“Are you… the Urabi?”
He nodded, pressing a palm to his heart. One by one, the other archers lowered their bows. “My name is Efra, Mawlati. We have come to rescue you.”
The next time I saw Soraya, I would make her gargle with all the teeth I planned to knock from her mouth for leaking the news of my existence to the Urabi. They were looking at me with a reverence I didn’t deserve, calling me by a title I left in the ash with my grandparents’ bodies.
She had plucked my nightmare into reality. My heart pounded in a familiar song: run, run, run. I was watching Niphran burn on a lake. The kitmer pacing around me, waiting. My knees buckling beneath the weight of the crowd of shadows on shore.
“He is using me to lure you to the Alcalah,” I said. “You have to run.”
Efra stared at me. “The Nizahl Heir knows you are a Jasadi?” And then, with blistering accusation, “And you agreed to help the silver serpent lure us to our deaths?”
“Will someone grab her? We need to move!” cried a bowman on the opposite side.
Efra’s disgust filled me with shame, and shame was an old friend. My heart slowed.
The Meridian Pass vibrated. New shouts alerted the Urabi. Some lifted their bows; others, their hands. Rotating through the finite supply of magic at their disposal.
Like a black cloud rolling over the horizon, hundreds of Nizahl soldiers marched onto the Meridian Pass. An object with three sharp spearheads landed next to my foot. The rope on the other end tightened, dragging the three-headed hook to the edge of the cliff and catching.
My lips parted. Arin had not led us into a vulnerable position by choosing the Meridian Pass. This was a calculated trap. A moving piece on his game board. He knew an attack at the Meridian Pass would be impossible for an enemy to resist.
“They’re climbing!”
We had seconds before they were upon us. These Jasadis would be slaughtered. They had committed crimes against other Jasadis, yes, but they were not for Nizahl to punish. My magic brimmed against my cuffs, eager to assist.
Clouds of dust still swirled around the canyon, granting me the perfect cover. I raised my hands, twisting them in the air as one might squeeze a wet rag. My magic pulled taut. Waiting for my command.
“It’s a trap!” I shouted. I shot a desperate glance at Efra. “They will kill you!”
Knowing Arin intended to capture these Jasadis did not mitigate my horror at seeing it before my eyes. The first soldier’s head appeared over the cliff. The Urabi were out of time.
I couldn’t watch a Jasadi die again. I hadn’t felt responsible for Adel, but the Urabi were here for me. Because of me.
You said our lands. Our villages. Not “the Jasadis’。”
I threw my arms open. A high-pitched whine reverberated in my ears. Magic poured from me in waves, each stronger than the last. The ground beneath us quaked. Dust exploded as rocks cascaded down the shaking slope.
Through the haze, I spotted Efra. Shock had frozen him in place, and the Urabi yanking at his arm seemed unable to dislodge him.
The ground shifted. With a roar of detritus and dust, each side of the Meridian Pass moved apart. I touched my cuffs. They singed my fingers. My magic… it was splitting the canyon wider.
When I glanced back, Efra was gone. The Nizahl soldiers in the canyon were tripping over the bodies of their fallen fellows, stumbling in the force of the shaking earth.
Relief poured through me. The Urabi had escaped.
I scanned the fallen bodies, heart in my throat. I did not see a head of bright blond hair or black curls.
The Meridian Pass finally stopped moving. I grabbed the rope the soldier had thrown and fixed the sharp end to the earth. My feet glided down the side of the canyon.
“Sylvia!” came Sefa’s shout. She and Marek were far ahead, barely visible at the other end of the canyon. Jeru waved from Marek’s right. He must have whisked them to safety.
Oh, thank the tombs. I exhaled, pressing the heel of my hand to my forehead. They were alive.
I found Arin immediately. Instead of being surrounded by his soldiers, he was utterly alone on his horse. Bowed forward in the same position of agony I had left him in. How? The Urabi had departed and taken their magic with them.
It must be another force. Magic in the crags itself, undetectable to all but Arin. He had mentioned his father. What if it was remnant magic from the massacre? Remnant magic was rare, but the violence of the deaths here might have been enough to leave a trace.
Wes rode right past Arin, neck craned in search. “Where is the Commander?” he boomed.