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The night is bloody, but the Karkauns are nothing without their alpha. Those who fight are quickly destroyed. The rest simply run, escaping the city like rats from a ship on fire.
“Get a message to the southern Paters,” I tell Harper. “Tell them those loyal to Emperor Zacharias liberated Antium this day.”
Dawn brightens the eastern horizon, and my men gather on a staircase in Cartus Square. Quin hoists Zacharias’s hawk-and-hammer flag atop the palace.
As he does, Antium’s survivors emerge into the streets. Emaciated Martial and Scholar men, chained but unbroken. Women clutching weapons in one hand and children in the other. Fighters all.
The square fills up, and then the streets. I spot Neera in the crowd, and a chant starts up, one that is spoken and whispered at first. Then shouted by all of those who fought for Antium, by all who survived.
“Imperator Invictus! Imperator Invictus!”
My blood surges when I hear it. First in pride. Then in dawning unease.
For they are not chanting for Zacharias.
They are chanting for me.
“They should be chanting the Emperor’s name,” I hiss at Quin, who has descended and stands beside me on the stairs. “Not—this.”
“The Emperor is a child, Shrike. A symbol. You are the general who fought for them. You understood the strength of their spirit. And you were fearless. Let them call you whatever they please.”
My mind snags on one word:Fearless. For I am not fearless. To be fearless means to have a heart of steel. But my heart betrayed itself. It is soft and hopeful.
And I know now that it belongs entirely to Avitas Harper. No matter how I wish to deny it, my reaction when I thought him dead tells me I am fully, foolishly in love with him. He is the weak spot in my armor, the flaw in my defense.
Damn my traitorous heart to the hells.
Part III
The Jinn Queen
XXXV:The Nightbringer
One evening on my way home from visiting the Ankanese, I stopped to rest and eat south of the Waiting Place, along the shores of the Duskan Sea. As I let the stars and waves lull me to sleep, a flicker caught my eye. A fire burning bright and solitary, the lamp of a wanderer on a great, dark plain.
It drew closer, and I flowed into my flame form, for this jinn carried weapons in either hand, and though I did not enjoy battle, I was more than prepared for it.
“Hail, kindred.” She brought with her the scent of citrus and juniper, her voice husky and accented strangely. “Will you share your meal? For I have traveled long, with nary a bite. For your kindness, I will offer you a tale. This, I vow.”
I confess my bewilderment, for I knew all of the jinn in the Waiting Place, and yet I had never met her.
“I am called Rehmat and am a creature of flame, like you, my king,” she said. “But born elsewhere, that I might live among the humans for a time and understand them. I have bled with them and battled with them, but Mauth bid me join you, for my destiny lies now with our people.”
Rehmat. A strange name. One with a meaning that unsettled me.
She told her tale, as she promised, and then traveled to the Sher Jinnaat with me. But ever after, she was never content to remain inthe wood. A strange mood would overcome her, she would strap her blades across her back and wander, a warrior-poet who found a home wherever she laid her head.
The first time she disappeared from the Waiting Place, I searched and searched until I found her draped in the branches of a Gandifur tree in the far west, trading poetry with the Jadna tribe—the forebears of the Jaduna.
She drifted thousands of miles south, to the Ankanese, and taught them the language of the stars. Then she sang stories with the first Kehannis of the Tribes, teaching them to draw magic from words. She found those Tribespeople who saw the dead and instructed them on the Mysteries they would later use to pass ghosts.
“Why,” I asked her, exasperated, “do you always wander so far? Why can you not remain in the Sher Jinnaat?”
Her smile pulled at my heart, for there was a deep sadness to it. “You have found your purpose, my king. You have much magic in you. I still seek mine. When I find my power, I will return. This, I vow.”
It had not occurred to me that she lacked magic, for to me, she burned with life and wit, humor and beauty.
One day, weeks after she’d disappeared again, I woke from sleep. Her anguished voice called to me across hundreds of miles. I made for an island empty of human life, but teeming with every other kind. The ocean was peaceful, a brilliant azure, the winds sweet as summer cherries.
