“Kisaneh bichaya ke gima baza?”
“Who has seen children torn from their parents’ arms?”
“Hama!”
A few rows down from us, a man rises and gestures at a knot of Martials I didn’t notice. One of them has pale skin and a crown of blonde braids: Helene Aquilla. The man bellows something at them.
“Charra! Herrisada!”
Across the bowl, a Tribeswoman stands and shouts those same words. Another woman rises to her feet at the base of the theater. She is soon joined by a deep voice yards away from us.
Suddenly, the two words echo back and forth from every mouth, and the crowd transforms from spellbound to violent as quick as a pitch-soaked torch catching flame.
“Charra! Herrisada!”
“Thieves,” Elias translates, his voice flat. “Monsters.”
Tribe Nur rises to their feet around Elias and me, shouting abuse at the Martials, raising their voices to join thousands of other Tribesmen doing the same.
I think back to the Martials tearing through the Tribal marketplace yesterday. And I understand, finally, that this explosive rage is not just about Elias. It has been present in Nur all along. Mamie just harnessed it.
I always thought the Tribesmen were allied with the Martials, however reluctantly. Perhaps I was wrong.
“Stay with me now.” Afya rises, her eyes darting from entrance to entrance. We follow, straining to hear her voice above the baying crowd. “When first blood is shed, we head for the nearest exit. Nur’s wagons wait in the depot. A dozen other Tribes will leave at the same time, and that should trigger the rest of the Tribes into leaving too.”
“How will we know when—”
A bloodcurdling howl cracks the air. I stand on tiptoe to see that at one of the exits far below us, a Martial soldier has cut down a Tribesman who got too close. The Tribesman’s blood seeps into the sands of the theater, and the shriek comes again, from an older woman kneeling over him, her body shuddering.
Afya wastes no time. As one, Tribe Nur rushes to the closest exit. Quite suddenly, I cannot breathe. The crowd presses in close—surging, pushing, going in too many directions. I lose sight of Afya and spin toward Elias. He grabs my hand and pulls me near, but there are too many people, and we are wrenched apart. I spot a gap in the crowd and try to elbow my way toward it, but I can’t penetrate the mass of bodies around me.
Make yourself small. Tiny. Disappear. If you disappear, you can breathe. My skin prickles, and I push forward again. The Tribesmen I shove past look around, strangely bewildered. I’m able to get through them easily.
“Elias, come on!”
“Laia?” He swivels, staring into the crowd, pushing in the wrong direction.
“Here, Elias!”
He swings toward me but doesn’t seem to see me, and he grabs his head. Skies—the poison again? He scrambles for his pocket and takes a swig of the Tellis.
I push back through the Tribesmen until I am right beside him. “Elias, I’m right here,” I take his arm, and he practically jumps out of his skin.
He wags his head like he did when he was first poisoned and looks me over. “Of course you are,” he says. “Afya—where’s Afya?” He cuts through the crowd, trying to catch up to the Tribeswoman, whom I can’t see anywhere.
“What in the skies are you two doing?” Afya appears beside us and grabs my arm. “I’ve been looking all over for you. Stay with me! We have to get out of here!”
I follow her, but Elias’s attention jerks to something farther down in the bowl, and he stops short, staring over the surging crowd.
“Afya!” he says. “Where’s the Nur caravan?”
“North section of the depot,” she says. “A couple of caravans over from Tribe Saif.”
“Laia, can you stay with Afya?”
“Of course but—”
“She’s seen me.” He releases me, and as he pushes into the crowd, Aquilla’s familiar silver-blonde crown braid flashes in the sun a few dozen yards away.
“I’ll distract her,” Elias says. “Get to the caravan. I’ll meet you there.”
“Elias, damn it—”
But he’s already gone.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Elias
When my eyes meet Helene’s across the crowd—when I see the shock roll across her silver face as she recognizes me—I don’t think, nor do I question. I just move, delivering Laia into Afya’s arms and then cutting through the crowd, away from them and toward Hel. I need to draw her attention from Afya and Tribe Nur. If she identifies them as the Tribe that’s taken Laia and me in, a thousand riots won’t stop her from eventually hunting us down.
I’ll distract her. Then I’ll disappear into the crowd. I think of her face back in my quarters at Blackcliff, fighting to hold in her hurt as she met my eyes. After this, I belong to him. Remember, Elias. After this, we’re enemies.
The chaos of the riot is deafening, but within that cacophony, I witness a strange, hidden order. For all the shouting, yelling, and screaming, I see no abandoned children, no trampled bodies, no quickly deserted belongings—none of the hallmarks of true chaos.
Mamie and Afya have this riot planned down to the minute.
Distantly, the drums of the Martial garrison thud, calling for backup. Hel must have sent a message to the drum tower. But if she wants soldiers here to quell the riot, then she can’t maintain the cordon around the city.
Which was, I now understand, Afya and Mamie’s plan all along.
Once the cordon around the wagons is lifted, Afya can get us safely hidden and out of the city. Our caravan will be one of hundreds leaving Nur.
Helene entered the theater near the stage and has now pressed halfway toward me. But she is alone, an armored, silver-faced island in a roiling sea of human rage. Dex has disappeared, and the other Mask who entered the amphitheater with her—Harper—heads out one of the exits.
The fact that she’s alone doesn’t deter Helene. She makes for me with a single-minded determination that is as familiar to me as my own skin. She shoves forward, her body gathering an inexorable force that propels her through the Tribesmen like a shark toward bloodied prey. But the crowd closes in. Fingers grasp at her cloak, her neck. Someone puts a hand on her shoulder, and she pivots, grabs it, and snaps it in one breath. I can almost hear her logic: It’s faster to to keep going than to fight them all.
Her movement is hampered, slowed, stopped. It is only then that I hear the hiss of her scims whipping out of their scabbards. She is the Blood Shrike now, a grim-faced knight of the Empire, her blades carving a path forward in sprays of blood.
I glance over my shoulder and catch Laia and Afya pushing through one of the gates and out of the theater. When I look back at Helene, her scims fly—but not fast enough. Multiple Tribesmen attack—dozens—too many for her to counter at once. The crowd has taken on a life of its own and does not fear her blades. I see the moment she realizes it—the moment she knows that no matter how swift she is, there are too many for her to fight.
She meets my stare, her fury blazing. Then she drops, pulled down by those around her.
Again, my body moves before my mind knows what I am doing. I pull a cloak off a woman in the crowd—she doesn’t even notice its absence—and muscle my way through, my only thought to get to Helene, to pull her out, to keep her from being beaten or trampled to death. Why, Elias? She’s your enemy now.
The thought sickens me. She was my best friend. I can’t just throw that away.
I drop, lunge forward through robes, legs, and weaponry, and pull the cloak around Helene. One arm goes around her waist, and I use the other to cut the straps on her scims and her brace of throwing knives. Her weapons drop, and when she coughs, blood spatters her armor. I bear her weight as her legs fight to find their strength. We are through one ring of Tribesmen, then another, until we are moving quickly away from where the rioters are still howling for her blood.