I was so focused on staring at the death gathering in its throat that the shout made me jump.
“Move!”
That was Nabil’s voice. I searched the banks for him, searched the brackish water, and my mouth parted in shock when I finally found himridingone of those skeletal wyverns. Was that… Buchra? Did she remember him, even in death? It was impossible, but what wasn’t impossible these days?
I ripped my boots from the mud and broke into a run, my head tipped back to watch as Nabil’s wyvern shrieked, wind whistling through the strips of her wings as she flew into the path of the other creature. There was no sound as they collided, nothing except my gasp as I tracked Nabil on her back, murmuring a desperate prayer that he didn’t fall.
There was no sound until suddenly, all at once, there was a whole riot of it. And I stared in shock as true wyverns raced over the mountain tops, as if Nabil and Buchra had led them here. At the front, his golden scales dull but teeth bared in defiance, flew Dahab with Zaarib on his back, hands already thrown out to rip the skeletal wyverns away. On either side flew Saif and Shula, and Habiba and Aliah. Two riderless wyverns screeched a warning, flying on the outer flanks, bringing the sting of tears to my eyes. Raheema and Maleeha.
And behind them, a miracle: a second legion poured over the sharp peaks of the mountains, then a third. An aerial army to fight these fell creatures, to stamp out this perversion of the wyvern race.
And though I felt the tight net of doom trap me, though Varidian still hadn’t surfaced, I smiled. My legion was here.
CHAPTER 63
AMEIRAH
Xiu’s rage at the legion blotting out the watery light was so tangible that a sharp breath left me, and I remembered her chanting, her dark ritual, all at once. I stayed only long enough to see Nabil fall into line with the legion—Buchra, and it had to be here, skeletal and twisted but so loyal she’d somehow burned through Xiu’s control—and then I raced up the muddy riverbank to face the queen.
Not a queen, I reminded myself, a hand going to the Jiang pendant that swung around my throat. No longer a Zalaam medallion, but one of blinding, defiant light. I promised to use it to defeat Xiu, and I refused to go back on that promise. She was one woman. Near invincible and without a single scruple or moral, but she was one woman. Not a goddess, not a queen—fae. The first queen had come from that world of glossy mountains and magic-choked air, but Xiu was Cirestian, as I was Cirestian. She was mortal, as I was mortal.
But I wasn’t a woman when I stood across from her, facing where she once again stood on that dark rock in the river, hands to the sky. I was a living flame, and I poured hot, bone-melting rage upon her.
“You’re dead,” she hissed, abandoning her chant. I was almost honoured, that she cared more about killing me than raising her ancestor from the grave.
“Sorry to disappoint,” I quipped, and poured more, hotter magic into the deathfyre, slamming it into her chest, seeking that drop of life at the heart of it and breathless when it realised it hadgrown.She stumbled backwards, and I gave her a smile full of teeth and hatred. All her life, she’d finally hated me and I’d never known why. Now I knew, and that loathing was mutual.
“What is this?” she seethed, slashing her arms down, trying to force back the torrent of flame. Any shards of glittering magic she formed were melted to particles by the fire. Her attempts to throw daggers of that lethal magic crashed to failure when they met my shield.
“The Jiang family send their regards,” I told her, panting as more and more power erupted from my core. Alone, it wouldn’t be enough, but with the medallion, with this gift from a family of healers to fight a legacy of evil, I had to believe I could do it. Even if dizziness struck my temple, and sweat dripped faster from my face, and muscles strained and screamed across my back, my shoulders, my thighs.
At that name—Jiang—Xiuhissed.The sound raised goosebumps on my arms, and plucked at some primal fear within me, instincts pelting me with the need to turn and run, to flee or die, because she was death given form, pure malice distilled into a single person.
One person, one woman, I reminded myself. And with all the magic in the medallion, I was many.
I blinked and Xiu had crossed the water. Blinked again and wings stretched from her shoulders, blocking out the light that reflected off the tips of the mountains. Still Cirestian, but more, other. Her wings were the same as the soldiers that marched on Ithanys, the same as the warriors that tore apart our people. Cold spilled through me, fear on its heels, but it met the flaring warmth of the dagger in my hand and I was able to draw a breath, to blaze with fire to counter the storm of magic she released.
The last time, she pushed me back, forced my feet to slide in the mud, but now I held my ground, driving blast after blast into her. It was whisked away before it could harm her, but the display was enough to unsettle her; I saw it in her bared teeth, in the desperate slash of her arms through the air as she threw dagger after shard after spear at me.
“Did you feel bad, even once, for how you treated me?” I asked, panting as my magic immolated a shard of Zalaam power so big it would have split me in two.
“No.”
I bred my teeth. “Bitch.”
I took a leaf from her book and shaped my next strike into six fiery daggers, distracting her with four to the chest while two went to that helmet. She retaliated with a tidal wave of power, enough that my boots left drag marks in the mud when she forced me back, enough that my head flared with dizziness and the world went black for half a second.
“Why won’t you die?” she demanded, a burr of true rage joining the hatred in her voice.
“Right back at you,Xiu,”I spat, grinning when the amulet around my neck began toglow.White light, pure and untainted, radiated from the medallion, and my next blaze of deathfyre didn’t have a mere drop of light at its centre. A sun burned in the middle of my darkness, and Xiu gasped when it made impact.
More light burst around us, but not from me. People landed around me, released from the talons of the legions that flew over the mountains, and a breath caught in my throat when I saw the fire and light they wielded. Xiu saw it too and bared her canines.
I threw both hands in front of me, ripping off whatever bindings remained to hold my magic in place, and a storm of it crashed into the world. A distraction to keep her eye on my magic while I threw the dagger, end over end, at her helm. It was carved all over with courage and strength, and I prayed some of that strength would lend itself to accuracy, holding my breath as the handle collided—
And knocking that horrid raw stone crown from her head.
I didn’t hesitate, didn’t even take a breath. She was defenceless, as vulnerable as Kanuri without that medallion around her neck, so I forged every bit of anger and vengeance and hatred in my body into flame and poured it upon her, as hot as any forge. White spread through the black of my deathfyre, and my eyes widened when I realised I’d seen it before, in the giant maw of the River Eater.
