Standing behind the line and barking orders was the Blood General. She was like a matchstick in the dark, her thin figure a dark silhouette, her blond-white hair and its flying strands like a flare. The cords of her neck bulged as she shouted to fire, load, change weapons, over and over. Firing on Touraine’s people. She understood the struggle on Djasha’s face.
“No.” Aranen tugged Djasha’s wrist, the word already broken with loss as she said it. “Djasha, come with me. Please.”
Djasha took a dazed step toward Cantic anyway. Touraine threw her arm in front of Djasha to stop her, and the Brigāni woman wrapped her hand around Touraine’s forearm. Touraine almost screamed at the burn of the woman’s touch. She jerked her arm away.
Djasha turned back to Aranen and gripped Aranen’s arms with both hands, as if her touch wasn’t fire.
They spoke in Shālan too rapid for Touraine to follow, but the plaintive look on both of their faces told Touraine enough.
Then Aranen whispered, tear choked, “You’re going to die.”
Djasha’s smile was haggard in the shadow. “I will either way. But I can finish this. Go.” She pointed the same way Touraine had, forward, to the southern wall where the rebels might still be waiting for more prisoners, the injured, and the coming retreat.
“No. Together.” Aranen squeezed Djasha’s hand hard.
They were resolute. Touraine understood. Cantic had broken their lives. She had broken Touraine’s life, too, in a way, even as she had built it. They all had some kind of unfinished business with the Blood General.
“I take it you still have Shāl’s magic?” Touraine asked, holding up her burned wrist.
“I have enough.”
“Then you come at her from this way. I’ll loop behind that building”—Touraine pointed to the administrative building—“and come at her from the gate side. Attack when she’s busy with me. Take these.” She unslung the muskets. They felt cumbersome to her now. She moved better without them.
The two priestesses nodded, and Touraine took off. She ran through the empty darkness between the north wall of the compound and the jail, the command building, and the infirmary, with the noise of Cantic’s line to her left. Occasionally, a wild shot from the rebels pinged the ground near her, but nothing hit flesh. She slipped through the alley between the infirmary and the command building. It was already stacked with corpses, but they were too orderly to be anything but plague deaths the soldiers hadn’t taken to the fires yet.
Touraine looked back down the road, to her left, where Djasha and Aranen were waiting for her.
Cantic’s back was to her right. She was flanked by a junior officer on each side, their pistols in hand, their swords on their belts. One of them was speaking to an aide, and Touraine waited for them to finish, for the officer’s attention to return to the battle. Her long knife was both slick with fear sweat and sticky with blood. As the aide ran off to relay their message, Touraine finally stepped out.
The noise that had been muffled a moment ago now hit Touraine with full force. Cantic’s voice was raw and ragged as she shouted orders. The yelling was interspersed with gunfire and cries of pain. They were all so busy with the fight in front of them that Touraine stabbed the junior officer to Cantic’s right before anyone realized an enemy had gotten behind their lines. She stabbed the one on the left clumsily, trying to hurry as Cantic turned. The young officer staggered back, almost taking Touraine’s knife with him.
“General.” Touraine straightened in the middle of the street, holding her long knife en garde.
The general’s open coat fluttered in the night’s gentle wind. She looked at her two guards, one dying, the other hunched over, trying to get a grip on his pistol. She held out a hand to stop him.
“Lieutenant,” Cantic growled. She barked at the young officer, “Take over the line. Keep the sky-falling dogs pinned.” Then she turned to Touraine, drawing her officer’s sword.
Touraine told herself that she was not afraid to die. She told herself that she didn’t care if she died now or thirty years from now. That she didn’t care if she never saw Pruett or Jaghotai or even Luca ever again. Each thought was a lie, but she acted as if she believed it. She looked up at the night sky above the compound and inhaled deeply. The dust of the desert had a distinct smell, and Touraine caught it even in the stench of battle.
Hurry, Djasha. Then she focused on the moment—and the steel—in front of her.
Another rumor the Sands had spread in their bunks long ago: Cantic had been the best sword fighter of her age, second only to the princess’s guard captain. Touraine hoped that particular snatch of gossip, at least, was stretched.
“I’m sorry things will end this way, General.”
Touraine tested Cantic’s defenses with a jab of her long knife. She didn’t have to win. She just had to buy Djasha time.
With your life?
Djasha was the reason Touraine was still alive, despite everything. She had saved Touraine’s life and given her a place to belong. She’d shown Touraine mercy when she could have destroyed Touraine with the flick of a wrist. This was the least Touraine could do.
Cantic lazily parried Touraine’s blade to the side.
“You’ve lost your mind, Lieutenant.” Cantic stepped closer, her sword pointed toward the dirt. “Tell me they have some magic hold on you.”
“No.” Draw this out. She settled her weight on her back leg, coiling her power there. “More like they cleared my eyes, sir.” But Touraine wasn’t good with words. She wasn’t like Luca, stabbing cleverly at just the right weak spots. Touraine’s best weapon had always been her body.
She sprang at Cantic, knife aiming for the
