrors she’s overlooking at the war front and on the grazing lands. So I focus on something else. “Where’s Serik?” I demand. “How did you get his cloak?”
“You haven’t heard?” Ghoa’s expression becomes grave and she fingers the frayed edge of his sunburst cloak. “He’s dead.”
The word slams through me, colder and more shocking than the ice shards that impaled Orbai. “I don’t believe you,” I whisper. “You’re lying.”
“I wish I were. We found his body floating in the Amereti River two nights ago. My poor, misguided cousin. He was so eager to fight and rebel and belong; I always knew it would be the death of him. He became entangled with the wrong crowd….” She glances pointedly over her shoulder. “Temujin killed him.”
“What are you talking about?” Temujin bellows, but Ghoa speaks over him.
“The people of Ashkar will be so relieved to have such a violent criminal off the streets. Especially if you consider the loss of life at the war front, which is also his doing.”
I stare at Ghoa, trying to make sense of what she’s saying. Two nights ago Temujin sat in my tent until well after midnight, listening to me pick apart memories of Serik. He couldn’t have killed him then. He didn’t even know Serik was alive.
“I didn’t kill anyone!” Temujin echoes my thoughts.
“There’s no point lying, deserter,” Ghoa snaps. “He was found with your ram branded across his back. It was quite gruesome. It’s in all of the papers.” She motions one of her warriors forward with two fingers, and they present her with a sheaf of parchment. She unfurls it, and the rendering is so horrifying, my body goes limp, pulled to the earth by a heaviness that has nothing to do with Varren’s crushing grip. The body is facedown in the muddy riverbank, but the short red-brown hair is so distinct. As is the cloak tangled around him in the current, complete with a glaring hole in the goldwork at the hem. The scorched ram consumes the whole of his back, red and raw and livid.
A terrible, high-pitched wail drowns out the maddening strains of fiddle music, and it takes several seconds before I realize the sound is coming from me.
Serik is dead.
Because I let him leave the realm of the Eternal Blue. Because I didn’t go with him.
I gape at Temujin, tears pulsing behind my eyes. The ram is unmistakable. “How could you?” I screech.
“I didn’t kill anyone!” he hollers again. “It’s a setup!”
But I can’t stop shaking my head because if he didn’t do it, who did? Ghoa and Serik may have had their differences, but she wouldn’t kill him. Punish him, definitely. Send him to Gazar, probably. But she wouldn’t murder him.
Would she?
“I’m afraid it’s your word against mine—and the masses’.” Ghoa waves the paper.
“The people will never side with you,” Temujin roars. “They adore the Shoniin. Theyneedus. We’re more aware of their struggles than you and the usurper king will ever be.”
