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Mesut stood beside the writhing woman. One of his sleeves was pulled back, revealing a bracelet of gold with a large black gem on it. The courtyard was deep in shadow, lit only by the braziers spaced throughout the grand courtyard, which was why Çeda was able to see the thin white cloud lifting from the gemstone.

  It made the hair on her arms stand tall, made her insides twist. She wasn’t even sure why, not until more of the stuff floated free and began to take form. It was a wight, she realized. She’d never seen one before. Not really. Only a glimpse in a boneyard when she was young. At the time she’d thought it her fear of that massive boneyard manifesting, the stories she, Emre, Tariq, and Hamid had told one another before going there with bravery in their hearts and a skin of wine to hand. The moment they’d seen a ghostly form floating above the grave marker, though, all the bravery the wine had lent them vanished like summer rain, and they’d fled. It had been a harmless day, even a fun day.

  Here, in the courtyard of Eventide, it was anything but.

  The wight drifted forward, guided by Mesut’s outstretched hand. The woman stared at its approach, her screams maniacal now. At a wave from Mesut—a thing so akin to a pleasant introduction it made Çeda sick—the wight touched her. Immediately, the woman went silent, rigid as stone. With a measured pace not unlike a bone crusher ripping meat off one of its kills until it was sated, the wight slipped inside her. Then it dissipated and was gone.

  For long seconds, all was silence. But then, as if she were rotting from the inside out, the woman’s skin began to darken. Like a dirty wet rag left to dry in the sun, her already-tight skin drew in further, until she looked almost indistinguishable from the asirim, the sad creatures that lived beneath the groves of adichara trees far out in the desert. Çeda had been purposely masking her presence from the asirim, but she could hardly ignore the woman below, who shone like a beacon in her mind, shedding darkness instead of light. The woman was one of them now, and they were calling to her: a paean to her pain, but also a welcome to their clan.

  Breath of the desert, the Kings had created an asir. What Cahil had given her, what the true nature of Mesut’s golden band was, she didn’t know, but she was certain they’d taken a living woman and re-created the spell the gods had placed on the asirim four hundred years ago on Beht Ihman.

  Without knowing why, she realized her awareness of the asirim was strengthening. She tried to suppress it, fearing that Mesut, lord of the asirim, would sense her, but in the end it wasn’t the Jackal King who found her, but the woman. She lifted her head and stared directly at the loophole through which Çeda was watching this grisly scene. The doomed woman lifted her skeletal hand and pointed. The moment she did, Çeda aimed and released her arrow.

  The arrow flew true, directly for Kiral’s chest, but Mesut stepped in front of him and snatched the arrow from the air, spinning in a blur as he did so. Another arrow was already on its way. This one caught Cahil across one cheek. The third arrow flew toward Husamettín, but he was already drawing Night’s Kiss. He swept it in a broad arc, slicing the arrow in two as he dodged fluidly to one side.

  She couldn’t afford to shoot the fourth arrow. Mesut was already running toward the tower. The Maidens were charging as well. A dozen Silver Spears were converging along the curtain walls from the other towers.

  Çeda turned and took two long strides from the tower to throw herself over the merlon where her rope was tied. Grabbing the near lip of the stone, she controlled her motion and dropped straight down, then grabbed the rope and slipped along its length. She slid until she reached the Silver Spear’s lifeless form, at which point she climbed down his body, held on to his booted ankles, and dropped. She flattened herself against the steeply sloping stone and was able to slow her descent somewhat. Her light armor scraped with a sizzling sound. Something burned bright along her right shin as the leather tore through, but she reached level ground a moment later.

  Taking a bag from her shoulder, she unfastened the tie and quickly began spreading the contents: dozens and dozens of caltrops. She scattered them generously along the ground in the most likely places for the Maidens or the Kings to drop down.

  Above, she saw silhouettes—a trio of Blade Maidens—just as a bell began to ring from within the palace walls. She’d hoped to have more time before the whole of Tauriyat woke, but there was nothing for it now.

  She turned and sprinted through the trees. Whether the Maidens were caught by the caltrops she didn’t know. She heard no cry of alarm, but once or twice she heard running along the dry slope behind her. They were swift, even in the darkness, likely having taken petals of their own by now, but Çeda was well ahead, and she’d plotted her course carefully over the past several weeks, ever since reading Yusam’s journal.

  Her own petal powered her on, also granting her the sharp vision she needed to run full speed and avoid tripping over the stones that littered the landscape.

  As she knew they would, other bells began to ring, more palaces picking up the alarm. “Lai, lai, lai!” she heard from behind, a demand for her to stop. But she could tell it was also a feint. There were other Maidens closer, hoping to catch her unaware.

  She approached the walls around Tauriyat. She could see, faintly, several more Maidens running along the tops of the walls to intercept her. This had always been the weakest part of her plan. She couldn’t predict how many Maidens might be waiting along the walls. One Maiden was standing directly ahead, Çeda saw now. Without breaking stride, she drew her bow, nocked the last arrow, and released on the run. It struck the Blade Maiden through the neck. She fell backward off the wall, a short cry of surprise and pain going with her.

  Çeda’s lungs burned, but she pushed harder, soon reaching the stone where she’d secreted a rope and grapnel. She swung it through the air in widening circles as she neared the wall. Slowing only for a moment, she put her whole body into an almighty launch of the hook. The rope snaked through the moonlit night, and the hook caught on the far battlements with a clank. Then she was pulling herself up along the inside of the wall. After gaining the walk, she launched herself over the battlements and into Sharakhai proper.

  She stood along the eastern edge of the city, near the temple district. Ahead was the old city—a maze of ancient buildings and drunken streets, built as they were for a city from a different age. She’d no more made it to a bend in the street than she heard behind her the thud of booted feet against stone, the pounding of swift strides.

  Ahead, more bells rang, this time from the garrison, the largest and oldest of the Silver Spears’ holdings. She ran toward those bells, a thing most would think terribly foolish, but she’d carefully chosen her exit along the wall so that the Spears might be drawn into the search as well. It would, she hoped, only add to the confusion and mask what she was about to do.

  She sprinted along a short, dark street that led to an intersection of three others. Halfway down the street, a rope hung from a stone signpost advertising a Mirean leechman. When she came near, she leapt and seized the rope with both hands. Though her momentum sent her to swinging like a pendulum, legs dangling like a wooden doll’s, she climbed as quick as she could and clambered onto the beam. After coiling the rope on top of the beam, she slipped over the edge of the roof.

  Lying flat, she controlled her breathing and prayed that none of her pursuers would spot the rope, nor see the sign swaying, as she’d knocked it with her leg on the way up. Staring at the sky, she heard bootsteps along the street below. In moments they’d reached the intersection of streets. One hushed conversation later, they resumed, and soon had faded altogether. All around, sounds were waking the city that had been settling for slumber. The clatter of metal. Horse hooves ringing over stone. Soldiers mobilizing. The sharp orders from men and women alike.

  At the corner of the darkened roof, Çeda unwrapped a bundle she’d hidden a week earlier. She pulled out her Blade Maiden’s uniform: a black battle dress, a turban, leather boo
ts, and her shamshir, River’s Daughter. She stripped off her leather armor, shed the padding and the binding around her chest, and pulled on the clothes she’d been wearing nearly every day these past four months. She was a Blade Maiden once more. The leather armor, the bow, and the quiver she rolled tightly together and stuffed into a clay downspout on the outside of the building. The padding and cloth binding she took to the far side of the roof and dropped into the trash bin of a tailor’s shop. The clothes might be found and they might not. If they were, the Maidens would likely assume one of the Moonless Host had tried to assassinate the Kings, and with any luck they’d think it was a man who’d changed garb in order to melt into the city. And if the clothes remained unfound, well, all the better.

  As she lay there, staring at the moonless sky, any relief she felt at still being alive was soured by the realization of how badly she’d failed. Kiral. By the gods, she’d wanted Kiral. His death would have sent every court on Tauriyat into chaos. It would have lain to rest the notion, even more so than King Külaşan’s death, that the Kings were immortal. Husamettín would have been nearly as good, since he and his Blade Maidens had been the cause of so much pain in Sharakhai and the desert beyond. She’d failed to deliver a killing strike against Cahil, but at least the arrow had nicked him. The poison she’d used paralyzed in seconds, killed within minutes. Surely not even a King could stand against it.

  She had to admit, though, however short of reaching her goals she might have fallen, the night hadn’t been a complete loss. She knew more about the Kings than she had that morning. She knew how utterly fast they were. She’d seen how they reacted. She had underestimated them, but she wouldn’t do so again.

  The sound of boots approached once more. A hand of Maidens moved like ghosts beneath her. When they reached the same crossing, they took the left fork. The moment they were out of sight, Çeda slipped over the edge of the roof, dropped to the street, and sprinted after the Maidens. She caught up to them just as they were meeting a contingent of ten Silver Spears. Çeda whistled, a request to be apprised of the situation, an implied request for orders from the commanding officer, in this case a tall warden of the Blade Maidens. Two more Maidens arrived behind her, one giving the same whistle.

  The warden, who’d been speaking to the captain of the Spears, turned to them. “You three,” she barked to Çeda and the new arrivals, “follow the Raven Road, then swing down along the Trough. Question anyone you find in the streets. We’re searching for a man, short, wearing light leather, possibly armed with a bow, so take care. We’ll meet at the Wheel after a sweep of our own.”

  Çeda and the other two Maidens nodded, and then they were off, running back the way they’d come toward the road that wound through the temple district. As they did, Çeda began to breathe easier. They would search the city—likely they would search the whole night through—but they’d not find the assassin. Not this night.

  Chapter 2

  RAMAHD AMANSIR SWAM ALONG the shore of the Austral Sea. The sea rolled beneath him, the swell rhythmic, calm as a baby’s cradle, though darkness brewed to the south. Ramahd turned his back to the gathering storm and swam for the black sandy beach and the gray cliffs of his estate, Viaroza, that dominated the distant horizon. Between that beach and Ramahd sprawled a swath of sea so blue it made his heart ache just to see it. How he’d missed the calm of a simple swim, the way the water chilled him even as his muscles warmed to the effort. His body felt perfectly in tune with the waves, the cadence of his strokes playing against the swells’ broader rhythms. The smell of the salty sea was sublime—the call of the white gulls, the chill of the water, so very different from the Great Shangazi.

  How exotic those days seemed now. How mundane they’d become back then. The months he’d spent chasing his wife and child’s killer had made the city of Sharakhai feel like a ship adrift, his purpose there a current carrying him farther and farther from his homeland. As much as it had pained him to admit, his life in Qaimir, one of the four kingdoms surrounding the Shangazi Desert, had become little more than a rapidly dimming memory in the face of that bleak, sun-blinding place. Strangely, though, after taking their prize near King Külaşan’s hidden desert palace—Külaşan’s own son, the blood mage, Hamzakiir—and returning home with Princess Meryam, his world had suddenly felt whole again, as if he’d never left Qaimir’s mountains, her green foothills, the shore of the Austral Sea. The endless desert days, the heartache for his wife and child, the hunt for Macide, the unforgiving, unrelenting heat—he’d shaken it all off like sand from a cloak upon reaching Qaimir’s capital, Almadan, and by the time he’d reached Viaroza on the edge of the Endless Sea, his sense of home had returned and it was the desert that had become the stuff of dreams.

  There was one notable exception. Hamzakiir. He was a constant reminder of Sharakhai. Of the Kings. Of the fact that they were playing with fire by keeping him alive. Meryam’s plan had always been to use Hamzakiir. It had been why they’d gone to the desert to make their bargain with the ehrekh, Guhldrathen; why they’d gone to King Külaşan’s desert palace to wrest control of him from the Moonless Host; why Meryam had been trying to dominate his mind from the moment they’d crossed the border into Qaimir. He would be a powerful tool indeed, full of ancient knowledge the King of Qaimir could use to protect their homeland, or unleash against Sharakhai should they threaten Qaimir, or, as Ramahd suspected Meryam preferred, launch an assault against the Kings of Sharakhai for control of the desert. Meryam had claimed Hamzakiir would weaken quickly, that she would have him in no time at all, but Hamzakiir had resisted all attempts to dominate him, then and now.

  Ramahd shook his head as memories came unbidden. The look of grim defiance on Hamzakiir’s face as Meryam tried to tear down the walls within him. The shaking of his weak and wasted frame. The growing cries of pain. They were memories that haunted Ramahd’s dreams, made his waking hours a chore. A constant reminder of all they’d abandoned in the desert so Meryam could play god. It was why Ramahd came to the sea to swim, as he’d done when he was young. To forget. To wrap himself in something other than pain and regret and sheer, unyielding will. But lately, even this, the steadfast refuge of the sea, was slowly being eroded by thoughts of those interminable sessions in the dungeon of Viaroza, and he hated Hamzakiir all the more for it.

  Mighty Alu, how was it that Hamzakiir could still resist? Ramahd himself felt such a tattered remnant when Meryam finished her interrogations, and if he felt so, how could Hamzakiir stand against her day after day?

  “It cannot last,” Meryam told him only a week ago.

  Ramahd had laughed bitterly. “The question has never been whether it can last, Meryam, but who will break first.”

  Meryam stared deeply into his eyes, and for a moment she’d seemed so much larger than the shivering, skeletal form he saw before him. “I will never break.”

  Ramahd had said nothing. Those four simple words were a talisman against the task before her, but they’d both heard the desperation in her voice. Years ago he would never have doubted Meryam’s resolve, nor her abilities, but Hamzakiir was much stronger than either of them had guessed, and Meryam was weakening. How pitiful she looked, lying in bed wearing a sweat-stained nightdress, how battered. He thought surely she would crumble under the weight on her shoulders, and yet each time he carried her down to the dungeon, she pushed herself ever harder.

  He didn’t doubt her desire—that was strong as ever, perhaps more so now that she was close to breaking him—but her body was failing her. One day soon it would break, and then where would they be? Likely Ramahd would end up having to draw a knife across Hamzakiir’s throat for the danger he represented, but that would leave the grim pact Meryam had made in the desert with the ehrekh, Guhldrathen, unfulfilled. She’d promised to deliver Hamzakiir to that infernal creature. She’d promised her own life as forfeit if she failed. Would the creature accept a dead body, its lifeblood drained? Likely not, and the gods only kne
w what it would do then. It might demand Ramahd’s life as well, or even King Aldouan’s, in recompense for the one he’d lost. There was no telling with such creatures.

  Over Ramahd’s shoulder, the dark clouds advanced like infantry. The wind drove harder, sending salty spray into the air. White froth now tipped the deep blue waves. Having no wish to be caught in a squall, he made for shore with longer strokes, with stronger kicks. He swore in those moments he could hear Hamzakiir’s cries of anguish mixing with the dull roar of the surf around him. A trick of the wind, those dark hours haunting me even here.

  And yet, not three breaths later, he spotted a man with dark hair and a billowing white shirt climbing down the stairs carved into the black rock of the cliff face. It was his first mate, Dana’il, and he was moving with haste. Ramahd swam harder, fear for Meryam chilling him more than the sea ever could. By the time he reached shore, the waves were thick with foam. Salt spray crashed high in the air. After climbing from the water to reach a stone jetty where a yacht and three smaller fishing ships were moored, Ramahd took the folded cotton towel from atop his pile of clothes and began drying his naked form.

  By then Dana’il was sprinting along the jetty. “My lord, it’s Meryam,” he said as he came near. “She woke this morning and . . . She asked that I stand in for you today.”

  Ramahd tied his trousers, pulled his shirt quickly over his head. “After I ordered you not to?”

  “Forgive me, my lord, yes.” He rushed his words, clearly chagrined. “She insisted. She told me she’d choose someone else if I wouldn’t join her. And . . .” He was staring at Ramahd with pity in his eyes.

  “What is it?” Ramahd asked.

  “I . . . I only thought to spare you from—”

  Ramahd waved him into motion. “What’s done is done.” Together they walked side by side toward the cliffs. “Tell me what happened.”