Mihrunnisa managed to drag me back two steps but no further. I tore my arm free, ripped off my glove, and took one desperate step forward as Raheema flipped without warning—away from the blaze of orange fire that blast from Muhannad’s parted maw, scorched a black line on the square’s boundary wall, and blackened a tree to ashes.
It would take a minute, maybe longer for his mighty inhale to produce more fire, so even though heat singed my skin through my fine clothes, I cast my glove to the ground and raced forward a step—only one before Kamaal grabbed both my shoulders, heaving me back.
“I promised my brother I would keep you safe, and that doesnotentail allowing you to race into a wyvern battle,” he barked in the same unyielding voice he issued training instructions. This was the soldier whose reputation swept all of Ithanys, whose prowess and lethal ability was so renowned they told stories of him in medinas, gentry homes, and humble shacks alike.
End him,I screamed down my link to Raheema, struggling against Kamaal’s hold.It has to be now, Raheema!
She was already angling her wings to bring her closer, blood dripping from her wounds. She flew through the pain and dovewithout warning, beating those fragile wings as she kicked out her legs and raked talons through Muhannad’s black wings. Deep enough to gouge, to split the membrane. But not enough to stop his head whipping into the back of Raheema’s neck, teeth locking onto the place beneath her nubby horns.
“Raheema!”I screamed, terrified by how close those wicked teeth were to her neck, how easily he could twist his jaw and rip out her throat. Kamaal struggled to hold me back as I thrashed.
She shredded his wings until membrane hung like tatters from strips of muscle, then jumped back. Blood ran down her head, down her neck, but she was still flying, still breathing. Still fighting.
And when his enormous body thrashed, that spiked head winding, absolutely livid, Raheema used all her strength, her weight, and her stubborn rage, to throw herself into his chest, locking wings and talons and fangs alike in his throat.
As quickly as that, she tore it out. Tossed it across the square where it landed at the feet of Bakshi as the king froze, staring in outrage and shock. And I knew, with the back of my neck tingling in warning, we would pay for this. For killing his war wyvern, for ruining his plans, whatever they were, for me.
But joy and relief poured into the chambers of my heart, and right now, I couldn’t give a single shit about what the future held. Raheema was alive. Bleeding, limping, bitten, and scratched, but alive.
Kamaal released me with a grunt, and I took off running and didn’t stop until I was beneath her. Raheema’s silvery-blue head lowered to press against mine, and a laugh of disbelief left me, scattering through the square. We did it. She beat a war-wyvern.
And even though Raheema held my attention, our link full of her relief and grumbling annoyance that I hadn’t believed in her right to the end, I felt the prickle on the side of my face. Felt the stare, the rage and power within it, and expected to find theking. But when I looked across the square, it was Xiu, my old handmaiden, whose eyes were fixed on me with the hatred she’d regarded me with all my life.
CHAPTER 11
AMEIRAH
As wild and alive as my emotions were, I didn’t hesitate one second before storming across Jamaa Square to where Xiu stood, stately and beautiful and as cold as the frozen wastes on the furthest continent. She looked exactly the same, not a single hair out of place in the waterfall of purple-sheened black that fell over the fire-red silk dress she wore.
Her eyes were already locked on mine, but as I strode towards her, Raheema issuing a low warning breath laced with hot iron and flame, I watched the hatred flare in her eyes. I’d never found out why she loathed me so entirely. As a child I believed she hatedme—who I was at my core—and she certainly critiqued every last part of me, content to make me feel as small as an ant. But as I grew older, and with months of distance between us now, I knew that hatred had more to do withherthan me.
Did I remind her of the home she’d been unable to visit for decades? Did I have the eyes of a mother, the smile of a sister,the bearing of a favourite aunt? I never truly knew why she’d left her home. Beyond veiled references to her family being far away, and mine wanting nothing to do with me, she’d told me very little despite being my handmaiden for twenty-five years.
One single wrong word and I’ll roast you,Raheema rumbled, a threat that delighted me enough to smile. That was something I’d so rarely done in my father’s kasbah in Strava, and something I found easier and more natural now, even with my husband miles away and the world teetering on the edge of danger all around us. With Raheema at my side, I could smile, and I watched the shock take root in Xiu as she blinked.
That one reaction was all she allowed; her face swept back into cool composure, her back straight, chin lifted, mouth flattened with disapproval. So familiar, and yet a total stranger. She was no one to me. Now I had my own family, my own wyvern, I didn’t need her.
“Sidi!” a pealing male voice cut through the low hum of voices that remained in the square—those spectators brave or stupid enough not to flee wyvernfyre, plus the royal family, the guards who surrounded us, and Xiu, watching me watch her. “Majesty! News from Daurith.”
Daurith? I jolted like I’d been struck, turning to face the direction of the voice and finding a tall, slim man in worn leathers and dirty shoes. Sweat slicked black hair to his head, his cheeks.
The last time I heard anyone talk about Daurith, the sacred hatching city had been threatened by those dark clergy and their wyverns. But Varidian and the legion predicted the attack; they would have moved legions in to protect the younglings, surely…? They would have warned the other legions, the commanders, and the king himself so he and the council might send warriors to defend it.
“What news from Daurith?” It was Kamaal, not the king, who responded. His voice emerged like a thunderclap, rife with foreboding menace.
“The city was attacked by wyverns,” the messenger said—hesitantly. He gulped, glanced away and said, “They’re saying the city was sacked by one of our own legions, that the lightning soul has corrupted our riders.”
“Bullshit,” Mihrunnisa exploded, then cringed when her father’s attention swung her way. She ducked her chin, hands clasped in front of herself.
“All I know is smoke rises from the city of Daurith,” the messenger said meekly, “and a lightning storm raged in the skies before the destruction.”
“What remains of the city?” King Bakshi finally demanded, the predatory angle of his tilted head at odds with the hope he’d arranged his affable face into. “Do the hatching grounds remain? The bonding square? The turmeric towers?”
“One tower was struck,” the messenger replied. “But the hatching grounds remain, and the damage is mostly to the wall and perimeter buildings.”
I exhaled a slow breath. Varidian must have gotten there in time. But for there to be rumours that the lightning soul had corrupted one of our legions… what the hell had hedonedown in that city? Did the messenger realise just how close he was to the truth?
“I’d like to dispatch a ground legion to guard the city against any further attacks,” Kamaal said to the king. I knew he was a renowned warrior in himself, but I hadn’t realised he was quite so involved in the placement and strategy of Ithanys’s armies.
