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Nineteen

KURAI

“ I counted twelve,” Gefred reported.

“That’s manageable.” I nodded, carefully matching the potion bottles by size.

Two kinds of potions were needed for this spell to work, and the bottles had to hold roughly the same amount. A considerable imbalance between the potions would either not bring any result or create a devastation far beyond what I had planned, possibly even killing us all.

“Where do they hold humans? In the tents, you think?” I asked.

Gefred crouched by my side, hiding behind a dune from the view of anyone from the camp of the criminals whom they called “pleasure traders.” The name made my skin crawl with disgust and my insides burn with anger. Joy was not for sale, and neither were humans.

Raimus and his brother Sakin came closer, crouching out of sight too. Our group consisted of only five people against twelve traders. But I also had the Joy Guardians’ magic on my side, and that was more powerful than many men .

“No humans in any of the tents. I’ve checked them all,” Gefred replied to my question.

Malis gave him a worried glance. “You went into the tents? What if someone was in them and saw you?”

“They’re all out by the fire, eating. And I peeked in carefully, from the back.” He slung his arm around her shoulders and drew her closer.

She relaxed against him because sometimes that was all we needed for comfort—having the person we loved near us.

I winced against a sting of longing in my chest and tried to focus on my potion jars. The emptiness that had reigned inside me ever since Ciana was taken from me could not be filled with anything or anyone else. I had to get her back.

“This is what I want you to do,” I said to my tiny army. “I’ll give each of you two jars, and you will set them into the sand where I’ll tell you. Once you do that, you’ll have to uncork them and dip the ends of these cords into each, so that one cord connects both jars. Do you understand?”

They nodded, but I doubted anyone who hadn’t dealt with the explosion potion could fully comprehend how devastating the potion could be when combined with an appropriate spell.

By law, Joy Guardians were forbidden to take part in wars and rebellions. But it had happened once or twice when a Joy Guardian had been persuaded either by wealth or a promise of power to join a cause unrelated to the safeguarding of the Joy.

Twenty-five centuries ago, the High Lady of Sumakis rebelled against the ruling queen over a dispute about taxes and the Sumakis City defense. She hired a Joy Guardian, promising him riches and a position at her court after he’d been bypassed for the position of the Master Guardian at the temple.

The man used the explosion potion to annihilate the queen’s army, killing himself and the High Lady of Sumakis in the process, as well as razing the nearest city to the ground. Even those who were underground didn’t survive.

Back in the queen’s sarai , I’d spent weeks calculating just the right amounts of potion drops and the locations for the jars, based on the exact devastation effect I’d planned in Kalmena.

Now, the challenge was even greater because the explosion had to be far more precise. In Kalmena, I didn’t care about anyone’s survival as long as all the humans were dead. Now, I had to make sure that none of my people got hurt and no humans died.

At the same time, I had no time or equipment to be this precise.

I used my hands to measure volume and my fingers to determine the length of the cords.

The process had to be different for those reasons.

I needed the second potion to counterbalance the first. We had one chance to position the jars in just the right spots of the camp.

I couldn’t risk being discovered while setting them all up alone, and that was why I needed help.

“Ready?” I looked at my motley crew of desert dwellers.

Counting on the rough, uneducated people to do the job that required precision and could have devastating consequences if done wrong, might be reckless on my part.

But I had no choice, spurred by urgency and desperation.

I figured that “uneducated” didn’t always equal “ignorant.” One had to possess a certain intelligence to survive in the desert for as long as these people have done.

“Take these two.” I gave a couple of jars to Malis.

“Place this one on the right, this one on the left. Will you remember?” She nodded, biting her lip in concentration.

I poked a finger at the map I had drawn in the sand.

“Get them right here, behind this tent and as close to their campfire as you dare. Wait for the light signal before uncorking them. And be very, very careful when opening the jars. Make sure not a drop is spilled.”

Gripping the jars in both hands, Malis slipped into the night. A lifetime of living in the desert, hunting for food, and sneaking into camps and caravans for looting had taught her to be exceptionally stealthy. Malis moved like a breath with the breeze—a dark shadow in the starry night.

“All right. You’re next.” I turned to Raimus .

After all the jars had been distributed, and my helpers left down the dune, sneaking around the traders’ camp from four sides, I took two star shards out of my satchel and counted in my head to give my people enough time to get in their positions.

Then I struck the shards against each other, eliciting a single black spark.

As the spark flew up into the dark sky, it turned from black to bright blue and then to white. After reaching the summit, it plummeted down, reduced to a speck of dust.

To anyone else glimpsing the spark tonight, it would look like just a shooting star. But my team was expecting the signal. Now they knew that I would start the spell soon.

I counted again to give them time to open the jars and dip the cords in.

“Hey, who are you?” a rough voice shouted down in the camp. “Why the fuck are you sneaking around here?”

Fuck.

I was too far from the camp to be noticed, but it seemed someone had spotted at least one of my helpers.

It was now or never. I only hoped all the jars were open and ready. There was no time to delay. I started to recite the curse out loud.

“Get back here!” the same voice yelled.

Two dark shapes rushed my way up from the camp.

I hurried, pushing the words out of my mouth as fast as I could while trying not to mess up their meaning.

As the last word fell from my lips, thunder shook the air.

Bright light exploded, tearing the darkness to shreds.

Knowing that I had lives to spare, I’d mixed the potions for more sound and light than the devastating power.

But the magic was pulled to the campfire, exploding the flames.

The traders who had gathered around it were engulfed instantly, turning into running, screaming torches.

One of them crashed into the nearest tent, setting the weathered fabric aflame too.

Where did they keep Ciana?

What if Gefred had made a mistake, and she was in one of the tents?

My breath caught in my throat at the horror of that thought. I ran down the dune as fast as my legs would carry me, wishing I still had my tendrils to shift into a shadow to add me speed.

Sakin was climbing up the dune toward me, running away from the trader who chased after him. Startled by the explosion, Sakin turned to stare at the inferno engulfing the camp.

The trader tossed a dagger, hitting Sakin in the shoulder. The wounded man groaned, dropping to his knees. Red sparks rushed along the blade around the handle, meaning the dagger was made from iron and forged to kill.

“Sakin!” I grabbed the handle and yanked the weapon out of his wound.

The comfortably familiar fit of the handle in my hand made me take a better look at the weapon. It was my dagger. One of the pair I’d had for several decades now. Malis currently had one of them. And I’d given the second one to Ciana before we left the temple.

The trader who chased Sakin caught up with us. Raising a sword in his hand, he tipped his chin at the dagger in my hand.

“That’s mine!”

“No, it’s not. Only two days ago, this blade was in this sheath.” I pointed at one of the two sheaths I had made for my daggers, both were now empty. “Tell me how you got it, because you aren’t the person I gave it to.”

He jerked his hand with the sword, getting a better grip on his weapon.

“Fuck you.” He spat on the ground through his teeth.

Something in that gesture and the way he fisted his other hand looked familiar, echoing through my chest with long-forgotten fear.

I took a closer look at the trader, noticing his wide posture, the way he slightly raised his shoulders, as if being on the defensive even when he was the one getting ready to attack.

The way he wore his hair in a single ponytail, with several ties spread along its length was also familiar.

Only his hair was messy and unkempt, when I remembered it neat and slick like a rope.

I raised my prodding gaze to his smirk, which had not changed at all.

“Watrat.” The name fell like a curse from my lips. I hadn’t uttered it in decades. Though for years, I used to scream it in my nightmares.

“Do I know you?” He squinted at me, raising the sword higher, as if the possibility of us knowing each other would increase his reasons to attack.

Of course he didn’t recognize me. A century had passed. I’d lost all resemblance to the scared, scrawny boy he used to hit whenever the mood struck him.

He stared at me, waiting for my reply with his face frozen in utter confusion.

But what was I supposed to say? What did one say to someone one hated all their life and never expected to see again under any circumstances?

“Who’s looking after the farm? Now that Mother is dead and you’re committing crimes with the nomads of the desert.” I managed to speak calmly, even as all my feelings were in turmoil.