He chuckles and the sound sends gooseflesh racing up my arms. “They told me you were fiery. I’m delighted to see you’re living up to expectations. It will make our time together so much more interesting. As for your tongue … why would I come in there when I can quiet you from here?”
His bone-white hands slip through the bars, grasping for me. I scramble back, well beyond his reach, but his armsgrow,stretching across the compartment like the taffy Mamá used to make each year on the Sky King’s birthday. I press myself against the farthest wall, but the Zemyan easily catches me. His knobby fingers squirm between my lips and grab my tongue.
I scream and claw at my mouth. The pain is staggering, blinding. It feels like the farriers’ tongs are wrenching my tongue. I have to make it stop. But my fingers find nothing to grab. There’s no hand inside my mouth, even though I canfeelit there.
It’s all an illusion. His vile Zemyan magic.
I curse for a full minute, wishing it was in fact his hand. At least then I could bite him. When I finally run out of breath and fall silent, the pain abates. But the instant I open my mouth to resume yelling, the wrenching fingers return with a vengeance.
“You’ll quickly learn it’ll be much more pleasant if you cooperate,” the Zemyan says.
“Filthy, depraved sorcerer!” I yell, even though I know it will cost me. I need him to know Iwon’tcooperate. I willnevercooperate.
I grip the iron bars and summon my ice, commanding them to bend, to shatter. Willing the entire wagon to explode. But of course it doesn’t. My palms don’t even feel cool against the metal. I emptied every reserve I had to save my traitorous warriors. It could take days, weeks, for my power to regenerate.Ifit ever does.
I sink back to the floor and seethe as the wagon lurches onward, league after league. Day after day. My captors don’t bother feeding me. Each night when we make camp, firelight flickers through the bars and the smell of roasting meat fills the air, but the Zemyans don’t fling even a splinter of bone my way. Instead they feed the excess to their dogs—small, mangy mongrels that gulp and snap loudly.
I make a vow, then and there. When I escape, I will roast those mutts on a spit and eat them for spite, savoring every sinewy morsel. Then I’ll whittle their bones into arrows and put them into the hearts of their masters.
The longer we travel, the warmer it grows. Wetness floods the air, blowing down my neck like a hot breath. The smells of salt and sand somehow overpower the putrid stench of the wagon.
The last time I breathed these foreign scents,Iwas the one leading the charge. Riding down from the Usinsk Pass on Tabana, the Kalima streaming behind me like a never-ending cloak as we stormed Karekemish. Not only did we breach the Zemyan capital, we advanced all the way to Empress Danashti’s seaside palace before we were finally driven back by their magic. The empress’s best sorcerers made it look as if the entire city were sinking into the sea, and we thought we would drown if we didn’t retreat.
I had never seen the sea before, and it felt dangerous in a way I couldn’t describe. Bigger than I would ever be. I had been so certain that nothing in the world could be more endless than the grasslands, until I saw those waves, rippling into eternity. A million shades of blue, each one deeper and darker.
The closer we get to Karekemish, the more impossible it becomes to sleep. The air is heavy and thick and revolting, and I sweat all night, my Kalima power still too depleted to summon cooling drafts. Though, I wouldn’t be able to sleep in the heart of a blizzard with the way my thoughts are racing. My panic escalates every day as I think of Sagaan. Of the Zemyans, sinking their claws deeper into my country, now that there’s nothing and no one to hold them back.
We have no king, the Kalima will have retreated to the rendezvous point in the northern steppes to regroup, and our troops at the battlefront were undoubtedly obliterated when the Zemyans cut their way through to Sagaan.
I imagine the seven sectors of the capital in flames, burning like the Sky Palace. All the beautiful architecture, destroyed. Thousands of years of progress, lost. I picture the people scrambling down the streets like rats before a cat, screaming for help—for warriors who will never come.
And what will become of the Protected Territories? How long will it take for the Zemyans to reach them? I want to believe our remaining troops will stand their ground and guard our holdings, but when I close my eyes, I see them abandoning their posts and fleeing into the night. There’s nothing keeping them there without the king to answer to.
Without me to lead them.
Thankfully, I won’t have to witness any of it. I’ll be long dead.
Perhaps the Kalima did me a favor after all.
We reach Karekemish a week later, and it’s nothing like I remember.
When we invaded the Zemyan capital three years ago, I galloped past houses that were nothing more than hovels made of mud and hay. Rudimentary wells had been dug right into the center of the streets, causing massive amounts of flooding. Sad little boats were tipped over on every rocky stretch of beach, and it reeked of fish and sewage. And the people! They looked like the clear white sand scorpions that only emerge in the desert at night.
Now I gape up at towering copper gates. They are as high as any wall in Sagaan and just as beautiful—the copper as green as the sea beyond, the bars formed of sculpted serpents and tiny spiral seashells. Starfish and long, swirling plants crown the top.
Inside the city, the houses are definitely not made of mud and hay. They may be brown, but they’re tall and sturdy, with wraparound balconies, windows made of sea glass, and shining abalone roofs. The roads are paved not with cobbles, but an endless slab of sandstone that’s so smooth, the wagon feels as if it’s floating.
The Zemyans have clearly rebuilt.
Except barbarians could never accomplish all of this so quickly.
“Impressed, Commander?”
I lurch back from the window, and the Zemyan sorcerer laughs. He leers at me through the bars, so close that I choke on the sour tang of his breath.
The deeper we wind into the city, the more the wagon slows. Crowds of Zemyans in golden finery pour from their homes to point and shout. Shrill horns blare and hands pound the wagon’s walls like thunder. As if this is a monumental occasion. As if I’m someone important.
The irony isn’t lost on me.
