Army?
I listened — listened, and heard a terrible sound coming from outside the palace.
I leapt to my feet, fighting away Klein’s men as they grabbed for me, and ran out to the balcony—
—Only to see Sidnee soldiers scaling the walls, rushing into the Nirajan palace like ants devouring a carcass.
I whirled back to Klein. “Call them off.”
“The Nirajans were only allowed to exist in this place because they agreed to absolute excommunication, with no interference in the Fey world.”
“They haven’t interfered. I made the decision to come here. Me.” I staggered forward. I didn’t realize how badly I was bleeding from my head until I began to taste iron. “This is a foolish move, Klein. Especially now, when the humans are—”
There was a deafening shatter.
A smear of gold flew into the room, and by the time the window’s broken glass hit the ground like drops of rain, the soldiers that held Ashraia were doubled over, clutching their faces. Rolling smoke dissipated to reveal Ishqa, his wings outstretched, sword drawn and pressed beneath Klein’s throat.
“This is a betrayal of our treaty,” he snarled. “You raised a blade against Wyshraj men?”
Klein sneered. “Our treaty has been dissolved.”
My heart stopped. “Dissolved?”
Ishqa’s face barely changed, save for the faintest twitch of muscle. “Pardon?” he said, deadly quiet.
“The treaty is gone,” Klein said. “Your people cannot be trusted. I knew it from the beginning. And this… this detour of yours only proves—”
“I am the Teirness, Klein,” I snarled “And it was on my authority that—”
But they were already moving before the words were out of my mouth.
I lurched forward. Even in the movement, I knew I was trying to stop the inevitable. Klein let out a shout, and his men attacked, lunging for Ishqa and Ashraia. I dove for the nearest Blade, who was attempting to attack Ishqa. I saw Siobhan moving out of the corner of my eye. Beneath the blood rushing in my ears, I could hear her command boom:
“As a Commander of the Blades, I order you to stand down!”
Too late. Tension had already devolved into violence. Ishqa’s back was pressed to mine, his sword raised — he was the only one of us who was properly armed, while I fought with whatever I could frantically yank from a dead man’s hands. I tasted blood. I heard a cry somewhere behind me, and I could not tell whose it was.
Suddenly, there was a bright flash of light, and a deafening cracking sound. More windows shattered. I looked up to see ropes of ivy slithering through the open windows, so fast our opponents barely had time to react. It seized the throats of Klein’s men. The soldiers flailed, but it was no use -- the ropes of greenery pinned their every limb, tightening until they finally stopped moving.
Caduan slowly pushed to his feet, clutching his abdomen. The sight of his open eyes was so wonderful that my own relief briefly drowned me.
“It won’t be enough to keep them for long,” he rasped. Then his gaze fell to the other side of the room, and he went still.
I turned.
The other side of the room was a carnage. The floor was slick with blood. One of the Sidnee soldiers lay beside Siobhan, his own weapon protruding from his throat — Siobhan looked down at him, utterly frozen, face pale.
Beside her, Ashraia lay in a heap on the ground.
His wings were out, but one was nearly disconnected from his body, a mess of bones and tattered flesh and slick, blood-covered feathers. A spear was lodged between his ribs, a Sidnee soldier’s throat grasped in one of his massive hands.
He was not moving. No one spoke. We had all seen enough dead bodies to know what we were looking at.
Ishqa knelt beside him and muttered some words that I could not understand, pressing his thumb to his forehead, and then to Ashraia’s. Then he stood again.
“He’s gone,” he said, without turning.
Siobhan swore beneath her breath.
Words tangled in my throat. I wanted to apologize. I wanted to scream. I wanted to hack the heads off of all the men in this room, just because I could — even though they were my own people. I wanted no association with them.
Ishqa turned and met my stare. I couldn’t breathe. I waited for him to strike me down. I was, after all, a Sidnee, a leader of the people who had betrayed him and killed his friend. I was his enemy.
“Did you know?” he said, calmly.
“No. No, I never would have allowed it to—”
“We can discuss this later,” Caduan said, gesturing to the bodies on the ground. “I cannot keep them down for long.”
“We have to leave,” Siobhan said. She could barely look away from the Sidnee soldier she had killed, her expression pained. “Before more of them come for us.”
Ishqa threw open the door, and we ran.
Mathira, how had it all happened so quickly? Klein’s men were already everywhere, spilling into the palace through doors and windows and balconies. We pressed ourselves to walls and slipped around corners. When we reached the main hallways, where the levels below were visible, my mouth went dry. Below us, the Nirajan people were being skewered by weapons and thrown out windows or simply left to bleed to death on the ground. The carnage was all-consuming.
“There are too many,” Siobhan muttered. “We need to leave here. Once we’re out, we can figure out what happened.” She turned to Ishqa. “Let us remain allies until, at least, we understand why. We are traitors to our own people now, too.”
Ishqa paused, then gave her a slow nod, mouth set. “I accept that.”
Caduan was silent, a muscle feathering in his jaw. I followed his gaze back down, to the violence below. Outside on one of the balconies, I watched one of the Sidnee soldiers grabbing a human maid by her hair and dragging her back, slicing her throat so viciously
