He kissed her deeply, bending her back with his passion.

  Kanthe met Rami’s eyes, as stunned as his friend.

  From the floor, Jester voiced all their concerns. “What in Hadyss’s blistered, fiery arse is going on?”

  62

  TAZAR SAVORED HIS victory—but no more so than the sweet taste of Aalia’s lips. It had been far too long. She finally drew back, but she kept her arm possessively around him as she faced her father and brother.

  “What is this?” Makar asked, his gaze flickering through hurt, confusion, and fury.

  Rami settled on anger. “Sister, you’ve been aligned with the Shayn’ra all this time?”

  Aalia firmed her hold on Tazar. “More than aligned. I’ve supported their efforts for the past five years. The empire has been in decline for ages, stagnant and calcified. Only freedom can reverse that course. We must break down the stultifying caste system that has chained the baseborn in place. Rami, you and I have spent months of late on this very subject.”

  Rami waved at Kanthe. “I thought it was because you didn’t want to marry him.”

  “True. That was problematic. Such an unfortunate arrangement did require me to act sooner than I wanted, forcing me to orchestrate my own abduction. Which unfortunately failed. And with far more bloodshed than I intended.”

  Tazar watched Rami struggle to realign events in his head.

  “But why?” her brother asked. “How?”

  Tazar knew the answer.

  Years ago, after Aalia had exposed Tazar in the palace for his duplicitous attempt to co-opt her, he had fled to the streets. He had found himself drawn into the Shayn’ra, stoked by his anger at imri class. Only afterward was he shocked to discover a covert benefactor to their cause. Someone who secretly supplied the Fist with aid, support, and intelligence from within the palace, allowing their order to flourish. Someone who wanted to tear down the order in Kysalimri as fervently as he did.

  Aalia, of course, had recognized him right away. She immediately disparaged him, believing he remained as disingenuous as ever. Still, he eventually convinced her, which sharpened her guilt at nearly having him killed back at the palace. Time and purpose drove them closer together, until they could no longer deny their attraction for one another, their affection. She admitted she had been drawn to him from the beginning, when he was a servant in the palace. It was one of the reasons she had exposed him back then. She had been young, fearful of herself, of that first yearning. She needed him gone.

  But no longer.

  He pulled her closer and pointed his sword at Kanthe. “What of this Hálendiian prince, your former betrothed?”

  Llyra stepped in front of Kanthe. “He is with us. None will harm him.”

  Tazar winced.

  So here were those crossed purposes she had mentioned before.

  Llyra was backed up by Saekl. From the shadows, other Rhysians appeared in black leather. Dark cloths wrapped their faces, leaving only their silver-blue eyes exposed. One shed her covering. It was the young woman who had accosted him. She once again held her small quisl, flipping the poisoned dagger between her fingertips.

  Tazar lifted a palm. He was not about to challenge any of them.

  Aalia supported this decision. “Though the prince is not the brightest, he’s not the enemy.”

  Kanthe frowned at the insult but knew better than to protest.

  “There is much we must talk about,” Aalia continued. “Concerning a danger larger than any empire or kingdom.”

  Kanthe sat straighter. “So we convinced you about moonfall after all?”

  She waved disdainfully to another chained man. “Your alchymist did.”

  Rami crossed to join them. “I will help. As best I can.” He glanced Tazar up and down, then faced Aalia. “But we will talk later, sister.”

  The alchymist interrupted, struggling to stand in his chains. “If we’re going, we should hurry.”

  Tazar nodded. “He’s right.”

  Outside, the sounds of battle had abated, but Tazar knew it could not hold. Reinforcements from the mooring fields would fall upon them before long.

  Even Emperor Makar felt confident enough in this fact to glare across the room. “This will not stand!” he threatened.

  Before anyone could respond, the Augury slipped past the emperor, running a finger across Makar’s cheek. “Hush.”

  The emperor stiffened at this touch and stumbled back. He trembled for a breath, his eyes rolling white—then he slumped to his knees, where he stayed. His eyes returned to normal, but as he gazed around, his face was a mask of confusion.

  “What did you do?” Rami blurted out.

  * * *

  AS RAMI RUSHED toward his father, Kanthe was content to remain on his knees. The continuing whirl of events dizzied him. His neck hurt from the strain of trying to look everywhere at once.

  The Augury glanced at Rami. “No harm’s been done, I assure you—well, no lasting harm.”

  Rami reached his father, but Makar shied away from him, as if not recognizing his own son.

  The Augury crossed to stand before the rest of them. “As your alchymist has warned, we don’t have much time. I’ve gone to great efforts to get you all in one place. And we dare not waste it.”

  Frell rattled to his feet. “You gathered us here? How?”

  “It would’ve been easier if you all didn’t keep thwarting me at every turn.” He pointed at Kanthe and Aalia. “All you two had to do was get married as planned and come here for a postnuptial divination. Would that have been so hard?”

  Kanthe, flummoxed and confused, looked at Aalia.

  “I had to act quickly.” The Augury waved across the chained group. “I risked much exposing your location in Malgard. To ensure that the emperor brought you all to my palacio.”

  Pratik gained his feet, too. “But how did you know where we—”

  The oracle ignored him and pointed to Tazar. “And you! I had to contact the Razen Rose. To arrange for Symon to pass you an old skrycrow message, letting you know your beloved Aalia was coming to Malgard.”

  Kanthe’s head spun, struggling to understand this puppeteer. “You’re part of the Razen Rose?”

  “No. Though I’ve worked with them in the past. They often serve as my eyes and ears from afar. Together we’ve accomplished much.”

  “Then who are you?” Frell asked.

  The Augury rested a hand on his chest. “You can call me Tykhan.”

  Kanthe challenged him, wanting a clear answer. “A name alone doesn’t truly explain who you are.”

  “I suppose that’s true. Perhaps it’s best if we follow the example of the Shayn’ra and throw away our masks.”

  “What mask?” Kanthe asked.

  The Augury lifted an arm. Bending it, he used the crook of his elbow to rub his face from brow to chin. As he did, the rich Klashean ebony wiped away—revealing the bright sheen of bronze beneath.

  “I’m who you all came to find,” the Augury explained. “The Sleeper of Malgard.”

  THIRTEEN

  THE FANGS OF THE CRÈCHE

  To reach the worldes Mouthe, yu must fyrst survive its Fanges. Lette that be warn’n enough.

  —An old Panthean adage, from the 22nd Nyssian Cycle

  63

  NYX STOOD AGAINST the gale and bluster of those packed inside the Sparrowhawk’s wheelhouse. Her concentration was thrown off by the muffled shouting from outside and the loud hammering in the ship’s hold. It all sharpened the ache behind her eyes. She squinted against it, determined not to relent.

  “Your plan is pure madness,” Graylin insisted as he paced in front of the ship’s maesterwheel.

  Others murmured or grunted their agreement. To the side, Darant leaned on a console, shaking his head. His two daughters looked dour. Jace hugged his chest, his eyes huge. Krysh crouched over a map table, tacked with a hand-drawn chart of the Ameryl Sea. Fenn leaned near the alchymist, peering over Krysh’s shoulder.

  Nyx ignored them all. “I’m going. Nothing will stop me.”

  She pictured her destination. Across the inside of her skull, a map blazed, fiery and insistent. Urgency pounded in her heart, fueled both by her own fear and by what the Dreamers had instilled in her.

  She voiced it now. “I will lose Bashaliia if I wait even another day,” she pressed. “I know it. I must go now.”

  Krysh glanced over his shoulder at her. “Nyx, why must you risk so much for the Mýr bat? I know he’s your bonded brother and you bear great affection, but there are far higher stakes, as you know, as you’ve seen in your vision.”

  Nyx had difficulty putting into words what burned in her heart. She had already explained in private what had befallen her and Daal, about their communing with the Dreamers, what they shared, even about the threat of another like Shiya.

  Nyx looked at the bronze woman, who stood next to Rhaif. Even now, Nyx could stir up the Oshkapeers’ terror of such inhuman figures. Yet, she also sensed the Dreamers’ compulsion for Nyx to rescue Bashaliia. Daal had described the Oshkapeers as unmoored by time, with the ability to ride the tides forward. Had they foreseen a time when Bashaliia would be needed, for him to be at her side?

  Or is what I’m sensing just a reflection of my own heart’s desire?

  She could not discount that possibility.

  Still, she continued. “Krysh, you mentioned my vision from last summer. Mind you all, Bashaliia was in that dream of mine.”

  She could easily dredge up that nightmare. It had become ingrained in her as firmly as the Dreamers’ fiery map. She pictured it now.

  —she flees up a shadowy mountain and skids to a stop at its summit. She is older, scarred, missing a finger on her left hand. Ahead, a cluster of figures in blood-soaked robes circle an altar where a huge shadow-creature thrashes and bucks, its wings nailed to the stone with iron.

  —she swings her arms high and claps her palms together as words, foreign to her, burst from her lips, ending in a name. “Bashaliia!”

  —her skull releases the fiery storm held inside. It blasts outward with enough force to shatter the altar stone. Iron stakes break from black granite. The shadow-beast leaps free.

  —one figure runs toward her, a blade held high, a curse on his lips. Wasted and empty, she can only fall to her knees and lift her face to the smoke-shrouded skies, to the full face of the moon.

  —as she watches, time both slows and stretches. The moon grows ever larger. The ground quakes under her knees. And still the moon fills more and more of the sky, its edges on fire now, darkening all the world around it.

  —she knows what’s coming: moonfall.

  —then a dagger plunges into her chest—piercing her heart with the awful truth: I’ve failed … I’ve failed us all.

  Nyx found herself trembling as she returned to the present. Though shaken, she clung to the memory of this vision to firm her resolve.

  “If Bashaliia was there on that fiery mountaintop,” she insisted, “then I’m destined to rescue him. Is that not so?”

  A heavy silence fell over the room—until a dissent rose from where she least expected it.

  “That’s not necessarily true,” Jace said, stepping closer, his eyes pained. “Your vision … you can’t place such weight on every detail of it.”

  Wounded by his words and doubts, she stared over at her friend. Over the past half year, everyone had pored over every snippet of her vision, seeking additional insight.

  Jace held up his hand and splayed it wide. “For instance, you still have all your fingers. In your dream, your left hand was maimed.”

  “But I was also older,” she reminded him. “That fate may yet befall me.”

  He sighed and looked to Graylin for help, but the knight nodded for Jace to continue, likely happy to let another take the reins in this attempt to draw her from the plan to cross under the ice to reach the fiery Mouth.

  “But, Nyx…” Jace’s voice fell to an apologetic whisper. “The end of that dream. You died. And so did the world. By your own words, you failed.”

  Nyx felt punched in the chest, bruising her heart.

  Jace did not let up. “If every detail of your vision was true, then we might as well all go home and live our best lives until the end, especially if we’re destined to fail.” He waved across the room. “But we’re here, supporting you.”

  She struggled to speak but managed to get out one word that contained many questions. “Why?”

  Why do you have such faith in me? Why is Bashaliia in my vision? Why does this all fall on my shoulders—to end the world in order to save it?

  Jace answered them all. “Nyx, you were born with an innate gift for bridle-song, but for the first six months of your life, you were raised in the fold of the Mýr colony. Back then, your mind was soft clay, still pliable, far from fully formed. Your brain grew while under a constant barrage of the bats’ silent cries. Under such persistent exposure, your mind and gift may have been forever altered by their keening, as a tree is gnarled by winds. It changed you.”

  Nyx remembered Frell making a similar claim. She also pictured the glowing tendrils of the Oshkapeers manipulating and altering Daal’s gift.

  Jace continued, plainly having pondered all of this, maybe with Frell’s and Krysh’s help. “Years later, it was that lingering change that made you susceptible to the warning of the Mýr bats. As nocturnal sentinels from an ancient age, they must have sensed the changes in the moon. They were possibly engineered for that very purpose. Once alerted, they sought out the only one who could understand them, who could carry their warning to the world.”

  “Me…”

  Jace nodded and waved to Shiya. “And possibly those like her. Sleepers who needed to be woken by their keening. Those ageless beings who could stop moonfall if it ever threatened.”

  “Unfortunately,” Krysh added, “while they are ageless, the ravages of time still destroyed many of the Sleepers and damaged others.”

  Nyx glanced to Shiya. She pictured that spider hidden behind the shadowy wings of the raash’ke. There was clearly more to the story of these bronze figures, but it would have to wait.

  Especially as Jace wasn’t done.

  “I think the vision that the bats instilled in you—it was a general warning, a cry for help. They likely cobbled their own memories, along with your fears, and maybe some elements that were a mix of prophecy or simply extrapolations of what might happen next. The great mind of the Mýr bats had lived for countless millennia at the fringes of man, watching kingdoms rise and fall. It would not be hard for them to calculate what a future might look like if moonfall should threaten.”

  Jace ticked them off on his fingers. “A great war due to the ensuing panic. Dark forces trying to stop you. How the struggle could cost you greatly in mind and body. A promise from the Mýr bats, in the form of those shadowy wings on the altar, to be your staunch ally during the strife to come. And ultimately at the end, a warning about what would happen if we all fail.”

  Nyx’s eyes had grown wider with each statement. She sensed the truth behind this interpretation of her dream. Still …

  “I accept what you’re saying, Jace. I do. But despite all you’ve argued, I know Bashaliia is supposed to be at my side. That he’s important to all of this. The Dreamers—like the great mind of the Mýr bats—have hinted as much, instilling an inescapable drive in me to rescue Bashaliia. Trust me on this.”

  Nyx kept her expression imperative, tamping down her doubts, knowing what she just said might not be entirely true. But one detail was:

  “I must go,” she said. “Daal is already on his way to the western edge of this sea, waiting for me.”

  She pictured him aboard his skiff, tethered to his two orksos, Neffa and Mattis. This morning, after overhearing Ularia speaking to a guard about watching them closely, the pair had decided that Daal should stay behind. He wasn’t allowed aboard the Reef Farer’s barge anyway, so no one would miss his lone skiff if it didn’t return with the other boats. Once everyone had left Kefta, Daal had headed out in the opposite direction.

  “Daal’s probably already at the wall of ice that closes off the western side of the sea,” Nyx said.

  “The Pantheans call those cliffs the Fangs,” Krysh noted, pointing to the map of the Ameryl Sea. “It’s a great icefall, pocked and riddled with caves and tunnels. According to a brief talk I had with Meryk, there is no way through there to reach the Mouth of the World.”

  Nyx knew that wasn’t true. Still, she winced, but for another reason. She turned to the alchymist. “You didn’t tell Daal’s father or mother what we’re planning?”

  “Of course not. I couched my inquiry as an interest in cartography, nothing more.”

  Nyx relaxed.

  Due to the prohibition against disturbing the Dreamers, they had kept Meryk and Floraan in the dark. Nyx had told them that Daal had remained behind at Kefta to do some fishing before returning. Guilt had panged her at this lie, especially with the way Nyx now felt about his mother and father. After she had shared Daal’s memories, her heart ached with the love he had for them.

  While much of that commingling of their lives had faded, her edges still blurred with his. Her memories of him were more than just if Daal had sat down and told her his life’s story, but less than if she had lived all his days in his skin.

  She could still remember what that intimacy had felt like. As that connection now waned, its absence only made her crave it more. She felt far emptier as Daal’s memories dissipated. She longed to return to Daal’s side, as if only his presence could fill that growing void in her.

  And it wasn’t just the hole created by the loss of his memories.

  There was a hungrier abyss, too.

  She remembered a moment with the Dreamers—when she had grabbed Daal’s shoulder. She pictured his fire flowing into her, drawn into a bottomless black maelstrom at the core of her being.

  She shuddered even now.

  Graylin shifted toward the Sparrowhawk’s portside window, staring across the sea to the west. “If we should head to the Fangs,” he said, “how do you propose to get there? Ularia has rallied the Reef Farer’s warriors to guard us close. They’re posted all over the beach. Any move and she’ll learn of your plan. I suspect she wouldn’t approve of this scheme any more than I do. If we do reach the Mouth, we risk stirring up the raash’ke into another attack on the Crèche. For that reason alone, she and the Reef Farer would prohibit us from going.”