Chapter 35

35

Sirsha

From a rise in the prairie where the grasses hid them, Sirsha and the others looked down at the Kegari war camp, a sprawling mess of tents and fires, clotheslines and supply wagons. The sky-pigs had erected it in a shallow bowl of prairie about a half mile from the Thafwan coast. The top of the bowl was littered with boulders and scrub and rocks—which meant plenty of places to scout from with no one the wiser.

The only part of the camp that wasn't haphazard was the airfield on a swath of cleared land north of the camp, where hundreds of Sails lay in neat pools of canvas and reed, awaiting riders, and, Sirsha suspected, the liquid metal that gave them life.

It looked like any other military camp. Not a hint of anything supernatural.

But Sirsha felt the killer in the nausea that plagued her, the vaguely unpleasant stench in the air. The murderer lurked like a family secret somewhere in that muddy labyrinth, along with the Tel Ilessi. If Sirsha wanted to find her mark, she'd have to get closer.

Sirsha glanced at Quil crouched beside her, the fading light silhouetting him in gold. He said he'd persuaded the Kegari to tell him where the encampment was. But Sirsha suspected otherwise. She'd felt a twinge of—something—from Quil's direction during the interrogation. When she dug for it again, it was gone. And when she'd asked the elements for help, they'd shown her the monster's path instead, fixated on her mission.

"The moment you kill the Tel Ilessi, get out," she told Quil now. "Get to the horses and we'll meet you." She looked to J'yan and R'zwana, whispering to each other a few yards away. "J'yan should be able to keep us hidden all the way in."

"How long will the binding take?"

Sirsha shook her head. "I'm not going to bind her, Quil. I'm going to kill her. For Loli."

She'd decided it days ago, after yet another night when she dreamt of her friend, crawling like a wounded animal along the spongy ground of the Thafwan jungle, a cavity in her chest as she looked desperately for hearts to revive her own.

But it wasn't just Loli's death that made Sirsha want to finish this creature. It was the dead she'd seen in Navium, Jibaut, the Thafwan countryside. It was the way the creature targeted the young and strong. The way she seemed to relish the act of murder.

The wind blew Sirsha's hair into her face, and she shoved it back impatiently. She'd lost her hairpins at the cabin and had been tempted to cut off her hair a dozen times since.

"Perimeter guard is rubbish," Quil observed. The camp was gray in the near-dark, lamps and fires slowly flickering to life. "Too many entrances to count and only half of them are being watched."

"Are you complaining about our enemy's lax fortifications?"

Quil frowned. "It's odd that they were able to take the Empire when they don't know the basics of entrenching an army."

"They've conquered this land." Sirsha thought of the cratered Thafwan villages and scattered bodies they'd seen as they traversed the countryside. "They don't have a strict watch because they don't think they need one. Besides"—she nodded to a Sail spinning up into the clouds—" that's their perimeter watch."

"Either they really are the worst-run army in history, or this is a trap," Quil said, with such calm certainty that Sirsha almost looked behind her, expecting Kegari to be closing in.

"Does it change our plan?"

"We need more than one path out."

"Speak for yourself, prince. I've mapped out four. And"—she gave him an appraising look—"I'd wager half my money that you've mapped out double that. What has you so nervous?"

Quil's jaw was set as he surveyed the camp again before fixing his cat eyes on Sirsha. "I know you have to kill or capture that monster down there to satisfy the oath to Elias," he said. "But J'yan told me if someone else kills her, your blood oath dissolves. It's the payment you don't get."

Sirsha regarded him askance. "I need the payment, prince."

"You think you can do this alone," Quil said, and Sirsha didn't bother contradicting him because he'd give her sad eyes for lying. "Let R'zwana and J'yan help you."

"J'yan will get me in, and R'z—"

"I'm talking about the killing, Sirsh," Quil said. "Don't go in there alone because of the money. If Elias doesn't fulfill your payment, I will. I'll give you double. Triple. Whatever you want. Just—don't face her alone."

"Must be nice to have so much money that you can—"

He lifted a hand to her face with such tenderness that she fell silent. Her eyes stung because that was not at all how someone should look at you if your relationship was meaningless, and now their oath coin was burning, damn him—

"Please, Sirsha." Skies, she loved how he said her name. "Care about yourself as much as you care about those you love. As much as—as we care about you."

Behind them, R'zwana chuffed like a horse. "Are we going down there?" she asked. "Or shall we say goodbye for three hours?"

Quil shot her a glare and rose. Sirsha grabbed his hand, driven by a sudden fear that she wouldn't see him again. You'll have to part eventually , she reminded herself. He's not for you. Nor you for him. Her skin went cold at the thought.

She stopped herself from saying something she would regret. "Don't die, prince." Her voice sounded harsher than she'd meant it to.

His dimple flashed as he brought her wrist to his lips in a swift kiss that she wished didn't light her every nerve ending on fire. Then he was gone, disappearing through the grasses and into the maw of the enemy.

Sirsha turned to her sister, irritated that Quil had figured out her intention: to give R'z the slip and kill the monster alone.

But now, because she was a fool with a soft spot for broad-shouldered Martials with talented lips, Sirsha had to rethink her plan.

"Where is the killer?" R'zwana asked. "You haven't said, and I'm starting to suspect you don't want me to know."

"You're losing your magic," Sirsha said, because she needed something to hold over her sister. R'z turned on J'yan, practically frothing at the mouth.

"Don't growl at him," Sirsha said. "I figured it out on my own."

"Listen to her, R'z, for once in your life," J'yan said. "She's not the enemy."

"Ma doesn't know, or you wouldn't still be Raan-Ruku." Sirsha ignored the twinge of guilt she felt at the helplessness washing over R'z's face. "So, here's how it works from now on. I'll tell you what to do. You'll do it. And after we kill this murderer, sister , you'll never hunt me again. Understood?"

R'zwana gnashed her teeth, a deeply unpleasant sound. But then, thankfully, she nodded. J'yan sighed quietly, as relieved as Sirsha.

"I know you can't track," Sirsha said. "Can you bind?"

"It's only the tracking magic that's faded," R'zwana muttered. "I'm not— I'm still not as strong a binder as you."

"You're stronger together," J'yan said. "You always have been, much as that might annoy you." He turned to Sirsha. "What's the plan?"

They waited until full night to approach the camp from the west. As of yet, no alarm sounded—Quil hadn't reached the Tel Ilessi.

The narrow lanes were poorly lit, which made infiltration easier. But not easy, by any stretch. Soldiers patrolled, ate, cooked, trained, chatted, argued. They were everywhere, with scores of wind-wielding pilots among them. While Sirsha didn't doubt she could bind them easily, the camp was crowded enough that they'd have been discovered a dozen times over without J'yan hiding their passing.

As they penetrated deeper, Sirsha felt the killer. But her presence was subdued. Quiet. Sirsha saw a distortion in the earth ahead of her. She awaits you , the earth spoke. Beware. Sirsha kept moving east, the disparate strands of the trail coalescing, thick and viscous like an ooze in her mind, leading to the far side of the camp.

Behind her, R'zwana gasped.

Ahead, in the shadows of a low hill and past a row of supply wagons, a lone canvas tent hunched. No bigger than the rest. Yet it was set apart. Sirsha crouched amid a stack of crates, watching. There were no guards. No one entering or leaving. The Kegari passing the tent avoided even looking at it, giving it a wide berth.

Death. Pain. Unnatural. It churns, it eats, it is never satisfied. The earth whispered the words, as if frightened. A spike of terror lanced through Sirsha's body at the way the earth was damaged here, twisted. The natural magic that lay like a thin web over all things sagged brokenly, as if shredded by a rabid animal.

R'zwana stared at the tent like it was poison. "I can feel it."

"It's a trap," J'yan warned, and even he was affected, the freckles standing out starkly on his pale skin. "Remember that, and we can figure our way out of it."

Sirsha nodded. "Wait for my signal."

As she flitted through the camp, mud squelching beneath her boots, she touched Elias's oath coin and spoke to the elements. Be with me. They hummed back in response, a tremor only her bones could feel. Before her instinct told her to run as far and fast as possible from the tent, she walked through its flaps.

Within, it was bright and cheery, weirdly at odds with the oppressive feel of the place. There was a thin bedroll on a raised wooden cot. A finely carved Thafwan chair and table in one corner, and thick rugs on the floor instead of cold dirt. The brazier in the center of the tent crackled, the coals within blasting heat into the space. There was even a mirror in one corner.

For all its comforts, the tent was empty. Yet Sirsha could feel something oily and slick. Something watchful.

The tinkle of coins alerted her to the killer's presence, but Sirsha didn't turn, only looked up into the mirror to see her lurking. Sirsha's skin broke out in goose bumps. The creature had again taken the form of her mother, proud-faced and strong, fully coined. Every inch the Raani. Except for that hungry, too-wide gaze that did not belong on the face of any human.

Sirsha felt repulsed, like she needed to crawl out of her own skin. She wanted to murder the monster at that moment. Wrap magic around her so tight that she choked on it and died, as Loli Temba had died.

"S'rsha Inashi-fa." The killer bowed low. "I longed to look upon you again."

Hearing her full name in her mother's voice almost made Sirsha forget why she was here.

Bind her. She is a horror.

The elements brought her back to herself, and Sirsha turned to face the killer, not bothering to hide her disgust. "You knew I'd be coming and you didn't make me any tea? You've clearly never met my mother."

She plopped down on one of the seats and gestured to the other. "Join me?"

The monster cocked her head—something Sirsha's mother had never done in her life, and Sirsha wondered where she had learned that trick. From another human perhaps.

"Tell me your name," Sirsha said. "I'm sick of calling you that infernal murderer . It's tedious."

"You may call me Mother Div, Holy Cleric and Vessel of the Fount."

"I see that we have philosophical differences about the meaning of the word holy , so I'll call you Div. Or maybe Detestable Div, if I'm annoyed. Why are you stuck in here, then?" Sirsha leaned back, drawing on years of practiced nonchalance, even as she tried to get a read on the creature, to figure out how she would bind her. "I mean, it could be worse. I've been sleeping on rocks and twigs for the past two months because of you. But a creature of your…range should have better accommodations, no?"

"My range has been limited these past two weeks."

Skies, what a trick. Div really did sound exactly like the Raani. Gently, so gently that the creature couldn't possibly notice, Sirsha probed the earth.

The earth shriveled away. Bind , it said. Bind her, child, or run.

Sirsha swallowed, throat suddenly dry. "That must be unpleasant for a being such as yourself. Used to roaming the countryside, murdering whatever poor sap you happen across."

As Sirsha spoke, she reached for the binding magic she'd ignored for eight years. Emotion exerted on an element. In this case, the element was magic itself. She drew on it, casting it out like a lasso until it was a snug, glowing chain around Div's neck. Then, with a surge of satisfaction, Sirsha yanked. She allowed herself to smile, for she knew the strength of her own magic. It was firm and unyielding—a yoke Div couldn't break. Sirsha wouldn't need J'yan and R'zwana after all.

Div looked down, bemused.

"Tell me, child. Did you truly believe you could chain me?"

An odd sound, a popping in Sirsha's mind, as if she'd fallen from a great height. Sirsha's power stretched taut before streaming away from her. Something was yanking it free, devouring it.

Sirsha found her power linked to Div's for one brief, terrifying moment. It felt like staring into a void, into some empty grasping where the only emotion was hunger. A ravening need for more .

There should have been something else in that space. Something to balance it. But it was yawning and mindless and it gnawed at Div's insides, not because it was malevolent, but because it simply knew no other way to exist.

Div smiled and seemed to swell like a tick engorged on blood. She met Sirsha's gaze, and the Jaduna girl found that she was in the tent and not in the tent. Her feet were planted, but her mind was being drawn forward, into the now-white eyes of this creature that looked like her mother. Sirsha stared into the abyss, tipping down, called to the maw by a void within herself.

Some part of you broke that day your family cast you out , a voice crooned in Sirsha's mind. The humanity drained out of you and left you a shell. You are tainted. You shall never love. Come, child. Come to one who will understand, for I, too, am empty.

The voice was the Raani's and it sounded so reasonable, like Ma when she tried to persuade Sirsha to cooperate, to help the Kin track the Karjad when she didn't wish to.

But now, instead of digging in her heels, Sirsha listened. For she was older and wiser. She understood the loneliness of leaving her Kin, of trading one moment of weakness for years of forced solitude.

Sirsha stepped forward, reaching out to the Raani, when a hand grabbed her by her neck and yanked her back.

R'zwana. "Traitor!" she screamed. "You were to give us the signal. I knew we couldn't trust—"

J'yan pulled them both away from Div, lashing out at her with his battle magic. Div's simulacrum dissolved and she collapsed into a seething, snarling mass of tortured gray shadows. She created her own weather, an ill wind that whirled around the small tent like a tiny, vicious cyclone.

"Bind her!" R'zwana screamed over the wind. "Bind her!"

Sirsha threw her binding magic around Div again, but it disintegrated as if being gobbled up. "I—I can't—"

J'yan strained to hold Div in place, but Sirsha had felt the creature's power. She knew Div was toying with him.

"J'yan, stop! She's too strong. She wants you to use your magic! She feeds off it!"

"Go then, coward!" R'zwana shoved her. "Run, like you always do!"

R'zwana drew on her own limited ability to bind, but it wasn't enough. Her power had always been a droplet beside Sirsha's ocean.

Div took slow steps toward J'yan, a stalking animal. Sirsha grabbed his hand and pulled, but it was as if his feet were rooted to the earth.

"Let go, J'yan!" Sirsha screamed. "We need to run!"

"Hold it while I bind it, J'yan!" R'zwana gritted her teeth, her own magic like a tattered string of yarn around Div's swelling, writhing form. "Or we're all dead!"

"We can't, R'z!" J'yan dropped to his knees, magic fading. "Sirsha's right."

But by now, they were all pulled into the creature's strange, pulsating gravity, unable to back away.

Div's voice transformed into a menacing, earthy growl, and though she had no face, Sirsha could feel her smile. "Who first?"

R'zwana grabbed Sirsha and shoved her at Div. "Take her! She's more powerful!"

Sirsha had grown used to R'zwana's rejections. Her insults. But seeing her sister trying to feed her to a soul-devouring spirit fiend was a different sort of violence.

She had no time to grieve. Because Div ignored R'zwana and Sirsha, instead lunging for J'yan.

J'yan's gasp was swallowed by Div's hungry snarls. His body went limp and crumpled to the ground as Div hunched over him, his beating heart throbbing beneath her lips.

Sirsha opened her mouth to scream, but she couldn't even take in a breath. As J'yan's heart grayed to ash, a wretched cry tore from her chest.

R'zwana stared in horror. "No—you should have taken her," she said. "Why didn't you take her?"

As Div fed, R'zwana whirled on Sirsha, and the hatred in her gaze could have peeled the bark off a tree. Sirsha considered leaving her sister in the tent to die. But J'yan wouldn't want it, and she'd do this last thing for him. Her survival instinct took full hold, and she grabbed R'zwana's elbow in a vise grip and dragged her out of the tent.

"Get off me— Get—"

"Shut it!" Sirsha hissed. "You're going to get us bleeding killed!"

R'zwana looked around at the busy camp beyond the tent, dazed. Perhaps finally understanding the precariousness of their position, she fell quiet, following Sirsha as she ducked behind a hay wagon and then led them through the camp pell-mell, desperate to get away from that creature and its endless hunger. They avoided notice through sheer luck.

Sirsha stopped near the camp's perimeter, her hands on her thighs as she tried to catch her breath.

R'zwana finally spoke. "What—what was that thing?"

"I don't bleeding know!" Sirsha shoved her sister, her anger and grief at J'yan's death taking over. "I told you it was too strong! You didn't listen, you awful , pig-headed—"

"If you'd bound it when I said, J'yan would still—"

Sirsha reared back and punched her sister square in the face before she could finish her sentence. R'zwana staggered, dazed, and then collapsed. Sirsha resisted the urge to kick her, instead dragging her sister beneath a weapons cart and out of sight. She'd wake up soon enough and figure her own way out of the camp. Whether she survived or not—

Well, that was her problem. Sirsha looked back once toward Div's tent. "I'm sorry, J'yan," she sobbed. "I'm so sorry."

Then she ran.