They had fought too hard to let it die now.
Only then did he turn his attention to the rest of the room, stone shattered and parts of the ceiling collapsed in the struggle. There was no sign of the mimic apart from a few blackened stains on the rock.
In the doorway, battle still raged. Shanvah, quiver empty and spear broken, held her shield on one arm and her father’s on the other, using both to hold back the tide of demons pressing at the door. Her feet had put cracks in the sandstone floor as she held against the press.
Shanjat stood a pace back, holding his crank bow. Shanvah shifted, opening a gap in her shields, and Shanjat quickly fired through. She closed the gap immediately as he pulled the heavy bowstring back with two fingers and snapped a new bolt in place, then opened another in a different place for him to fire again.
Before Arlen or Jardir could react, Renna burst into mist and shot across the room. He gaped as she passed the two warriors blocking the door as easily as a strong wind, and he could hear the sounds of battle on the far side. The press eased, giving Shanvah and Shanjat a moment to catch their breath.
Then the whole chamber shook as Renna collapsed the tunnel. Heavy stones began to shake loose from the ceiling, sand pouring down at an alarming rate as the whole chamber groaned.
“Time to go,” Arlen said.
“Kaji—” Jardir began.
“—will be buried forever on the spot where his heirs defeated the most powerful alagai the surface has seen in millennia,” Arlen finished for him.
Jardir nodded. “Shanjat! Shanvah! Clear the path for our escape!”
The two warriors stepped back from the door. Shanvah tossed her father back his shield and the two of them ran for the hidden escape tunnel.
Renna materialized at Arlen’s side. It took her a bit longer than it did him, but she was already faster than he had been in the first months he had experimented with dissipation.
He wanted to ask her about the new power, to tell her how proud he was, how great his love, but there was no time, and he trusted it was written on his aura for her to see.
“Skate ahead and ready the horses,” he told her. “Need to be miles from here before sunrise.”
Renna smiled and gave a wink, then collapsed into mist once more.
CHAPTER 10
THE CHIN REBELLION
333 AR AUTUMN
Inevera woke to a buzzing in her ear. Never a deep sleeper, and even in less troubling times, she drifted on its bare edge in recent days and came awake swiftly.
The vibration came from one of her earrings, gifts given to her most trusted servants and advisors, a way to contact her, and a way to spy. Ahmann’s had been silent since he fell, the mountain where he had fought the Par’chin far out of range. She wore it still, praying to Everam each dawn that this would be the day it sounded again, signaling his return.
But it was not her husband’s ring that sounded now. Inevera slid a finger along the cartilage of her ear, counting down until she felt the hum. The eighth. No sacred number for the khaffit.
She twisted the ball dangling from the ring until it clicked, changing the alignment of the wards in circumference around the two hemispheres that housed the bit of demon bone. With the link open, she spoke, knowing her words resonated in its twin.
“It is not yet dawn, khaffit,” she said quietly. “This had better be important or I’ll have your—”
“While I do love the artistry of your threats, Damajah, I’m afraid we have no time for them, if you wish to have my news before it reaches the ears of the Damaji.”
Abban’s words were as flip as ever, but his clipped tone left no doubt that his news would put her fragile rule to the test at a time when Krasia could ill afford further instability.
“What is it?” she said.
“I am surrounded by your lovely bodyguards outside, and cannot speak freely,” the khaffit said, “and this news is best discussed in person. Invite me in, please.”
Invite him in. To her private pillow chamber. The one she shared with the Deliverer himself. The khaffit invited death with the very suggestion. Simply entering this wing of the palace carried a hundred sentences far worse, if he should be seen. Was he mad?
No. Abban was many things, but mad was not one of them. If he was here, it was only because he was certain the news could not wait, and was more valuable than his life should he delay. Her fingers gave a quick dance, and a shadow flitted across the room. A moment later, Ashia returned with the khaffit.
“Speak,” Inevera said.
Abban glanced at Ashia, hovering disapprovingly at his side. He looked back at Inevera and inclined his head slightly toward the door.
“You forfeited your life the moment you walked through that door, khaffit,” Inevera said. “If you do not pay me its worth in the next few seconds, Ashia will collect it.”
Abban paled, the usual smug demeanor fallen from his face. Inevera could see the sudden fear that washed over his aura. It was not a mask.
“Speak,” she said again. “Ashia guards my sleep. There is nothing I do not trust her with.”
“The chin are in rebellion,” Abban said.
It took a moment for the words to register. Rebellion? From the greenlanders?
“Impossible,” she said. “Unthinkable. The chin of Fort Rizon broke like slate to the hammer when our armies came, and the villages gave up without a fight. They would not dare oppose us.”
“Slate may break easily,” Abban said, “but it leaves behind a thousand shards that may cut those who do not take care.”
Inevera felt her stomach twist. She breathed, finding her center. “What has happened?”
“The sharaji in seven of the chin villages are ablaze,” Abban said. “All at once, at the sounding of the horns ending alagai’sharak, while all the warriors and eldest nie’Sharum were afield.”
“The children?” Inevera asked. The eldest nie’Sharum, boys of twelve or more, acted as spotters and signal runners for the Watchers in alagai’sharak, but the younger boys, ranging from seven to eleven, should have been asleep in their barracks.
“Taken before the fires were set,” Abban said. “Krasian children as well as chin. The dama watching over them were brutally killed.”
Inevera’s jaw tightened. It all came to the children. Taking them for Hannu Pash had been the hardest demand the Krasians placed upon the chin after they surrendered and placed their foreheads on the ground before the dama.
For their children, the chin would fight. She wondered how long they had been meeting in secret, planning this. More insidious was the matter of the Krasian children, young enough to have their wills broken. Raised as chin, they would make valuable spies for the greenlanders.
Seven fires. Seven villages. Not a fraction of the hundreds of villages throughout Everam’s Bounty, but a significant number. A sacred number. It could not be coincidence.
“Which tribes were struck?” she asked, already guessing the answer.
“Shunjin, Halvas, Khanjin, Jama, Anjha, Bajin, and Sharach,” Abban said. “The seven smallest. Those that would be stung most deeply by the loss of a sharaj and class of nie’Sharum.”
Inevera was not surprised. Their enemies had studied them well.
“Have you caught the men responsible?” Inevera asked.
Abban shook his head. “They are not mine to catch, Damajah. And the Sharum are still fighting the fires, lest they spread. The culprits are vanished into the darkness.”
A darkness they feared before our armies came, Inevera thought. We taught them to stand tall in the night, and they use it against us.
“You say the fires still burn,” Inevera said. “How is it you have this information so quickly? Before the Damaji who rule those villages, or the Andrah himself?”
Abban smiled and gave a shrug. “I have contacts in every village in Everam’s Bounty, Damajah, and pay well for news that can bring me profit.”
“Profit?” Inevera asked.
“There is always profit to be found in chaos, Damajah.” Abban glanced at Ashia. “Even if one must buy back one’s life first.”
Inevera gave a wave, and Ashia withdrew, vanishing again into the shadows. She did not leave the room, but after a moment even Inevera lost track of her.
“How long until the Damaji hear of this?” Inevera asked.
Abban shrugged. “An hour, at most. Likely less. There will be blood, Damajah. Rivers of it, when they fail to find the guilty parties.”
“What makes you so certain they will fail?” Inevera asked, though she did not disagree.
“Six months and more since we conquered them, Damajah, and the local dama do not so much as speak the chin language, much less understand their ways,” Abban said. “Instead we force our language on them, our ways.”
“The ways of the Evejah,” Inevera said. “Everam’s ways.”
“Kaji’s ways,” Abban said. “Interpreted by corrupt Damaji to their own ends over the centuries.”