Don’t!
My mind dredges up images of the burning Sky Palace, but I don’t have a choice. I have to think of the safety of the group.
The thief is a Night Spinner.
I have always been the only one—other than my mentor Tuva, who died when I was thirteen. Where has this person been hiding? Why haven’t they been recruited by the Kalima? Is this a challenge of some sort?
There’s only one way to find out.
With a desperate shriek, I reach for a dagger of starfire and hurl it at the smear of shadow stealing over the dunes.
CHAPTER THREE
GHOA
THE SPICE TRADERS LOOK LIKE THEY’RE GOING TO WETthemselves.
A pathetic man and woman hunch behind their rickety cart, faces pale as sand, hands trembling. Skiffs of yellow turmeric and rusty paprika escape the burlap sacks and float on the breeze. I grin as I inhale the pungent air.
Frightened witnesses are cooperative witnesses.
“Have you passed any caravans along this route?” I demand, gazing down from Tabana’s towering height.
They eye my warhorse—her sleek black coat draped in imperial blue and gold. Then their gazes continue upward, to the saber gleaming through the folds of my cloak, the glint of my lamellar armor in the harsh winter sun, and settle at last on the tinkling strands of my ponytail, singed white with frost.
“W-we’ve seen no one, C-Commander,” the man babbles, dipping into a pathetic bow. “Not a soul.”
“You’re halfway between Verdenet and Sagaan on one of the most heavily trafficked roads in the Unified Empire,” I say quietly. Dangerously.
“Most people choose not to travel this late in the year,” the woman says.
“Which is how I know you couldn’t have missed them.” I slash my arm, and frost ravages the spice bags. “Surely you’ve seen wagon tracks or footprints in the snow? Or heard the braying of sheep? Voices, even, that seem to come from nowhere?”
Just because they haven’tseenmy traitorous sister and her ragtag group of rebels doesn’t mean they aren’t here. IknowEnebish would have run to Verdenet. I know it as surely as the heady burn of ice overtaking my fists. Yet somehow she and Temujin and his Shoniin, and every skies-forsaken shepherd on the grazing lands, has vanished without leaving a single footprint or wheel mark in the snow. I feel like I’m tracking shadows, chasing phantoms.
Which isn’t far from the truth.
I nudge Tabana forward and the traders scream as her platter-sized hooves nearly sever their toes. “Do you know the punishment for obstructing imperial justice?” I ask, twirling my fingers idly in the air.
The woman screams as intricate patterns of frost climb the wheels of their cart. I nudge a few fractals onto their cloaks, let them nip at their cheeks. The man drops to his knees, babbling incoherently.
“Tell me what you know!” I shout.
Before he can confess, a screech fills the air. My eyes snap up to the sky, and invisible fingers seize my lungs. For one breathless moment I’m convinced it’shereagle, diving at me with blood-soaked wings, daggers of ice still protruding from her chest. But as the raptor streaks closer, I see it’s too small, too spotted, and tooaliveto be Orbai.
The imperial falcon glides overhead, releases a scroll of parchment, and climbs back into the low-hanging clouds before I’ve unrolled the missive. The frosty strands of my ponytail harden further, scraping the back of my neck like a blade.
Whoever wrote this letter hasn’t given me an opportunity to reply.
I unfurl the parchment.
Return to Sagaan at once.
The note isn’t signed, but the Sky King’s hand is unmistakable. A flurry of annoyance billows through me as I stare at the ornate loops.
“Find them. By any means necessary,” he’d ordered me from the bowels of the treasury, where I led him to safety during Temujin’s thwarted execution. We sat in prickling silence for hours, listening to Enebish’s starfire ravage the Sky Palace and the Grand Courtyard. Finally he spoke: “I’m giving you complete control. Full confidence. Prove I’m not a fool to continue putting my faith in you.”
But how am I supposed toproveanything if he recalls me before I’ve had the opportunity to search? It’s barely been a week.
