The ground pulses again and another crack marbles the sky. For the space of a heartbeat, the world flickers. Like Oyunna and Kartok, more than half of the faces change. Their bones lengthen and reform. Their skin and hair shift to the palest of creams and the whitest of blonds.
Burning skies.
My knees wobble. My mouth tastes of sick.
“Something the matter, Destroyer?” Kartok goads.
I can’t answer. Becauseeverythingis the matter. My thoughts race faster than starfire as I fit the deceitful pieces together, one after the next. The injured “recruits” I ferried across the grasslands in tattered, bloodstained uniforms were actually Zemyans. Zemyans who had killed our warriors, donned their clothes, and disguised their faces with their devil magic. Our “scouts” who reported the fall of Ivolga surely had a hand in bringing it down. And all of the cannons and munitions the Shoniin stole were undoubtedly turned upon our own troops.
Sometimes we’re so focused on a greater goal, we miss the truth hidden in plain sight.Inkar’s observation from so long ago blares like a horn in my brain.
It’s all about showing one thing, then serving something else. Something wholly unexpected.Temujin’s words from our first meeting in the Ram’s Head slap me across the cheek.
Kartok steps closer.
The recruits do too.
Hemming me in.
I fling my hand skyward, begging heat to sear my palms. But nothing comes. Because there’s no darkness here to call.
I raise my other hand and press harder. Sweat soaks my hairline. My arms tremble. The night came in Ashkar when the sun had all but risen over Temujin’s execution. And Tuva held the darkness for a hundred days of battle. I’ve been training so tirelessly, pushing so relentlessly. Surely, I should be able to extract a few threads from the Temple of Serenity. It’s so close.
I struggle until I’m dizzy and gasping. All the while Kartok looks on with a smug grin. “Rage all you want, little Night Spinner. It will only benefit us.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Anytime you summon your Kalima power in this realm, your darkness and starfire are siphoned to the Temple of Serenity.”
“What?” My hands fall to my sides. “That’s impossible.”
“Is it?” His accent draws the words into a hiss, and he lifts his long fingers in a dazzling flourish. When I curse, Kartok laughs. “Didn’t you ever wonder why you were only able to access the night within the temple? Or why your darkness couldn’t breach those delicate pillars? Why you were encouraged to practice so often?”
“No.” I grip my forehead and close my eyes. “The temple is safe because it’s a direct conduit to the Lady of the Sky. And there’s no darkness here because it’s the realm of the Eternal Blue. Home to the Goddess. A land of endless sunshine. Everyone knows the legends.” I try to remain calm, but I can hear my voice growing shriller with each word.
“Yes, your heathen legends proved most useful whenIwove this place into existence. The perfect excuse to lure you to the temple and the holding tanks.”
“Holding tanks?” Dread knots in my belly when I realize he means the massive urns. After Temujin threw ash from the black one during my initiation, I never thought to look inside the others. Why would I? They were a burial ground for fallen Shoniin. I never dreamed the other urns could be filled with my darkness and starfire.
“I must thank you, Enebish. Our invasion of Sagaan will be effortless with so many of our warriors hidden within the city and the power of the night at our disposal,” Kartok says. Then he turns to Chanar. “Tie her up in the temple.”
“Chanar, please,” I beg, “think of Inkar. She wouldn’t want this. Think of how far we’ve come. We were—”Nearly friends. You had finally accepted me. Maybe even trusted me.
“We’ve never been anything but enemies,” he growls, “and you have no idea who Inkar was or what she wanted.” He looks down at his hands, stained with the blood of his sister—his last remaining family member. Swifter than a mountain cat, he rises from Inkar’s side, wrenches my arms behind my back, and binds them with brutal efficiency. Then he drags me up the hill to the Temple of Serenity.
I fight him every step, squirming and kicking. I whistle for Orbai and shout her name, but she doesn’t come to my rescue. I start to hyperventilate as worst-case scenarios pile up in my mind: They hurt her, imprisoned her. Killed her.
“Why are you doing this?” I ask as Chanar shoves me up the steps. “You are Ashkarian, yet you’re in league with Kartok and the Zemyans. Why?”
Chanar slams my head against the floor so viciously, it creates fissures in the mosaic sky identical to the chasms overhead. Gray dots explode across my vision and blood wets the back of my hair.
“Because this is justice.”
“I know the Sky King wronged you, but you realize you’re condemning an entire country, not one wicked king.”
“You know nothing of it,” Chanar spits out. “This will be better for everyone. The hope of this revolution is the only thing that kept me and Inkar alive those five years in prison. This is what shediedfor.” He slams my head against the ground again, even harder, and vanishes in the haze of darkness that falls over my eyes like a curtain.
I lie belly up for what feels like hours. Days. Haunted by nightmares. Hounded by memories. Taunted by a deception I was too blind and stubborn to see.
