Chapter 39

39

Sirsha

A selfish part of Sirsha wanted nothing more than to get the hells out of the Kegari encampment. That Sirsha was the one who'd survived being cast out by her Kin and the hardscrabble years that came after. That Sirsha would forget J'yan's smoking heart and R'zwana's betrayal. She would forget the creature whose mind she'd looked into; the vastness of it, the terror.

But she couldn't run, because something else had kindled in her heart beyond survival. Her Adah coin burned; her blood called to Quil. He was here, somewhere in this camp. Hopefully presiding over the dead carcass of the Tel Ilessi. Sirsha had to find him.

She forced herself to move deliberately. Thank the skies it was dark and the Kegari were lax with both patrols and fires. One wrong step and there would be two Jaduna bodies here tonight.

Sirsha shuddered, pushing J'yan's blank face and shredded chest from her mind. Quil. Find Quil.

She reached out with her magic, but the earth only showed her a path to Div. Track, hunt, bind! The wind shoved at her, trying to push her back the way she'd come.

"Do you want me to die?" she growled at the elements. "I can't bind her! You saw us try—I'll have to go about this another way, but right now, I must find Quil. Help me, please!"

The earth and wind only impelled her more frantically back toward Mother Div's tent.

She ceased using her magic and ran, searching for any sign of the Tel Ilessi. A flag, a Sail, a pack of stuffy guards. Arrogant leaders loved it when everyone knew their rank—it fed their ego. There must be something to indicate where the bastard was .

Quil , she thought. Where's Quil? A chant. A lifeline to keep another, far more terrifying question at bay:

What in the bleeding skies was that thing in the tent?

If it was a possessed spirit, it was the most powerful one Sirsha had ever encountered. But she'd hunted ghosts before, and her magic didn't warp the way it had with Div. Yet J'yan's eyes turned white before he died, a sure sign of contact with the spirit world. Sirsha's had too, the two times she'd gotten close to the creature. Not to mention the fact that it reeked of rotted earth.

Did it matter what it was? She couldn't kill it. She couldn't even bind the damned thing. She couldn't carry out this mission. Panic swept through her.

Hunt it , the elements whispered, insistent. Merciless. You must hunt it.

Unless Elias released her from her vow, the oath would slowly take control of her until it was all she could think about. Until she would throw herself at the monster—and die—rather than see the vow go unfulfilled.

Damn Elias and damn Div, too. Sirsha cursed the day she'd made that vow. She cursed herself for assuming Elias was another client with an easy job.

"Enough," she muttered. The vow was binding until Elias broke it. When she got to Ankana, she'd take the first ship to the Empire and find him. She'd make him break the oath. As one, the wind, earth, and even water hissed at the thought, pushing her back toward Div.

Skies, it was like having three bossy older sisters. Unlike R'z, the elements weren't trying to kill her—yet—so she ignored them, stepping behind a large mess tent as a knot of people passed.

Most were soldiers in worn gear, but one was different. Small and thin, with short brown hair that framed a pretty face. Sirsha stared at her from the shadows, feeling as if she should know her.

The earth cringed from the girl and the wind gave way to her, bending to her will with deep reluctance. Mother Div rose like a miasma from her tent and followed the girl at a distance. Instantly, Sirsha recognized the girl's spoor.

This was the Tel Ilessi.

Alive. And there was no sign of Quil. Bleeding, burning skies. If Quil had gotten himself killed, she'd drag his body to the Cloud Forest and demand a Songma, a spirit Jaduna, rustle up his ghost so she could shout at him.

The Tel Ilessi drew closer. Sirsha was no Deshma, like J'yan. She was a tracker with solid knife skills and a penchant for survival. That instinct kicked in now, and she eased into the shadows of the tent.

Power bulged malignantly from the woman—more power than Sirsha had ever felt. More than any one person should have.

The Tel Ilessi disappeared toward the airfield, Div oozing after, taking her misshapen darkness with her.

Hunt! the elements screamed.

Piss off , she hissed back. She couldn't bind that thing yet. And for now, the oath coin didn't control her. She wouldn't kill herself for it.

When Sirsha was certain the woman and her monstrous creature were gone, she stepped away from the tent—and straight into a blade of a human.

"Ah. The prince's little friend," the man said. She recognized his voice and the halo of power crackling around him. This was the fellow she thought was the Tel Ilessi. His nodded in satisfaction at the sight of her. "Just who I was looking for."

The man—someone called him Cero—pulled her to the east side of the camp. His guards, one bearded, one not, clapped her in manacles. They leered at her, grabbing handfuls of her body like the pigs they were. Sirsha attempted to shake them off, but they only laughed, and didn't stop until Cero barked an order at them.

She let her hate bubble up in her glare. She'd enjoy knifing them in the guts when she and Quil escaped.

Cero shooed the guards away as they approached a large, flag-festooned tent. Once inside, Sirsha's knees went weak in relief. Quil was within—chained, gagged, and surrounded by guards—but alive. Through their Adah coin, Sirsha felt joy flood him at the sight of her.

"Ivashk," Cero said to the soldiers, who promptly exited the tent, leaving him alone with Quil and Sirsha.

Apparently, this Kegari wasn't as smart as he was pretty.

Almost as soon as she thought it, the air around her tightened, holding her in place so she couldn't so much as twitch a pinkie.

Cero ungagged Quil. "Can't have you trying to escape. Not before you answer my questions, anyway."

"I thought you had interrogators for that." Quil rolled his shoulders, voice dangerously flat. "I was looking forward to running rings around them."

To Sirsha's surprise, Cero offered Quil a wry smile. "I was looking forward to hearing how badly they failed," he said. "Alas, no interrogators for you. Just me and the wind."

The air around them burned hotter—almost painful, but not quite. A warning.

Though not one Sirsha planned on heeding. Cero was powerful. But she could bind him. She began to gather her power.

"If this is about the Loha—" Quil said, but Cero shook his head.

"I know that if we want the Loha, we will have to destroy your Empire and assassinate the Masks one by one," Cero said. "Even that will not be enough, for the Tel Ilessi wishes us to return to our homeland across the sea." He didn't sound particularly happy about that fact. "I do hate war. I hate what it brings out in people. But there's something else I hate more. Witnessing the manipulation of my oldest friend."

Sirsha, focused almost entirely on her binding, paused in her efforts as Cero turned to her.

"This creature that calls itself Mother Div," he said. "You've tangled with it. Is it the Holy Cleric's spirit, or some other devilry?"

Sirsha couldn't have been more surprised if he'd pulled a lute from his bum and begun his questioning in verse.

"I'll tell you, pretty boy." Sirsha released her magic. Perhaps he could share something useful about Div. "But I need a bit more information than that."

"Aiz, our Tel Ilessi—your prince here knew her as Ilar—she stole a book more than a year ago," Cero said.

Sirsha's jaw dropped at the revelation. "Wait—the Tel Ilessi—and Ilar—and Aiz—"

"Are the same person, yes," Cero said. "Keep up. Aiz gave me the book to destroy at one point, but the damned thing wouldn't burn. I think it altered her mind. The—the things she's done—"

"The things you've let her get away with," Quil growled. "Is that what you meant?"

Cero's jaw stiffened. "Aiz said the book led her to free Mother Div, Kegar's holiest cleric," he went on quickly. "She says Div's spirit gives her power. But it feeds on children for that power. She has joined with this…thing. Whatever it is. You're a Jaduna. Can you free Aiz of the bond between them?"

"Yes." Sirsha didn't consider it a lie, exactly. More like an aspiration she hadn't yet made into a reality. "I'd need to get out of here. Speak to one of my contacts in Jibaut."

Cero huffed in frustration.

"You mean the bookseller? He read the book long before Aiz did, and is in thrall to this creature masquerading as Mother Div, like Aiz. There's an Ankanese seer who read it as well. When I asked them about it, neither could speak of it without going pale and sick."

You think you understand what you're dealing with , Kade had said. But you don't.

"Whoever wrote that book is evil. Whatever lives inside its pages used Aiz. It wants something. I need to know what the hells it wants. Because it isn't to help our people. All it has done is kill our young. Feed on us."

"I've heard of such magic," Sirsha said, though she had to scrape at the edges of her brain to remember. Some bleeding boring lesson that D'rudo had droned on about a decade ago. "My mother is the strongest living Inashi. She can bind it—whatever it is. But I'd need to get a message to her. Can't do that from inside a Kegari camp." She looked pointedly at her manacles.

Cero gave her a level stare. "If I wish to keep my heart in my chest," he said, "then I can't set you free. I can, however, leave the tent." He glanced at Quil, mockery creeping into his expression. "I assume for a mighty prince of the Martials, a few seconds will be enough."

Quil offered the barest nod. Cero stared at him a moment longer before turning and walking out. Two Kegari—the same ones who manacled Sirsha—entered the tent a second later, grinning. A woman joined the men, glanced between Sirsha and Quil, and commented. Whatever she said made the bearded guard chortle.

From across the tent, Quil watched, his expression murderous.

The beardless guard picked up Quil's scim from a pile of weapons beside the tent entrance and pretended to pick his teeth with it. Then he said something to Quil in Kegari that Sirsha was relatively sure amounted to "My sword is bigger than yours."

The beardless man wandered closer to Quil, spitting at him, his ridiculous grin growing wider when the globule landed on Quil's armor.

Quil smiled back.

Then his manacles clanked to the ground. He'd picked the lock—of course he had. He grabbed the beardless Kegari with one big hand and slammed the man's head so hard against the wooden post holding up the tent that the entire structure shook. The guard oozed to the ground.

The bearded guard was already out the door, screaming for help, while the woman called up the wind. Still bound, Sirsha lashed out with a binding, suppressing the hag's magic so quickly that she was still staring at her hands in mystification when Quil put a throwing knife through her gut.

The prince snatched up his scim and pushed something into Sirsha's hands as he strode past. Her hairpins.

" That's where they've been this whole time?"

"I grabbed them at the cabin," he said. "The morning after you admitted you've been lusting after me since the moment you saw me."

"I had not been lusting after you!"

"Your body said different, Jaduna."

The alarm went up, and a group of Kegari poured into the tent. Sirsha picked the locks on her manacles, only for a soldier to knock her to the dirt floor. She kicked him in the groin, stabbed him while he squealed, then rolled to her feet.

"I want them back!" Quil called as he fought off four Kegari at once. "The pins."

She could not believe they were having this conversation. She snatched up a knife and tore a rip in the eastern side of the tent. "Why are you obsessed with my pins?"

"I like how annoyed you look when you can't find them." He punched a Kegari coming at him, knocking him out cold. "It's sweet."

"Sweet?"

Quil didn't respond, as he was busy tearing through the newest wave of Kegari coming at him. Sirsha would have thought there were too many, but she'd seen him fight. She popped her head out into the dark, searching through the wagons and fires and shouting soldiers for an escape route along the slopes encircling the camp.

There—a path of rock and dirt that curved up the edge of the bowl thirty yards away. The earth rumbled, and a distant explosion sent a plume of dust into the sky. R'zwana, likely creating a distraction so she could escape . As most of the Kegari outside the tent turned toward the sound, Sirsha ran back to grab Quil's blood-slick hand and drag him from the fight.

A few of the Kegari shoved through the tear in the tent after them, shouting a warning to their fellows, but another explosion knocked them—and Quil—off their feet.

"Get up , Martial!" Sirsha roared, half dragging him. They could fade into the dark if they could just get out of sight.

"Where are your people?" he asked. "Did you—"

"We couldn't bind it," Sirsha said as they reached the hill and staggered up through the long coastal grasses. "And J'yan. He—he—"

Distantly, the ocean crashed against the rocks of the Thafwan coast. The first time Sirsha saw the sea, she was eight, J'yan was by her side, and they'd crashed into the waves for a whole day, delighted at a playmate that never tired of them.

Later, later, grieve him later. Right now, it was anger she needed—at R'zwana and Div and the bleeding Tel Ilessi. "J'yan's dead," Sirsha said. "I'll tell you the rest as we go—the horses are west of us. We should head north, cut across the airfield."

They half crawled, half climbed the path, silent and careful as stalking wolves. Slowly, any sign of pursuit began to fade—helped, no doubt by the explosions in the camp. For once, R'zwana had done something useful.

"All that for bleeding nothing," Sirsha panted as they finally reached the horses. "Div is unbound. The Tel Ilessi is alive—and she's…Ilar?"

"I'll explain everything." Quil took Sirsha's waist and swung her up onto the saddle. "But before I do, there's something you should know about me. Something I should have told you a while ago."

All his emotions bled through their oath coin—love, relief, fury, worry. And something else, too. Magic!

"You—you—" She knew she had felt something back when they'd ambushed the Kegari pilots! " Magic , prince? What in the hells? And you were accusing me of keeping secrets?"

He sighed and swung up onto his horse. "Shout at me later," he said. "For now, let's get the bleeding hells out of here."