Finally Ihsan says, “Allow me to consider it for a time. The Sky King has been slow to respond to my missives. And our shipment of Ashkarian goods hasn’t arrived for two weeks. I’d like to make some inquiries.”
Murtaugh looks like he’s going to crash into the swamp like a felled tree. “Your Majesty!”
Yatindra glares at her husband while Ziva flops back into her chair with a satisfied grin.
King Ihsan ignores all of it. “I also wish to send scouts to ascertain the conditions in the other territories and validate your claims before I make my decision.”
Serik nods diplomatically, but I squirm in my chair and blurt, “That will take weeks.”
“Is that a problem?” Ihsan turns back to me.
Serik’s fingers clamp around my wrist and tighten with warning. “No, of course not,” I whisper, lowering my chin.
“It isn’t wise to rush such important decisions,” the Marsh King continues. “If we are going to form a tightly knit alliance, I want to know you as well as I know my own kin. So, please, make yourselves at home in the treetops.” He holds out his arms as if he’s offering us a magnificent gift. But the glint in his bark-brown eyes feels less like an invitation and more like a warning.
Or a threat.
CHAPTER TWELVE
GHOA
ISTARE AT THEZEMYAN SORCERER,HATING HIS SMUG, thin-lipped smile. How he glances over one shoulder, then the other, making a show of looking for my ice dagger. He even pats the blue papered walls and rustles the elaborate tapestries adorning the throne room, though it’s obvious that the blade I forged is gone.
It vanished.
But how?
Zemyans can manipulate the weave of the world to conceal things that do exist or to create replicas of things that don’t. But never, in twelve years of battle, have I seen a Zemyan stamp out something that I know for a fact was corporeal.
It isn’t possible.
Yet, Kartok stands before me, unharmed.
“How did you do that?” I shout.
“How did I do what?” His grin becomes even more oily. “Did you misplace something, Commander?”
I raise my hands and direct every morsel of strength I have left into my palms, to forge another blade and prove I’m not losing my mind. But my cold is so depleted, steam instead of ice rises from my hands.
Kartok lowers into one of the ornate council chairs and crosses his long legs, hands resting on his knee. “You and your sister are so alike. Rage all you’d like, Ice Herald. It only benefits me.”
I scramble to my feet and lunge at him with a furious roar. “I amnothinglike my sister! I will never use my power for you!” He’s so thin and rangy, I should be able to snap him in half, but I’m even slower and clumsier than a magic-barren warrior. He slides his chair a fraction to the left, and I hit the slippery floor. My momentum carries me into the wall. The crunch of my nose reverberates through my skull, and as I curse and writhe, a hanging tapestry rattles loose. It covers me like a death shroud, making me scream even louder, because I’m nose to nose with the Sky King. His face flawlessly rendered in peach and gold threads.
Condemning me. Smothering me.
I fight against the cloth. It’s surprisingly heavy, or maybe I’ve become pitifully weak. Either way, I can’t claw my way free. Can’t hide from those searing eyes.
You failed me. You failed Ashkar.
Finally Kartok ambles over and peels back the tapestry. He looks down at me, not even attempting to suppress his peevish grin. “All of this flailing is quite unnecessary. I only want to run a few little tests. You’ll hardly feel a thing.”
“I’d rather skip to the part where you kill me.” I’d been so certain he would execute me as soon as we arrived in Karekemish—make a spectacle of my death for his empress and the throng of bloodthirsty Zemyans. So when it didn’t happen, I was momentarily relieved. But now I see it for the misfortune it is. I don’t want to die. But I want to be Kartok’s test subject even less.
He circles me like the sharks undoubtedly prowling the water surrounding this prison and retrieves a waterskin from the folds of his robe. “I presume you’re familiar with tales of our sacred hot spring?” he asks.
I eye the waterskin swinging like a pendulum from his bony fingers. “If by ‘sacred hot spring’ you mean ‘diabolical pool of unnatural magic,’ yes.”
Kartok doesn’t take the bait. He stands taller and speaks to the ceiling with reverence that borders on fanaticism. “We may not be born with power, but that doesn’t make our abilities any less valid. Quite the opposite. Zemya created our powers through persistence and innovation. Characteristics she passed along to her people—we are hungry and hardworking because we have to be. Instead of hoarding Her power and bestowing it on a select few, Zemya gave each of usequalopportunity to succeed by transferring Her magic into the hot spring and allowing all to drink. We are the masters of our own fate, depending on how hard we are willing to work.”
