Where are they?
Perhaps I was wrong. Maybe Sagaan didn’t fall as easily as planned, and the Shoniin and Zemyans can’t spare warriors to patrol this road. Or maybe the siege ended so quickly, they’ve already conquered Namaag and we’ll be greeted by Kartok and Temujin when we reach Uzul.
I try to picture the continent under Zemyan rule. Will they spare the young? The old? The ancient cities, with their stunning architecture and rich history? Or will they burn everything to the ground, like my village in Verdenet? Will they execute the Sky King? Ghoa?
The image of her head on a block fills my mind, her expression grim and defiant as a Zemyan blade hurtles toward her neck. I tell myself I don’t care. She deserves even worse. But I can’t stop from flinching as the steel slices through her flesh.
Another night of travel passes—which means another night of sweating and straining to conceal the meandering group. It also means another night of staring at Ziva’s pathetic slumped shoulders. She walks several paces ahead of me but well behind the shepherds. She isn’t tall enough or strong enough to help carry her father’s litter, and the shepherds aren’t the most trusting of people who aren’t like them. More specifically, of people who are like me.
Every day, she tries to worm her way into the throng; and every day, the shepherds ram their shoulders together, creating a wall to keep Ziva out.
To keepbothof us out.
Add to that Serik’s increasingly frequent backward glances, and the irritating notes he’s been passing to me through the masses, asking if Ziva and I are making progress, and I feel like I’m going to explode. Or collapse. Probably both.
Fine.
I grit my teeth and force my bad leg to move faster until I catch up with Ziva, who’s kicking dust at the shepherds’ backs. I won’t be her mentor, but I suppose I can try a little harder to be her friend.
“They’re kind of unbearable, aren’t they?” I say.
Ziva jumps and scowls at me. “What are you doing here?”
“Walking. And talking to you, if that’s okay?”
Her frown deepens. “Why would you do that?”
“I’m sorry for how I’ve been acting. I’m just frazzled and exhausted … and hurt,” I add in a small voice.
I haven’t wanted to admit it, as if acknowledging how Temujin and Kartok and Ghoa destroyed me will somehow give them even more power. But it actually makes me feel slightly better. Stronger. Because that feeling—that vulnerability—is what separates me from them.
“Believe it or not, I know a thing or two about being hurt and betrayed,” Ziva says after a long silence. “Yourempire—our supposed protectors—tried to kill my father.”
“I’m sorry,” I say. And I mean it. “That’s never what I fought for.”
She nods and we’re quiet again, gazing out at the midwinter desert. The shepherds see nothing beyond the tunnel of blackness, only the path ahead, where I want them to go. Like blinders on a horse. But Ziva can see everything: the dunes, tinged purple in the moonlight; the frost dusting the tiny cactus blossoms; and the fox slinking through the brush and pouncing on an unseen quarry.
“When did your power present?” I ask, trying to sound friendly.
“Why do you want to know?” Ziva eyes me like I’m trying to trick her. “When didyourpower present?”
“At the stroke of midnight, on my eleventh birthday.”
She snorts. “Of course it did. You must have done somethingquiteheroic.”
I know she’s mocking me, but I shrug and answer truthfully. “Not really. Zemyan raiders sacked my village, Sangatha, when I was eight, and set fire to our hut. My mother pushed me out the window to save me, but I fought my way back inside. I refused to leave them to die. But it was too late. The roof collapsed. I only survived because I was barely through the door and avoided the worst of it. I guess the Lady of the Sky appreciated my effort.”
“Both of your parents perished?”
I nod. “Along with most of my village.”
“I don’t know if my mother is alive,” Ziva admits, voice choked. “I couldn’t save them both. There wasn’t time. Papa was bleeding, and I didn’t know if there were more assassins lying in wait. So I ran.”
“I’m sure your mother’s fine,” I say, though I’m sure of no such thing.
“If being trapped in the palace with the imperial governor isfine,” Ziva mutters darkly. “And that’s the best-case scenario.”
“But you were able to save your father. The king! Which is an incredible accomplishment. How did you manage it? Did you use your Night Spinning?”
