Tarek pushes off me and sits at the edge of the bed, holding his head in his hands.
“You’re like her in every way. Cunning. Beautiful. Treacherous. Unfaithful.”
I kneel behind him and flatten my front to his bare back, sealing what is left of the poison onto him. “I have done nothing Yasmin would not do.”
He flings me off with his failing strength. The mattress cushions my fall, but the drop leaves me dizzy.
He stands and staggers for the Zhaleh. I order my weakening limbs to follow and trip forward into him. We stumble together against the wall.
Tarek holds me loosely, petting my cheek. “I waited so long for you. So very long.”
My sight hazes to streaming colors. I prop against him for support, but he cannot handle my weight. We crash to the floor, tipping over the serving table. The Zhaleh and the oil vessel fall with us, knocked out of reach.
“You were suffocating me. You suffocated her.” I tug at my cramping throat. Every breath thrashes across my ribs.
His chest heaves for a saving breath. “I would have loved you too.”
“Your love is toxic. You hurt everyone you care for.” My arms can bear my weight no more. I slump beside him. The walls and ceiling spin relentlessly. Heaviness rams me down, down, down into the floor.
“Yasmin.” Tears trickle from his eyes, trained on my face. “I never stopped loving you, Yasmin. I only ever . . . ever wanted you to return my love.” His whispered regret saps the last drop of his strength, and his eyes wash of life.
My heart races too fast to catch. Half breaths struggle to live inside me. I start to blink, and my eyelids remain closed.
Jaya . . . Deven . . . come for me.
An errant wind howls in from the balcony, tugging at my hair and cooling my flushed skin. I crack open an eyelid. Flashes of lightning emblaze the storm-strewn sky. A growl rises up from the land, rocking the ground beneath me. Rain begins to pour with abandon. Stray droplets patter into the chamber, promising relief.
Hauling myself to my elbows, I crawl toward the balcony. If I can reach the rain, the water will wash me clean. Go. Don’t stop. Go. Don’t—
My endurance gives way just inside the door. Fuzziness fogs my sight. I gasp, my throat grasping for nothing. There is no air. Rolling onto my back, I feel numbness creeping into my bones, filling them with emptiness.
Vibrations rise up through the floor. Ricocheting raindrops ping my face, begging me to try one last time.
On a groundswell of determination, I drag myself through the doorway and collapse in the purity of a new desert rain. Hail and wind lash down, drenching my hair and gathering like dew on my cheeks. I lure in a precious breath. Then another. Shutting my eyes, I watch as the banked embers of my ever-blazing soul awaken to a single perfect light. I latch on to that inner star with the entirety of my being—and I burn.
35
“Kali, can you hear me?” The darkness speaks with a voice that sounds like Deven’s. “What’s wrong with her?”
“She’s been poisoned.”
Brac?
“I must burn the toxins out of her, or she will die,” the second voice says.” Hands are placed against my stomach. “Kali, this may hurt.”
The voice drifts away, and I am engulfed in the infernos of everlasting destruction. I gasp and writhe against the pain, willing the agonizing heat to quell to a sweet buzz. Soon, but not soon enough, the purifying powers of fire will scrub me clean from the inside out and expel the barbs of Jaya’s poison from my body. But right now my inner light blazes high, raging with the ferocity of a wildfire. The fire is too hot, too close. I cannot escape.
Just as I am convinced that I will be consumed by the flames, those same cleansing hands reach into me and draw out the excess heat, dimming my soul-fire to an ideal smolder.
I open my eyes to lightning crackling overhead, fire bolts chased by roaring thunder that rattles my teeth. My vision clears, and I see Deven leaning over Brac. Both are kneeling in the rain.
“Are you all right?” Deven asks his brother.
Brac’s face is flushed. He drops his head in his hands. “I will be. Take care of her.”
Deven drapes a robe over me and crouches down. Rain is streaming off his nose. His face is bruised and swollen in spots, but no longer bloody. “You gave me a scare,” he says to me.
I clutch his arm and sense the warmth of his flesh, and then I probe deeper, to the flicker of his soul-fire. He is real.
I throw my arms around him. “They told me you were dead.”
“I thought you were dead too.” Deven gathers me close. I inhale his familiar sandalwood scent. “Brac dragged me out of the river and took me to Hastin. The Aquifier healed me, but then they locked us in the temple cellar. Brother Shaan freed us.”
“But Tarek said they found your body.”
“Hastin feigned my death. He thought you would be more motivated to win the tournament if I was gone.”
“That liar.” I was motivated to win the tournament after losing Deven and Jaya, but that does not justify Hastin’s manipulation or scheming.
Deven helps me inside. The rajah’s bed has been pushed away from the wall. Sitting at the end of the mattress, I shove my arms through the robe and tie it around my waist. Tarek is splayed on the floor. I expected to hate him even in death, but I feel only emptiness.
Deven strokes my back. “Brother Shaan told us about what you did in the arena. I wish I had been there to see you win.”
“It’s over.” I rest against him, still unable to believe that he is here. “I will never set foot in an arena again.”
Brac rises on the balcony with painstaking care and walks inside. Deven helps him sit beside me. I was delirious from the toxins, but I remember what he did.
“How did you know I had been poisoned?”
“I could feel the toxins smothering your inner fire. Fortunately, my powers were able to purify you, or that amount of poison would have done you in. Unfortunately, now I’m feeling the toxin’s effects.”
“Thank you.” I hug Brac and see a book near his feet. “The Zhaleh,” I say.
Brac bends over the book. “Looks like a regular text,” he says, but he does not pick it up.
A rumble shudders the walls, surging up from the floor. I stare out past the balcony at the wide-open palace gates.
“The rebels are inside the palace.” Deven takes my hand. “Leave the book, and let’s go.”
“No,” I say, pulling away from him. “Hastin has lied to us at every turn. He faked your death and defied my order to not attack until after I lit the torches on the front gate. Until Tarek’s heir is instated, Hastin will have complete command. If we give him the book, we give him the empire.”
“If we take the book, he will hunt us.”
Deven’s quiet warning holds a question: Do I want to provoke the bhuta warlord? I could wipe my hands of the war and what becomes of the empire. I have done what the gods asked of me. Tarek is dead, and I have bought my freedom. But what is freedom without peace of mind? I cannot leave the fate of the empire in the hands of the warlord.
“We take the Zhaleh,” I say. “I won’t exchange the reign of one monster for another.”
Brac looks to Deven for advice about what to do. What I ask of them is no mere task. None of us will have any rest until we locate Prince Ashwin and see that he and Hastin negotiate a conclusion to this war.
Deven places a supportive hand on the small of my back. “We follow the rani.” His words soak deep within me and fill me with appreciation. I trail a careful finger across his bearded jaw. He kisses my lips and whispers, “My happiness is with you.”
“Can you two save that for later?” Brac says. He shoves the Zhaleh and the oil vessel into his satchel, wincing at the vial of blood.
Deven leads me behind the bed, which has been pulled away from the wall. The rumbling grows closer, slapping over wine bottles and driving fractures into the ceiling.
Brac hurries over. “That’s our signal to run like the demon Kur is after us.”
Deven lifts the tapestry of Anu. A lit torch waits in the passageway. Brac plucks the torch from the wall, and Deven takes my hand. We chase after Brac, staying in the surrounding puddle of torchlight. The tunnel quivers. Chunks of dirt fall from the ceiling and the walls.
Deven drops my hand. “Run!”
I sprint after him. Clods of dirt plunge down around us, and swirling dust obscures the grayish tunnel opening. As Brac hurtles through a curtain of raining rocks, the torch is smacked from his hand. The tunnel seals closed behind us, crushed under the weight of fallen land. We roll downhill, away from the spray of soil, coming to a stop near the riverbank.
Before I can rise, a quake carries up from the ground. I look up and see Hastin reopening the blocked tunnel with an explosive rumble. Three figures step out from the dissipating dirt cloud.
“Go!” I shout at Brac.
He runs into the river with his satchel held above his head, out of the water. Deven and I scramble after him, but a powerful gust of wind blasts us back. We land hard, my broken ribs feeling most of the crash. I shield my eyes from the contrived wind and peer up at Hastin. Anjali and Indira stand behind him.
Anjali lets up on her punishing air draft. She walks without a limp; Indira must have healed her injured leg. I stand, holding my aching side. Deven grips the hilt of his sword. Brac is out of sight, downriver, away and safe with the Zhaleh.
“Disarm them,” Hastin orders.
Anjali pats me down, and Indira takes Deven’s sword. Finally, they step back.
“Where is the Zhaleh?” Hastin asks.
“The rajah is dead,” I reply flatly. “I fulfilled my bargain.”
“The bargain was for the book.”
“You don’t want the Zhaleh for peace,” says Deven. “You want it for retribution.”
“I want the empire to pay for what it has done to my people.”
The cavern reflects the warlord’s temper. Stones from the gradient tumble down in a rocky sluice and splash into the river behind us.