The generál slams to a halt and clutches his stomach, as if I buried the knife in his flesh. Our eyes meet, and I expect to find fury, outrage, perhaps even fear, but he looks contemplative. Almost amused. He lifts a finger, and I flinch, expecting the enchanted blade to retract through the hilt and lodge in my chest. But it remains buried in the throne room wall. A second later there’s a monstrous crackle and the murals splinter into fragments, revealing the actual wall of glass behind the illusion.
Slowly, as if in a dream, spiderweb fractures spread through the pane. Beads of water race down the cracks and drip from the ceiling. The smells of brine and sand and victory fill my nose as the frothy green sea bears down on us.
Ivandar’s jaw drops.
Kartok is close enough and quick enough to tackle me, but he remains perfectly still and watches as I throw my weight against the splintered glass.
There isn’t time to contemplate why.
The wall explodes with apop,and I laugh as the waves rush over me.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
ENEBISH
THE BLASTS FROM THE WATER CANNONS SLAM INTO OURstomachs and fling us across the marsh like twigs in a raging current. I crash through the cypress trees, battered by their jabbing roots, and tumble through the wreckage of the sheep pen, colliding with too many shepherds and animals to count. My vision darkens with every impact. Pain detonates through my rag-doll body—crushing and suffocating and endless.
When the floodwater finally slows, the city of Uzul is no longer visible. Only a dripping expanse of trees and mud. Catching hold of a vine with my good arm—though neither arm feels “good” anymore—I drag myself onto a cluster of roots. As I cough up mouthful after mouthful of brown sludge, the current continues to swirl around me, littered with broken branches and leaves. Scattered with floating satchels and shoes and shawls. And strewn with battered, motionless bodies.
Sheep lie on their sides, mangled and soggy, their wool stained red and brown. Goats are bent and broken against the trees. And, most horrifying of all, are the people. The corpse of a shepherdess glides past, her eyes staring vacantly, her face bruised and bloated. Her long dark hair waves around her like the swamp reeds, and her hand is outstretched, fingers interlaced with those of a small boy, who is just as waterlogged and still.
My stomach turns itself inside out. I fling myself off the roots, desperate to get away from the woman and the child, but as I claw through the puddles in the opposite direction, another body floats around the bend. Then another. They move silently through the cypress trees—three gray-clad Shoniin and four shepherds. And these are just the bodies I can see. I’m sure there are dozens more scattered across the marsh.
So many lives taken because of Yatindra’s selfish deception.
And my stupidity.
I never should have accepted her invitation. Iknewshe couldn’t be trusted, but I was trying to “make an effort.” I wanted to prove I wasn’t too damaged to unite the Protected Territories and lead them against the Sky King and Zemyans. My doubt and mistrust had already ostracized and endangered so many. I wanted to be better and braver and stronger, but burying the past and moving forward proved even more disastrous.
There’s no winning.
Not for me.
“Serik?” I cry into the eerie silence. There isn’t a single note of birdsong. Even the relentless cicadas have stopped chirping, leaving only the gurgle of mud and the far-off sound of weeping. “Serik?” I shout louder.
Still no answer. Panic seeps into my pores. He was right beside me before the blast. Hands intertwined. Now he could be anywhere—crushed beneath a broken branch, dashed against a rock, the next corpse to drift downstream….
“Serik!” I stagger to my feet and wade through the slough. I don’t have a clue where I’m going—I could be stumbling in the wrong direction, wandering deeper into the maze of trees. My bad leg buckles every few steps, but I scrape off the grime and forge on.
He’s alive. I’ll find him. I refuse to accept anything else.
After what feels like years, my ears prick with the hum of voices, one louder than the rest. It doesn’t sound like Serik, but I follow it into a thicket of reeds, where the mud is even heavier and the plants jut from the ground like spikes. As I hack through the shoots, my legs give out for good. I lie there for a moment, the grime cold and stodgy against my cheeks, tempted to let the bog devour me. But I dig my elbows into the mire and continue to drag myself forward, length by torturous length, until I reach a cluster of people.
Several dozen shepherds stand in a huddle, keening—tortured sounds I haven’t heard since my days on the battlefield. I try to stand, but my body is too caked with the viscous mud. I feel so inhuman, it isn’t a surprise when several of them point at me and cry, “Alligator!”
The rest of the group screams and retreats.
I manage to lift a hand and force out a single word: “Serik?”
The shepherds’ screams abate, but their horrified expressions remain firmly in place.
“Enebish?” Old Azamat squints as he ventures forward.
Lalyne scoffs. “Of course she would survive! Of all the wretched creatures under the sun!”
“And only concerned for Serik. To hell with the rest of us,” Iree snaps.
“That’s not true,” I wheeze. But I can hardly hear my rasping voice. There’s no way it reaches the shepherds.
