I wait for the pounding in my head to flare. For rime to coat my vision. For the ruthless commander I’ve always been to make a final stand.
But there’s nothing.
Just peace. And frosty resolve.
I link one arm through Enebish’s and reach back with the other to take Ivandar’s hand. Ready to lay down my pride—the last of my weapons.
Before I can speak, laughter filters through the tunnels—as soft as the drip of an icicle. The louder it grows, the more it sharpens into an unmistakable voice. Echoing and everywhere. The same susurrating voice that hounded me in the fabricated throne room. The voice that’s haunted my dreams ever since.
“Ghoa came because I told her to,” Kartok proclaims.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
GHOA
HORRIFIED SCREAMS FILL THE CAVERN,SHAKING THE WALLSlike the behemoth gongs that hung in the Sky King’s throne room. The ceiling groans and crackles. Fractures carve through the ice, so eerily similar to the glass walls of Kartok’s prison—right before they burst. I extend my hand and fortify the ceiling with another layer of frost, but the majority of the shepherds and Chotgori and even some of the Namagaan soldiers are already fleeing back through the caves. Abandoning the fight before we’ve evenseena Zemyan.
I knew building an army of outcasts was never going to work.
“Show yourself!” I turn in a frantic circle, scanning the icy chamber for the sorcerer. But I knock into Enebish and Ivandar instead. They stare at me, appalled, as if they believe Kartok’s claim. “It’s obviously a lie!” I shout.
Apparently, that isn’t so obvious to Enebish.
“Did you betray meagain? After everything?” Her lips curl into a snarl, but like a fickle Zemyan blade, the words retract and clog her throat, making her sound small and pathetic. “I don’t know how you live with yourself. Sacrificingmorelives—”
“Open your eyes!” I thunder. “Yes, I was furious with you and your rebels for turning against Ashkar and making me look like an incompetent fool.Yes, I wanted to punish the Kalima for abandoning me. But even my ruthlessness has its limits. I would never lead him anywhere!”
“Maybe not knowingly …” Kartok bleeds into view, his long, lithe form crystalizing in the wall of ice directly in front of me. “But the bond between us is strong, Commander. You’ve been very receptive to my promptings.” He looks like an apparition, blending almost seamlessly into this frozen place: blue robes, pale skin, and smiling, bloodless lips.
“You’re here! Thank the Goddess,” Temujin mewls from where he lies, tied up like a hog at the back of the cavern. Abandoned by the shepherds who fled. “Release me and I’ll help you take them down.”
Kartok doesn’t even look in the deserter’s direction. “I have all the help I need.” The sorcerer snaps his fingers and hundreds of replicas appear all around him, as if he’s being reflected by dozens of mirrors. We’re completely surrounded by the generál supreme.
Another horde of our reinforcements flee, leaving only Enebish, Serik, Ivandar, Ziva, the kings, and a handful of shepherds and Namagaan warriors.
“We are allies!” Temujin bellows. “Equal partners! Release me so I can help you!”
Kartok shoots the deserter a pitying look.
The Kalima clamber to their feet, back into a circle, and raise their hands. Prepared to fight the Zemyans to the death, which will be swift and pitiful in their current state.
“Stand aside!” I run at the original visage of Kartok. If I were going to lie down and die, I would have done it when I first arrived in Zemya—before I endured Kartok’s torture and traipsed across the continent with my enemies. Before my mind became contaminated with these seeds of sympathy that rooted in my heart and grew into suffocating weeds.
The Kalima dive out of my way, covering their heads as I slam my frost-covered fist into the wall. Ice chips spray my face, and my knuckles carve out a cannonball-sized gouge. But there’s no man inside the ice. With a roar of outrage, I lash out at the wall to my left. Then my right. Swinging with wild, reckless hatred at the illusions. One of them is real.
“Stop, Ghoa.” Ivandar catches my arm and holds me against his chest. “This is what Kartok wants. Stay calm.”
How can I stay calm when he’s surrounding us? When he’s making these horrendous claims about me?
“There’s no bond between us! I would never allow it!” I yell at the sorcerer. My hair is so stiff with frost, the chin-length strands slice my cheeks. Red blood spatters the immaculate ice as I thrash against Ivandar’s hold.
“I’m afraid you didn’t have much say in the matter,” the battalion of Kartoks reply, calm as ever as they prowl behind the frozen walls. Just out of reach. I have never despised Zemyan magic more. “You wouldn’t have survived without my healing ministrations….”
“What are you talking about?” I start to spit, but then my hands leap to my throat, feeling for the invisible scar. I think of what Enebish told me about Orbai. How Kartok healed her and, by so doing, turned her allegiance. Stole her agency. “You inflicted this wound. I’d hardly considerthathealing.”
“What wound?” Ivandar interjects.
Kartok shrugs lazily. “The magic doesn’t know or care how the wound was made. It knows only that healing demands a price. And I’ve come to collect.”
