“I just told you—”
“If he wanted to kill me, he could have simply had me executed. Trump up an excuse, if he even bothered. Or he could have done what he did to my mother. An assassin in the night, poison in my sleep.”
I had finally surprised him. He grew very still, his eyes meeting mine and then flicking away. “I would not confront Dekarta with the evidence, if I were you.”
At least he hadn’t tried to deny it.
“I hardly needed evidence. A healthy woman in her forties doesn’t die in her sleep. But I had her body searched by the physician. There was a mark, a small puncture, on her forehead. On the—” I trailed off for a moment, suddenly understanding something I’d never questioned in my life. “On the scar she had, right here.” I touched my own forehead, where my Arameri sigil would be.
Viraine faced me full-on now, quiet and serious. “If an Arameri assassin left a mark that could be seen—and if you expected to see it—then, Lady Yeine, you understand more of Dekarta’s intentions than any of us. Why do you think he brought you here?”
I shook my head slowly. All along the journey to Sky, I’d suspected. Dekarta was angry at my mother, hated my father. There could be no good reason for his invitation. In the back of my mind I’d expected to be executed at best, perhaps tortured first, maybe on the steps of the Salon. My grandmother had been afraid for me. If there’d been any hope of escape, I think she would have urged me to run. But one does not run from the Arameri.
And a Darre woman does not run from revenge.
“This mark,” I said at last. “It will help me survive this place?”
“Yes. The Enefadeh won’t be able to hurt you unless you do something stupid. As for Scimina, Relad, and other dangers…” He shrugged. “Well. Magic can only do so much.”
I closed my eyes and traced my mother’s face against my memory for the ten thousandth time. She had died with tears on her cheeks, perhaps knowing what I would face.
“Then let’s begin,” I said.
5. Chaos
That night as i slept, I dreamt of him.
It is an ugly, stormcloud-choked night.
Above the clouds, the sky is lightening with the approach of dawn. Below the clouds, this has made absolutely no difference in the battlefield’s illumination. A thousand torches burning amid a hundred thousand soldiers are more than enough light. The capital, too, is a gentle radiance nearby.
(It is not the Sky that I know. This city sprawls across a floodplain rather than over a hill, and the palace is embedded at its heart, not hovering overhead. I am not me.)
“A respectable force,” says Zhakka, beside me. Zhakkarn, I know now, goddess of battle and bloodshed. In place of her usual headscarf is a helm that fits her head almost as closely. She wears shining silver armor, its surface a glory of engraved sigils and incomprehensible designs that glow red as if hot. There is a message written in the gods’ words there. Memories I should not possess tease me with its meaning, though in the end they fail.
“Yes,” I say, and my voice is male, though high-pitched and nasal. I know myself to be Arameri. I feel myself to be powerful. I am the family head. “I would have been offended if they had come with even one soldier less.”
“Then since you are not offended, perhaps you can parley with them,” says a woman beside me. She is sternly beautifuclass="underline" her hair is the color of bronze, and a pair of enormous wings feathered in gold, silver, and platinum are folded on her back. Kurue, called Wise.
I feel arrogance. “Parley? They’re not worth the time.”
(I do not think I like this other me.)
“What then?”
I turn to look at the ones behind me. Sieh sits cross-legged on his floating yellow ball. He has propped his chin on his fist; he is bored. Beyond Sieh lurks a smoking, pent presence. I had not noticed this one move behind me. He watches me as if he has been imagining my death.
I make myself smile, unwilling to reveal how he unnerves me. “Well, Nahadoth? How long has it been since you had any fun?”
I have surprised him. It gratifies me to realize that I can. An eagerness fills his face that is chilling to behold, but I have given no command, and so he waits.
The others are surprised, too, less pleasantly. Sieh straightens and glares at me. “Are you out of your mind?”
Kurue is more diplomatic. “That is unnecessary, Lord Haker. Zhakkarn or even I can take care of this army.”
“Or me,” says Sieh, stung.
I look at Nahadoth and consider how the stories will go when word spreads that I unleashed the Nightlord on those who dared to challenge me. He is the most powerful of my weapons, yet I have never witnessed any significant display of his capabilities. I am curious.
“Nahadoth,” I say. His stillness and the power I have over him are thrilling, but I know to keep my head. I have heard the stories, passed down from previous family heads. It is important to give just the right instructions. He thinks in loopholes.
“Go onto the battlefield and dispose of this army. Do not allow them to advance on this position, or Sky. Do not allow survivors to escape.” I almost forget but quickly add, “And do not kill me in the process.”
“Is that all?” he asks.
“Yes.”
He smiles. “As you wish.”
“You’re a fool,” says Kurue, abandoning politeness. The other me ignores her.
“Keep him safe,” says Nahadoth to his children. He is still smiling as he walks onto the battlefield.
The enemy are so numerous that I cannot see the end of them. As Nahadoth walks toward their front line he seems tiny. Helpless. Human. I can hear, echoing across the flat expanse of the plain, some among their soldiers laughing. The commanders at the center of the line are silent. They know what he is.
Nahadoth holds his hands out from his sides, and a great curved sword appears in each. He runs at the line, a black streak, and pierces it like an arrow. Shields split; armor and swords shatter; body parts fly. The enemy dies by the dozen. I clap and laugh. “What a marvelous show!”
Around me, the other Enefadeh are tense and afraid.
Nahadoth cuts a swath through the army until he reaches its general center. No one can stand against him. When he finally stops, having carved a circle of death ’round himself, the enemy soldiers are falling over themselves trying to get away. I cannot see him well from here, even though the black smoke of his aura seems to have flared higher in the intervening minutes.
“The sun comes,” says Zhakkarn.
“Not soon enough,” says Kurue.
At the center of the army, there is a sound. No, not a sound, a vibration. Like a pulse, except that it shakes the whole earth.
And then a black star blazes to life at the army’s heart. I can think of no other words to describe it. It is a sphere of darkness so concentrated that it glows, so heavy with power that the earth groans and sags beneath it. A pit forms, radiating deep cracks. The enemy fall inward. I cannot hear their screams because the black star sucks in the sound. It sucks in their bodies. It sucks in everything.