Page 25

“The Aspis returned from the woods near Ouras’s temple. Only to turn back and wind north again. We need to follow it,” Kazhi said. “It’s our only lead.”

“This new airship, what’s the defence system like? It’s clearly not equipped with weapons.”

We passed a group of elderly women who stopped to shake our hands and thank us for being in Danuli when the Ikhor was here. We saved them, and they trusted the floods would end soon. Right.

“Falizha will be told that information,” Kazhi said as we left the women. “She’s the best we have for a pilot now. But with the Aethar taking Falizha’s old ship, we are at an advantage. They can’t know how to fly it well.”

“True,” I nodded. “The blue fuckers grew up in a wasteland. We will get that ship back in our hands and end this.”

Kazhi ignored the gaping mouths of a few young boys, who hugged the wall as she passed their front door. I clapped one on the shoulder, lowering my voice. “She’s a prime example of why not to piss women off, boys. I keep my mouth shut around her when she’s holding those knives.”

The boys went pale.

Kazhi shot me an incredulous look. “My knives haven’t done a thing to shut you up. Ever.”

I shrugged at the three who were now gaping at me. “Nevertheless, Guard Kazhi is on your side. No need to fear her.”

They nodded, but then all ran inside their home, which was built into the base of the tree, and slammed the door.

I caught up to Kazhi, dropping my forced smile. “Bastane sure looked cozy, working next to Falizha. Maybe next time the Aspis attacks, I’ll let it chomp him to pieces.”

“You won’t. And it’s time to get over it. He did what he thought was best for our people. Not for any alliance with the Council. We were instructed to find the Aspis, and he thought he had done so.”

The first time she had defended him, I had raged. I’d heard all the excuses already. Bastane had tried on numerous occasions to corner me to talk. Every time, I shut that shit down. We were teammates in only one way that mattered: kill the Ikhor.

“How would you know any of that? That he’s not working with the Council.” I slowed my pace to walk alongside Kazhi. She hated it when I walked too fast. “He could be playing us, feeding the Council info, trying to get a seat with them.”

“I know he isn’t.” She scanned the streets as she always did, on the lookout wherever we went.

I searched Kazhi’s face and found no trace of a lie. “How?”

“Because I know—as I know many things. Do you doubt me now? After everything?”

“No, how could I? You control everything I think and do.” I threw a weak grin, pointing to her knives. “I still don’t forgive him. He went behind our backs.”

“He did. But Bastane grew up privileged. Never had anything bad happen to him until his adult life. It didn’t cross his mind that Falizha was as horrible as we all said.

We can’t condemn a man for believing the good in people, especially when, now, he has to face his failures.

He knows he’s to blame for how it all went down.

He’s putting himself through his own punishment. ”

“And yet working with Falizha?”

“Who do you think is feeding me info on what they talk about?” Kazhi smiled.

I would never get used to how unnerving it was to see her smile. I’d once considered Kazhi to be a secret god herself—the terror she could instil was godly in my eyes.

“So we trust him again?” My faith in Kazhi was my last lifeline.

“I do.” There was no debate. She was giving an order, letting me know I needed to as well. It did very little.

“I don’t know why I still trust you .” I did my best to keep my tone light, to let her know I was teasing. Yet there was truth in what I admitted.

“You trust me because I keep saving your ass. You’ve been sloppy. Chin up. The end of it all is nearing, yet our goal is the same.”

I stayed quiet.

Several people we passed tried to stop us and inquire about the Aspis. A group of women surrounded me, asking how long the Guards were in the city. One laid a hand on my arm, smiling up at me, but Kazhi yanked me away, muttering she was saving the citizens of Danuli in more ways than one.

A roar shook the ground, and a shadow was cast on the greenery above as the Aspis flew over the city.

The beast had disappeared for a time, only reappearing above me now.

Any hope that it had killed the Ikhor was a waste of time—the beast would be gone, too, no longer needed to destroy the evil.

The gods would have called back their saviour.

I didn’t admit out loud that I hated the Aspis—what it had done to my life. I had become a Guard for the beast, and yet when I saw it … well, it made the nausea worse.

I sometimes wished that I never wanted to become a fucking Guard of the Aspis. But Brekt was bigger than me when we were kids and forced me to train. As orphans and unwanted legacies, everyone was against us. Then, the Guardians chose me to be a hero .

Fuck that. I was a survivor. That’s all. That’s what no one saw.

“The attacks on Veydes have stopped. The Sea-leg villages have been left alone since the Ikhor’s return,” Kazhi said.

“What are you trying to say? The Ikhor isn’t as evil as we thought? Look at the flooding.” I kicked at a rock on the pathway, ignoring the boats passing by on the river and the stares of those steering.

The rock I kicked hit a post near the river, and it drew my attention.

Ugh. Another poster. Someone had added the two blue Aethar.

Posters of the Ikhor’s face were everywhere, thanks to Falizha’s description of Brekt’s old lover.

How many more times would I have to look at that screaming face?

Or see citizens carrying the image around and posting it at their shops?

Yet none had stopped them as the Ikhor ran through the streets.

They were afraid of her.

It. They were afraid of it.

It was exhausting to joke with other Guardians about how Erebrekt of the North was a fool for a pretty face, tricked by the Ikhor, and how he was now gone on his own mission for the Council.

Falizha’s father ordered us to keep quiet about who the Aspis was.

It killed me to lie about him, to be funny, to play the uncaring hero.

“The Aethar are in larger hordes,” Kazhi said. “Growing. Bastane says Falizha confirmed the numbers. But the villages haven’t been attacked since Falizha has been travelling with us. Flooding, yes. Deaths? No.” She gave me a knowing look.

“Do we have any proof yet that she was involved in the attacks on the Sea-leg villages?”

“Nothing substantial. Once we do, we finally have a solid reason to cut ties with the Council and get others on our side.”

I didn’t reply. I didn’t need to because Kazhi knew I wanted it as much as she did—to find a new future for the Guardians. There were too many put at risk and controlled for the Council’s gain. When the war was over, if I survived, that would be how I spent the remainder of my life—ending them.

When the Council was gone? Well, maybe I would take that deep dive into the ocean.

“The Ikhor was wearing Olivia’s things.”

My attention left the path, and my jaw clenched. Why did she use her name? “What do you mean? What does that have to do with anything.”

“It was wearing her swords. Why, when it can use magic.”

I scoffed. “It likely doesn’t care what it wears.”

Kazhi thumbed the hilt of a knife at her hip. “And the Ikhor was wearing the bracelet the Oracle gave her. As well as the earrings Brekt gifted her.”

“ It. It’s not a her, Kaz. And what are you trying to say?” My blood was boiling, hearing their names. How could Kazhi talk of them so easily? It was a stab to the fucking gut.

“It’s odd,” she whispered. “Did you see them glowing?”

It took me a moment to understand she meant the crystals in the jewellery. “Glowing? When would I have had time to notice those details.”

“The details matter, Guard . Pay attention.”

I lifted my hands, frustrated. “What does it mean then?”

“… I don’t know. The crystals absorb magic. I’d seen them glowing in the Oracle’s jungle.”

Before the Guardian Palace. Before Brekt had confessed his feelings—his connection—to the traitor. “Why didn’t you say anything.”

“I didn’t know what it meant. I guess it means I failed Brekt as much as Bastane.”

Bastane, Kazhi, and I—we had all failed him. They didn’t even know he was the Aspis until the end, and it was my job to stop it all from happening.

Kazhi slowed. The inn wasn’t far now. “He’s gone, and now we have to fix our mistakes. We have to find the truth in all this.”

“You mean the Council? Because you can’t be insinuating there’s any lies surrounding the Ikhor.”

“Why didn’t it burn us?” Kazhi stopped us beside the river. Boats passed at a lazy pace below. Dim light passed through the green above us, turning Kazhi’s black-and-white striped skin into an eerie tone. “It pushed us back with water and ran.”

Her black eyes searched mine. She was being serious. She was questioning the Ikhor.

“It’s a coward. It’s too weak. That’s the only explanation.”

“No. Somethings wrong.” She regarded me as if waiting for me to say something.

“Whose side are you on?” I hissed, making sure no one was around to see. “Are you seriously doubting the histories?”

In a flash, a knife was to my gut. The knife she always used to put me in my place.

“You know what Nuo, you’re sounding more like Falizha every day.

Repetitive. Ignorant. Hateful. Things went wrong, but you’re the one suffering in this cycle of hate.

Get out of it.” She pulled the knife back and spun it, returning it to her belt.

“Bastane is asking questions too. You should start.”

I forced a laugh, walking away. “I was the one searching the texts all those years, Kaz. I’ve read every book there is on the legends. I don’t need to question anything. I need to kill the Ikhor and move on from this.”

“You know, I never thought I would miss how annoying you were.”

I turned back, jaw clenched. I was stunned at the surprising amount of emotion there. Kazhi never showed how she felt. About anything.

“I miss my brother. Bring him back,” she said.

It was no longer raining, though the floods had already caused more destruction than the fires before that. I missed the rain. I wished it would return, so that I wasn’t so visible to the world.

“Try, Guard. You’re too weak. What a pathetic excuse to defend the beast.”

“Are you admitting you care for me, Kaz?”

“Never.” She spat at my feet, making me step back. “He’d be pissed at you if he saw you this way.”

I couldn’t look at her anymore, hating that she brought him up.

“He was always pissed at me,” I reminded her.

She gave a rare laugh. “Ya, he was.”

“Why are you smiling?”

“Because for the first time in weeks, you’ve acknowledged him. Not as the beast, but as the man he once was—as if he once really lived. If we don’t speak our ghosts’ names, they cease to exist.”

Kazhi had stopped speaking her ghosts’ names. I knew because I didn’t know what those names were.

So when Kazhi left my side to find her room at the inn, I said my brother’s name out loud, not wishing his memory to leave the world.