“And Bbiya and Idir are dead,” she added.
It was the lack of feeling in her voice, the stark contrast to how Nabil’s voice had just roughened with grief, that made me adjust my grip on my dagger. I should have practised throwing blades more; I couldn’t remember enough to hit my mark now, but I was convinced that these two Torn Isle leaders walking towards us were the true enemy.
“Emmahin is on our side,” Nabil whispered, coming to the same conclusion. “How close do you need these two fuckers to strike with your magic?”
“I can hit them now,” I replied at the same volume.
I thought of the fear in Varidian’s eyes when he heard the army had begun to march. I thought of the people who died at Daurith, and the traitors who’d lived in Morysen right under our nose, exposed by my deathfyre. That was whose screams had filled the streets that day—Zalaam warriors, blending into ordinary life. Waiting for a command from their queen. Fury tore through my chest, and with it came a roar of dark, living flame.
“Who killed Bbiya and Idir?” Nabil asked the two people now close enough to see the details on their salt-grey clothes, the dozens of weapons that practically dripped from their leathers. More than Nabil and I had for sure.
“Their own stupidity killed them,” Amuq’ran replied, his voice gruff and louder than I expected. It filled up the room, echoed from the high ceiling until my nerves shuddered.
“You killed them,” I accused, thinking of what Varidian told me of the other leaders, the intelligent, kind woman and the quiet, solemn man. Both dead.
“They got in the way,” Kanuri replied dismissively. A confirmation. They killed their own people, their friends and colleagues. Had likely attempted to kill Emmahin, too.
Hatred and rage turned Nabil into a stranger as he threw a hard glance my way. “Do it.”
I wasn’t an executioner or assassin. I’d never killed without provocation.
“She looks nothing like you,” Amuq’ran said to Kanuri, his dark gaze scouring me from head to toe. “Too much of that pathetic blood has diluted yours.”
His words hit me like a slap to the face. I looked from the bearded, scowling man to the woman just as her attention fell on me. Her stare seared beyond my skin into bone, and I hated how easily it threw me into the past. How easily I became small and ashamed, how my stomach tightened and twisted.
“Oh, fuck you,” I hissed, both at these judgemental pricks and the people in my past who had taught me my differences made me less than them. I had a wyvern, and a husband, and a magic I was proud, not ashamed, of.
Amuq’ran opened his mouth to respond, but I drove my fist forward, opened my fingers, and let a sphere of blackened fire erupt. It struck his chest hard enough to force him back a step, and I held my breath as he smiled, glancing down atthe medallion resting on his chest. He was protected, like King Bakshi and—
He began to scream.
Nabil flinched beside me, but I only frowned and called up another pulse of deathfyre. He shouldn’t be burning, not with that amulet around his neck.
“You—” he howled. “Betrayed me.”
My upper lip curled, canines exposed, but it hit me when Kanuri laughed, a staccato sound that lacked sadness or sympathy. Not even rage that her friend was dying.Shehad betrayed him.
“It’s not a true amulet,” I guessed, holding the red-handled dagger in front of me as she kicked Amuq’ran aside and left him to die.
“Of course it’s not real,” she scoffed. “Why would my queen gracehimwith protection?”
Her queen. The bitch who killed my grandmother. Well, that drew the lines between us as surely as any attack would have. I threw my hand up and a dark wave crashed from me, shuddering through the air before it slammed into her—and was absorbed into a pendant exactly like Bakshi’s. Hammered silver, surrounded by crudely faceted stones that glittered like stars trapped in a night sky. This was real, I knew instantly, not a fake like she’d given to Amuq’ran.
“Why would Ameirah have your blood?” Nabil demanded when I didn’t speak, calling up more magic even though I knew exactly what it would take to destroy that medallion.
“Because my son and greatest pride fathered her.” Kanuri left her friend as a pile of ashes behind her and didn’t look back as she advanced, prowling like a Kaldic tiger.
My lip curled back further.“Kaazhim,”I spat, and drove both hands forward, deathfyre blasting from me so potently thatNabil and I were both forced back a step, boots squeaking on the gleaming silver floor.
“You’re not old enough,” Nabil argued.
“I’m older than I look,” Kanuri replied, and seemed to be enjoying the verbal sparring as much as my failed attempts to kill her. “I am Her Majesty’s first handmaiden. Her most loyal friend and subject.”
“Weird brag, but okay,” I muttered, teeth gritted as another wave of fire crashed from me, making sweat prick my upper lip. This time, we surrendered space to her by choice; she was close enough now to see the sheen of black across her eyes.
“Her eyes never looked like that before,” Nabil said in a tight voice, angling his sword as he readied to fight. A distraction, I realised, when an arc of air burst across the room and would have crushed her bones to fragments if it wasn’t deflected.
“An illusion,” Kanuri answered Nabil, as if he wasn’t speaking to me. “Another gift from my queen—the sheer wealth of power that lives in my veins. I could bring this building down around us.”
