In fact, Mihrunnisa knew several places. First, there was a little bakery where we ate shebakia and johwara at a small table outside, gorging ourselves on the pastries. Then we washed them down with a cup of qahwa sweetened with honey, cinnamon, and milk, a delicacy only found in a beautifully tiled qahwa house endorsed by the royal family (they had a painting of Mihrunnisa on the wall inside, holding a cup of steamy qahwa.)
Then came a bowl of beboush from the food market on the other side of the square, followed by fruits from the best vendor in Ithanys. By the time we reached the broad, shop-lined avenue I was so full I could barely walk, but Mihrunnisa wasfarfrom done.
With her elbow linked with mine and pure glee on her face, she towed me into the medina that had won awards for its intricate ceramics, where we purchased an enamelled jewellery box, and then to the jeweller that made the finest gold and enamelled pieces to fill said box.
After that, I was strongarmed into a souk that specialised in textiles, where bolts of glittering satin and beaded cotton sat alongside gleaming hides of leather, and where a warren of golden stone cubbies each housed a seamstress toiling over custom garments, with elaborate beadwork and embroidery so intricate it made my own fingers ache to watch them.
Then, as the soles of my feet pleaded for mercy, came a bookshop with towers of leather-bound tomes lined up outside the narrow, leaning building, and an interior that smelled so divine I had to pause inside the doorway and fill my lungs with a deep breath. There was hardly any room for customers among the looming, double-stacked shelves of mystery, murder, andadventure books, but we squeezed through where we could. No romance books, unfortunately, but Mihrunnisa sneakily bought a gold-foiled journal I’d admired. She handed it to me on our way back to our wyverns, looking mightily proud of herself.
I planned to write a series of scathing letters to my husband in its pages. That thought kept my mood high as we wandered back through the golden streets, but my steps faltered at the poster that had been pasted to the cracked door of a disused pottery.
There was a sketched drawing of a hooded man with a square jaw. He looked nothing like my husband but that didn’t stop my blood running cold at the bold words.Anyone associated with the lightning soul will be put to the most gruesome death. Save your community by reporting any suspicious behaviour to the church.
Mihrunnisa let out a heavy sigh beside me, frowning as she struggled under the weight of bags and boxes. And this wasn’t evenhalfof what she’d ordered—the rest would be delivered to the palace throughout the next week.
“It’s getting worse,” she said quietly, putting her hand on my shoulder. “I don’t know what will happen if there’s a sighting in Morysen.”
Neither did I. It didn’t matter, I supposed, whether the true lightning soul was spotted here or whether it was all hearsay and lies. It only took a rumour to cause chaos. Which made Varidian a fool for sending me away. Danger would catch up to me everywhere. I would be writing that in my new journal.
“Let’s get back,” Mihrunnisa said, leading the way back to the square. In the skies, she took the time to correct any mistakes I made and any boisterous behaviour Raheema displayed.
It was only when we landed in the aviary yard beside the palace, our wyverns ladened with trinkets and luxuries andsweets, that I realised they were our excuse for spending so much time away from the palace. A cover up for the flying lesson.
But I couldn’t fathom why we’d need to hide it.
CHAPTER 5
THE SILVER RIDER
Thurayya’s wings beat the air like thunder as we flew through another storm-drenched night. Sheets of rain lashed the glimmering grey scales that shifted with every powerful wingbeat, making my seat treacherous. I tightened my thighs around her back, gripping the dark spike in front of me with rubber gloves as the wind tore at us, as if trying to halt our flight.
The hood of my silver cloak thrashed with every rapid gust, but I sat low over her back and endured the cold. I was glad I’d tied my hair into a knot, and even more grateful for the thick leathers that covered me from head to toe, the exact pearly shade of dyed hide carefully selected so as to not visibly belong to any of the great Houses of Ithanys. I was content to put myself in danger, but implicating an innocent family was unthinkable, even if I yearned for the white of Naji, my mother’s house.
Night after night Thurayya and I took to the skies, flying from Strava to Basilienn to my ancestral home of Wenton, thendeeper into the forested lands and the mountainous regions. To Flyn and the Fallow Gate. Avoiding the occupied city of Wyfell, we coasted through the dark skies, only the stars and the swollen curve of the moon as our witness. Tonight, membrane carved through wind and storm to carry us further than ever before, beyond the Wall of Hydaran into the humble mountain villages of Kalder.
It could have been a death sentence, could have easily been my final night in the world, but if I died spreading the warning to save as many people as possible, so be it. I hadn’t lived my entire life fighting for honour and justice to allow this cancerous darkness to claim my homeland. Not when I knew so much about where it had begun, where it had planted its dark root, and from where even now its tendrils spread, hooking into more people, growing its twisted legions.
So, Thurayya and I flew over the wall and into enemy territory. If we were to survive this dark battle, this second legendary war, we needed to be united, Kaldic and Ithanysian both. We couldn’t fight a conflict on two fronts.
“Get me as close as you can,” I said, just loud enough to be heard over the wind. The rain was softer here, broken by the wall. I hoped it was still enough to cover our approach, to hide us from those vicious tigers.
Thurayya rumbled caution, but we’d come this far. Turning back now wasn’t an option. So, we landed on the edge of a mountain, and I leapt down, following its sharp ridge down into the mountain village of Thaern. And there, under the shadow of the great wall, I gave the same message we’d carried across Ithanys.
The dark queen is back. The Zalaam war never ended, merely slept for a thousand years. The araethawn are rising once more. Raise your protections, ready your warriors, for they are coming, and we will each of us need to fight.
CHAPTER 6
VARIDIAN
The second Mak’s taloned feet touched down in the landing square beside Daurith’s largest tower, I swung myself off his back and slid down his rain-slick side to the ground.
“Are you hurt?” I demanded as I sprinted towards his talons, my already aching chest full of fierce hurt at the careful, tender way he set Nabil on the ground.
“Nabil.”I dropped beside my friend, brushing rain-slick dark hair off his forehead and scanning his yellow leathers for slashes and dark stains of blood. Mak’s talons had pierced the sturdy hide of his jacket, but no blood flowed, and no part of him was burned to skeletal remains like the wyvernfyre had done to Buchra. “Are you hurt?”
Nabil lifted bleak, empty eyes to me, the rain flattening his hair to his head and the grief slackening his features making him look far younger than his thirty years. “I can’t feel her.”
A twist of sympathy went through my chest, sliding deep.
