Serik’s going to kill me.
I drop the threads of darkness, allowing Ziva to maintain the cover of night, and mutter, “You’d better be right.”
“Enebish! Stop this!” Serik and dozens of irate shepherds beg, but they’re easy to avoid, since they can’t see.
Once we’ve isolated Ghoa and the prince, Ziva and I tackle them to the ground and secure their arms and legs with rope we stole from the flailing shepherds.
“Cooperate and we’ll spare you,” I hiss.For now.
Ghoa stops thrashing at the sound of my voice and the Zemyan follows suit. “You came,” she marvels. Either her relief is truly genuine or she’s gotten much better at feigning gratitude.
“Zivabelieved you. She is to thank for the darkness,” I say, tightening Ghoa’s rope with a merciless jerk. Hearing Ziva out is very different from siding with Ghoa. Or forgiving her. And I want to make sure she knows the difference.
Serik’s skin is so hot, it pulses with eerie orange light. He refuses to speak to me, or even look at me, as we drag Ghoa and the Zemyan prince into the abandoned home we’ve been squatting in. He stomps down the narrow hallway and up the stairs. I let him go. He needs space if we’re ever going to have a civil conversation.
I lead the rest of the group into the kitchen, where we stuff Ghoa and the prince into a windowless pantry. Neither of them fights or attempts to retaliate, and it sets my teeth on edge. Ghoa could have frozen us all where we stood, just as she did to the caravan of traders at Nariin. But she didn’t. And I need to know why. Even if their warnings about Kartok prove to be true, Ghoa could have an ulterior motive.
Once several guards are posted outside the pantry door, Ziva and I slowly ascend the stairs. Several rooms branch off either side of the hallway, but it’s easy to tell where Serik went. Billows of heat pour out from beneath the farthest door on the right.
“Your reasoning had better be sound,” I say to Ziva before I open the door.
She swallows hard, tucks her wild curls behind her ears, and shoves inside ahead of me.
Serik paces back and forth along the far wall, looking for all the world like a prowling sand cat, and it transports me back to the day Ghoa returned to Ikh Zuree. When she offered to let us take the Sky King’s eagles into Sagaan. The day that set all of this in motion.
The rest of our makeshift council is already here: Iree and Bultum sit on opposite sides of the room—one on a bed that’s still neatly made, the other leaning against a chest of drawers. Lalyne stands between them with her arms crossed. And old Azamat sits on the bearskin rug on the floor, grinning fiendishly, as if this is the most fun he’s had in years.
Before I can even part my lips, Serik erupts and the flare of heat is so intense, I half expect him to spit actual flames. “Why in the skies would you spare them? You know they’re going to ruin us. Ruin everything. This was our chance to gain a true advantage!”
“Ididn’t spare them.” My voice comes out twice as loud and ten times more defensive than planned. “At least not initially …” I add softly. I need to douse Serik’s rage, not stoke it. “Ziva is the one who called the night.”
Serik stops abruptly and laughs. “You’re telling me you didn’t have the power to stop her?”
“I’m getting stronger every day,” Ziva interjects.
I give her arm a threatening squeeze. “That isn’t the point—”
“The point is, we never should have trusted you,” Lalyne interrupts. “You lead us from one disaster to the next.”
It hasn’t all been a disaster. You’re alive, aren’t you?
But arguing will get us nowhere. I pull a deep, balmy breath into my nose and calmly say, “Ziva believes that Ghoa and the prince are telling the truth about Kartok.”
“And you believe her?” Iree demands.
Ziva’s fingers clench. The light in the room wavers, and I quickly jump in to steady the threads of darkness. “I believe her enough to hear her out,” I say. “She hasn’t given us any reason to doubt. She wouldn’t risk—”
“Ghoa and the prince don’t care about the Lady and Father. Or any of us,” Serik says, pacing even faster.
“I know it seems improbable, but you’ve been begging me to trust, to listen to our allies….”
“Not in place of using your head!” Bultum barks.
Serik shoots the shepherd a blistering look. “You willnotspeak to Enebish like that.”
It might just be the suffocating heat, but his rush to defend me makes me feel like I’m basking in the desert sun.
“This isn’t an attack against Ziva,” Serik continues with a nod in her direction. “It’s accepting the truth about our enemies. That’s the Zemyan heir down there. And Ghoa, who framed you for a massacre, En.”
