The warlord did this. Hastin is the most powerful Trembler known. Horses, wagons, catapults, hundreds of men—all devoured in sandy crevices and entombed.

Those soldiers were not our enemy; they were our people.

“Gods save them,” I pray.

Ashwin sloshes out of the river, his strides hasty. We backtrack to the army’s burial site. Gemi closes her eyes in anguish. I listen for the screams of survivors, but death prevails.

Lonely winds swirl sand tunnels across the barren war front. Please let Deven be in the city. Let him be anywhere but here.

The surviving troops have marched beyond the wall. Blue flames and eerie blue-gray smoke mark their progression up the winding roads to the palace. Udug leads the campaign, clearing their path with his destructive cold-fire. Given the number of casualties, his escape must be more than chance. Anjali said he was growing more powerful. He could have burned through the wall, but he relished knocking it down and forcing the rebels to retaliate. In one act, the demon rajah proved that he is beyond Hastin’s abilities.

Ashwin picks up a stray khanda, the only object left of the men who stood here, and steals through the opening. Gemi and I traverse the wrecked clay bricks, my blade drawn and her trident in hand.

Under the shadow of the breeched city wall, Ashwin’s and my gazes are guided to the Turquoise Palace looming above.

“Welcome home,” I tell him.

26

DEVEN

I stand straight as a pole against the corridor wall. Asha waits beside me, listening alertly. My muscles are stiff from hours of skulking down from the upper floor of the outer wing to the center of the palace. The door to the throne room is around the corner, but we can go no farther without the rebel guards at the main entrance seeing us.

Where in gods’ name is Brac? He should have caused his distraction by now.

A quake rattles up from the ground, extending in huge, terrible waves. Tapestries fall, and glass orbs shatter against the floor. Furniture skids across the tiles. I peer around the corner at the main entry. No rebels. I do not know how Brac managed it, but this must be his distraction.

I dart out to check the entry and double stairways. Both are empty. I gesture to Asha, and we slip into the throne room.

Daylight shines down from the high casements. Gone are the tidy rows of floor cushions for the rajah’s court to kneel upon. Tables have replaced them, set up in stations around the room. Upon the dais, the rajah’s throne is tipped over. One leg is broken, as though kicked free.

Asha hurries to the antechamber while I guard the entry. She tugs on the handle, but the door is stuck. “Someone jammed the hinges with stones.” She uses her nails to try to pick the hinges clean.

Noises sound in the entry hall. I snatch up a floor cushion as a defense and lean against the doorframe. The patter comes closer. I hold the cushion like a shield. I should’ve searched for a proper weapon.

A peacock struts by. I lower the cushion on an exhalation. The next intruder could be a rebel, so I leave my post to help Asha unseal the antechamber door.

“We need something to pry it open with,” I say, searching the tables for a makeshift tool.

An errant wind ruffles the swooping draperies, and a voice speaks.

“I thought I heard a couple of rats.” Anjali struts into the throne room. Asha goes stock-still. “Annoying little vermin, aren’t you?”

“We share the same enemy,” I reply, my gaze snug on her weapon. Gusts spin about her, coils of sky poised to strike. “We should help each other.”

“Help us? You’ll only ever be in our way.” Anjali hurls one of her squalls at Asha, slamming the servant into the wall. Then she sweeps a gale at me and tosses me off my feet. I hit the hard floor, pain exploding up my side, and roll over. Anjali crouches down and presses her chakram to my throat. “Don’t move or I’ll take your head off.”

“The demon rajah is coming,” I say. “Give the ranis and courtesans back their weapons and let us fight him with you.”

She scrapes the blade across my throat, almost breaking skin. “Which would upset Kalinda more? Taking your limbs off one by one or winnowing you so slowly you’ll wish I’d decapitated you?”

I hit her hands straight up and lunge for her chakram. Anjali knees me in the mouth. Stars shoot across my vision, and she seizes my throat. Our skin-to-skin connection is all she needs. Her powers dive inside me and suffocate the sky from my lungs.

“Your kind are worthless scarabs.”

Her asphyxiation process is torture. She squeezes out every puff of air, first from my muscles to weaken me, and then my organs. My pulse thuds slower, each beat a hollow echo, and my vision distorts.

I hear a whack, and Anjali slumps over.

I gasp for saving breaths. Drawing in the precious air reawakens my senses. Asha stands above me, clutching the broken leg of the rajah’s throne. Still wheezing, I push Anjali off me and take her chakram. Asha tosses aside her makeshift club, her pale face stark against her red scars.

“Come on,” I pant.

Using the chakram, I pry out the rocks jamming the door and force it open. The antechamber is full of hand wagons stacked with the ranis’ weapons. Opposite our entry is the exit to the servants’ passageway Asha spoke of.

Anjali is still passed out in the throne room, but voices echo in from the entry hall. I pile more daggers, haladies, and swords on top of two hand wagons. Asha and I both grab handles. She checks the servants’ passageway and waves me forward.

Shouts erupt behind us. I only distinguish Hastin’s voice.

“Let them have their measly steel. We haven’t time for this. Return to the palace wall!”

We steer the hand wagons through the dim passageways and lug them one at a time up steep stairwells. Finally, Asha wedges open a low door, and we enter the Tigress Pavilion. Asha and I wheel the weapons out and stop to gather our breaths.

Natesa rushes over, Yatin stalking close behind her. The ranis, courtesans, and servants have congregated on the floor cushions. Opal stares up at the darkening sky, her eyes blank and ears listening.

Natesa lifts a khanda off the top of the pile. “Oh, how I’ve missed you. Good work, Deven.”

“I couldn’t have done it without Asha,” I wheeze. The timid servant blushes. “Where’s Brac?”

Yatin also chooses a khanda. “He isn’t back yet. He mentioned something about going beyond the palace wall and then left right after you.”

I bank down a rush of unease. This does not mean something went wrong. Returning from beyond the palace wall would take him longer. But how exactly did Brac cause the tremor that distracted the guards? I turn to Opal for her report.

“I’m sorry,” she says. “My range of hearing is lessening as the army approaches. Udug’s powers are dwarfing mine. I cannot hear anything outside the palace walls.”

Explosions go off in the city. Some of the women shriek and duck. The winds kick up, and storm clouds steamroll across the sky, blotting out the sunset. Thunderheads crash, chased by flashes of lightning. The rebel army is deploying, and we must too.

“Will the women fight with us?” I ask.

“They’re confused,” answers Natesa. “We told them Rajah Tarek is dead, but some of them only gleaned that he’s coming to release them and their children. We need to rally them.”

We will start by returning their control.

I select my old friend, a military-grade khanda, and pick up a second. I carry both khandas to the women and lift my voice. “The imperial army has been deceived by a demon. Their counterfeit commander does not care for us or our empire. The true ruler of the Tarachand Empire is Prince Ashwin, and Kalinda Zacharias is your kindred. She has not forsaken you. She fled here to find and protect the prince. She knows that to save the empire she must preserve its heir.”

Natesa comes to my side. “Tell them you trust the prince,” she whispers.

I bristle. She wants me to lie?

Natesa huffs impatiently and addresses her peers. “Prince Ashwin gave Kindred Kalinda the choice to wed him or go free. He has never spoken of retaining me as his courtesan, and he won’t force any of you to stay in wedlock or servitude to his inherited throne.” The women murmur to each other in astonishment. “Prince Ashwin is a fair and noble ruler. He cares for his people and the fate of our empire.”

A clatter of thunder foreshadows crooked bolts of lightning flashing overhead. The women cry out and stoop down. A baby wails, and mothers cradle their little ones nearer. I cannot bring myself to preach to these frightened women about the prince’s virtues, but I can warn them about Udug.

“The demon rajah doesn’t care for your well-being,” I shout. “He hungers to wipe out our world.” I hand my spare khanda to a rani with thick white scars on her arm. “You’re free to decide your own fate. You can fight for your homeland—or stand by and watch it fall.”

Parisa and Eshana rise and come forward to choose a weapon. Shyla passes her baby to a nursemaid and selects a sword. Asha would have received less training than most of the women here, yet she picks up two haladies. They and my friends join me, each armed, and we start for the doorway.

“Where are you going?” a rani calls.

“To fight,” I reply. “If you wish for your children to live through the night, you’ll pick up a weapon and come with us.”

Outside the Tigress Pavilion, through the corridor casements, I see rebel soldiers stationed in the garden. Tremblers fortify the perimeter wall, and Galers conduct the thunderstorm. Repeated lightning strikes glint above. Farther out in the city, Udug’s spooky blue flames flicker closer.

“Hastin knows we’re coming,” Opal says. “Deven, he’s waiting for you in the entry hall.”

Only the sister warriors who collected weapons stand with me. I do not wait for the other ranis and courtesans to come. I leave the wives’ wing for the central palace.

At the landing of the curved stairway in the rotunda entry, Hastin shouts orders. Out the open main door, I see Tremblers erect a thick barrier of clay bricks to protect the front gate, and Aquifiers roll heavy water barrels into the grounds and set them on end. Anjali sits on a lower step of the opposite staircase, pressing a compress to the back of her head.