Endless Water, Starless Sky (Bright Smoke, Cold Fire #2)

“You,” said Justiran, sounding weary and sad.

Runajo was too stunned to move. Vai was not. He lunged forward, drawing his sword. Instantly Paris counterattacked, and for a few moments they fought, swords flashing. At first they seemed evenly matched. But Paris was too fast, too relentless. In a flurry of strokes, he drove Vai back against the wall, and held a sword to his throat.

“Stop,” said Makari.

And Paris went still.

“If you keep fighting, King of Cats,” Makari went on, “Romeo dies.”

“I’m going to kill you,” said Vai with a strange intensity, but did not struggle.

Runajo’s head was whirling. If Makari could command the living dead—if he had been dead himself and come back, but was not bound to obedience—

She remembered blood spattered across the floor of the Cloister.

“You’re the Master Necromancer,” she said.

He smiled. “Yes. And you are Romeo’s friend Runajo, the girl who stole the Juliet from me. You’re going to give her a message.”

“What is it?”

“I need the Juliet for my purposes. She must deliver herself to me by sunset. If she doesn’t come, Romeo dies, I bring him back as living dead, and I send him to fetch her.”

“That seems a very poor bargain,” said Runajo. “She’s going to kill him as soon as she sees him, and then he’ll be a revenant anyway.”

“You seem to believe that you’re negotiating,” said Makari. “Allow me to assure you, the only choice you have is how gracefully you submit.”

“Zaran,” Justiran said softly.

Makari rounded on him. “That’s not my name anymore.”

“I know you’re angry at this whole world,” said Justiran, his voice still gentle. “You have every right to be. But do you think she would want this?”

Makari laughed. “Oh, I know she does. She told me so.”

Justiran shook his head. “My dear boy—”

“I don’t mean in my dreams or any such idiocy. Your daughter’s alive. I have her.”

“That’s—not possible.” Justiran sounded shaken.

“Oh, yes, it is. Do you know where she’s been, these past hundred years? Locked up in a Catresou laboratory.” Makari stepped closer, smiling viciously. “I leave it to your imagination, what your own people did to her.”

Justiran buried his face in his hands.

“You’re coming with me,” said Makari. “Now. Tonight. I want you to make your apologies to her before the end.”

“Here’s an idea,” said Vai. “Don’t.”

Justiran was very pale. “I have to,” he said. “If she’s there—I have to go.”

“This is your amends?” said Runajo. “Submitting to the enemy?”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “She’s my daughter.”

Makari grinned at Runajo. “Tell the Juliet, go wait by the face of Xinaad. The little King of Cats can show her if she doesn’t know the way. Remember: this evening, or a living dead Romeo comes looking for her.”

The door slammed shut.

I release you from my orders, Runajo said silently. You can come down now.

Juliet was down the stairs in a moment. “What happened?”

In a few words, they told her.

“You can’t go,” said Runajo, when they had finished.

Juliet turned. “Can’t I?”

Runajo’s heart jumped as she thought her words over, reversed them—and then she relaxed as she realized that they were not an order. Juliet was not staring at her with a face like a mask because she was under compulsion.

She was remembering the last time that Runajo had tried to save her life.

Runajo swallowed, feeling a hundred possible, half-formed speeches in her throat like broken glass.

“It’s your business if you want to die,” she said carefully. “But he said that he needed you. Whatever he’s going to use you for—”

“Do you not know?” Vai demanded.

“I’ve been captive to the Mahyanai for the past month,” said Juliet. “I was a little busy learning their purposes.”

Vai made a sound of disgust in his throat. “You never got Romeo’s letter, did you?”

Runajo felt a sudden flash of grief from Juliet, quickly stifled, but she still caught a glimpse of Romeo with a bloody sword in his hand.

“No,” said Juliet.

“He asked me to deliver it for him, and then he vanished before he gave it to me. He must have given up on sending it. If we get him back, I suppose we can ask him why he was such a fool.” Vai crossed his arms. “I should have just gone to tell you myself, because it’s important enough. The Master Necromancer got the Catresou to tamper with the invocations they wrote on your skin. You’re not just the Juliet, you’re the key to the gates of death. You were his first plan to destroy the city walls.”

Juliet is the key.

The thought stole Runajo’s breath away. It felt outlandish, but as she unraveled it in her head, everything made sense. Makari couldn’t have planned to be killed by Tybalt in a duel, so he hadn’t planned to be a ghost in the Cloister. He might not have even known that Vima’s key existed until he was there, working the blood-magic to resurrect himself. So he must have decided to make his own key.

When Juliet had tried to make Romeo her Guardian, the ceremony had gone wrong, and the land of the dead had opened around them.

Everything made sense.

And if Juliet was the key . . . the Mouth of Death was dry. It still might be too late for them to find Death and bargain with her. But at least they might have a chance.

If Makari didn’t destroy Viyara tonight.

“You can’t go to him,” she said, looking at Juliet. “If you ever meant anything about protecting people, you can’t let him use you this way.”

“She’s got a point,” said Vai. “I’d rather not see the city destroyed, especially after I went to such trouble saving it a month ago.”

“I’m going to Makari tonight,” said Juliet.

“But—” Runajo started.

“You’re forgetting the same thing that he’s forgetting,” said Juliet. “He said to come alone.”

And that’s impossible for me, she added silently.

Runajo’s heart jumped. Even now—when she knew that Juliet could never forgive her—when there was so much danger waiting for them—she heard Juliet’s words and her first thought was She trusts me, with a dizzy thrill of excitement that slid all the way down her spine.

“I’ll tell you where he takes me, and you’ll follow,” Juliet went on out loud, and then looked at Vai. “Do you know about—”

“Oh, yes, we used that trick with Paris and Romeo,” said Vai.

“Romeo?” Juliet echoed.

“Right,” said Vai, “you don’t know anything. What you and Romeo did at the sepulcher? It bound him and Paris together, the same way you’re bound to that Mahyanai girl. Very convenient for using Romeo as a lookout while we broke into the Lord Catresou’s study. Less convenient when it made the pair of them act like idiots protecting each other, which was always.” He let out a huff of air. “And yes, I will help you destroy Makari and save Romeo. On one condition.”

“Name it,” said Juliet.

Vai had been slouching back, hands against the table, but now he straightened. “I get to kill Paris.”

“Why?” asked Juliet.

“Because he was my friend,” said Vai. “And he died because he saw Makari, and thought he was only a slave, and tried to free him for Romeo’s sake. I don’t know exactly how Romeo got captured, but I would bet anything that he went after Paris. Even though I told him not to.” Vai’s mouth twisted. “I’m ending it. I’m killing him. I won’t let anyone stand in my way.”

“You don’t want to save him?” said Juliet.

“I know the living dead.” Vai’s teeth flashed in a bitter smile. “My brother was one. He slaughtered my family until I killed him. The living dead have no will but that of the necromancers who made them. There’s no way to save them except to kill them. Romeo didn’t understand that, but I thought you might. Wouldn’t you have rather died than slaughter your people?”

Runajo felt the raw surge of pain in Juliet’s mind, and it drove her forward a step, fists clenching with fury that this boy would dare throw that in Juliet’s face.

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