“I did not kill your father! But you? You told your father I was going to challenge him about the binding!” I press my glass dagger under his chin, relish his wince, the thin line of blood marring his skin. “He knew about it when he called me this morning. He was going to have my magic drained.” I bite back a wild laugh. “Well, Major Shayla beat me to the killing, didn’t she? Or did you both plan the whole thing together? Some twisted idea to rid yourself of your father and your brothers and get the throne for yourself?”
“Major Shayla?” Confusion flickers across his features. “What in Svapnalok are you talking about?”
“Stop lying! I will not be tricked by you again!”
The seaglass’s green glow brightens and then, all of a sudden, grows dull. That is when I register Cavas’s presence, his hand gripping mine, the tug of his magic on mine like talons, holding it back.
“Gul,” Cavas whispers urgently. “Gul, don’t. We need to get out of here, and he’s the only one who can tell us how.”
I wrench my hand out of his grasp. “Don’t!” I say. I still feel the grip of his magic on mine, feel it choking me. “Don’t ever do that again!”
Pain flickers over Cavas’s face. “So it’s all right when you draw magic out of me?”
“This isn’t the best place for a quarrel,” Kali interrupts, looking warily between the two of us. “Cavas is right. We need to get out, and Juhi didn’t exactly explain which of these eight doors to go through.” She grabs Amar by the shoulders, pulls him into a sitting position. “Show us the Way of the Guard.”
“It’s gone,” Amar says flatly. “My father had that tunnel sealed many years ago, shortly after a fire broke out in the garden.”
“He’s lying!” I say.
“He’s not,” Kali replies, her eyes narrowing. “Yes, Rajkumar Amar, I see your truths and your lies. Tell us. Is there another way? Come now. Don’t make me finish what Gul started.”
Amar stares at her for a long moment. “There is another way. But you’ll have to undo the shackles on my feet.”
“Truth?” I ask.
“Truth,” Kali says. “Is there a trap? Answer me!”
“There isn’t,” he replies. “Not that I know of, at any rate. Only two people know of this particular passage.” He glances at me. “One of them is dead.”
Kali rises abruptly to her feet. The shackles around Amar’s ankles vanish. “Show us the way, then, Rajkumar. And none of those conjuring tricks.”
“I can’t exactly conjure with my hands shackled, can I?”
A fair point. Kali nods at Cavas, who pulls Amar to his feet.
“This way,” Amar says. Without another glance at us, he disappears through a doorway. Cavas shoots me and Kali one final look before following. Cursing under my breath, I go after them, Cavas’s white tunic barely visible in the dim lights of the corridor, which, unlike the rest of the palace, is made of stone and not glass.
“Quickly.” Amar’s voice is loud in the silence. We follow him through a door that leads into a richly decorated chamber, nearly every bit of the walls covered with shelves of books and scrolls. If not for the canopied bed in the corner, I might have mistaken the room for a library.
“Close the door,” he tells Kali. “And throw up a shield while you’re at it.”
He strides to the shelf opposite the bed, carefully pulling out one of the books with his fingers. From behind the wall, I hear a groan that isn’t quite human, followed by the scrape of wood against metal. The shelf revolves, revealing space for a thin person to pass through. Or perhaps two.
“This tunnel will lead you away from Ambar Fort and Ambarvadi. It’ll take you a couple of days, but you will emerge somewhere near the end of Aloksha’s dried riverbed,” Amar says. “Maybe you can escape from there into the desert. I don’t know. You don’t have much time, in any case. The Sky Warriors will be here soon.”
“How do we know this isn’t another trick?” I ask sharply. “That we won’t find a battalion of soldiers waiting for us at the other end?”
“The workers who built this secret tunnel had their tongues cut off.” Amar raises his shackled hands. “And I am at your mercy. Tell her, truth seeker.”
“It’s true,” Kali says, touching his hand. “All of it.”
I pause. “I still don’t trust you.”
“Well, you don’t have a choice.”
Silence.
Amar stares at me. “You really didn’t kill my father?”
I nod at Kali, who places a hand on my shoulder. “I didn’t,” I tell Amar. “Major Shayla did.”
“Truth,” Kali says softly.
Amar stares at Kali, whose hand is still on my shoulder, confirming my truth. His face falls. “My brothers—”
“They would have killed us,” Cavas interrupts in a hard voice. “Or they would have captured us and used us as playthings. You know this. You know their sense of honor better than anyone else.”
Amar’s mouth trembles. He does not deny Cavas’s words.
A knock slams the door, makes it rattle in its hinges. “Rajkumar Amar!” Major Shayla shouts. “Raise your shield and open the door!”
Amar inhales deeply and stiffens his shoulders. “Go on, then. Once you’re all inside the tunnel, your friend’s shield won’t hold up anymore. Go, if you don’t want everyone to die!”
The door thunders again. This time the impact is worse.
“Come on,” Cavas tells me quietly. He has already slipped through the opening and into the tunnel. He holds out a hand. I take it, and he pulls me through. Kali is the last one to go through, a moment before Amar slams the shelf shut behind us, plunging us into the dark.
Voices rise on the other end. “I don’t know where they are!” Amar screams, his voice a high whimper. “I was hiding from everyone!”
I don’t know what Major Shayla says in response, or understand the terrible crashing noise that follows. All I hear is the sound of my own heart and the slap of my bare
