“I know, but without the cover of darkness, the guards will cut us to ribbons in seconds. There are only three of us against all ofthat.” He flings his arm at the chaos below.
“I’m sorry,” I say again, through a sob.
Inkar kneels before me and takes my hands. I try not to focus on how hard hers are trembling. “You have to find a way, En. Everything depends on this.”
“I’ll try,” I promise as she pulls me to my feet.
Chanar grumbles something about a death wish, but he vaults over the railing and lands on the balcony’s impossibly narrow ledge. My stomach swoops as he helps me and Inkar over. The palace is so tall, the vendor tents look like tiny ginger candies in colorful wrappers. It’s madness to leap from such a height secured by nothing but this flimsy cord. We will be swinging onto the marble steps. Straight into Ghoa and the king and his guards. Most likely without the cover of darkness.
I look down at my palms and will them to prickle. I extend my fingers and snap them shut. Nothing. The sky has lightened to a lustrous pearl gray, which means there are hardly any threads of darkness to grab. Even if my power were at full capacity.
“I’ll cut Temujin’s rope,” Chanar shouts over the wind, “then we’ll grab him and carry him two blocks east of the square. Oyunna and Kartok are waiting with horses. If it isn’t dark, try to get lost in the crowd. Our supporters outnumber the guards. Ready?”
I will never be ready, but I tilt my head back, whisper a prayer to the Lady of the Sky, and offer myself fully to the night for the first time since Nariin. This is my chance to prove my Kalima power can be used for good. That I am good. A hero instead of a monster.
“Help me show them who’s truly monstrous,” I whisper as our toes spring away from the ledge.
We plummet through the blazing dawn. The cold air slaps my cheeks. The wind rips tears from my eyes. Inkar’s fingers dig into my hip like claws while Chanar murmurs the Shoniin motto like a prayer.
The faster we fall, the more desperately I grasp for the darkness. It’s been hours since Ghoa doused me with her tincture, and I’ve sweated and cried so much, there can’t be much left inside me. But the tendrils dodge and flap away from my hands like a murder of angry crows.
The ground screams closer. Closer. We’re going to paint ourselves across the palace steps. I cringe, holding every muscle tight. A second later the rope punches me in the gut and our trajectory shifts, swinging us toward the gibbet. A terrified shriek explodes from my lips and my flailing hands snag on a thread of darkness. The dawn sputters—a fleeting flash of midnight. Not enough to shield us. Just enough to alert everyone to our presence.
I mutter a curse as daylight slices back through the flimsy curtain of darkness. The people cry and heave in every direction. The guards and warriors brandish their weapons, whipping them this way and that, trying to determine where our attack is coming from.
None of them think to look up.
Except for Ghoa.
“Enebish!” she roars as we swing closer. I lock the knee of my good leg so it juts out like a pike, and before she can duck, my heel slams into her chest, clearing the way for Chanar to cut Temujin’s rope.
Sparks fly from his saber and the rope splits as we swing past. A second later Chanar severs our rope too. We crash to the white marble steps. A few paces away Temujin lies on his side, sputtering and coughing, and I’m so relieved he’s alive—that we’re all somehow alive—I hardly notice the bursts of pain shooting up my bad leg.
“Enebish!” Ghoa scrambles up from her back. “Stop this! You don’t know what you’re doing.”
No.For the first time in two years, I know exactly what I’m doing. I won’t sit back and watch her ruin my life a second time. I won’t let her murder another friend.
“If you want to save Temujin, help us! Keep the guards away,” Inkar calls to the crowd.
After a breath of hesitation, spectators swarm around us, creating a human barricade. Another host surges up the steps toward Temujin, wedging themselves between him and the guards like a herd of cows in the road.
We thrust toward Temujin. The guards roar threats and wave their sabers, injuring a few, but they can’t cut through thousands of citizens. Just as the Kalima can’t unleash the full fury of the sky. The air is dangerously cold and snow stabs and swirls around us. Torrents of wind batter us from every angle and rain slants sideways in our eyes, but none of it is strong enough to stop our progress.
Ghoa heaves through the crowd, head lowered like a bull, furiously pushing people out of her path. If she reaches Temujin first, she’ll kill him with a slap of cold—the law be damned.
A growl rumbles through my chest, and I lean into that fierce, primal part of me. A monster I no longer fear. A monster I have learned to harness.
I grasp at the darkness again and manage to catch a handful of threads. Not enough to engulf the courtyard in blackness, but enough to raise a thick, shadowy fog. While everyone yelps and trips, I guide Inkar and Chanar the last few steps to Temujin. He’s curled on his side, still coughing, and trying to push himself up. I steer Chanar to his head and Inkar to his feet and help them hoist him off the ground. Blood from unseen wounds seeps through the felt bindings, and his neck is marred with angry purple bruises. Still he manages to swing a shaky fist in self-defense.
“It’s us.” I skim three fingers over his cheekbone and down the side of his face. Tracing the pattern of my traitor’s mark so he’ll know who I am.
At my touch, his eyes flutter open, blazing as bright as the stars above. A weak smile bends his lips. “Enebish.”
“You looked a little uncomfortable up there,” I whisper. The first words he uttered to me, so long ago at Qusbegi.
Temujin’s smile widens. “You truly are Goddess-sent.”
“If we don’t get a move on, we’re all going to bemeetingthe Goddess,” Chanar retorts.
