Hastin’s gray eyes bore into mine. “Tell me why I shouldn’t smash your bones to pieces for accosting my daughter.”

“We’re here to fight with you.”

He leers, all surliness. “We don’t need you interfering, Captain.”

“General,” I correct. “Prince Ashwin appointed me as head of the imperial army.” Hastin sniffs in dismissal and starts to go. I call after him. “We deserve to go to battle too.”

He revolves on his heels. “Were your people hunted and slaughtered?” he asks, then waits for my reply.

“No.”

“I was away from home when the soldiers came to my village. They broke down my door and executed my wife and sons. I found Anjali, a newborn, bundled in a blanket. My wife had hidden her in a pot so the soldiers wouldn’t find her.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I don’t want your apology,” he growls, trembling the floor. “I want you to stop wasting my time. Retreat to the wives’ wing and take these women with you.”

I follow his gaze to the lines of armed ranis and courtesans packing the curved staircases. Shyla and Asha lead the troops, Parisa and Eshana beside them. I do a swift head count. Nearly all the women have come.

I inflate my chest, my pride uncontainable. “These sister warriors can hold their ground in battle. Udug’s army is ten thousand strong. You’d be a fool to refuse their aid.”

The warlord balls his hands into fists, like two sledgehammers. He could grind my bones to dust. I have suffered a Trembler’s grinding once before, but I do not let my remembrance of the agony move me. “You could never understand,” he says. “You’re not a father. All of this, unseating Tarek, seizing his palace, facing a demon, is to make a better world for my daughter.” He points at Anjali on the staircase. “She is the reason I will not let you stand in my way.”

“Many of these ranis and courtesans are mothers. They want their children to survive the night, just like you.”

“I let their children live!” Hastin bellows, stamping so hard he dents the marble title. “I could have slaughtered Tarek’s wives and sons like he slaughtered mine, but I showed them mercy! These women should drop to their knees and thank Anu they do not know true heartache.”

In the wake of his echoed anger through the rotunda, I reply, “If our people do not come together, we will all know that sorrow. None of us will have a future.”

Warning shouts reach us from outside the main entry. Then the palace walls shudder. The sister warriors clutch the staircase railing. I widen my stance, bracing until the shaking passes.

A rebel races in and reports. “They’ve armed their catapults!”

Hastin marches out, the ground vibrating with his every step. Anjali and I hurry after him. Night has fallen, driven away by the thunderheads. Booms ricochet from catapults at a distance, and several boulders sling toward the palace in an arch.

“Redirect!” shouts the warlord.

Winds propel the boulders back over the wall, into the city. A lightning bolt strikes one, breaking the boulder apart. Rocks the size of my fist shower the courtyard. Before they pelt us, Anjali blasts them away with a gust.

Aquifiers unleash a downpour from the storm clouds, drenching my turban and dripping into my eyes. The thick sheet of rain will hinder the army’s view and slick the catapults’ inner workings, but that will only slow them. Udug and his soldiers will reach the wall, and the bhutas will need more than winds and rain and quakes to defeat them. Bhuta powers are limited, and even with their combined strength, the rebels will tire against an army this size. We all pray the rebels can overpower Udug, but he has already breeched the city when they thought he could not. Every single warrior, bhuta or not, must stand against him.

“Hastin,” I plead. “You need us.”

The warlord taps his index finger agitatedly against his thigh, his gaze darting over the finished clay wall blocking the palace gate. “Very well. Fight at your own peril. Station your troops on the ramparts. They’ll intercept the soldiers. The rebels will combat Udug.”

“Father!” Anjali objects.

Hastin shushes her with a low growl and transfers his stony stare to me. “Move your sister warriors into position, General.”

My troops will be the first line of defense up on the wall, but I have faith in our ability to hold the line against the soldiers. I return to the sister warriors waiting in the entry hall and scan their solemn countenances. “The rebels have accepted our aid. It is my great honor to lead you into battle. On your life, do not let the demon rajah pass through this gate. Defend your family and homeland. Make Ki proud.”

The sister warriors hoist their weapons. Yatin, Natesa, and Opal do the same. Have I done wrong by them? Am I leading them to their doom? I plow through my fear before they detect my uncertainty. We need only hold out until Kali and the navy arrive.

Bowing my head, I offer up an earnest prayer. “Great Anu, preserve the Tarachand Empire and guide us to victory.”

My troops repeat the prayer, a solemn echo of our united devotion. Then I pivot and lead them out under the war-strewn sky.

27

KALINDA

The cold cripples me halfway up the hill. I sway forward and land on all fours in the road. Between the rain and the deadness in my muscles, I cannot feel my feet. If the rebels’ intent is to drive the invaders back with a storm, their strategy is working on at least one person.

Ashwin notices I have fallen behind and jogs back to fetch me. “Do you need to rest?”

“Just for a minute.” I collapse against him. His soul-fire glows like a beacon, but I am so frozen not even his warmth appeals to me.

Gemi backtracks to us. “Is she hurt?”

“She just needs to get warm.” Even to me, Ashwin’s assurance sounds feeble. He lifts me into his arms and hefts me up the hill.

A catapult snaps nearby, flinging a boulder at the palace. Ashwin freezes and then sidesteps out of the middle of the road. Just when the threat is gone, a mighty gust redirects the boulder at the city. The projectile soars overhead and smashes into several huts on the neighboring road.

“Keep going,” Gemi says, watching for more flying boulders.

She and Ashwin speed up, but everything within me turns sluggish, as though I am sinking in quicksand. Ashwin beelines for a large structure on the next higher road, the Brotherhood temple.

Gemi pries the front door open with the prongs of her trident. The temple corridors and chambers are fixed in shadows. She lights a lamp, and Ashwin pursues her into the chapel. The lamp’s sparse glow reveals murals of the sky-god and his consort, Ki. They remind me of the mural in the Samiya temple chapel I grew up admiring.

“I’ve always wanted to learn to paint,” I slur. Even my tongue is lethargic. “Jaya loved my sketches. Did you know I sketched you, Ashwin? Tarek thought I drew him, but he should’ve known better.”

Ashwin lays me on the altar and touches my forehead. “Sweet Enlil, you’re frozen.”

“Am I?” I try to wiggle my fingers or toes but feel nothing.

Gemi tests my temperature for herself. She draws back, as though my skin burns. “I’ll look for a blanket and dry clothes for her.”

Ashwin expels a breath, his gratitude immense. “I’ll start here. You check the other rooms.”

Gemi lights another lamp and heads off.

Ashwin skims my cheek, though I hardly feel the gesture. “I’ll be right back. I won’t go far.” He takes the lamp across the chapel to search the baskets along the far wall.

Shadows plunge into the gap of light, dropping around me. My muddled thoughts pull me back and forth between now and my childhood when I was confined to my sickbed. More than once, Healer Baka blanketed me in snow to reduce my fevers and calm the fire within me. Unlike Indah, I love the snow. But I would trade never seeing it again for the cure to this poison.

Perhaps this coldness is a feeling. For this gradual decay of my senses and faculties, this loss of control—this is how it must feel to die.

The realization comes at me as a piercing whisper. The end of my path does not lie far ahead. Death is here. In this sanctuary. Upon this hallowed altar.

A splinter of fear embeds itself inside me. I cannot leave this world now, not like this, with the godly part of me smothered. I watch the mural of Anu and Ki, brightened by Ashwin’s faraway light, and wait for the gods to intervene.

Something else comes.

Tarek’s smoky figure separates from the gloom that grips me. “Hello, love. I’ve always wished to have you laid before me on an altar.”

I pry apart my chapped lips, my whisper tattered. “How did you find me?”

“I traveled the roadways of shadows. They led to every cover of darkness in the mortal realm.” He sits beside me on the altar and fiddles with my wet hair. “I’ve come to be with you while you pass on from this life.”

“Why?”

“You know why. You must believe me when I say I love you. I had high regard for my other wives. Even your mother, Yasmin. How I worshiped her. But you challenged me in a way no other woman did.” He leans his mouth over my ear. “Do you know what will happen when the cold-fire inside you takes over? Your soul-fire will go out, and you will consist solely of the dark lineage within you. You will no longer belong to this world. You will belong in the Void with me.”

My tears freeze to icy drops. I have made poor choices and done wrong, but I cannot bear an eternity in the dark with Tarek. That is my worst fate imaginable. “Please don’t let that happen. Please help me.”

He shifts his lips to my forehead. “Shh, love. Give in to the evernight, and you will be free from sorrow and strife.”

Ashwin’s lamp bobs, still across the chapel.

“Ashwin,” I rasp.

Tarek strokes my chin. I manage to flinch, but his demanding touch pursues me, relentlessly taking, taking, taking. “He cannot see me. Only you. Our love binds us, Kalinda.”

He traces my lips and caresses my hair. I try to scream or sob, but the numbness grips me. The cold is winning. He is winning.