“Your home is full of them, or so Xiaoyu wrote. You have whole buildings full of them, guided by a lead storyteller whose magic is so impressive it attracts people from their houses to hear their tales multiple times a day.”
My mouth fell open. Closed. Then opened again. “You mean our imams? But—they’re not magic. They’re not healers.” I looked to Nabil, who shrugged.
“Sounds insane, but so does everything else that’s happened since that lightning storm,” he said, running a hand through his hair.
“Those three groups—menders, soothers, and storytellers carry the same light that you were meant to have, Ameirah.”
“Yeah, about that,” Nabil cut in, in that same tone that made my stomach churn. “What would it look like? Bright white, maybe? A glow, like moonlight?”
“Exactly,” Hsiuying confirmed, exchanging a glance with Mingyue. “You’ve seen it?”
“I have.” Nabil pointed at me, and I all but jumped off the sofa. “I just saw it in Ameirah’s deathfyre, in that Zalaam world.”
The pale light at the heart of my darkness. The crushing weight that had sat on my chest since I learned I was never supposed to have this deathfyre, since I was supposed to havelifemagic, and be the lightning that shattered the darkness from the world… it lifted, just slightly.
“She didn’t take all of it,” I breathed. “She couldn’t corrupt all my light to darkness.”
“A drop of life in the ocean of darkness,” Mingyue murmured, and it took me a long moment to realise it waspridein her voice, and shining in her violet eyes. I’d seen it so rarely that I only recognised it because of Varidian.
“What does it mean? Can I use it?”
“Noshityou can use it,” Nabil laughed, elbowing me. “Your magic didn’t kill all of them. It was like they woke up, and the first thing they tried to do was run. What if you healed the Zalaam magic out of them?”
“But that worldisZalaam.”
Nabil shrugged. “Someone’s gotta be controlling them, and you undid it. Let’s assume you can do the same back in our world. Heal any corrupt warriors back to fae.”
“With the storytellers’ help, it’s possible.” Hsiuying nodded encouragingly, and gave me a thumbs up when I met her gaze. “You can do it, Ameirah.”
“The only problem is,” I murmured, “our storytellers have been targeted. They had to go into hiding. We’d have to find them first.” I remembered the dark column of smoke rising from that house in Morysen. Because they could destroy the Zalaam army as well as Varidian or I could.
Air filled my lungs, and this time it was relief that made me shaky. The world didn’t rest only on Varidian’s and my shoulders; we could bear this weight together, fight back the darkness with others.
If we could find them.
“You won’t be the only ones searching for them,” Dina sighed. “The pretender will eradicate any threat to her and the first queen. You’ll have to be quick.”
I didn’t even know where to begin, but it was more direction than we’d had when we came to Riverren.
“It’d help if we knew who this pretender was,” Nabil grumbled. “She could be anyone, hiding in plain fucking sight. She could have joined the legions—”
“She hasn’t.”
Everything they said about the woman who’d twisted my life into darkness could only describe one woman. “It’s Xiu. My old handmaiden. She’s the pretender.”
CHAPTER 55
AMEIRAH
Given no one else knew who Xiu was, my words landed with less of an impact than I expected.
“I assume she’s cruel, wicked, and did everything in her power to break you,” Mingyue guessed, clenching her jaw when I nodded.
“Well, then.” Dina rose to her feet, layers of diaphanous fabric falling down her body. Not a dress as I first assumed, but layered trousers and a gauzy shirt. “Let’s make her regret ever fucking with the Jiang family.”
“Language,” Hsiuying chided with a little grin.
“You,aunt,” Dina said, pointing at the woman, “have no right to lecture anyone on language. Hand over that thing in your pocket, Ameirah.”
