“Lightning,” Shula guessed with a heavy sigh. “So the entire fate of our world’s freedom relies on you two?”
Rawiya startled, her mouth parted and accusation sharpening her beautiful features. “Lightning. Fire and light,” she repeated, as a chill swept over me, something like panic swelling in my chest. No, itwaspanic—Varidian’s. Pure, icy fear. I reached down and clasped his hand, squeezing tight. No matterwhat, he had me. My mate, my bonded husband. “You’re the lightning soul,” Rawiya realised, staring at her son.
He ducked his head, staring at a spot on the floor. “I’m sorry,” he breathed, and the shame could have drowned me.
“Why am I the last to learn this?” she demanded, and that washurtin her voice, pinching her eyes.
“I didn’t have the heart to tell you,” Varidian said in a quiet voice. “Or the courage.”
“Varidian,” Rawiya sighed, lifting her hand to touch his face, but her arm fell when Kamaal burst through the back door into the kitchen, panic written all over him and his clothes dishevelled.
“I’ve searched everywhere, asked everyone,” he blurted, his eyes going right to his brother. “I can’t find Mihrunnisa. She never returned with us after the battle.”
CHAPTER 35
AMEIRAH
Ispent hours reading the pages over and over, with Nabil translating them into Ithanysian so our friends and allies could combine their knowledge and theories with mine. Varidian and Shula flew out with Kamaal’s Legion of Silverstorm this morning, but they had no idea where to start looking for Mihrunnisa, and the news coming out of Morysen was… bleak.
In the king’s absence, the high gentry and clergy of the council had taken over the city, locked down its borders—not even tradesmen and merchants were allowed in—and any wyverns in the skies were shot down without question. Civilians had died, innocent gentry or their mounts murdered, or both. My stomach turned when the reports came in after fajr, and I knew it was a retaliation for what I did. For killing Bakshi.
I’d thought, until yesterday, he was the worst kind of evil in this country, but I was now understanding he was only one cog in a much greater machine. He was gone, but there were othersready to step into his shoes. Was Kaazhim sitting on his throne now, or had the Zalaam queen found her way into Ithanys after murdering my grandmother?
A lump grew in my throat, painful and aching.
“Ameirah?” Nabil asked, frowning.
I shook my head. “I’m fine.”
His raised eyebrow deemed my response bullshit.
“I’m as fine as you are,” I challenged, dropping my gaze to the journal page I scrutinised. It showed a ring made of the same glittering black stone as the queen’s throne—and as Bakshi’s amulet. Sabira had saved the shards of that too, collected into a pouch that I kept now in the pocket of my djellaba.
Below the sketch of the ring was a dark, bold line. The wall that separated Ithanys and Kalder. More evidence that my family had lived here, before they fled the dark war to Cirestia. On the other side of the page I'd ripped out of the journal were figures drawn in pairs—men and women, or two men, or two women. Eight of them in total, one bearing fire, the other bathed in light. Some of the fire was pitch black like mine. Some of the light formed a bolt of lightning like Varidian’s.
The responsibility threatened to crush all the air from my chest, the drawings damning, accusing. How was I supposed to stop the Zalaam Queen and save Ithanys when I barely knew what I was doing with my magic, with my life? It was far easier to focus on what she took from me, what Bakshi took from me, and to let the thirst for revenge burn instead.
Vengeance was much more my speed than heroism.
“Ameirah,” Nabil prompted, and I looked up to find him frowning at me through the half-moon glasses perched on his nose. “What happened yesterday, with the king—”
“He deserved it,” I snarled.
“I know.” His expression didn’t soften with sympathy. Good. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to handle it. “But killing someone is no easy feat.”
I swallowed, trying to shut out the image of the king’s smug face, the victory over me he thought was guaranteed. “The things he said—I can’t forget them. I don’t regret it, and I would kill him again if given the chance, but I can’t get those words out of my head.”
Nabil sat back, crossing his arms over his chest, his tunic stitched with the yellow hawk of House Azizi. It made me think of Jaouhari; the town where I was raised was now under Zalaam control. While I hoped the kasbah where I lived had been destroyed, I hoped the candle factories, bookshops, and bakeries had been spared. Yet another complicated tangle of emotions I didn’t have time to sort through with Mihrunnisa missing and figures from legendary stories alive once more.
And I seemed to be one of them. I massaged an ache between my eyes. “I’ll deal with all those things later,” I said to Nabil who waited, watching me without judgement or impatience. “When this war isn’t hanging over our heads.”
Wars, I supposed I should have said. Varidian caught me up with everything I’d missed, including the Torn Isle colluding with Kalder. Those bastards who killed so many of us, who sent tigers over the wall to kill that boy at the Last Guard. The thought filled me with rage, even as I knew the worst threat was the council and the Zalaam forces. Kalder had magic, warriors, and tigers, but it wasnothingcompared to the stories of Zalaam araethawn power. They could level entire cities to ruins at the height of their power.
“What’s the next line?” he asked, sensing I didn’t want to talk about it, wasn’treadyto talk about it yet. Perhaps like he wasn’t ready to talk about the loss of Buchra.
“It’s an annotation beside the Wall,” I said, turning the page so he could see. “It’s not particularly uplifting. This arrow here marks something called a grave through worlds.”
“That’s not our side of the wall,” Nabil mused, considering the sketch. “The arrow’s pointing to something in Kalder.”
