Page 78

“ W hat’s this?” I whisper, reaching out my hand to test the air.

It gives way like a fine netting, then allows my hand through.

I pull my hand back hastily as I see a guard moving along the perimeter of the magical barrier.

Behind it, I’d been as hidden as Gent currently is, but now, in full daylight…

Twisting away, I hurry into the crowd, moving toward the main stage, where Rihad continues to whip the spectators into a frenzy.

“We shall stand together as we have ever pledged to do,” he declares. “The Protectorate stands with the Imperium and the Light!”

“The Imperium and the Light!” the crowd roars back. “The Imperium and the Light!”

“Talia!”

A spindly hand snakes out from the crowd at the periphery of my vision, and a moment later I’m jerked awkwardly around—to stare into the heavily hooded face of Miriam.

But it’s a Miriam I barely recognize. She’s stooped over like an old woman, her eyes blackened, her left arm hanging strangely awkward at her side as her right clutches her robes close.

“Miriam! What’s happening here? How is Rihad?—”

“There’s no time!” she hisses. She yanks me deeper into the crowd. “Where are the others—are they coming? Are they on their way?”

“What?” I blink at her. The cocoon of chanting spectators gives us enough cover to speak, but I have to bend almost double to hear her, two women huddled against the howling mob.

At least we shouldn’t draw attention this way.

Still, I push her cowl back enough to see the bruising at the side of her face, the long-dried tracks of her tears.

Something very wrong has happened here.

“They may be coming—but they may not, Miriam,” I inform her sharply. “I’ve done my best, but they may still have no idea what’s happening here.”

The harshness of my tone seems to cut through her delirium.

She blinks up at me, her eyes more lucid but no less desperate.

She clutches my hands as I continue speaking.

“I’m here alone. I don’t know if they have any sense of me, but we have to assume they don’t.

I’ve lost connection with Gent—and you’ve lost your connection with Kreya too, haven’t you? I saw her?—”

“You saw her?” she asks, the words almost a cry. She shoves aside the neckline of her cloak, and I see the bloodied stains, now dried and scabbed over, that have soaked through the cloth at her left shoulder.

“When we got here, Rihad…Rihad had awakened,” she whispers fiercely as I pull her cloak back in place.

“It’d been a full week since we left the First House, and much had happened.

He’d met with the house lords—and poisoned some of them, blaming it on the attack of the skrill.

Others he quietly imprisoned in the First House, along with those few councilors who remained loyal to Rihad. Lemille stands with Rihad.”

“I figured that.” I don’t want to believe her, but it’s the only thing that makes sense. Especially given how easily Lemille stands on the stage beside Rihad, exhorting the crowds to ever more delirious shouting.

Her wandering eyes find mine. “Lemille returned to the First House not to re-pledge his allegiance to Fortiss, but to complete the mission that Rihad had set for him. He left the First House after the tournament with one further task—to intercept the delegation that Fortiss had sent out to the Imperium, then to impound them or kill them at the Tenth House and send men in their stead who would report to the Imperium all that had transpired, only flavored with Rihad’s interpretation.

If I understand it correctly, Lemille was only partially successful.

A delegation from the Imperium was already headed this way, with the belief that they would be able to finally witness the Tournament of Gold.

Apparently, Rihad’s work in the darkness had somehow disrupted the meditations of the high priests of the Imperium.

They were concerned and set out this delegation months ago.

Delays kept them from our borders until a few days after Lemille sent out his own men, who dutifully relayed the story, then led them back to the Blessed Pass and the Tenth.

A runner warned Lemille of the coming delegation, and that’s when he set out to the First… to warn Rihad.”

“ Traitor ,” I say bitterly. “And here we treated him with respect as an honored house lord. No wonder he expressed no concern about us heading out to take on the skrill at the western borders.”

“He’s beholden to Rihad, and those obligations stretch far into the past.” Miriam shrugs. “Plus, Rihad promised him the return of Gent when it first became clear what had happened with you and your brother.”

I curl my lip. “And this is how he proposes to band himself to Gent?” I practically snarl. “By wounding him and chaining him to a wall?”

“Lemille doesn’t know that part,” Miriam says, surprising me.

“Rihad summoned Gent the same night he forcibly unbanded me, but…Lemille couldn’t see that he’d done so.

He has no idea that your Divh lies chained and wounded.

I can, because—well, I think because of you.

I’m tied to your line, just like Kreya is.

I see clearly, where all others do not.” She stares at me with haunted eyes. “Rihad wears the winged crown.”

“ What ?” I rear back in shock, my hand slapping down against the satchel, still heavy with the weight of the crown I recovered from its sea of ash and stone.

But there’s no doubting the truth in Miriam’s words.

It’s the only possible explanation, really…

and what I had secretly feared without understanding.

There were two crowns the day that Mirador turned back the darkness at the edge of the western border, calling down the Divhs from the Blessed Plane. One of those crowns was lost across the border, but the other…

“He’s had it all this time,” I murmur. “Fortiss thought Rihad would never have kept it hidden away, but—he was wrong. No wonder he could call the skrill so easily, once he decided to act.”

When Miriam doesn’t speak, I set my jaw, casting all doubts away. It doesn’t matter how the enemy lands at a warrior’s door, I remind myself. At that point, the only thing that matters is how well you stand against him.

“What happened to you?” I demand of her roughly, jolting her to refocus on me. “How do you know all this? And why in the blighted path is Nazar up there on that platform with Rihad?”

“Nazar brought us to the Trilion under cover of night three nights ago, then bade us to release our Divhs back to the Blessed Plane. When day broke, we set out for the First House as ordinary travelers…only to see the army of the Imperium ride through. He recognized them immediately for what they were, but there was no time to get out ahead of them. When we learned in Trilion that no one had seen the other house lords for several days, we knew something wasn’t right.

We set off in the wake of the Imperial army and arrived to see Rihad welcoming them to the First House.

Though we tried to shrink back, Rihad saw Nazar in the crowd of spectators and announced with great and pompous fanfare that Nazar was his closest advisor in the wake of the betrayal of his councilors—and he welcomed the lords from the western realms as if they were boon companions.

At Nazar’s earnest order, we played along. ”

“Betrayal of…”

But Miriam pushes on. “When Rihad saw me, he summarily had me arrested. Nazar…” She shudders. “He told me that the way of the warrior was death, but that I would live if I stayed strong. He seemed very certain of that, and I took some solace in it. Then he strode away and left me to face my fate.”

I curl my lip. “He does that.”

She gives a short, huffing laugh. “It sounds harsh, but it was the only way. The Imperial delegation needed to be shown that Rihad still followed the Light, and Nazar is a priest—so Rihad needs him. I’m sure Rihad will have him executed the moment he no longer has a use for him, but for now… he lives.”

My lips twist in a cruel smile. “Which means Rihad, for all his great powers, remains a fool. But Rihad hurt you. Why?”

“I have no such value to him, and he needed an example.” She waves a tired hand. “Rihad demanded to know how I came to be banded as a woman, and I told him it was through the dark arts.”

I snort. “Well, that had to give him pause.”

“Not enough. He had me forcibly unbanded and scorched with fire—I think he believed he would get my band himself, but it disappeared the moment it slid from my arm. I was thrown into a cell until I could be killed with due dishonor. Fortunately, I still have some friends in the First House, and I made my escape easily enough, hoping to live long enough to see him dead. But I haven’t been idle—my spies remain loyal too, and they have shared the predicament facing Rihad now.

The Imperial army, this delegation you see here, is just an advance party to scout out our loyalty to the Imperium.

If they don’t return with a positive report, more soldiers will come.

Even if they do return with a positive report, our time as a Protectorate is likely coming to an end.

It’s apparently been too long since we have impressed the Imperium with the dangers we’re keeping away from them. ”

“So Rihad needs an attack that he can protect everyone from, doesn’t he?” I can see it now, a solution that’s at once elegant and brutal. “And since he’s had the crown of wings all this time, he can summon the skrill at will. He’s planning another attack here today.”

She nods. “He announced that there would be a demonstration to honor our guests, and he brought everyone here—along with the house lords from the western borders and Nazar. So far, the soldiers of the Imperium have been treated with absolute respect. Now, I fear they’ll all die—the delegation, the house lords, Nazar. ”

“And Gent?”

She grimaces. “Rihad still can’t summon his Divh, but once he subdued Gent, he seemed to stop trying. I think—I think he’s lost connection to his Divh entirely.”

“Yeah, I bet he has,” I mutter, thinking about the crown on his head. Miriam doesn’t know that I freed Zhang…I wonder if Rihad does. “But Rihad brought Gent here, what—to be sacrificed? He’s bleeding . He’s been hurt!”

“He’ll unleash him if the skrill get out of hand, I suspect.

” She sighs. “Like I said, Lemille can’t see your Divh, but I can.

And I could see what Rihad’s soldiers did to him, weakening him through blood loss and holding him in place with spelled chains.

It’s an abomination, but…Gent did let it happen, I think. He didn’t fight it.”

I grimace, my heart quailing in my chest. Did he think I broke my connection with him willingly? Does he think I abandoned him?

These thoughts fracture as Miriam fixes her bloodshot eyes on me again. “Rihad did the same to Szonja, and she was able to break her bonds. Maybe you can help Gent break free?”

“I…I don’t think so. But maybe.” I shove a hand through my hair, but my words are only meant to soothe Miriam, not because I believe them. “Is there anything else I should know before we…do something? Because we can’t let this continue, Miriam. We can’t let Rihad do anything more.”

She nods. “Apparently, when the Imperator leveled the order for all Divhs to be severed from their warriors outside the Protectorate, we received orders too—we are now only able to summon the Divhs for the Tournament of Gold. So, Rihad told the head of their delegation that, by order of the Imperator, he couldn’t summon the Divhs otherwise unless we needed them in true battle.

I think he’s got several warriors planted in this crowd for that purpose, depending on what happens with the skrill. ”

“That’s it?” I ask roughly. “That’s his plan?”

She gives me a wry smile. “That’s it.”

“Then we act.” I shake my head firmly and hold her gaze. “Miriam, Nazar was right. You may not have been born a warrior, and you may not have been trained as one, but you have become one, nonetheless. And we need all the fighters we can get.”

I hold out my left hand to her. Her gaze drops to my bicep where my sentient band is already alive with movement beneath my sleeve, and she physically recoils—but for only a step. Then she raises her bloodied, shaking left arm, and puts her hand in mine.

The band bursts to life around my arm, and the familiar searing pain rips down my forearm and palm, then leaps onto her wrist. Miriam gasps and staggers, but her eyes are steady on mine, her mouth breaking into a smile so full of wonder that my own heart surges with joy.

“Kreya,” she whispers, but I place a firm hand on her shoulder, holding her in place.

“We will need her—and we’ll need every Divh she can summon to come with her, across the Blessed Plane. I can’t summon Gent anymore, but you—Nazar—even the western lords…I can connect to you. And together, we will fight.”

She nods and I grimace, hearing an answer that Fortiss gave me so long ago it seems to be another lifetime.

Together, we cannot fail.

But even as I think those words, a cloud passes over the sun, thick enough that even with the searing heat of Miriam’s band still sizzling on my skin, it feels like we have entered into a chilling frost. I stumble away from her as she clutches her cloak around her again, both of us peering up to the sky.

All the breath dies in my throat.

The cloud that covers the sun is a writhing, twisting mass.

Though my own warriors still haven’t answered my call, the skrill have answered Rihad’s. And now they’re here…

In broad daylight.