A cold wave of fear washed down Liana’s back. Of course it wasn’t so easy. “How many, then?”
“Not a single day,” Morana said. “And all of them. What I want is your divine nature in exchange for the king’s life.”
Liana didn’t even know she could be separated from one half of her being, but it hardly mattered anymore. If she had to live without Amron, she didn’t want a long life. And her mother would hate it so much, having a fully human daughter plodding after her.
“My divine nature in exchange for three days of the king’s life,”Liana said. “I agree.”
Chapter 28
Melia
Amron picked herup and ran through the fiery nightmare towards the exit.
Melia thrashed and sobbed, trying to break his steely grip, ready to burn alive just to avoid being touched by him. A violent bout of grief for Ferisa clutched her chest—not for the woman who lay in the courtyard filled with burning rubble, lit by the blaze she’d kindled, but for Ferisa as she had been when there was no one else but the two of them. For the hope she’d had, that the worst of her father’s plans could still be undone. For herself, who’d opened her heart just once, only to be betrayed.
She beat her fists on Amron’s chest, sobbing without tears in the infernal heat, feeling her hair crackle. He stumbled, wheezing, then ran on into the thick smoke under the arch. They shot out of the burning embassy as something crashed behind them. Outside, in the gathering darkness lit by flickering flames, no one paid any attention to them. People were rushing, carrying buckets of water, trying to prevent the fire from spreading to the neighboring buildings and swallowing the whole street.
Amron dropped her unceremoniously as her last punch landed on his shoulder. “You should’ve told me all of it, from the beginning,” he rasped. “I would’ve helped you.”
Someone pushed a pail of water towards her, and she dipped her head in it, drinking, then poured it over her head. “Murderer,” she spat at Amron as soon as she got her voice back.
He froze, speechless.
Wild recklessness overtook Melia, the feeling she had nothingto lose. “I loved her,” she said. “I would’ve left you for her in a heartbeat. Do you understand that?”
Water plastered his hair to his forehead, covering his singed brows; his lips were chapped, the skin peeling off. He swayed, his usual cool poise shattering. She aimed to hurt him, but his eyes only looked exasperated.
“Do you think I care about that?” He grabbed her shoulders and shook her. “How was that more important than a conspiracy to burn this kingdom to ashes? Melia, we’ll all be dead before dawn if this doesn’t stopnow.” He shuddered and removed his hands from Melia’s shoulders, taking a step backwards. His eyes traveled the length of her, hard and unforgiving. “It’s useless, you’ll never be on my side.” He shook his head as a shadow of dejection ran across his face. Then he turned on his heel and pushed his way into the crowd.
She didn’t follow.
She knew, sheknewFerisa wouldn’t have stopped until one of them was dead. She had been beyond reason, beyond any leverage Melia had once had on her. It didn’t matter, though. The threads that bound them were stronger than betrayal, stronger than death.
She pushed through the crowd in the opposite direction, wishing to be as far away as possible from Amron, from the embassy, from the flames that devoured Ferisa. Sobs raked her body as she ran, yet nobody paid any attention to her. She was just another distressed, grieving woman on the streets of a bleeding city.
Abia was a battlefield tonight; the stage her father had set, and she’d helped him do it. Armed people ran through the darkness, guards on horseback, mobs with knives and clubs. Someone sat bleeding in a doorway, nursing a broken arm.
As a band of king’s guards rushed down the street, she pressed herself against a house to avoid being squashed. In thetorchlight, she saw a tall man with golden hair, but it wasn’t Amron, it was his brother, shouting orders as they passed. She pulled a rag over her face, waiting for the darkness to swallow them.
The world she knew was falling apart, and she had nowhere to go. Curling up in some dark spot seemed like an attractive idea, and yet her body kept moving.Out, she thought,out of here.Out of Abia, out of this damned kingdom, there had to be something more out there. Perhaps there were ships in the port willing to sail out? She still had her jewelry, she could pay for a passage. She could still run away and start a new life, anonymous, free.
She pushed towards the harbor but the damned city was a maze, set to trap her like a wild animal until she threw herself at the walls, smashing her bones, bruising her flesh, bursting like an overripe fruit, bleeding over the white stones that never cared for her, a stranger, an enemy.
Tonight, all the paths led to the main square, to the chaos of fire and steel blurred by her tears. No matter how many times she turned, her feet always took her there, a puppet on a string, propelled by a force she couldn’t fathom. Men and their swords, her father and his hatred, the war and all its dead, a mountain of bodies, surging up into the sky.
Her mother in the crowd, her face ashen, dark curls soaked with blood, reaching out for her with a skeletal hand. And Rovin, surrounded by blades, screaming in never-ending pain, his wound open and festering with the dark rage that fueled the conflict. And Ferisa, finally, in that vortex of faces, still burning, her skin peeling off her charred flesh, her hair a torch, her eyes two embers in blackened sockets. She opened her arms, inviting Melia to her fiery embrace. Perhaps it was better this way, to perish, even if it meant endless torment. At least she wouldn’t be alone.
The desert wind, high and sharp like a woman’s wail, filled herears, drowning the cries and the clash of steel.Ferisa, wait for me, I’m coming.
A hand gripped her shoulder and pushed her aside. “What are you doing here, stupid girl? Run home!”
She was sucked back into the crowd, nostrils filled with the stink of blood and offal. Angry screams rose from the square, the blaze of torches painted sharp against the night sky. Blue uniforms of the king’s guard, black and red Elmarrans, and the sea of other people, fighting without any semblance of strategy.
The chaos boiled before the main gate. Melia tried to turn, but the suffocating press of bodies pushed her towards the fire and the blades. She desperately elbowed the people around her to get a breath of fresh air, moving forward, forward. The mass was a live, brainless, writhing thing. Where one body was pushed away, two sprang up to replace it, closing all escape routes. There was no turning back now, only plowing on, towards the fires, the clamor, the voices. The golden head—Amril again—screaming something, his voice swallowed by the noise. And a man in black armor, towering above the crowd.
She knew him.
It was all coming together now, the pieces of the nightmare finally forming a picture. Her father, on a horse, in front of the palace, torchlight on his face like the blaze of doom.
