I’m bending, reaching for the daggers bound to my thighs. But Shayla is quicker. A red web erupts from her atashban, binding my hands together. My birthmark begins burning. A pain unlike any other climbs up my limbs. Worse than a dagger, a hundred daggers, it makes my bones ache and my vision blur. There’s screaming in the distance; I realize it’s me. Shayla raises my body into the air and slams me against the wall a couple of times before dropping me to the floor.
“Do you feel that, girl?” Shayla asks softly. “I don’t even need to break your limbs, extract your nails, or peel away your skin. It is worse than anything you have imagined because this is what it feels like to have your magic drained from you, what we do to the girls we take to the labor camps. A pity that I must do the same to you, but sacrifices must be made when fools become kings. Perhaps you will still be useful after I’m done with you. Perhaps not. Come now, Star Warrior. Fight me, if you can.”
I barely raise my head before the pain strikes again, going all the way to my eardrums. I can no longer hear my voice, even though my throat burns from screaming.
I’m going to die, I think. Oh Goddess, let me die. For a brief moment, I think I get my wish. Everything gets wiped away. There is no pain. No feeling. Nothing except endless waves of black and, within that, a floating golden egg. Voices, at once familiar and not, whisper in the darkness.
Am I going to meet the goddess tonight, Ma?
No, daughter. You will not let our sacrifice go in vain.
You must be a leader when all hope is lost.
The egg glows, brighter and brighter, spilling light over the darkened water. Over me. In the distance, a shadow raises an atashban in the air.
Use your mind, princess, a voice says.
So I raise my right arm and do exactly that.
A crack. A burst of light. Air rushes back into my lungs, my bones snapping back into place. My vision clears for the first time, and I see Major Shayla’s gritted teeth, a strange sort of fear in her pale-brown eyes. Her silver armor reflects the light coming from me. All of me. She presses harder and harder; even through the shield, I feel the force of the atashban’s spell. My feet tremble, pain creeping up the toes. Any moment now and I’ll lose my balance … I need to push. I grit my teeth. Harder.
Fire erupts. Shayla is blasted off her feet. The smell of burning flesh rises in the air, and I realize it’s the king’s corpse. Shayla’s anguished scream rings in my ears.
“Regicide!” she cries out. “The sky has fallen!”
34CAVAS
I wake up with a start.
It’s a little before dawn in the tenements—the night has barely passed since Gul came to see me in the stables, her words haunting my thoughts even though I want nothing to do with them. I couldn’t escape her even in dreams, surrounded by gray spirits, my eyes seeking out the sharp angles of her face, the determined jut of her dented chin. Without really thinking, I reach out to feel the space between my ribs, the spot where Gul’s spell hit me last night, leaving a round red bruise. Forcing myself off the cot, I pick up our empty bucket and head off to fill it at the reservoir—an enormous, oblong body of water made by the tenement dwellers, with cleverly designed catchments to channel rainwater during the Month of Tears. With careful rationing, the water lasts for nearly a year, except during periods of drought, when we rely on the government’s mercy—and its magic—for replenishment.
A light fog has settled over the houses. Most people are still asleep and will not venture out until daybreak, which is exactly why I choose to go out now. I place my lantern on the reservoir’s edge, dipping my bucket carefully into the calm water. To my surprise, I see something solid floating near the top of the reservoir and nearly gag when I realize what it is: the bloated corpse of a stray dog.
I empty my bucket at once. It will be contaminated now, the tenements’ only source of safe drinking water. It will be days before someone from the Ministry of Health comes in, even more days before whatever medicine they sprinkle in to clean the water takes effect. Until then, we will be forced to trek around two miles north to bring water from the reservoir next to the firestone mines.
To be poisoned by a dog or to be poisoned by mine waste?
I think again about what Gul said. What if she’s right? What if she isn’t mistaken, and the Sky Warriors come for me and Papa? What if, after all my efforts to keep him alive, Papa doesn’t die from disease but gets killed because I was seen with the wrong person?
A part of me wants to blame Gul for the latter—she’s the reason I got dragged into this whole mess. Yet a larger, more honest part admits that she wouldn’t have been here if not for me in the first place. If I hadn’t stopped her from selling herself at the flesh market. If I hadn’t sneaked her into the palace. If I hadn’t … I stop myself right there. I don’t want to think about what happened between us inside Chand Mahal. The tug of her magic, the power that seeped out of me
