That’s when I remember. Hoof-fall. Wren and Lova did leave earlier—but not to abandon us. Wren would never do that. She came all this way for me because she loves me.
And what did I show her in return? Anger and contempt. I didn’t even get around to apologizing for what I said to her that awful night on the Amala’s ground-ship. Didn’t tell her how I’ve regretted those words every day, wished and prayed and begged the gods I could somehow take them back. How, even though they came from a place of honesty, what I said wasn’t fair and could never take away from how much I love her, too, and that if there’d been any way, I’d have crossed the whole of Ikhara just to tell her how fiercely I regret those words ever left my lips.
Now I might have missed my chance.
“They took the horses earlier,” I say.
His bronze eyes flash. “Where? Why?”
“I don’t know—”
He spins, cutting through the throng. I hurry after him. Clan members rush past, some pausing to ask Kenzo things or relay information, and my pulse skips as I catch snippets of their conversations: a hundredfold; horse-and bear-back; Papers; demons. But it’s only when we reach the edge of the camp that the horror truly kicks in.
Before us, rocky terrain spreads to the horizon. The rough earth is silvered in starlight that glints off a mass directly ahead, speeding toward us across the plains.
It is unmistakably an army.
There are soldiers of all types—demons, but what appear to be Papers, too, recognizable amid their larger neighbors. Most are riding. Some sit or stand in the backs of open-topped carriages. Flags snap from poles attached to their mounts. With the lantern light at my back, it’s difficult to make out what’s stamped across them, but I identify enough different colors and designs to realize these aren’t royal soldiers. They’re a collection of warriors from clans from across Ikhara.
“The Demon King’s allies,” I breathe. I’m speaking more to myself than to Kenzo, though he listens at my side, staring ahead. “Wren must have seen them. Went to face them with Lova before they could reach us.”
A scream builds inside my throat—how dare she? How dare she, yet again, take everything on her shoulders, deciding what I can or can’t be a part of? A murderous desire to find the shaman responsible for her Birth-blessing pendant and the venomous word it contains sears me. Sacrifice. Wren has built herself around the concept. And if she did go to intercept the King’s reinforcements, and they’re now charging straight for us, that means—
A boom of laughter startles me.
Kenzo’s head is tossed back, incisors bared as gales of thunderous laughter rock through him.
“What in the gods,” I snarl.
Still grinning, he opens an arm. “Reinforcements.”
“I know that—”
“Not the King’s. Ours.”
The army draws closer, and I notice now what I failed to in my initial panic—the two figures riding at the head of the pack. Lova, towering on the back of her enormous black-and-white horse.
And Wren.
My Wren, sitting tall and regal, loose hair whipping her cheeks as she charges her horse on. Her face is set in a resolute look visible even at this distance. A look that tells the world I have found what I was searching for—and I will have it. The look she wore the night of a dance recital back in our early days as Paper Girls, when our eyes met across a sugar-dusted stage, and before I even understood what it meant I sensed how my life was about to change forever.
Kenzo grins. “The Black Jackals. The Hish. The Paper Warriors of West City. The Ice Plains Alliance. And is that…” He lets out an impressed whistle. “The desert bears of the Red Sand Valley. They’re some of Ikhara’s fiercest warriors. Ketai’s been trying to win them to our cause for over a decade.”
“There are hundreds of them,” I say, awestruck. “Kenzo… we might stand a chance.”
He crooks his neck at me. Though his smile fades, there is a sharp, hungry look in his features that reminds me of the time I was once just a terrified girl being taught by a wolf demon in the middle of a midnight forest how to kill a King.
Do not forget the last part. Right here, Lei. This is where you aim tomorrow.
Push the blade deep, and do not stop.
“A chance is all it takes,” Kenzo says, echoing other words he shared with me that night. “And I’d say this time, ours isn’t bad. We’ve taken Marazi and the Black Port. We have recruited important allies—allies the King would have liked for himself. And, of course, we have you, Lei. The King lost his Moonchosen the night before he was to marry her, and the deepness of the roots of our rebellion’s influence within the court has been revealed. Whatever he might be pretending, I imagine the King is the most vulnerable he’s ever felt.”
The dusty plains Wren, Lova, and our allies are crossing now make me think of the first time I was brought to the palace, almost one year ago. I was in a carriage with General Yu, and I’d looked at the stars and thought of the sky god Zhokka, Harbinger of Night, feeling as though I was about to be swallowed whole, just as Zhokka had attempted to eat all the light in the sky.
As the story goes, Zhokka was punished for his greed by the Moon Goddess Ahla, who blinded him when she attacked him in her crescent form. Ever since, I’ve thought of the King as Zhokka, consuming the world with his toxic heart, and Wren as Ahla: the only one with the power to bring light back to my sky.
The first time I came to the palace, I was terrified. I had no idea what awaited me. The second, I was a wild thing, fraught and lost. The next time I return, I’ll be those things and more. I will be braver, and stronger, and I will have Wren at my side.
It won’t only be her who’ll be Ahla. I will be Ahla, too. A lancing blade in pursuit of my prey.
We know how the story goes by now. Zhokka falls to Ahla, and light is restored.
The King always said we must play our parts in this world. This is mine.
And for the first time, I feel truly ready to wield it.
TWENTY-NINE
WREN
IT WAS THE FOLLOWING AFTERNOON BY the time Wren was able to pause. Ever since she and Lova brought their new allies to the camp, it had been a whirlwind of delivering orders and overseeing their execution. Wren had only seen Lei twice in passing the whole morning. She wished Lei would rest, but Kenzo had drafted her and Blue to create a ledger of every Paper, Steel, and Moon in the now-overflowing site, and Lei seemed to appreciate having something to do. Wren knew her. She wouldn’t sit around while others were hard at work.
Nitta was the one to alert Wren to her father’s arrival. Lunch had been served a few hours ago, but Wren had been too busy to take it. Now, she sat on a crate in as quiet a spot as was possible amid the frenetic camp, lifting glass noodles tiredly to her mouth. She’d just finished the bowl when Nitta rolled into her vision.
“They’re here,” she said simply.