Uncertainty passed over Soraya. “They will come to understand why Essiya had to die. They’ll see the potential of her magic is not worth the cost it will exact.”
“I won’t let you take her.” Gold and silver flickered weakly in Niphran’s eyes, her magic sluggish after years of disuse.
The dagger plunged into Niphran’s chest. My mother grabbed Soraya’s shoulder, and the attendant’s ruthless stare was the last thing she saw before her eyes fluttered shut. The dagger slid free, sending Niphran crumpling to the floor.
Her hair spilled around her in a pool of black. Blood wept from her wound as Soraya’s footsteps faded, leaving only Bakir Tower’s unforgiving silence.
The sinister plot unraveled as my mother breathed her last. Hanim poisoned the Jasad Heir for years. Kept her too disoriented and unstable to assume her rightful role as Jasad’s Qayida. When Hanim found herself banished, Soraya was already positioned in the palace to take over Hanim’s duties and keep the Heir docile.
I reached for Niphran’s cheek. Most of my short time with my mother was spent resenting her shortcomings. What kind of parents were Niyar and Palia to witness their mighty daughter’s downfall and not question its source?
An enormous crash shook the ground. When I glanced up, I stood beside Soraya and a swarm of people in one of the palace’s balconies. The fortress ran as far as the eye could see, winding around our kingdom. Colored in the amber of tree resin, the ethereal barrier soared higher than the Citadel itself. Gold and silver streaked across the surface like the shimmering trail of a shooting star.
“It’ll hold,” Soraya said tersely. The people around her—Mufsids—stared at the fortress as the earth quaked with another crash. “We used all our magic to cast the enchantment.”
“What if we said it wrong?” the woman beside her asked. The reason why fully grown adults were deferring to a girl of sixteen was made clear when Soraya replied in a cutting tone, “I read the enchantment exactly as Hanim wrote it.”
A man shoved to the front, rounding on Soraya. A deep gouge split his cheek from nose to ear. “Did you consider maybe she wanted the enchantment to fail? She asked us to attack before she was banished, and we refused her. What if this is her revenge?”
“She would never let Jasad fall to Supreme Rawain!”
“Why not?” he bellowed. Another reverberating thud shook the air, and a crack splintered over the fortress’s facade. “We betrayed her. With Jasad under his control, she stands to regain her power. Hanim has no loyalties, no principles. She wants the throne, and she thinks the Supreme means to rule Jasad. By the time she realizes his true intentions, the entire kingdom will be destroyed!”
“How could she think Supreme Rawain would ever let her take Jasad’s throne?” Soraya balked. With a deafening smash, the multiplying cracks in the fortress fractured. The Mufsids threw themselves to the ground as a million gold and silver rays engulfed them. Like a rupture of the sun, the light swathed Jasad in warmth, the result of centuries of magic and enchantments fed to the unassailable fortress.
The thunder of thousands of hooves rocked Jasad as horses appeared through the broken fortress. Black-and-violet uniforms stretched as far as the eye could see. On the crests draped over their horses, a raven rose between two clashing swords. The crest fluttered as the riders pounded over the scorched ground where the fortress had stood. The flame from their torches dotted the horizon like a starlit night.
Nizahl descended on Jasad in a swarm of darkness.
The Mufsids were already fleeing, but Soraya remained beside me. We watched the soldiers gallop into the towns. We listened as the screams began.
“It wasn’t supposed to be this way,” said Soraya. When she turned, she was older. The Soraya from the Banquet.
Jasad melted around us. White walls replacing its verdant fields.
Around us, flickers of Jasad seeped onto the walls. Hooves pounding down the street. Flames licking up the side of a lower village’s school.
“Hanim deceived me. She ruined us,” Soraya said. “I wanted to show you I would never have sent you to the Blood Summit if I suspected the fortress would fall.”
“Do not patronize me. You have lied since the moment I met you.”
“Not about this! I was barely more than a child myself when Hanim recruited me to the palace. You clung to me, and I held you right back. I had no choice, Essiya. My love for you could not outweigh what needed to be done.”
“There is always a choice,” I snarled. “What I don’t understand is why. I wouldn’t have challenged your claim to power if you had united our people and secured their trust and safety. I was content in Mahair, with my life in the village. My magic is trapped! It can’t harm anyone.”