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CHAPTER

Seventy-One

R IVENNA TURNED the Blade in her hand. She was enjoying herself, the unique power she held in this moment. “One death and the Guardians will come. One of you will trigger the Last Return.”

Guards grabbed Neema and Tala and shoved them forward, closer to the abbess. Rivenna sucked her lip, moving the Blade from one throat to the other, deciding. “Who first…”

—Sol. When I call to you, slow down time.

I cannot slow down time, Neema. Only—

—My perception of time, I know. Finally, she had found someone more pedantic than her. —That’s fine.

Rivenna placed the tip of the Blade below Neema’s eye. “So tempting.”

Neema swallowed, and held very still.

“Eight years you spent at his side, while I was stuck training his brat. His letters full of your loyalty , your support . Do you know what it’s like to envy someone as worthless as you?” She scraped the tip of the Blade down Neema’s cheek.

“Abbess Glorren,” Vabras said, a touch impatient. He had a schedule for everything—even the end of the world.

The abbess moved on to Tala. Neema exhaled.

“Lady Tala Talaka.” Rivenna gave a sarcastic Ox bow, arms linked in a circle. “We almost lost the Festival because of you. He actually thought your life was worth more than the throne.” She glanced to where Ruko was lying, still paralysed, unable to stop her. Rivenna enjoyed that, too. “I did promise you, Ruko. I said I’d kill her before the day was through.”

Tala began to struggle. She was strong, the Ox contender—Neema’s own guard had to help hold her down.

Rivenna lifted her arm, the Blade held high. Relishing the drama of it. “Be ready,” she called to the room. “At last, the time has come.”

She turned the Blade in her fist, preparing to plunge it straight into Tala’s heart.

—Sol. Now.

Time slowed.

Her perception of time.

Neema watched the trajectory of the Blade as it inched towards Tala’s heart. She moved to deflect its path, reaching for Rivenna’s arm. Beyond this she had no plan—only to stop the Blade, before it took a life.

Rivenna saw Neema from the corner of her eye and started to shift. Not fast enough. Neema seized the handle, and began to peel Rivenna’s fingers free…

Time slammed back. It was all Sol could give her. He slumped, exhausted.

Rivenna and Neema were locked together, fighting over the Blade. Neema still had hold of the handle. The Tiger abbess gripped the sharp edge tight, cutting deep into her palm. She cried out, as blood poured between her fingers. Behind them, Tala was wrestling to free herself. She flung off one of her guards, thrusting him away from her. Ungrounded, he ploughed heavily into Neema and Rivenna.

They fell together in a heap, Neema landing clumsily on the Tiger abbess. She rolled free and jumped to her feet. The guard picked himself up.

Rivenna remained on her back.

The Blade was pushed deep into her stomach. A dark stain crept across her shimmering green dress. The abbess gasped for air, her eyes wide with shock. “Andren…”

Andren was on his feet. There was no shock in his eyes.

He knew, Neema thought. This was his Dragon vision. He knew—and still he’d handed Rivenna the Blade. The woman he loved.

On the steps, Yasila allowed herself a small, private smile. Well, well. One gift this night had given her, at least.

Rivenna’s gaze was on the painted Dragon, the fire in its throat. She choked, struggling to breathe as blood spilled from her lips. Her expression changed from shock, to anger, to acceptance. And finally, triumph. “I… have… summoned them,” she gasped, with her final breath. “They are coming.”

Bright red blood spread slowly across the white marble floor. All else was still.

Andren prowled the steps, grim-faced and waiting.

The prelude to a storm. On the promontory overlooking the edge of the world, the emperor’s guests turned and pointed in alarm to the Tiger’s Path constellation, gleaming so brightly they had to shield their eyes from its glare.

In the throne room the air thickened—a surface tension that wouldn’t break.

“Do you feel their resistance?” Andren said. “Even now?”

—Sol. They mustn’t come. Tell them it’s a trap.

We have no choice, Neema. Yasthala cursed the Blade. We must Return.

Candles flickered and died, black smoke trailing from the wicks. The air was so dense now, Neema felt the pressure in her ears, as if she were under water. Breathing was difficult. All around her, people were choking and gasping.

“Guardians!” Andren roared, as if his voice could reach from this world into the Hidden Realm.

A final moment of stubborn resistance, and then release. A ripping sound, as the sky was torn open. Out in the gardens and across the island, people screamed and pointed to the stars. The Tiger’s Path was gone. In the breach, a carnival of colour, sound, sensation. The Hidden Realm.

Neema felt a deep, ominous rumble under her feet. A tiger’s growl. A bear’s snarl. Something wild, and powerful, and angry. Under Rivenna’s body, the life that was taken, the marble floor split, as if under a heavy weight. The glass in the octagonal window cracked and buckled.

It began.

The Eight Guardians roared from the Hidden Realm, furious and real. All of them at once, every fragment, tumbled together in a seething, snarling mass. Raging as they came. Seven times we saved the world. Now we come to destroy it. Slash and bite and pierce and claw, soak the earth in blood, scorch the sky with fire. The Last Return of the Eight. They stretched out across the sky, an endless multitude, preparing to spread out and destroy, destroy…

And then…

… they stopped.

And listened.

In the throne room, Andren and his allies were chanting a song, an ancient song of summoning. “Come to the Mountain.” But the words were stark and new.

Fox and Raven we command you,

Make your home within these walls.

Ox and Tiger we command you,

Make your home within these walls.

Bear and Monkey, Hound and Dragon,

Make your home within these walls.

We who made you, now will bind you

Safe within these painted walls.

There was no poetry to the words, but there was power. There was belief.

On the throne steps, Jadu cried out in pain, as the Dragon’s eye glowed and burned against her forehead. The Dragon was awake, and it was coming. You dare summon us? You dare?

In a maelstrom they came, smashing the octagonal window in a frenzy and pouring through. Jaws snapping, claws raking, hooves thudding, a whirl of striped fur, lowered horns, dank breath, sharp beaks. On they came, scratching, pouncing, fighting, flying, raging.

And still the chanting continued.

Caught in the middle, Neema dropped to her knees and threw her hands over her head. Pecked by a flock of ravens, mauled by a pack of hounds, trampled by a herd of oxen…

Leave her alone! Sol snapped. Friend!

Surprise. Pause. Withdrawal.

A space opened up around her. And through it she could listen, and see glimpses beyond the storm. She saw Andren-as-Ruko on the throne, eyes wild with mad triumph, shouting the words. Laughing. The vision the Raven had shown her. It wasn’t Ruko who would destroy everything. It was Andren.

We command you…

Within these walls…

First the summoning, now the binding. Slowly, Neema felt a shift in the air. The intensity of the Return was fading. The Eight were… solidifying. No longer a confusion of merged aspects, forming and reforming, but distinct, individual shapes. The Ox, bellowing in alarm. The Bear rearing up on its hind legs before dropping down, confused.

And we, the Raven, calling to ourself in distress. Something strange and terrible was happening. Our beloved flock, our countless aspects, were being squeezed and clumped and glued together. Bound into one shape, only one. We fought, we struggled, but the command was too strong.

Neema! Sol cried in alarm, clinging to her rib like a branch in a storm. I don’t want to go. It hurts. It hurts.

Neema slammed her arms across her chest in the Raven salute, trying to contain him. —You are not going anywhere.

I have to. I must…

Sol’s grip loosened. He was the Solitary Raven. But he was also a fragment of us. We were being summoned to our new home. It was not a call we could resist.

Neema reached with her mind to where Sol was panicking, wings batting against her sternum. She thought of all the places she had felt safe. Madam Fessi’s schoolroom. Her mother’s shop. The storeroom, on the day Cain stumbled into her life. A quiet day of reading in the Imperial Library. Her old room with the green door. She let the warm, safe feeling of these memories flow through her into Sol. This is home. You are safe here. Stay.

It almost worked. But the spell was too powerful. This was a spell to cage Tigers and chain Dragons. How could one little fragment resist its call? One little fragment, so desperate to belong.

My flock, Neema. I must go to them.

Through our agony, we heard him. Drawing on the last of our strength we called to him in one voice.

Solitary Raven!

Stay away from us!

You are not welcome.

Sol stiffened, beak open.

We will peck out your eyes.

We will pluck out your feathers.

We will drown you in a filthy puddle.

You are not a part of us!

I am not? One claw tightened around Neema’s rib.

We are the Raven

We banish you from the flock.

For ever.

Slowly, Sol settled himself. No more fluttering, no more agitated hopping. He folded his wings. Sank his head.

Safe. Heartbroken. Rejected. But safe.

We were not so lucky.

Fox and Raven we command you,

Make your home within these walls.

Words and will. That was what they used to trap us. Words and will. The most powerful magic of all. The same magic that had created us. What can be bound, may be released. What can be released, may be bound.

The painting on the wall called to us, inviting. Promising us an end to the agony. It looked like home. It smelled like home. The Dragonscale, and the chanting, and Shimmer Arbell’s genius. We could not help ourselves. Through the pain of our binding, it offered us a haven.

We flew into the painting.

A great force clamped down on us. We felt ourselves being manipulated, pushed and pulled and twisted—moulded like clay. The more we struggled, the weaker we became. And still the spell continued its work, remorseless, until we were the shape it demanded.

A handsome young raven perched on a cliff edge, her feathers gleaming in bolts of morning light. The brooding sea beyond. We could feel the warmth of the sun, hear the turn of the sea. We could smell the Dragonscale, thick and sour. But we could not move. The spell was complete. Our new home. Our prison.

All around us, our fellow Guardians were fighting the same battle. We could not turn our head (we could not turn our head!), but we could see Monkey on the opposite wall, merging with its portrait like a fly trapped in amber. The harder it fought, the more hungrily the paint and plaster consumed it—until it was nothing except its portrait: a red-faced monkey in a mango tree, reaching but never quite grasping the perfectly ripe fruit, its thick, muscular tail wrapped about a branch for balance.

Hound was trapped too—a hunting dog with ears pricked, a dead bird at its feet. We could not see Fox, to our right, but we could sense it being glued into position—a proud old vixen baring her teeth, preparing for one last fight to protect her cubs. Our poor, dear friend. The thing it dreaded most—to be just one thing, for ever. To be pinned. We tried to speak, to comfort it, but our words were trapped too, inside our throat.

Tiger was still fighting the call, prowling restlessly around the Blade in Rivenna’s body. Such a cruel betrayal. Attacked by its own followers. But even Tiger was not strong enough to escape the spell. Roaring, snarling, fighting all the way, it backed slowly into its painting on the throne-room doors, and was still.

Bear surrendered next into its mountain scene, for ever hunting salmon in the rapids. Stubborn Ox held out longer, but the song was a whip across its back. With a last bellow of defiance, it lurched into its painting. We could just see it, in our periphery, buckling beneath the binding spell, until it stood placid in its ploughed field.

Which left only one.

Dragon. A creature of pure myth, born from the imaginations of those who were, those who are and those who will be. A shadow in the water. A fire in the sky. It swam in the air, sea-green and silver, beautiful and deadly.

On the throne steps, Yasila pressed both palms against Jadu’s forehead, holding the Dragon’s eye in place. This one, final fragment, she would keep for herself.

The Dragon turned and spiralled, forming an eternal eight. The sound of its scales filled the room, like water rushing across a pebble beach. Exhausted from the fight, it lifted up to the ceiling and merged with its portrait. Jaws for ever pinned wide, flame for ever building in its throat.

We who made you, now will bind you,

Safe within these painted walls.

It was done. The Last Return of the Eight was over.

Andren sank deep within his throne. Around the room, his allies turned to one another in triumph and astonishment. They’d done it, just as their emperor had promised. They had caged the Eight.

“My imperial menagerie,” Andren said, and laughed.

The Dragon’s tail shifted slightly. The portraits were alive. Fascinated, Havoc reached out and touched the Hound’s fur. “It’s warm,” he said, marvelling. Very slightly, within the confines of its binding, the Hound bared its teeth.

“Look at the Raven!” Lady Harmony said, clapping her hands. “How the wind ruffles its feathers. Magical.”

Lord Clarion stepped over Rivenna’s body, to inspect the Monkey.

Andren observed them all, content. Unlike his friends, he had never doubted they would succeed. Twenty-four years ago, the Dragon Trial had shown him this moment, in all its strange glory. A future so impossible, he could not begin to believe it. Until the night he discovered Yasila’s powers. Then he had understood—this future would come to pass. He would sit upon the marble throne, not as himself, but as his son. He would summon the Eight, and defeat them. All of this he had seen. Ruko, his mirror image, paralysed at the foot of the steps. Rivenna’s body, blood spreading over the cracked marble floor. Neema and Cain…

His face fell. Standing up, he scanned the room. Something was different. Something was wrong.

“Where’s Neema Kraa?” he snarled. “Where’s Cain Ballari? They should be right there,” Andren pointed to a spot in front of the Monkey portrait. “Right there .”

But they weren’t. And neither was Tala Talaka.

Victory, like happiness, is a state we pass through.

Andren’s face twisted with rage. “Find them!” he yelled.