But, but, but!
I could never face my family or the people of Ashkar without my warriors. No one will revere a commander who left her battalion to die—even if they deserved it—because the people will never know they conspired against me. No one will allow me to speak ill of the dead. Especially not if the Sky King is among them. In the eyes of Ashkar,Iwould be the traitor. The coward.
No better than Temujin.
I want to shout and rage at the injustice, but I let out a long breath, tighten my ponytail, and smooth my hands down my leathers. I will never forget their betrayal, and I willneverforgive them, but if I must save my warriors to salvage my reputation and reclaim my position, so be it.
“Stop moving!” I shout.
They continue jostling and yelling, punching and scraping. Crawling over one another like feral dogs as pops of light from the Sun Stokers flare in and out.
“Listen to me if you want to get out of here!”
Again they ignore me. Or maybe they can’t hear me. Thankfully, I have ways to make them listen.
Placing my palms on either side of the door frame, I press my cold outward, sliding it across the floors and along the walls like the giant blocks of ice we cut from the Amereti each winter. That’s how my Kalima power has always felt: like a crushing weight I must unload. Almost too heavy to move.
I can’t see the blue and white fractals overtaking the walls, but I feel the power shoot through my fingertips. My body shivers with delight as the temperature plummets. Colder and colder until breath clouds my face and tickles my cheeks.
“The commander is attacking us!” my warriors shout.
“She’s defected to the enemy!”
Of course that’s what they’d think.
The loudest voice sounds like Bastian, and I make a mental note to annihilate him at our next training session.
Assuming there is a next training session.
“Unlikeyou,I haven’t betrayed anyone,” I retort. “I’m trying to help. But if you’d rather perish at the hands of Enebish and Temujin, by all means, keep fighting me.”
To my astonishment, the jostling ceases. Probably out of habit or sheer desperation, but I’ll take it. “Reach out in front of you. If you can feel the table or chairs or anything at all, shove them together in the middle of the room. Then step back as far as you can. Press yourselves against the walls.”
I give them exactly one minute to complete this task before I center myself in the doorway, raise my hands, and send a blast of ice hurtling at the furniture. It streaks through the blackness like a long, white spear, visible for a fleeting instant, before it hits the pile with acrack.It sounds like the entire room is shattering, and my warriors gasp. The Sky King cries out. Though, it’s completely unnecessary. My aim was true. I can feel my ice seeping into the wood, binding each piece together and freezing it to the vault floor.
“Eshwar, lightning!” I command. After a brief hesitation, Eshwar hurls a snapping bolt of electricity at my makeshift firepit. As soon as the furniture bursts to flame, I shout at the Sun Stokers, “Fuel the blaze!”
All five Sun Stokers dart forward, palms up, and direct their strength into the fire. The resulting wave of heat and light is so intense, I have to shield my face. Enebish’s darkness dives at the wood and snatches at the leaping flames, but unlike the Sun Stokers’ individual flares, this fire is too big, fueled by too much wood, to douse. And thanks to my base of ice, every obstacle in the room remains cemented to the floor. Which means, for a few blessed seconds, there is enough light and space to navigate to the door.
“Move!” I shout.
This time I don’t have to repeat myself.
We spill into the hall, and the sudden wall of darkness feels like tumbling into a grave—one of the mass burial pits I’ve dug for fallen Zemyans. I always assumed they would repay the favor if I perished in battle. I never dreamed it would be my sister, along with defectors from our own army, who would put me in the ground.
Another wave of outrage washes over me.
How dare she?How dare she!
“Form a line behind me,” I order, “hold on to the person in front of you, and do exactly as I say, when I say it.” I wave my arms and stumble forward until my left hand finds the wall. Then I take a deep breath and close my eyes. I feel safer in the blackness of my own mind than trapped beneath Enebish’s shroud. It also makes it easier to fall back through time, to my childhood, when I would skip down these corridors hand in hand with Papá.
From the vaults, Papá’s office is seven doors down and up a flight of stairs. But going up will only trap us, so I guide the Kalima past two more doors and feel my way across the atrium to the perpendicular corridor, which will lead us to the rear entrance. Temujin will want to make a spectacle. He always does. Which means he’ll charge through the grand entrance so all of Sagaan can see his accomplishment. How he surprised and trapped the Kalima warriors. While he puts on a production, we’ll slip out the back. What we’ll do once we’re out in the open, completely exposed, is another question. But our odds will be better out there, where we have room to fight and unleash the power of the sky.
I increase my pace to a jog. The king’s hands are like shackles around my wrist—sharp and bitter cold—but he doesn’t question my actions or make threats. Neither do the Kalima.
They will never question me again.
I plow ahead, counting the distance to the exit. Twenty paces. Ten. I remove my hand from the wall and extend my arms to shove through the double doors, but the sound of a high-pitched whistle makes me slam to a halt. The Sky King and several others crash into my back, their complaints peppering me like shrapnel, but I hiss at them to be silent. The whistle grows louder. Nearer. My stomach lurches. It’s a sound that preludes death. A sound I always equated with victory until Enebish turned on me at Temujin’s execution.
