29
KALINDA
A cool, soothing sensation wakes me. Ashwin hovers near my bedside and dabs my face with a damp washcloth. Indah stands on my other side and heals my khanda wound with expert concentration. Pons assists her, holding a jug of healing waters. Ashwin slides his hand into mine. Dried blood and dirt stain his jacket.
“Where am I?” I rasp.
“We brought you to my chamber,” he says. “I suggested we go straight to Indah’s boat, but we wouldn’t have made it through the city. Indah insisted we return here so she could start healing you immediately.”
“Kalinda wouldn’t have made it any farther with her bleeding,” Indah replies. “She’s fortunate she’s awake.”
I turn my head and see Opal in a chair, washing her scraped knees. Rohan stands guard out on the balcony. His cheek and chin are bruised. “What happened?” I ask.
“We had trouble getting you out of the arena,” Ashwin replies. “The spectators rioted. Opal and Rohan reached you first and shielded you from the mob. I carried you out, and they cleared our path back here.”
“Thank you,” I say, aware that gratitude cannot fully repay them.
“Rohan thought it was exciting,” Opal says, shrugging. “We don’t usually get to knock people over with our powers.”
Rohan grins. “Our winds flattened the mob like chaffs of wheat.”
“Thank you,” I repeat, extending my appreciation to include Indah, Pons, and Ashwin.
Ashwin lifts my hand to his warm chin. “You scared me into my next life. When I reached you in the arena, you were ice cold.”
“Is Citra . . . ?” I start.
“Gone. We’re no longer welcome in Iresh. As soon as you can travel, we’ll leave for Lestari with Indah and her party.”
“And our people?”
“I have a boat on standby for us,” Indah says. “More are coming for your people. They’ll arrive the day after tomorrow and begin the evacuation.”
“We might have to leave before then,” Rohan says, striding in from the balcony. “Vizier Gyan is coming, and he’s bringing guards.”
I try to sit up, but Indah forces me back down. “Don’t,” she says gently. “You broke your leg, and your side wound is severe.”
“Indah,” Ashwin says, “pack your things and ready your boat. I don’t know what the vizier wants, but after the riot, we must be prepared for anything. Opal and Rohan, find Brother Shaan at the civilian encampment and then help Indah prepare to leave.”
Vizier Gyan’s bhuta guards throw open the door and march inside. The vizier surveys my protectors and barks, “All of you, leave us.”
Indah, Pons, and our guards go, filing past Vizier Gyan stationed at the door. His nose and eyes are red from crying.
“My niece is dead,” he states with bitterness.
“The trial-tournament proceedings are over,” Ashwin replies evenly. “I understand the sultan is no longer willing to offer us aid, so I’ll take my people and go.”
“You’ll go nowhere,” counters the vizier. A guard drags Natesa through the open door and shoves her to her knees.
“I’m sorry,” she weeps, begging my forgiveness. “He threatened to kill Yatin. Don’t give him what he wants, he—” Vizier Gyan hits Natesa square in the face, and she crumples to the floor.
“Leave her alone,” I exclaim. “She’s a servant, nothing more.”
“She proved valuable to me.” Vizier Gyan holds up a book, and my heart retracts in on itself.
The Zhaleh.
“Your servant insisted she doesn’t know where the vessel is hidden.” Vizier Gyan crosses to my bed, the Zhaleh firm in his grasp. Ashwin tries to block him, but the vizier shoves him out of the way and bends over me, his glare frightening. “Where is the vessel?”
“I don’t have it.”
He raises his fist to strike me, and Ashwin calls out.
“Here.” He lifts the necklace from under his shirt, the vessel dangling. “Let us go, and I’ll give it to you.”
“You’re in no position to bargain, boy,” the vizier sneers. “We have your people, your army, and, soon, your palace.” Ashwin balks. Ridicule fills the vizier’s long, cruel face. “Our troops are nearly to Vanhi. I’ll soon join them to deliver the vessel and the Zhaleh to Hastin. Now hand it to me.”
Ashwin rips the chain free from his neck and holds it out beside him. “Come any closer and I’ll crush it.”
Vizier Gyan signals to his soldiers. They manhandle the vessel from Ashwin and pass it to the vizier.
No, no, no.
The vizier gazes at both powers in his hands. I fear he will take them and go, but he hesitates. Can he hear the call of the Voider? He opens the Zhaleh and flips to the incantation. He runs his fingers over the page, enthralled. Desire builds in his greedy gaze. He desires the power of the Voider. He seeks the promised favor for himself.
But the incantation is written in ancient runes. His lips start to move, and a warning blares inside me. “You can read runes?” I ask.
He smirks, an arrogant twist of his lips. “I’ve studied the language of the gods. Haven’t you?”
Ashwin yanks himself from the guards’ grasp, his expression distraught.
Vizier Gyan lifts his palm from the book, his stare firm with resolve. “I don’t think I will pass this on to Hastin after all.”
He has succumbed to the call of the Voider.
I tense to attack, but I have no powers to stop him. My abilities were expended in the arena, and my sheathed daggers are hanging off my bedpost. I can almost reach them with the foot of my leg that is not broken, but I cannot sit up to grab them.
Vizier Gyan lays the book at the end of the bed and flips open the vial. Ashwin springs at him, but the guards drag him back. The vizier drinks the blood, and then, with his lips stained crimson, he reads the incantation. “Fire to smoke and smoke to—”
“One scream and the palace guards will be here,” I cry, drowning out his voice. He pauses, but darkness flows out of the open book like black fog. “What will Sultan Kuval say when he finds out you’re betraying him?”
Vizier Gyan sets the vial beside the book and grabs my throat. “Don’t be noble, Burner. I have drunk the blood and spoken the first words of the incantation. I cannot be stopped.”
Choking for breath, I kick the bedpost with my good leg and foot. My toes knock down my daggers, drawing the attention of the guards. Ashwin rounds on the nearest one, slamming him in the chest with his shoulder and seizing the sword. Lifting the blade against the second soldier, Ashwin backs up against the bed. His free hand darts out and rips the page with the incantation on it from the Zhaleh, and then, with the same hand, he fists the discarded vial.
Vizier Gyan lets up on his grip slightly. I gasp, gulping in air, and his crazed gaze snaps to Ashwin. “You waste your strength, boy.”
Ashwin tosses the khanda on the floor. Thunderstruck, I watch him take the incantation in both hands to rip the parchment in half.
The guards move to charge the unarmed prince, but Vizier Gyan waves them off. “Give it to me or your kindred will die.”
Ashwin scans the loose parchment. It smokes, though I see no flames. “I want justice for bhutas too,” he says. “But this is not the way.”
“Where was justice when Tarek was slaughtering my people?” the vizier yells, his bloodshot eyes frenzied. “Where was mercy when my sister was killed? My legacy is of the gods. Your legacy is of treachery and butchery.”
“I love my empire,” Ashwin proclaims.
“Your empire has fallen.” The vizier’s grasp remains on my gullet. I dare not move to oppose him. He is overcome with the call of the Voider, desperate to finish the incantation. Leaving it unfinished will drive him mad. He growls, “Give me back what belongs to my people, or I will grind the kindred’s bones to powder.”
He means his threat, and Ashwin cannot stop him. Ruining the incantation is a temporary diversion. The darkness is coming; the fog rolling off the parchment is inescapable. Vizier Gyan will unleash the Voider, and we will lose more than the empire—we will lose the world.
Ashwin’s face falls. He has foreseen the same devastating future.
“Gods, forgive me.” He tears the incantation in two and drops the pieces.
Vizier Gyan lunges for the fluttering sections. While he is down, Ashwin licks the bloody rim of the vessel and says, “Fire to smoke, and smoke to dark. Let the light fall and the night rise. Shadows be one. Darkness open the Void and awaken the evernight.”
Coils of shadow shoot out from the torn incantation in the vizier’s hands and splay across the chamber like crooked, grasping fingers.
I gawk at Ashwin. He finished the incantation. He must have memorized it.
A malevolent chuckle echoes around us, and more darkness slinks in from the fringes of the chamber. Ashwin steps over to me, paling with fright. Vizier Gyan’s guards try to flee, but they are lost in the voracious shadows. They scream as spiny threads of the dark whip out, strangling their cries to helpless gurgles.
Vizier Gyan scrambles back to the door, but the shadows seize him with grasping claws. The ground trembles, and cracks snake up the wall from his feeble attempts to retaliate. I lose sight of the vizier and his dying soldiers in the blinding dimness, and then the trembling stops.
Shadows eclipse the light, smothering my senses in bone-chilling obscurity. Despair crawls far inside me and expands into my bones. We are lost to the evernight.
I exhale a startled breath at the sudden night, and the darkness stirs. Something shifts nearby. A hand grasps mine, and a shaky voice speaks my name. Ashwin. I clamp down on his fingers, struggling to sit up.
The balcony door flies open, ushering in harsh daylight. I squint and see the figure of a finely dressed man standing in the doorway. Sunlight falls over one half of his familiar face.
“Father,” Ashwin gasps.
“My son.”
My veins run to ice. It’s him. It’s his voice.
Ashwin drifts to Tarek in a daze, meeting him at the end of the bed. Their resemblance is astounding, but no more will I mistake Ashwin for his father. His younger face lacks malice, whereas Tarek’s is cold and unfeeling. Even with those dissimilarities, Tarek is not as I recall. He has a different air about him that pulls my hairs on end.
Tarek embraces Ashwin, clutching him by the shoulders.
“How . . . how have you returned, Father?”
“You asked the gods to defeat your enemies and reclaim our empire.” Tarek opens his arms wide, indicating the fallen soldiers and vizier. “The gods heard your prayer.”
My sense of wrongness festers. The gods would not send someone deceased back into their prior mortal state. The spirit would return to a new form, not the same. This isn’t Tarek, my instincts scream.
The door flings open.
“What’s happening in my palace?” Sultan Kuval bellows. He scans the dead soldiers, his departed brother-in-law, and, finally, he spots Tarek. “It . . . It cannot be.”
Tarek—or whatever it is—stalks over to him. “You’ve betrayed us, dear Sultan, and schemed to take our land. The gods revealed all while I was in the Beyond.”
Sultan Kuval recovers from his shock enough for him to shout, “Guards!”
Palace guards charge in armed with machetes. Tarek throws out a hand, and blue fire explodes from his fingers, slamming the soldiers into the wall and knocking them out. A second onrush of guards enters. Tarek tosses them aside with another blast of the same blue flames.
His ruthless display of power and his otherworldly azure fire startles the sultan. He freezes alone inside the threshold. Tarek closes in on him with slow, purposeful steps.
“I helped your son,” says Kuval. “I gave your people refuge. I—”
Tarek’s hand darts out like a snake’s tongue, grabbing the sultan’s thick chin. Sultan Kuval shrinks away from him. “Look at me when you lie,” Tarek says, dead calm.
Sultan Kuval lifts his gaze and pales. “No, please. No!”
Tarek pushes his powers into him. Cold flames dry away Kuval’s skin, and he crumples to the floor in a heap. The air scents of freeze-burned flesh. Tarek faces his son. “Spread the word that the sultan is dead.”
My gaze pleads with Ashwin. Don’t leave me.
He casts a worried glance my way. “Perhaps Kalinda—”
“My kindred stays.” Tarek’s order is definitive. Gooseflesh prickles up my arms. He has not looked at me once, but he is aware that I am here. “Did you forget my command, son?”
“No, Father.” Ashwin bows and hurries out.
I am alone with Tarek, and as in my nightmares, I am powerless.
Tarek’s unfeeling gaze meets mine. As he strolls to me, I compare my memory of him to this man. He is an impeccable replica, uncanny in his rare beauty, a compromise of masculinity and pampered imperious deportment. Except for his eyes. His irises blaze blue with an inner fire that dries out my mouth. He sits next to me on the mattress and twirls a strand of my hair around his fingertip. Even his hands are as I remember, always touching and taking.
“Did you miss me, love?” His voice is a dangerous purr.
“You aren’t Tarek.”
A smirk reveals his amusement. “I am a stronger, purer form of you, dear Kalinda. By now, you must have heard the tale of Ki and her lover, the demon Kur.”
“That’s a myth.”
“All myths are grounded in truth.” He winds my hair even more, tugging sharply at my scalp. “Ki and Kur were lovers, and together they fathered a child. Their son inherited his father’s powers. The same venom burned in his blood as did Kur’s. They named him Enlil. Ki pretended Enlil was Anu’s son so the sky-god would not smite down the infant. Anu took the child in and raised him, not knowing his son, the fire-god, was the offspring of a demon.”
“That isn’t true,” I say, harnessing boldness in my faith. “Anu bestowed man with fire powers in honor of Enlil, not Kur.”
“The other bhutas are descendants of the wretched sky-god. But you . . .” Tarek hisses near my ear. “You and I share the same venomous demon blood.”
I shake my head, rustling the pillow. My powers are god-given. Brac would have told me if Burners were descendants of Kur, or does he know? This is a Janardanian myth. Perhaps Brac has not heard of this, or, like me, he scoffed at it.
“It isn’t true,” I repeat.
“You know it is. You saw your soul’s reflection in the flame. Fire shows you dragons, serpents of the dark.”
My soul’s reflection in fire is a dragon, but that is not me. Despite all my wrongdoings, I was born a bhuta. I am good. This man is inherently evil.
“You’re the Voider,” I say. He smiles with Tarek’s lips, but he is not Tarek. This is not the man who claimed me from the temple, not the man who brought life to Ashwin. He is not a man at all. “How do you know me?”
“Tarek was sent to the Void after his death. We became well acquainted.”
Souls that abide by the five godly virtues go to the Beyond, where they await judgment and are rebirthed into their next mortal state. Disobedient souls are sent to the Void. I should have supposed Tarek’s tyranny would not qualify him for rebirth.
“But why did you return as Tarek?”
“I must repay my debt to Prince Ashwin for releasing me. His heart’s wish is to regain his palace. Thus I assumed the form of the person who could aid in fulfilling my favor to him.”
He strokes my cheek and moves in to kiss my neck. I recoil, my hand glowing threateningly.
The demon rajah picks up the Zhaleh from the end of the bed and offers it to my glowing hand. “If you want to burn something, burn this.” I do not take it, so the Voider lights his fingers and holds the book over the blue flames. I watch as the Zhaleh, my only means of returning the Voider to darkness, burns.
Panic kicks deep in my chest. I cannot let this demon stay in our world. After he fulfills Ashwin’s heart’s wish, he will destroy everything. I grab his forearm and feel inside him for his soul-fire. His skin is cool, and within I sense a feral, destructive heat.
“I would not do that,” he singsongs.
I use my powers to scorch the demon rajah, but instead, his cold-hot powers rush into my veins. I cry out and yank free. Tears of agony fill me.
He smirks. “I warned you.”
“I’ll tell everyone what you are,” I say, panting through the pain.
“No one will believe you. Even my own son thinks I am the rajah . . . and you are my kindred.” The demon rajah bends down, his lips above mine. His musty breath sours my stomach. “It’s been a long time since I’ve had a body to touch and feel with. Bhutas revolt me with their godliness and divine light. But you and I are kin.”
“We are not,” I croak.
“You killed your husband and aided in the fall of Vanhi, the very act Prince Ashwin employed me to reverse.” The demon rajah rubs his thumb over my bottom lip. “You know I speak the truth. You belong with me in the dark.”
“Father,” Ashwin says, returning. He sees Tarek close to me, and his expression goes flat. “The guards want proof of the sultan’s death.”
The demon rajah aims a prolonged stare at Ashwin. Please let Ashwin be stalling. Please let him realize this man is not his sire. Please let him discern that this replica of Tarek has no humanity whatsoever.
“We will give them proof.” The demon rajah waves at a dead guard’s sword. “Hand me that khanda. We’ll show these people what happens to traitors.”
Ashwin does not move. “I won’t rule with fear.”
The demon rajah rises with deliberate calm, dispassionate as he picks up the khanda. “Fear is the only way.” Clenching the sword with both hands, he arcs down the blade. I grimace at the sultan’s severed head. Natesa still lies motionless on the floor, unconscious.
The demon rajah straps on the sword and returns to my side. “Wait here, love. Soon we will march on Vanhi, and I will return us to our rightful thrones.”
He presses dry lips to my cheek, lingering as Tarek once did. While the demon rajah faces me, Ashwin reaches for one of my daggers. Gods’ mercy. He does realize his father is an imposter. I curtail my revulsion and withstand the demon’s chilling touch long enough for Ashwin to pocket a blade. Then I jerk away.
The Voider picks up the sultan’s decapitated head. “We will go down to the prison camps and show our people their rajah has returned.”
Cooperating with the demon will put Ashwin in danger, but he understands the ramifications of his heart’s wish more than I do. He does not spare me a glance as they walk out.
Alone in my chamber, I lie on my back and stare up at the ceiling in frustration. I must get up. I have to wake Natesa and warn our people, warn Deven. My broken leg is bandaged, and my side still weeps blood. Ignoring the pain, I scoot to the side of the bed and try to stand. My injured leg gives out, and I wind up on my back again.
Footsteps echo closer. I brace, anticipating palace guards or perhaps the demon rajah’s return, but Brother Shaan rushes in with Pons and a limping Indah. They falter to a stop and scan the bodies.
“Kalinda,” Brother Shaan stammers. “I saw . . .”
“The Voider.”
Brother Shaan lifts his chin, praying skyward. “Gods protect us.”
Natesa groans and sits up, holding the side of her head. “What’s going on?”
Pons kneels down to help her, and I explain what they missed. “Ashwin released the Voider to stop Vizier Gyan from doing the same. The Voider came disguised as Tarek to help fulfill Ashwin’s wish to take back the empire. I tried to stop the demon rajah, but he is immune to my powers.” Brother Shaan prays more fervently. “Ashwin and the demon rajah are headed to the camps. We have to warn Deven.” I try to sit up again, but a sharp pain pushes into my side, and I double over. Beads of sweat from the exertion of trying to stand wet my forehead.
Indah helps me lie back. “You’re bleeding through your bandages, and you shouldn’t stand on your leg. Pons will carry you to the boat.”
“Where are Opal and Rohan?” If I cannot go to Deven, I can send someone else.
“They brought Brother Shaan here and then went to the boat,” replies Indah. “We have no time to go to the camps. Iresh will fall into disarray without the sultan ruling or the vizier leading their army. The city is beyond saving.”
“He has Ashwin,” I protest. The Voider recognized Ashwin, Sultan Kuval, and me. Will the demon remember Deven betrayed Rajah Tarek?
“Kalinda, we cannot stop the Voider,” says Brother Shaan. “He does not need to refuel his powers and rest like bhutas. Demons are immortal, like the gods. We must run while we can.”
“But our people—”
“Will follow their rajah,” he finishes. “Even with your tournament win, the people will not stand with you, a bhuta, against their ruler. The Voider is a master deceiver. Our people will believe the demon rajah is Tarek.”
Shrill screams of panic and terrified shouts spill in from the garden. The Voider comes into sight out the open balcony door. He has set the sultan’s head on a pike and lifts it for all to see.
“This is what the gods think of traitors,” the demon rajah proclaims. “Anu raised me from the dead to punish my enemies. First Vizier Gyan and Sultan Kuval. Next the warlord Hastin!”
Janardanian bhuta guards rush at the Voider. He throws blue fire, and the guards are blasted backward in a radiant explosion. Those overtaken by the blue fire melt away. I gawk in amazement as the Voider cuts them all down. His blue fire eats through bhuta winds and rocks, banishing all hope of reprisals.
The demon rajah continues across the courtyard. At the cliff, he stakes the pike in the ground so the people of Iresh can see what is left of their ruler. Then Tarek and Ashwin disappear over the cliff’s edge, traveling the stairs down to the city.
“We have to go now,” Indah says, trying to help me to my feet.
Hot tears flood my eyes. “I cannot go like this.”
Indah sweeps my hair from my clammy face. “I can take away your pain for a time by tricking your body into thinking you’re better.”
“You can do that?” Natesa asks.
“The pain blocker is temporary,” answers Indah. “Kalinda will be pain-free for about half an hour.”
Explosions crash nearby, and blue flames lick the sky as the demon rajah carries on his way to the encampments.
“That’s all I need,” I say.
Indah runs her hands up my leg and over my abdomen. She chants under her breath, and the pain falls off of me like a leaden weight, lightening my whole body. Adrenaline pulses through my limbs. I stand on my broken leg, my stance offset and my balance not quite right. My body will punish me later, but for now, I can walk.
Indah hoists her trident, and Pons fills his blowgun with darts.
Natesa borrows a khanda from a fallen guard. A bruise darkens her cheekbone where Vizier Gyan struck her. “I’m going to find Yatin.”
“My healer is still in camp,” Indah says. “He’ll help you bring Yatin to the boat.”
“Bring him and Deven back,” I add, trusting Natesa to find them both. “We’ll send Opal and Rohan to help you if there’s time.”
Natesa hugs me, a quick embrace. “Send them no matter what,” she says and then darts off.
I sheath my one dagger. Indah’s pain blocker is holding, but this invincibility will not last. I need to make the most of it. “Let’s get to the river.”