Nabil sent a punch of hardened air at the same time a dark wave of fire blast from me, both combining in the air into something that would have obliterated an ordinary person. “Weird brag,” he snarled, echoing my words. “But okay.”
A smile settled in cruel lines around my mouth, and I rapidly assessed the way Kanuri moved.
“We both fight her,” I whispered to Nabil, not looking away from the Torn Isle leader. “With magic and steel.”
He jerked his chin in a nod. But I couldn’t decipher if that nod meant he understood my hidden message—keep her distracted with magic, keep her attention away from the true death blow.
Kanuri’s laugh was a slide of vellum over wood, the soft ring of a sword drawn from well-oiled leather. “I must say, you’re much less fun than your cousin.”
“She’s goading you,” Nabil muttered, but her words struck me with more success than any of my magical blows hit her.
“Naila and I were the best of friends,” Kanuri told me, her dark eyes tracking every play of emotion across my face. She delighted in it, exactly as Bakshi had—in my pain and rage and grief. Was this what taking that dark magic into yourself did, or did this evil have to exist for Zalaam magic to make a home inside your body?
“She spoke of you in many of our little chats. She told me all about the books you read together, and the times you’d sneak away from stuffy events to steal shebakia from the kitchens, and those sweets you loved so much that you begged her to get more. Did you know they came from Blennisor?”
I’d guessed they were Kaldic, and retrieved on her spy missions, but to hear she’d visited the capital, that I’d unknowingly consumed delicacies from the enemy’s city made me sick. The sheer number of our people that Kalder had killed…
“Why?” I demanded, clearing my throat when it clogged. “Why did she do it?”
“For power,” Kanuri answered, closer now, forcing us back. “What else? Power can buy a woman security, safety. It can buy a man untold respect and a life of riches. Riches can shape the world however a person wishes.”
“Shame riches can’t glue your mouth shut,” Nabil sneered.
“She was so devastated when she learned the truth of her birth,” Kanuri went on, undeterred as her salt-stained boots ate up the last distance between us, until the tip of Nabil’s sword would touch her if he extended his arm. “Soconflicted.To learn she wasn’t just a child of Ithanys, but of Cirestia too. To realise that was why her magic was so diluted. It had the opposite effectto your magic, you see. The crossbreedingenhancedyour power, but it weakened hers.”
I began to shake, the grief, the rage, so immense that I struggled to contain it within myself. Naila was Cirestian. Was her mother deceived like mine, or was she stolen, captured and kept in the dungeons like the women we freed?
“You helped her get more magic,” I hissed. It was a guess, but what Shula said came back to me—that Naila had battle magic, not the mending I knew she’d possessed since birth. Because the Zalaam queen corrupted her, because that dark poison of magic had filled her, and twisted her into something else, somethingmore.“You were the one who made her join the legion. Did you force her to spy, too?”
“No.” Kanuri’s laugh whispered off the vaulted ceiling, whispered over the windows behind us. Her steady advance forced Nabil and I back another few paces, until my heel met the first step. Trapped, unless we climbed those stairs. “Sheofferedto spy, when I told her how much it would help our queen.”
I had no choice but to lift my foot, place it tentatively on the first step. “You took advantage of her. Pretended to be her friend, even though youknewspying would get her killed.”
Kanuri shrugged, her gaze fixed on me. I refused to claim any sort of kinship to this vile woman. Mingyue was my true grandmother, not this poisoned, malice-driven bitch. “If she’d been a better spy, she would still be alive.”
“You’re a piece of work,” Nabil spat, throwing his arm out to stop me when I lurched forward. It didn’t stop me screaming, venting a wave of dark, crackling flame both hot and icy at once. It had no effect on Kanuri, but it was satisfying to see her take a step back nonetheless.
“I’m going to shatter that amulet like I did the king’s,” I hissed. “He died so easily without it. I didn’t see your belovedqueenthere to protect him.” I made a show of looking around,my arms shaking, rage flaring my nostrils. “I don’t see her here now.”
“I am herhandmaiden,”Kanuri seethed, spittle flying as true emotion seized her face for the first time. “It is an honour to—”
“Do her dirty work?” Nabil cut in, and I let my smile spread, its shape cruel on my face.
Kanuri let out a deep hiss, nothing fae in the sound. So this was her weak point. Good. We could exploit it.
I pushed Nabil’s hand down, sending a flash of deathfyre to distract her as I took a second step backwards. “You know what I think?” I laughed. “If you really mattered to the queen, you’d be at her side right now. You’re not a handmaiden, you’re her soldier. Disposable and unimportant. Why else would she send you here, knowing I would kill you?”
Kanuri scoffed. “You truly think—”
I didn’t allow doubt to form. “I killed Bakshi, and he was protected by one of those too.” I used a flame-wreathed hand to point at the medallion. “But maybe your all-powerful queen didn’t hear about Bakshi’s untimely death. Maybe she really does care about whether you live or die.” I laughed, a crack of noise. “I doubt it, though.”
I held onto my fury and snapped my hand at the woman, the traitor. I didn’t ask why she’d done everything she had. The answer was the same each time—power.
“You’d kill your own grandmother?” she asked coldly, coming closer, forcing us back.
“Ihada grandmother,” I hissed, a rush of ice pouring up my chest, down my arms. My hands shuddered with it, my voice low and vibrating when I snarled, “Your sorry excuse for a queen killed her.”
“Say that about my queen again,” Kanuri demanded, jerking closer. Only a handful of steps separated us now, and I sensed Nabil close behind me as I walked backwards up the steps, luringher closer. Rightly assuming she couldn’t allow us close to the gate.
