My enemies revere me more than my own warriors.
The sun creeps higher and the heat intensifies. I feel like I’m baking inside this blasted box as we plod down the long, thin peninsula. The glaring light shining off the water is so bright, I don’t see Empress Danashti’s palace, rising out of the sea, until we come to a halt in front of it.
It’s the opposite of the Sky Palace in every way.
Where the Sky Palace is dazzling white marble, reaching up into the clouds, Empress Danashti’s palace is one sprawling level made from black coral that juts and twists into strange, porous shapes.
I would never call it pretty. This entire country is harsh and austere—devoid of the lush grass, sparkling snow, and tall, spired buildings that make Ashkar beautiful—but it’s also not the slum that lives in my memory.
The lock on the wagon doors clanks and harsh sunlight fills the compartment, making it easy for the Zemyans to clamp manacles around my wrists and shove me from the wagon while I squint.
I hit the ground like a flopping fish and the crowd roars louder.
The sticky heat is even more oppressive out here. If my icy core had begun to refreeze, it’s a puddle beneath my armor now. Seeping from my skin in buckets of sweat.
“We’ve brought a gift for the empress!” my captor bellows.
The throng roars, and heralds with long, strange trumpets turn toward the palace. Their music is low and rumbling, buzzing the marrow in my bones, and they do not stop until a water chariot appears from the far side of the coral palace. The chariot is shaped like a cup, with fanning grooves like a seashell, and it’s pulled by a team of porpoises. A cluster of people stand inside, but my eyes go immediately to the woman at the front: an enemy I have only seen from across the battlefield.
Empress Danashti is somehow more imposing and more unremarkable up close. I’ve only ever seen her mounted on her warhorse, and she’s much smaller than I realized. Hardly larger than a child. Her features are blunt and unrefined. Dark brows frame her bone-white face and silver-white hair billows behind her like the foam churning from her chariot. She looks too soft and too hard. Too plain and too beautiful to be the ruthless leader of these magic-wielding demons.
The gathered crowd falls onto their faces as she lifts her gauzy skirt and steps onto the sand. It’s so quiet, I can hear the jangle of her silver anklets. My captor extends his cape and performs a sweeping, melodramatic bow that would get him laughed out of the Sky Palace. The other Zemyan soldiers do the same.
“Your Most Noble Excellency,” he says in Ashkarian, wanting me to understand. I’ve refused to debase myself by learning their barbaric language.
The ruler of Zemya glances at me and responds in Ashkarian as well, her voice heavily accented. “What have you brought me now, Kartok? You know gifts are unnecessary—you’re already Generál Supreme.”
“I assure you, my empress, you’ll want this gift.” He grabs me by the collar, twisting a chunk of my hair in his fist. I yelp as he throws me at the empress’s feet. Coarse black sand sticks to my lips and cheeks. “The Sky King is dead. And I’ve captured the commander of the Kalima warriors.”
Danashti peers down at me with a cocked brow. I’m a filthy, bloodstained mess. I don’t look like a commander. I don’t even look like a warrior. But an exultant smile breaks across her face. “A very desirable gift, indeed. You’ve outdone yourself, Kartok.”
“Which is always my aim, Your Excellence.”
Empress Danashti swivels to address the crowd, points at me, and switches to Zemyan. She doesn’t shout, but somehow her voice carries. I only understand a handful of words:Sky King. Dead. Captured. Commander.
The crowd roars with riotous approval.
Empress Danashti speaks again, and I surmise her question based on the mobs’ ferocious answer.
“Kill her!” they scream.
I swallow hard but jut my chin. Refusing to cower.
Empress Danashti waits for her people to settle, then she turns to me and switches back to Ashkarian. “A wise suggestion. But I, being the magnanimous ruler that I am—as different from your grasping king as the ocean is the sky—have another offer,Commander.Admit defeat, proclaim your disgrace before my people, swear allegiance to Zemya, and help us dismantle your empire. Then I will spare your—”
“I’d rather die,” I growl before she’s finished.
Empress Danashti nods. “And so you shall. But not until we’ve wrung every drop of usefulness from your carcass. You may take her to your laboratory, Generál Supreme.”
Kartok flings himself into another ridiculous bow, but before he can rise, one of the men standing behind the empress steps forward. I’d assumed they were all guards and servants. Most are wearing plain smocks or sea-green uniforms. But this man wears an ocean-blue suit embellished with silver braids, and a wreath of sea grass rests atop his ash-white hair—similar to the one the empress wears. He isn’t handsome—nothing that so closely resembles a night-crawling worm could be attractive—but the Zemyan girls hoot and call his name: Ivandar. Along with another word:Prince.
He touches his mother’s arm and murmurs something in Zemyan.
The empress whirls on him, staring at his hand on her sleeve.
He doesn’t let go. “Please.”
That’s a word I know well from interrogating hundreds of Zemyan prisoners.
