“No!” Cavas’s scream almost gets lost in the melee. A streak of silver lashes out at them, and Captain Emil lets go.
Cavas’s father drops like a rag doll, his eyes closed.
I hit Alizeh with one spell and then another. I furiously keep sending spells her way, determined to kill her, when a hard nudge knocks me to the side, out of range of another spell—this one aimed at me by Captain Emil.
“Run!” It’s Juhi, who has taken over my place to fight both Alizeh and Emil. “Take the boy and run, Gul!”
It’s a command that brooks no argument. A choice that may result in Juhi herself being captured or killed. The ultimate samarpan.
I’m shaking so badly that it takes a moment for her words to register. Cavas, on the other hand, appears ashen, still crouched by his father’s body.
I reach for Cavas’s now-clammy hand. “Cavas,” I whisper. “Cavas, we have to go.”
In the distance, Shayla’s shouting for more reinforcements. I scan my surroundings, spotting a way out of the hall. My grip on Cavas’s hand tightens. To my relief, he does not resist, does nothing, even though his eyes are still on his father.
Invisible, I think. We need to be invisible.
It’s easier this time, the magic in Cavas’s blood responding more readily to mine.
“She’s gone!” someone screams. “She’s gone!”
“She’s here, all right.” Sonar holds a rag to his wounded face, his eyes scanning the floor. He holds an atashban in his other hand. “I can see her bloody footprints.”
I send up a shield, narrowly blocking the red beam of light aimed our way. The spell, unfortunately, turns us visible, making us targets once more. My head tilts up, and I lock gazes with the portrait of the sky goddess overhead.
Help, I plead. Help us.
The sun and moons in her eyes begin spinning at a dizzying rate. Time slows, and I grow detached from the fight around me. No one else, however, seems to notice the goddess’s eyes. Or how they glow the exact green of my seaglass daggers and then turn red.
“Get out of my way,” I tell Sonar. The voice that emerges from my mouth sounds like mine, yet not quite. My head begins to pound.
“Kill her!” Sonar screams. “Kill her!” He aims the atashban at me again.
Raise your hands, my daughter. Accept my boon.
Fire burns in my eyes and under my solar plexus. I raise my hands and spin the seaglass daggers in a way I never could before. Twin red chakras erupt from my hands, slice across the throats of Crown Prince Sonar and his brother, Jagat, before the men can so much as aim a spell or cast a shield, their bodies thudding to the floor.
Pain knifes across my temples. I feel my nose bleeding again. A strong hand grips my elbow, anchoring me when I would have fallen. Cavas’s face is paler than I’ve ever seen it. His mouth moves, speaking words I can’t hear. A minute later, he throws us both to the ground; we’ve narrowly missed another wayward spell.
Gul. I read my name on Cavas’s lips. He points to another figure beside us. Kali, her mouth moving, telling us to hurry.
I think I speak. Say something about Amira, Juhi—
“Now, Gul!” Kali’s shout finally breaks through my haze.
In the distance, I hear a scream. A woman.
Before I can put a name to the voice, a beam of red light hits the chandelier overhead. Kali pulls us out of its way seconds before it thunders over the dead princes, shrouding them with bits of glass and metal, firestones, and blood.
36GUL
“Hurry!” Kali whispers. “Before someone notices we’re gone.”
We race down a long passage that’s oddly empty, glass rising around us. Major Shayla’s voice continues to hum in the walls, reminding everyone that the king is dead. The glass corridor leads to stone walls: a room shaped like an octagon with doorways on all sides.
“Juhi said there was a secret passage that began here. Somewhere,” Kali murmurs to herself. “It goes right under the palace garden and ends in the tenements outside Ambarvadi.”
“We can go back and see if she and Amira are—”
“No! The plan was to get you out. And you,” Kali adds, glancing at Cavas. “Juhi saw more than one person in the shells. I wasn’t willing to believe her at first, but it seems—duck!” she shouts.
Over a dozen daggers slice through the air, sinking into the wall above us. I raise my head, glimpsing a brilliant yellow jewel and a plume of peacock feathers emerging from the same, over a red silk turban.
Prince Amar.
Fury rises within me. I get to my feet. Amar aims another spell at us before I can attack: a swarming cloud of bees.
Turn, I whisper to them. Kill him.
And that’s exactly what they try to do, only to turn into dust when Amar holds up a heavy-looking shield, blocking his own rebounded spell. However, the impact causes him to stumble, and Kali and I take advantage of this, casting our own spells at him in return. My spell knocks the shield out of the way, and a flaming streak of blue shackles Amar’s wrists and ankles.
“Hasn’t anyone told you to never pick a weapon you can’t handle?” I snarl.
He looks up at me, a few odd curls of hair sticking to his sweaty forehead under his turban, his yellow eyes oddly calm. “Go on, then. Finish what you came to do, Siya. If that’s really your name.”
“I will finish you off, you liar!” I cry out. “I thought you were on my side!”
“I was on your side.” Red flushes his cheeks. “I wanted to save you from binding with my brother. I thought you were an innocent caught in a trap. I was such a fool. You are clearly more ambitious than I thought. You killed my father, both of my
