Retreat.
I flew over the battlefield, a sea of carnage, Oraya’s limp body in my arms. She was covered in so much blood I couldn’t even tell where she was injured, only that whatever Simon had done to her had been devastating.
She wasn’t dead.
She couldn’t be dead.
I could feel her heartbeat, slow and weak. I refused to accept the possibility that it would stop. That was not an option.
She was not dead.
I knew Simon was not far behind me, launching himself down into the fighting. And I knew—I knew the minute he landed, it would be over for all of us.
Retreat.
I found Vale in the midst of the bloodshed, hacking apart a Rishan rebel who plunged from the sky. I didn’t recognize my own voice when I screamed his name. He turned and took in Oraya and I in less than a second, his brow immediately contorting in grim dread.
Then his eyes lifted over my shoulder and widened.
Simon.
I just choked out, “Retreat. Now. Get as many out as you can.”
And I didn’t stop flying.
I needed somewhere safe. Somewhere close. Somewhere secret. Somewhere no one would think to look for her. Somewhere she could get help now, right now, because I wasn’t about to let her die in my arms after everything we had been through together.
Couldn’t go back to the camp—no one could help her there, not fast enough.
Couldn’t get back to the rendezvous point in time.
Couldn’t go anywhere in Sivrinaj, where Simon and Septimus would be looking for her.
My thoughts did not make sense. I didn’t know how or why I chose our destination. It wasn’t a conscious choice. Just the memory of a name and a place scribbled on a twenty-five-year-old letter, and blind hope, and sheer fucking desperation.
Some distant part of my subconscious made the decision without me, while I could think about nothing but Oraya in my arms, and her limp body, and her heartbeat—growing steadily slower, weaker.
Vartana was not far from Sivrinaj, just a few cities over. It was a small town, barely noticeable from above—the kind of place you only went to if you had a reason. I half-surprised myself when I landed, clumsily, in the dusty streets of the human districts.
They had to help her. They had to.
I was in the town square. It was quiet here after nightfall. I barely glanced at my surroundings—the brick buildings, the packed-dirt streets, the fountain well at the center of the square. A young couple was perched at its edge, probably interrupted from some midnight tryst, staring at me in wide-eyed shock.
I was only distantly aware of what I must’ve looked like, landing in front of them, clutching Oraya’s bleeding body. Wild-eyed, enormous, covered in blood.
The man pushed the woman behind him slightly, the two of them staggering back.
I just choked, “Help. I need help.”
The name. Fuck, what was the name?
“Alya,” I blurted out. “Alya. There’s someone here by that name. A healer. Or there used to be—”
I couldn’t even string a Goddess-damned sentence together.
What was I doing? What kind of wild guess was this? Twenty years was a long time. Who knew if they were even still— Oraya’s breath stuttered, slowed, and my panic overwhelmed me.
“Tell me,” I ground out, taking a step closer. The woman nearly threw herself into the fountain trying to get away from me, the man grabbing her arm and sliding fully in front of her.
They were terrified. And I couldn’t even blame them for that. Or at least I wouldn’t have, if I could even think, could even breathe, could even consider anything but— “I’m Alya.”
A voice came from behind me. I whirled around to see a middle-aged woman standing in a townhouse doorway, eyeing me warily. She had waist-length black, gray-streaked hair, and a serious, lined face.
I drew in a shaky breath and let it out. “I need—I’m—”
“I know who you are.” Her gaze fell to Oraya, and her face softened. “I know who she is, too.”
My exhale of relief was almost a sob.
“Can you—”
“Come in,” she said, stepping aside. “Quick. And stop yelling before you alert half the district.”
INTERLUDE
It’s not that hard to topple a kingdom.
It is already poised to collapse. And a slave is the perfect person to knock out those final remaining supports—privy to the most intimate parts of the castle and yet utterly invisible. The slave marvels at the fact that it had never even occurred to him to do this sooner. It’s so easy. So well deserved. So much more elegant than the blade driven through his master’s chest that he always had dreamed of.
He passes information to that promising Hiaj contestant throughout all four months of the Kejari. He feeds him guard schedules, castle layouts, fortification weak points. He watches the measures that his king takes to protect himself as the days pass and his paranoia grows stronger, and he feeds those along to the Hiaj contestant, too.
He is careful. He never reveals his face. He never reveals his name. He never whispers a word of it to anyone, not even the queen in their secret daylight meetings. The knife he drives into his captor’s back is so slow and silent, he doesn’t even feel it at all.
Weeks pass, months. The Hiaj contestant, as everyone knew he would be, is victorious again and again. The king grows more cruel, vicious in his fear. The slave’s hatred becomes a quiet obsession.
And then, at last, the night has come.
The final night of the Kejari. The night the future king and the slave alike will offer up their final, devastating blows. The Hiaj contestant’s will come in the form of a blood-soaked victory and a wish from a goddess. The slave’s will come in the form of a letter overflowing with secrets, passed off in exchange for the guaranteed safety of those closest to him.
It is eerily quiet in the moments before the world changes. The sunset is still and stagnant. The slave has made his final move. Now all that is left to do is wait.
And in those quiet moments, he finally tells the queen. They had spent the evening hours together, her head against his chest, his hand rubbing her shoulder as he stared sleeplessly at the ceiling, thinking of all the ways everything will soon change.
He wakes her gently as the sun slips below the horizon, only an hour remaining until the kingdom collapses.
The words pour from his lips. He feels like he is offering her a precious gift that he has been saving for a very long time. And then, finally, he intertwines her fingers with his.
“We’ll need to leave tonight,” he tells her. “Right after the Kejari ends. He’ll be distracted, if he’s even still alive by then. We can get out of Sivrinaj before the worst begins.”
He expects joy. Instead, she is horrified. She shakes her head.
“You have to undo it,” she says. “This can’t happen.”
He doesn’t know what to say for several long seconds.
“It’s already done,” he tells her. “It’s already over.”
Her face crumples, like she knew he would say this, but the truth still hurts just as much.