Less than fifty strides, and Udug will be inside the palace.

I dash into his path, blocking the entry. My knees lock as I raise my khanda. I should run, hide, cower. I should apologize for my foolishness and beg for all our lives. But I have never been more certain that this is my path.

Udug strides up to me, hands blazing. “You’re no champion, General. You’re forgettable. A side dish. An afterthought.” Blue flames flicker in his pupils. “You’re ash in the wind.”

His fire wallops me. I fly back into the palace, slide across the marble floor, and thump into the bottom step of the staircase. Pain slices across my skin and burns through my veins.

Prince Ashwin kneels at my side. Behind him, radiating astral light, Kali enters the main hall. And then everything shutters to black.

29

KALINDA

Deven’s head slumps to the side. Smoke rises off his chest, the foul scent of scorched flesh stomach curdling. Udug’s fire burned through his tunic, down to his skin. His flesh is charred and seared. The need to go to him claws at me, but Udug nears the threshold. Anu, don’t let Deven die, I pray and cross to the palace door, leaving Ashwin to care for Deven.

“Don’t come any farther,” I shout to Udug.

“Dearest Kalinda,” he purrs, “how are you enjoying the cold-fire I gifted you?”

“I don’t care for your poison. Take it back.”

His taunting laugh knocks against my tender spots. “I heard about the Samiya temple. I admire your nerve. Few mortals would dare burn down one of the gods’ sanctuaries. You must admit now that you belong to the dark.”

“No, Udug. I belong right here.”

Behind him, across a gulley in the palace grounds, Yatin clobbers a soldier. Sister warriors combat more imperial troops, the onslaught contained on the far side of the ravine. Our side is strewn with the dead.

Udug paces sideways, his arrogant smile needling into my skin. He means to unnerve me with his resemblance to Tarek, but my heart is free. “You could have only survived this long by feasting upon another’s soul-fire,” he says. “Was it delicious? Did you savor their warmth?”

“I’m not like you.” I ready my powers, my hands glowing greener by the second.

He glares at the blood dripping from my wrists. “You cannot carve out your true self. The demon part of you is too strong.”

Udug strikes me with a torrent of cold-fire. I defend myself with my blue burning hands. His powers propel me back, my feet skidding across the ground. The flames disperse, and I stop. Udug is directly before me. He grabs my chin, fingers biting like icicles, and breathes his powers into my mouth and nose. The freezing poison slithers inside me, reawakening the toxins my bloodletting banked.

“Nothing strengthens a demon more than bhuta soul-fire,” Udug croons. “Stepping into the palace is merely a formality. I have stored up enough powers to outlast every army in the world. Nothing in your realm can hurt me. The evernight is coming, Kalinda. You cannot stop us, but you can join us.”

Udug lets go. I land sprawled at his feet. His powers return twofold, insatiable in their greed. The flames frost my heart, digging icy shards into my muscles and weakening my bones to brittle. I spasm and writhe, bathing in a bitter sea.

He steps over me. Once he enters the palace, the heart’s wish of the prince will be satisfied, and the blue flames inside me will prevail. My soul-fire will collapse, a broken star, and wherever Udug goes, I will go with him.

Perhaps I belong with him. His poison could not survive in me were I not part monster. Perhaps I should let him have me so he will leave this place.

I grip my teeth against the agony. “Bring me with you. Just stop the pain.”

Udug watches me thrash around. “You wish to serve the God of the Evernight?”

“Yes,” I pant. “Please, take your powers from me and I’ll go with you.”

He strides back slowly, prolonging my suffering, and bends over me. “I will collect my powers from you, but first you must swear fealty to the evernight. Do you vow to obey Kur in all things?”

I gaze across the room at Deven. Going with Udug would mean never seeing him again. Deven is too good for the Void. After this life, Anu will send him to the Beyond. I understand why we call it that now. The Beyond is outside mankind’s reach—and beyond the reach of the Void. Darkness cannot dwell in the light. I can ultimately only belong to one or the other. And I know which god I serve.

“No.” I reach for the vile cold-fire inside me, push it into my hands—and shoot it at him. My sapphire flames strike Udug’s upper torso. He stumbles back, his shoulder scorched.

Nothing in our realm can hurt him.

I hurl more sapphire fire at him. He slings his own at me, but I roll out of its path. Mine slams him squarely in the middle. He flies backward through the palace door and lands in the entry, grasping at his charred chest.

The blue light in his hands dims. I stand over him, my fingers glowing sapphire.

“Darkness, return to me,” he commands.

His powers within me abruptly still and disintegrate, as though dismantling my skeleton bone by bone. I stagger to my knees, my head washed with dizziness. Udug’s cold poison pours out my nose and mouth and evaporates like fog. The plumes retreat until every last cold flame has left me.

I hunch over, trembling and faint, as though I have fallen from the sky. Udug lifts his hand to blast his muted powers at me, but he waivers and slackens. Tarek’s empty gaze stares into nothing. Sulfur-scented smoke curls from his parted lips.

Udug recalled his powers from me to save himself, but he was already too injured to survive.

Warmth floods me, relighting my soul-fire and restocking my bhuta powers. I need not close my eyes and search for my inner star. I have lived so long in the dark, I recognize the light.

Across the entry, Ashwin kneels beside Deven. I start to drag myself over to them, but halfway there, Ashwin points behind me and whispers my name.

Blue light emanates from Tarek’s corpse. The saturation of the azure brightness increases until it stings my eyes. I shield my sight, and when I look again, Tarek’s body crumbles apart.

A scabby, pale demon with grotesque veins, bat-like fangs, and buggy eyes wriggles out of the carcass. The demon’s skin is so translucent I can see its thumping heart. Its spiny, transparent wings unfurl, slimy with mucus and riddled with veins of tar.

Udug’s true form grows larger until he stands taller than any man I know. Burns from our battle damaged one of his wings.

He arches his head and discharges a high-pitched screech. A chill breaks out over me. His otherworldly cry reaches the battlefield, and both sides pause. Udug bares his yellow-stained fangs and flaps his spiky wings. He rises in the rotunda, his wounded wing causing him to fly off-kilter. Finally, he swoops down and shoots out the door. The soldiers and sister warriors scream and dive from his path. The demon flies higher, soaring over the wall and city.

Gemi comes in from the corridor. Ashwin convinced her to take shelter after we arrived. “The demon can fly?” she says.

Deven groans. “Kali?”

I crawl to him and touch his chest. His burns have healed. His clothes are scorched, yet his skin is smooth and unblemished. “How?” I breathe.

“I don’t know.” Deven opens an arm to me. I lie down beside him and stroke his bearded chin.

Ashwin looks away from us. “Don’t question a mercy from the gods.”

Brac strides in, burn patches covering his trousers. “I lost sight of Udug over the desert.”

“I thought he was dead,” Gemi says.

“He cannot be killed,” Ashwin replies bleakly, “only vanquished.”

Out the open entryway, the bloodshed has ceased. When Udug flew away, the false rajah was unmasked. I hear Natesa calling for the imperial army to lay down their weapons and the rebels to rein in their powers. But peace arrives too late. Bodies litter the courtyard. Losses were sustained only on our side. Mankind’s.

“What now?” I ask, laying my cheek against Deven’s shoulder.

“Udug is injured. You saw him. He could barely fly out of here. Tomorrow, we’ll figure out how best to pursue him. For right now, we get off this hard floor.”

“In a minute.” I nuzzle into the crook of his neck, and for the first time in a long while, I am warm.

My open balcony door teems with morning light. I stretch my toes to the end of my canopy bed, reaching for sunshine. Noises of working men rise from the garden. Last night, Gemi closed the gulch in the palace grounds, and Brac led the surrendered rebels to the dungeons. Most had exhausted their powers during battle, preventing them from fighting or fleeing. Including Anjali, just over half survived.

Ashwin sent Deven and me to rest and then took charge, sorting through the dead and overseeing aid for the wounded. Though I wanted to visit with the ranis and courtesans, I was glad to leave the battle site. Until yesterday, none of my palace friends were aware that I am a Burner. We have much work to do to reeducate our people about bhutas.

Deven rubs his foot up my insole, tickling me. I prod him with my toe to stop.

“We should get up,” I say, a suggestion born of guilt more than desire.

Deven hooks me with his arm and drags me against him. “Not yet,” he mutters sleepily.

After peeling ourselves off the marble floor, we stumbled to my old bedchamber and passed out from exhaustion. I hardly remember pushing the ridiculously huge pile of satin pillows from the bed and falling asleep beside Deven.

In thinking over last night, I remember the initial death toll—twenty-one ranis and forty-nine courtesans. We have yet to tally the soldiers, though the total missing and deceased is anticipated to be in the thousands. Deven also informed me of Rohan’s demise. In turn, I told him of the destruction of the Samiya temple. My sorrow returns for all those who gave their lives, but some aspects of yesterday remain murky.

“How did you convince Hastin to unite with the sister warriors?”

Deven traces swirls across my arm. “I realized you were right and told him we needed to work together. I even gave a speech to the ranis and courtesans about your devotion to them.”