He disappeared, several arms reached for me, and I gratefully relinquished my hold on consciousness.
ARIN
It was her.
The name Sylvia had uttered was different from the name that had been given to Arin ten years ago, but he knew.
She had tricked him once. It would not happen again.
The horse beneath Arin leapt. They sailed over a water trough, scattering a penned herd of sheep. She was weaving, trying to dissipate the traces of her magic. But he could feel it gliding over his skin like the thinnest blade. She would not escape him this time.
Arin leaned forward, spurring his horse to dangerous speeds. She would find somewhere noisy to hide. There were plenty of options to choose from. The upper towns of Lukub were celebrating the Alcalah alongside the Ivory Palace. Crowds in red and white were strewn in the streets. Performers twirled on raised platforms, bare feet moving lithely to the beat of the tubluh. Everywhere, chaos.
A horse appeared next to his. “Your Highness, I came to help,” Wes said. He was out of breath.
“Why are you here?” Alarm locked the muscles in Arin’s body. “Is she—”
“No, no. The Champion is alive. Jeru and Ren are with her and the medics. I cannot be of service to anyone there, so I left.”
Arin stared at Wes. He could feel the trail of Soraya’s magic fading. If he had any hope of catching her, he needed to move. To cut her off at the alleyway behind the festival and win the game she had started when he was sixteen.
If he went after Soraya, Sylvia would die.
It was a fact. Her wound was deep. She had likely broken several bones in her fall.
Arin needed Sylvia to capture the Mufsids and Urabi. Apprehending Soraya would satisfy his ego, but not his mission.
A reasonable voice reminded Arin he could simply torture the necessary information out of Soraya. She had been with the Mufsids for many years; with pain’s incentivizing persuasion, Arin could wring their location out of her. The Urabi’s, too, he suspected.
All he had to do was spur his horse forward.
“Why shouldn’t I behave as a killer if I’m to suffer the same fate regardless?” Fire danced in her hair. Vaun groaned. Her dark eyes, which should have been lit with the silver and gold of Jasadi magic, brimmed with pain. Pain so severe, Arin suspected she had stopped seeing it for what it was. She would have recast it as anger, as an inborn quality of her character. Incomprehensibly volatile, he had thought. Lack of emotional mastery. She probably thought the same. She was bleeding, right there in front of him, and the fatal wound wasn’t the one either of them could see.
“If Sylvia survives, she will return,” he told Wes. His loyal guard’s eyes widened.
“Sire, you cannot mean to let her go. You have chased her since—”
Arin turned his horse toward the Ivory Palace and snapped the reins.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
I sank through clouds of mist and ash, grappling for purchase.
We were in a nursery, me and two other shadows. An infant slept in the corner.
“You cannot do this to him!” a frail woman gasped. Recognition rippled through my flickering body. Isra of Nizahl. Arin’s mother. “He won’t survive it. Please, Rawain, you have to wait.”
The second shadow took shape. I stumbled back, hitting the baby’s bassinet. The Supreme did not react, oblivious to my presence. Supreme Rawain regarded his weeping wife with disdain. “What do you care what happens to my son?”
“He is mine just as he is yours. Please, I beg you. Two years old, three. He’ll withstand it then. Imagine the power of your ascension with a healthy Heir at your side. Your father had you. See how he prospers! When you become Supreme, Arin will be your Heir. Your legacy.”
Rawain palmed the jeweled glass orb at the head of his scepter. The sight of it had his wife reaching for the infant, bundling him in her arms.
“Two years, not three,” Rawain grunted. “He cannot remember the loss.”
She rocked the child in her arms, stroking tufts of black hair.
Black hair?
Voices floated in the nothingness, calling my name. My false name.
The voices argued loudly. One of them, melodic even in fury, sent awareness trickling through the fog.
I was so cold.
The voice changed, coming closer. The lilting one spoke in gentle Nizahlan. I glanced at the place where my hand used to be, startled by a phantom pressure.
I landed in a void of darkness. Water lapped at my legs.
The darkness writhed, coalescing into four thrones before me. I stumbled back. My foot caught on the edge of a sheer stone. If I had a body, I might have bled.