Fix this. Force them to comply. Get to the Kalima.
Again, I consider reaching for the ice. It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve immobilized a group this large. They deserve it for supporting Enebish—a traitor. But as I look into the eyes of the raging, terrified people rushing toward me, my hands refuse to rise. I can’t dredge up even half of the staggering amount of fury I’d need to entomb them all in ice.
I tell myself it’s exhaustion from torture and travel. The strength I recklessly forfeited, taking the ice into myself to ease the cold. I could still obliterate them all, if I wanted to.
But that’s the strangest part: I don’t want to.
And I don’t know what that means.
Serik and several other wild-eyed shepherds are nearly on top of me, spitting war cries, but for the first time in my life, I’m not thirsty for battle. Instead of rushing to meet them, I drop to my knees, pressed down, again, by the weight of unseen hands on my shoulders.
I have never felt so weak—cowering and covering my head. But it’s the last thing they’d expect. The only thing that might work.
“Please, En!” I don’t consciously choose to cry her name. The plea is just there, on my tongue.
Still, my assailants come, blades flashing and arms swinging.
She’s going to let me die. Attheirhands. After all of the impressive battles I’ve won, Serik and these misfit shepherds will be the ones who finally cut me down.
At the last second my resolve wavers and I make a desperate grab for the cold, but my ice-filled muscles are too slow. My mind is so white and frost-covered, it’s like a clouded windowpane. I can’t see or hear anything other than one word.
Wait.
The command is stern. Inarguable. So I raise my chin and glare defiantly at my cousin.
Right before Serik lays my throat open with his fiery saber, blackness slams down around me, more crushing than the Zemyan Sea.
I flatten my body against the frozen dirt as blades whistle over my head and hands whoosh past my sides, all of them missing their target, thanks to Enebish and her shield of darkness.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
ENEBISH
IWATCHGHOA DODGESERIK’S BLADE THROUGH THEsudden mist of darkness.
Ziva’sdarkness.
“Do you have any idea what you’ve done?” I scream at the girl.
At the exact same moment, Serik yells at me. “Why’d you intervene? Ghoa deserves this! She’s never going to change.”
I, of course, know that.
But Ziva, apparently, doesn’t.
“You’ve ruined everything!” I shout at her, hiding like a coward behind a cluster of shepherds. I’d thought it was strange, how quiet she was during the confrontation. How little she had to say when shealwayshas too much to say. “I never would’ve trained you if I knew you were going to sabotage us!”
I curl my fingers around the threads of darkness and try to yank them from Ziva’s grip. Serik and the others need their sight if they’re going to gain the upper hand. But Ziva refuses to let go, and she’s much stronger than she used to be—thanks to my training.
“Stop!” I bellow.
“This isn’t sabotage!” Her face is set with determination, her eyes aflame with scorching desert heat. “I think they’re telling the truth about Kartok and the gods and the Kalima.”
Of all the things I expected her to say, that was at the bottom of the list.
Why? How? What would possibly make you think that?But there isn’t time for questions. I have to make a decision. Ghoa and the Zemyan are stumbling their way across the street. Out of our reach. Either I side with Serik and my fury—backed by a lifetime of evidence against Ghoa and the Zemyans. Or I choose Ziva and her audacious but earnest declaration. Yes, she’s young, but she’s fiercely devoted to Verdenet. She wouldn’t have made such a bold claim, or backed it with equally bold actions, unless she had good reason.
The shattered part of me that’s been betrayed too many times to count insists it’s all a lie.Don’t make the same mistake again.But I can’t get the image of Ghoa, dropping to her knees, out of my head. My heart and gut clench.
