He has. In all these years, I never imagined that the mild-mannered man sitting before me could have anything to do with something as crazy as an escape.
“So Latif died then. But how…?” I frown. “Not everyone who dies becomes a living specter, do they?”
“No,” Papa says. “A specter is only born out of the desperate wish of a dying person to continue to live, a wish so strong that it hinders the spirit’s departure from the world, chaining them to it. There is immense willpower or rage involved in the creation of a living specter. Death by torture—as in Latif’s case—is one way that I suspect this happens.
“In any case, without Latif’s confession, the Sky Warriors could do nothing. General Tahmasp was one of the few people to suspect that Juhi didn’t really die in the fire. They didn’t find a body. But there was so much ash, so much destruction … He couldn’t be sure.”
My stomach lurches. A part of me is tempted to question Papa about Tahmasp, about Ma. And perhaps I would have—if I had the courage.
“Papa, I don’t understand. Why go through all that to help Juhi escape?”
Papa grows subdued again. “For a time, I thought Juhi was the girl from the prophecy. The one who would change things, uniting magi and non-magi again under a better ruler. But Juhi told me she has no special birthmarks, not even a tiny mole on her body. The Star Warrior has to be a marked girl.”
I nod. “But the prophecy also talks about a girl with unusual magic.”
“Magic untouched and unknown by all,” Papa corrects. “Though the kind of magic she is capable of may certainly be unusual. Tell me, son. Have you seen Gul do magic?”
“I have.” The fine hairs on my back rise. “She made us both invisible by … I’m not really sure, drawing onto something from me.” My magic. I still can’t say the words out loud.
Papa frowns. “You mean, she used you as an amplifier? That’s interesting.”
“An amplifier? You don’t mean those objects that magi use to increase their powers.”
“Objects, yes. People, no. Even when I worked among magi, I never heard of anyone using another person to amplify their magic. It’s most unusual. Though, perhaps, it might also speak to a certain level of trust between you two. I can’t say. There are realms of magic that even magi don’t know of.”
The fine hairs on the back of my neck rise. I can’t deny the strange pull between Gul and me, an odd feeling that goes beyond magic, one that tells me I can trust her with my life if necessary.
Then how can you abandon her? How can you let her die?
“We must get her out,” Papa says after a pause.
“We?” I ask sharply. “What do you mean we? Papa, it’s too risky to go back there. Especially for you! In any case, she’s supposed to bind with the yuvraj in less than a week.”
“Cavas, I told you how important that girl is to our world—”
“Will you stop it, Papa? The world you idealize—the one your ancestors lived in—is a myth. It doesn’t exist anymore.”
“You aren’t wrong.” Papa gently touches the binding cord on his right wrist. “It doesn’t. But it once did, my son. If we don’t fight, how will it change for the better again?”
I shake my head. “Once you get out of the tenements—”
“My boy, leaving the tenements will not cure me.” His voice, though quiet, hits me harder than it would have had he shouted. “Perhaps it might have helped when I’d first caught the Fever. But now it’s too late. I am dying, son. I have always been dying. By the time you collect the resources to get me out, I will already be gone.”
“I don’t believe you,” I say stubbornly. “I don’t believe you at all.”
He raises a hand to brush my face. His fingers come up wet.
“There are times I wonder about your mother. Wonder what would have happened if she had been able to say no to the guards who came to escort her to the Sky Warrior barracks in the Walled City for the very first time.”
I feel my mouth grow dry. Until now, Papa had never said anything about what happened to Ma, never addressed the truth in those rumors about her.
“I was afraid to say no as well,” Papa says softly. “Your ma and I—we both knew what happened to non-magi who caught the eye of a Sky Warrior, the … things that were expected of them. Yet we also knew that refusing a Sky Warrior’s interest meant instant death. I’ve wondered so many times what it would have been like if your mother had escaped somehow. In my more outlandish fantasies, I’m the one who saves her. Foolish, isn’t it?” he says softly. “Because even after we bound, I said nothing. I never spoke up, never tried to fight the guards. Our regrets are scars we live with, day in and day out. If you don’t go to help Gul today, you are going to be filled with the same sort of regret.”
Dawn sunlight seeps into the room from the door, yellow and diffused. I hear the cry of a shvetpanchhi. Some say they’re birds of death, hovering close whenever it’s near. “You are not going to die.” I slowly rise to my feet. “And neither is Gul.”
35GUL
The sky has fallen. Major Shayla’s voice, magnified to ten times its normal volume, echoes over and over, resounding through the glass palace.
The message is unmistakable. If the people of Ambar represent the kingdom’s feet, legs, torso, arms, and hands, then the king is Ambar’s head. In schoolrooms and books, paintings always depict the head brushing the clouds and the stars—closest to the sky goddess. To every bit of power that surrounds
