More of Marazi was on fire than before. Had the battle reached the city? Had Lova simply gotten carried away with her explosives?
The questions entered and left Wren’s mind, swift and fleeting. Right now, her job was to get to Lord Anjiri.
And there were demons in her way.
Blood sprayed her as she took out the fox guards one by one. Static crawled across her skin. Beneath her own pain—louder now, a weighted thrum in her bones and muscles—the enchantments Wren called were painful themselves. But she dragged the magic out, bending it to her will.
This time, Wren was prepared when Qanna dived for her.
She’d cut down the last of the fox guards. Only the cowering maids and advisers were left, huddled in the throne room behind furniture or pressed against the walls, too scared to move in case it risked drawing her attention. Then there was Lord Anjiri, who knew he had Wren’s attention. He was running full pelt for the stairs.
The skirr of wind from Qanna’s wings hit Wren’s neck. A moment later the girl was upon her, slashing out with razor-laced talons.
Wren parried. Thrust upward with a kick. Qanna dodged, then came barreling toward her, trying to push her closer to the lip of the roof.
Wren rolled sideways, then leaped down to the veranda. Ignoring Qanna’s screech of impatience and the howls of the terrified maids and advisers, she sprinted across the throne room—stowing one of her swords as she went—to where Lord Anjiri had just disappeared out of sight.
She launched herself over the edge of the staircase and landed on top of him with a crash.
The crisp snap of something breaking shot through the air. The old demon let out a wail.
Wren dragged the Clan Lord to his feet by the wizened hair at his neck. Blood gushed from his nose. By the way he whimpered, clutching at his ribs, he’d broken at least one of them, too.
“Stop,” Wren told the guards running toward them, bringing the blade to the Clan Lord’s neck. Her Xia voice echoed with power.
They stopped.
Wren sensed their fear at the sight of her—a Paper Girl unlike any they’d seen before, white-eyed and blood-soaked, magic billowing off her in icy waves.
“Where are the war-horns?” she asked Lord Anjiri.
He answered haltingly. “In… throne room.”
Keeping hold of him, one sword still at his throat, Wren backed up the stairs. Pain was rippling through her in brighter waves, and she felt her connection to the earth’s qi flicker. She almost lost it, just as she’d lost her footing on the roof minutes ago. But like then she clung on, even as the effort made her vision swim.
“Tell your guards to stay away. They are not to follow. Some should alert the rest of your men that I have you. The battle is over.”
“Do… as she… says,” the demon choked out.
Though half his soldiers looked as if they wanted to object, they held off. Some hurried away, presumably following Wren’s directions, as more arrived, footsteps pounding from rooms and stairs below. While Wren hoisted Lord Anjiri out of sight, one of the guards shouted, “No! The Hanno girl has him. If we go, she’ll kill him.”
Back in the throne room, the maids and advisers were still huddled for cover. A few squealed when they saw Wren and their freshly bloodied Clan Lord reappear. Wren was braced—she’d expected Qanna to be there, barreling toward her the second she returned. But the swan-girl was nowhere to be seen.
“The war-horns,” Wren hissed in Lord Anjiri’s ear. “Now.”
“In the… alcove. North side… room.”
Wren dragged him to the opposite end of the room where a spiral staircase was tucked into the corner. It twisted upward out of sight.
Wren’s sight pulsed, a wave of dizziness flowing over her. Her Xia state fell away. Clenching her jaw, she threw herself back into it.
It felt less like entering a lake and more like crashing head-first into a wall of ice. Wren hissed, but didn’t relent.
She lugged Lord Anjiri up the steps. They arrived in a small room within the building’s pitched roof. Ash-thick wind hit them. The space was open at the front with a view over the smoking rooftops of Marazi, the darkness broken with flickers of cinnamon flames. A series of bone-carved war-horns lined the balcony.
Wren shoved Lord Anjiri at them, sword to the nape of his neck. “Call the battle off.”
Cradling his ribs, he stumbled to the middle war-horn, pressed his mouth to it, and blew.
The sound resonated out across the city. Unlike earlier, this horn’s call was light-pitched, almost melodic. It was a sound of peace. Of surrender.
“Again,” Wren said.
Halfway through the second blow there was a flash of white beyond the balcony.
In a flurry of feathers, Qanna smashed into the Clan Lord, sending him sprawling across the floor, before crashing into Wren.
The impact winded Wren—and threw her from her Xia state.
Knocked from her hand, her sword slid across the floorboards.
Wren reached for its twin. But before she could free it, Qanna dug her talons into Wren’s shoulders and, with heavy strokes of her wings, flew them backward over the balcony and up into the flame-limned sky.
Wren’s legs dangled. Pain screeched where Qanna’s talons pierced her flesh. She clasped Qanna’s ankles with both hands; if she released her, Wren would plunge to her death.
Qanna flew higher.
Wren struggled. She grasped for her magic, daos streaming from her mouth. Yet nothing worked. She was too tired. Too weak. As everyone had warned her since Jana, she’d used up too much energy and not rested enough to replenish it.
This is it, a small voice in her head said.
For a moment, Wren felt relief. How simple it would be to let go. It’d be like reaching for magic when it was easy: a slip, a fall, then that wide, eternal lake. Only this time its waters would be black, and she would not reemerge. She would sink like a stone. It would be quick and pain free.
And then horror snatched the idea away. Because this could not be it. It was not how this would end.
It was not how hers and Lei’s story would end.
“Let go!” cried Qanna.
She was jerking, trying to toss Wren off. Her flying was erratic, unbalanced by Wren’s weight.
Wren clung to Qanna’s ankles with every scrap of energy she had left. Because falling through a burning sky to crash upon tiles or trees or stone was not how she would go. She had so many things still to do. A war to win. Friends to save. A new, better nation to build. A lover to kiss and hold and whisper velvet truths to in the middle of the night; to apologize to; to heal with; to just lie alongside, feeling the slow turn of a peaceful world.
A memory came to Wren then, as cleanly as the first scent of snow.
A night at the Hidden Palace, a few weeks out from the New Year. Lei in her arms, the pair of them twined in the darkness of her bedroom. Lei asked Wren where her name came from and Wren said she didn’t know, which was true. Ketai had never told her.
“Well,” Lei said, “can I tell you what it means to me?”