“What is he talking about, Ghoa?” Ivandar’s voice rises.
“He slit my throat in his prison, then healed me with Loridium,” I grind out.
Behind me, Enebish and Serik gasp.
Ivandar slams his palm against the cavern wall. “What in the merciful seas is this magical elixir and where did it come from?”
“You didn’t think it was important to tell us that Kartok had infiltrated yourmind?” Serik yells at me.
“I didn’t know!” I shout. “And it doesn’t matter because he isn’t in my mind!”
The hiss of Kartok’s voice tiptoes across my shoulders. “Tell me, Commander, have your thoughts been a bit fuzzy lately? Snowy around the edges? Consumed by flashes of white?”
“No,” I lie—too slow.
Kartok chuckles. “I never dreamed when I siphoned your power that the bond between us would be so strong. Imagine my surprise when I discovered, not only could I whisper instructions into your mind, I could freeze your thoughts if you seemed resistant. Such a useful little trick.”
“I don’t believe you,” I say, even as I think of the constant headaches, those strange flares of whiteness, and the sudden forcefulness of my thoughts. I clutch my head and frantically sift through every impression and prompting I’ve had since leaving Zemya—every example of “goodness” Ivandar insisted on pointing out. This strange inward transformation I’ve been undergoing. Was none of that me? “I would know if my thoughts weren’t my own,” I insist, but it sounds as if I’m trying to convince myself.
“That’s the ingenuity of it all.” Kartok claps. “Theyareyour thoughts. Loridium bends your very will to mine. Until we are one and the same. Isn’t that right, Temujin?”
The deserter’s head jerks awkwardly, as if he’s being forced to nod. IfeelKartok’s fingers pinch my cheeks too, just like the times he held my tongue. Attempting to move my head in the same manner.
I dig my nails into my scalp and drag them down my face, carving fiery lines through my skin. Desperate to extract Kartok like a parasite.
I think of the moment right before I drove his blade into the prison wall. How he hesitated. He could have stopped me from smashing the glass, but he didn’t. The enchanted steel didn’t turn against me as it should have. I’d told myself he’d been too stunned by my attack to react, that I’d been lucky with the blade.
But there’s no such thing as luck.
Kartok knew exactly what I was doing.
A shiver overtakes me. Cold like I’ve never felt. “You wanted me to escape.”
Kartok’s snake lips curl into a grin. “You clearly weren’t going to cooperate—though Goddess only knows why you’d protect these traitors.” He waves dismissively at the Kalima. “Thankfully, you’re just like me. So I stopped wasting my time with questions. I knew you wouldn’t be able to resist punishing your warriors and reclaiming your position once you were free. And look, here we are. I should also thank you for getting the prince out of my way. It’s been so blessedly quiet without his meddling. Though, all of this inner turmoil and angst over what you believe is getting rather tiresome.”
He rubs his temples and my entire body shivers with rage.
Ivandar explodes before I can. “This is how you healed my mother from the sweating sickness!” he cries. “How you always seem to have her ear. Why she continually chooses you over me.”
“Or maybe I’m simply more competent,” Kartok jeers. “You’re a pathetic child, searching for reasons to justify your parent’s neglect, while I am a generál—a true patriot—putting an end to this war and glorifying Zemya.”
Every incarnation of the sorcerer raises his hands, presses his spider-leg fingers against the ice, and steps into being as the walls shatter and crumble.
In an instant the cave fills with thousands of Kartoks. All of them rushing toward us.
My mind screams orders, but I can’t move because I don’t know what’s real—if Kartok truly shattered the walls and the ice cave is collapsing on top of us. Or if he was never waiting in the ice at all and this is an elaborate illusion. Are his replicas actually Zemyan soldiers? Or is he working alone but wants to create the appearance of support?
“Blazing skies!” Heat explodes from Serik’s hands in a long spiraling tube. If the ice wasn’t already collapsing, it is now. He slashes his fiery lance from side to side, slicing a barrage of advancing Kartoks straight through the middle.
None of them scream. None of them fall.
One by one, the other Kalima warriors follow Serik’s lead. Weroneka adds her heat to Serik’s. Cirina’s wind tears at the multitude of blue robes. The Snow Conjurers attempt to bury the Kartoks beneath an avalanche. Tanaz, our Hail Forger, summons sheets of stinging rain, and Enebish and Ziva toss a netting of darkness over us.
But I stand there, frozen.
The cold is ready—screaming and thrashing inside me. I can hardly see through the frost encasing my eyelashes. I can hardly move beneath the ice glazing my skin and hardening my muscles. My hands shake in front of me, poised to unleash the ice. Yet nothing comes. And I don’t know if it’s because Ican’tuse my power or because Iwon’t.If Kartok is bending my will and suppressing my ice or ifIam the one holding back.
The ring of steel and painful cries of battle sound real, but no one from either side has fallen. The imitation Kartoks swing their sabers at our arms and legs, never aiming to kill. The powers of the sky rage and swirl around us—the most violent storm I’ve ever seen—but none of the Kalima’s strikes hit their target. Which is too improbable to be a coincidence. Kartok’s soldiers are either an illusion, or the Kalima’s powers are vanishing before they make contact—just like my ice did in Kartok’s prison. When he was siphoning my power. Not to use against me, but for some other purpose.
