“Father!” Anjali objects.
Hastin shushes her with a low growl and transfers his stony stare to me. “Move your sister warriors into position, General.”
My troops will be the first line of defense up on the wall, but I have faith in our ability to hold the line against the soldiers. I return to the sister warriors waiting in the entry hall and scan their solemn countenances. “The rebels have accepted our aid. It is my great honor to lead you into battle. On your life, do not let the demon rajah pass through this gate. Defend your family and homeland. Make Ki proud.”
The sister warriors hoist their weapons. Yatin, Natesa, and Opal do the same. Have I done wrong by them? Am I leading them to their doom? I plow through my fear before they detect my uncertainty. We need only hold out until Kali and the navy arrive.
Bowing my head, I offer up an earnest prayer. “Great Anu, preserve the Tarachand Empire and guide us to victory.”
My troops repeat the prayer, a solemn echo of our united devotion. Then I pivot and lead them out under the war-strewn sky.
27
KALINDA
The cold cripples me halfway up the hill. I sway forward and land on all fours in the road. Between the rain and the deadness in my muscles, I cannot feel my feet. If the rebels’ intent is to drive the invaders back with a storm, their strategy is working on at least one person.
Ashwin notices I have fallen behind and jogs back to fetch me. “Do you need to rest?”
“Just for a minute.” I collapse against him. His soul-fire glows like a beacon, but I am so frozen not even his warmth appeals to me.
Gemi backtracks to us. “Is she hurt?”
“She just needs to get warm.” Even to me, Ashwin’s assurance sounds feeble. He lifts me into his arms and hefts me up the hill.
A catapult snaps nearby, flinging a boulder at the palace. Ashwin freezes and then sidesteps out of the middle of the road. Just when the threat is gone, a mighty gust redirects the boulder at the city. The projectile soars overhead and smashes into several huts on the neighboring road.
“Keep going,” Gemi says, watching for more flying boulders.
She and Ashwin speed up, but everything within me turns sluggish, as though I am sinking in quicksand. Ashwin beelines for a large structure on the next higher road, the Brotherhood temple.
Gemi pries the front door open with the prongs of her trident. The temple corridors and chambers are fixed in shadows. She lights a lamp, and Ashwin pursues her into the chapel. The lamp’s sparse glow reveals murals of the sky-god and his consort, Ki. They remind me of the mural in the Samiya temple chapel I grew up admiring.
“I’ve always wanted to learn to paint,” I slur. Even my tongue is lethargic. “Jaya loved my sketches. Did you know I sketched you, Ashwin? Tarek thought I drew him, but he should’ve known better.”
Ashwin lays me on the altar and touches my forehead. “Sweet Enlil, you’re frozen.”
“Am I?” I try to wiggle my fingers or toes but feel nothing.
Gemi tests my temperature for herself. She draws back, as though my skin burns. “I’ll look for a blanket and dry clothes for her.”
Ashwin expels a breath, his gratitude immense. “I’ll start here. You check the other rooms.”
Gemi lights another lamp and heads off.
Ashwin skims my cheek, though I hardly feel the gesture. “I’ll be right back. I won’t go far.” He takes the lamp across the chapel to search the baskets along the far wall.
Shadows plunge into the gap of light, dropping around me. My muddled thoughts pull me back and forth between now and my childhood when I was confined to my sickbed. More than once, Healer Baka blanketed me in snow to reduce my fevers and calm the fire within me. Unlike Indah, I love the snow. But I would trade never seeing it again for the cure to this poison.
Perhaps this coldness is a feeling. For this gradual decay of my senses and faculties, this loss of control—this is how it must feel to die.
The realization comes at me as a piercing whisper. The end of my path does not lie far ahead. Death is here. In this sanctuary. Upon this hallowed altar.
A splinter of fear embeds itself inside me. I cannot leave this world now, not like this, with the godly part of me smothered. I watch the mural of Anu and Ki, brightened by Ashwin’s faraway light, and wait for the gods to intervene.
Something else comes.
Tarek’s smoky figure separates from the gloom that grips me. “Hello, love. I’ve always wished to have you laid before me on an altar.”
I pry apart my chapped lips, my whisper tattered. “How did you find me?”
“I traveled the roadways of shadows. They led to every cover of darkness in the mortal realm.” He sits beside me on the altar and fiddles with my wet hair. “I’ve come to be with you while you pass on from this life.”
“Why?”
“You know why. You must believe me when I say I love you. I had high regard for my other wives. Even your mother, Yasmin. How I worshiped her. But you challenged me in a way no other woman did.” He leans his mouth over my ear. “Do you know what will happen when the cold-fire inside you takes over? Your soul-fire will go out, and you will consist solely of the dark lineage within you. You will no longer belong to this world. You will belong in the Void with me.”
My tears freeze to icy drops. I have made poor choices and done wrong, but I cannot bear an eternity in the dark with Tarek. That is my worst fate imaginable. “Please don’t let that happen. Please help me.”
He shifts his lips to my forehead. “Shh, love. Give in to the evernight, and you will be free from sorrow and strife.”
Ashwin’s lamp bobs, still across the chapel.
“Ashwin,” I rasp.
Tarek strokes my chin. I manage to flinch, but his demanding touch pursues me, relentlessly taking, taking, taking. “He cannot see me. Only you. Our love binds us, Kalinda.”
He traces my lips and caresses my hair. I try to scream or sob, but the numbness grips me. The cold is winning. He is winning.
My heart slows to a lurching plod. All physical awareness falls away, and stillness settles over me. The lack of feeling in my body hones the clarity of my mind.
Our bond is not of love but of hatred. I am anchoring Tarek to this world. I am giving him power and permission to enter my life.
Healer Baka once told me that peace is a choice. A decision not to be at odds with the world. I have been at odds with Tarek for so long, I know no other way. But we are not the same. I have to make a better choice than he did. I must let go, or I will earn a place with him.
Words swell up my throat, hurting everywhere. “I forgive you.” He tilts closer to hear. I repeat myself, strongly. “I forgive you for claiming me. I only married you to end your life. I’ve loathed you since we met, but I cannot hold on to my hatred any longer. I forgive you for taking me from my home and ruining my dream of peace.”