CHAPTER 21
AMEIRAH
Ashimmer of warm, welcoming magic lapped at my skin, and it was so jarring when I’d braced for biting pain, cuts, and glass gouging through my skin into muscle, that I jumped.
“Easy,” Kamaal murmured, the wind soft enough here for me to hear him clearer. “We have a few seconds before Kaazhim flies through, so listen closely. The king sent us here to retrieve something—”
“A journal,” I filled in, staring at the vaulted building we’d flown into—cavernous and high, with small windows along the top of the room that sun rays slanted through, dust motes dancing within them. Square windows lined the building, not arched, and the space was far wider than the slim, angular tower. We really had flownthroughthe window. It was a doorway, somehow.
“A journal,” Kamaal repeated, as if this was news to him. “We need to do everything to make sure hedoesn’tget it.”
“I already decided that, thanks,” I muttered, scanning the space. “It could give us an advantage.”
“Good, you’ve accepted we’re anus.”
I didn’t tell him I’d meant the Legion of Fyrevein and I. If they survived. “Tell me you have a plan.”
“I have many plans.”
I ground my teeth. “Forthis,for today, to get me the hell out of here.”
“I’m working on it,” Kamaal replied, lowering his voice as Raya flew deeper into the vast room, and Kaazhim’s dark green wyvern finally made an appearance. I saw its wings from the corner of my eye but didn’t look at the rider.
Working on itwasn’t a yes. My shoulders sank. My only ally, and even he couldn’t help me. No, not my only ally. I jolted and waited until Raya took a wider arc around the building, giving us some distance from Kaazhim as his gentry cronies came through the window.
“When I was in the dungeon, your father threatened Mihrunnisa. He said if I didn’t do as he wanted, he’d lock her up down there with me.”
“Fuck,”Kamaal spat with as much feeling as I’d heard him. “I should have got her out before we left.”
“Too late now,” I murmured, staring out one of the high windows as Raya soared past them. The city beyond was none I’d ever seen before, none I’d even heard described in old stories.
Spires made of spiralling white stone thrust up from a city formed of purple-leafed trees, vaulted buildings in a style I’d never seen, and pearly bridges that stretched over the tributaries of a silver river, upon which lilac light from the sky rippled. Not golden—the sun was lilac.
It was too late to help Mihrunnisa because we were no longer in Ithanys.
CHAPTER 22
VARIDIAN
For the second morning in a row, a storm dragged me from sleep, gasping and flailing. Ameirah was so vivid in my dream, I couldfeelher in my arms now. I was still reeling from it; from the fact she wasn’t in our bed at the Diamond with me. It took a long, fuzzy moment for voices to break through the roar in my ears. They were sharp and urgent enough that I got out of bed to investigate.
My head began to clear, but there was no shaking the tight pain from my chest as I threw on clothes and hastily put on shoes.
The door burst open just as I turned towards it, and Aliah raced inside, bright-eyed and panicked. It was a sight familiar enough to shake off my last cobwebs of sleep, even if longing for Ameirah carved itself into my bones, permanent and deep.
“You need to come. Right now.”
“What is it?” I demanded, but she was already running back into the hall, beckoning me to follow. I followed at a rush, her pace making my heartbeat drum faster.
Wyvern screeches cut through the walls of the Diamond—close. Almost on top of us. A familiar roar answered the cry. Mak. I ran faster, breathless by the time we burst through the kitchen and into the gardens.
“What is it?” ummi called after us, tucking the ends of a crimson headscarf around her face. “I heard yelling.”
Mak roared again, something like rage in the sound. The same bellow I heard when we flew into battle, when we faced our enemies. If those Zalaam wyvern were here…
I skidded across the grass outside, my heart knocking into my ribs as I raced after Aliah. She led me around the side of the Diamond to where the wyvern stalls were, to where Mak stood tall and bristling on the lawn, his wings flared, teeth snapping when Zaarib and Sabira attempted to get close. Zaarib jumped back, wariness written all over him at how territorial Mak was behaving, but my fearless head of house did no such thing.
“You snap those teeth at me again, Makrukh, and you’ll be sleeping in a shit-filled stall,” she threatened, her mouth set in a hard line, arms crossed over her chest. “I don’t muck out the stalls of wyverns who snarl at me. Nor do they get fresh meat directly from the butcher.”
