The Kingdoms of Dust (29 page)

Isyllt tried to speak, but her strength leached away too fast and her voice failed. At least it was a painless death. Like falling asleep in the snow…

The cold retreated, driven back by warmth and light. Burning wings enfolded her, holding her up even as the icy touch of the void shredded them. “If you’re going to do something, do it now. We’ll have company soon.”

Asheris’s voice was sweet and rich as honey, and the sound drew her back from the edge of consciousness. She laughed as her fading focus returned.

“I’m here to free you,” she said to the void. “You’ve been bound long enough. Come with me, and I’ll show you the way out.”

Her vow constricted like a chain of ice around her throat and heart. For an instant she thought the oath was too strong, and the breaking of it would kill her. Then, like ice, the links cracked and fell away. As with lying and murder and so many other things, treachery came easier the second time.

Darkness filled her, more than she could ever contain. It bled from her eyes, her mouth, her fingertips. It lifted her out of the pit and set her on the edge, Asheris at her side.

She saw the lines of power carved into the walls, the channels through which magic flowed. She saw the weak points, and where to strike. Sharing her eyes, Al-Jodâ’im saw into the crystal depths of the diamonds, to the tiny flaws no human could perceive.

A hundred diamonds exploded at once. Asheris’s wings enfolded them both, shielding them from the spray of razor shards. The red salt door fell from its hinges and shattered; the impact rippled through the floor, shaking the stones beneath their feet.

The floor shook again, throwing them sideways. Deep cracks crazed the marble ceiling, raining grit. Somewhere overhead, the building groaned.

“I think you were overzealous,” Asheris muttered.

“Maybe so.” The words spilled power from her lips like black vomit. The edge of the pit collapsed. She clapped one hand over her mouth in surprise, but couldn’t stop the wild laugh that followed. Stone dissolved like wet paper.

“This isn’t the tomb I’d have wished for myself,” Asheris said, catching a melon-size chunk of ceiling that would have split his skull.

“It won’t be.” This time her words rent the air itself, opening the shadow-ways. “Come on.”

They stepped between darknesses, emerging on top of the temple in time to see the observatory tower shear and topple, crashing to the ground with an earsplitting roar. The floor continued to shake; with inhuman senses, Isyllt felt the spiral stair eroding beneath them. Asheris held her close and carried them aloft as the entire rooftop gave way.

Melantha’s dreams turned tense and frantic before she woke, dreams of racing after faceless figures, desperate to reach them before something terrible happened. A hand on her shoulder pulled her free, and she lashed out blind and breathless. Adam blocked the clumsy blow and caught her wrist before she could strike again.

“Easy,” he murmured. “It’s a dream.”

“No,” she said, fighting for breath. The ringing in her head wasn’t only nerves. Sheets tangled her legs as she tried to get out of bed. “Something’s wrong. In the temple.” Twice in two nights was too much—something was badly wrong.

The floor jolted as she stood, flinging her down again. Hands and knees scraped on the stones, and her teeth clacked as tremors shook the room. Glass rattled off a shelf and shattered. The crash drowned Adam’s curses. As the ringing in her ears dimmed, she heard a distant rumble of stone.

“Saints,” she muttered, scrambling for her clothes. Cloth snagged painfully on her bloody knees.

“What was that?” Adam asked as he grabbed his sword belt.

“Nothing good.”

She shouted for Nerium as she flung open her door, but it was Moth she collided with in the corridor.

“It’s Isyllt,” the girl gasped, steadying herself on the still-shivering wall. “She went into the oubliette.” Something glittered on her hand—a ruby Melantha had never seen before.

“She told you?”
And you didn’t warn us?
She stopped the question in time—she knew better than to think she’d won Moth’s loyalty yet.

“She left me a message.” Her ringed hand clenched. “I only found it when—”

Another tremor shook the hall, throwing them all sideways. The Chanterie groaned around them as they ran; shelves ripped from the walls and furniture toppled. As they reached the ground floor, Melantha heard a splintering roar from the library. Her throat clenched as she thought of Khalil sleeping there, but there was no time to rescue him.

Guards and servants shouted, scrambling into the street. In the hypostyle a pillar tilted and fell, then another, and another, like a row of children’s blocks. All of Qais shook like a tabletop under a pounding fist.

“Lady!” She turned to see Salah bolting toward her, dust rising from his steps. “What’s happened?”

“I don’t know. Get as many to safety as you can.” If there was any safety to be found. “Wait,” she called as he turned to obey. “My mother?”

“She ran for the temple.” He vanished into the chaos before she could ask more, shouting commands to his men.

The temple that was collapsing as she watched.

She reached for shadows, thinking to bypass the toppling pillars, but the darkness split with a howl that knocked her backward. Only Adam’s hasty catch saved her from falling in the street. The wind from the void scraped over her like sharkskin; the effort to seal the rift left her shaking.

“Stay here,” she said, forcing her trembling knees to still.

In response, the lintel cracked, raining chunks of sandstone onto the Chanterie steps. Moth yelped as a stray shard caught her brow.

“I don’t think so,” Adam said.

“That’s it!” Moth wiped her forehead, smearing blood. Pink light crackled across her fingers. “There’s something else in here besides the message, but I couldn’t work the spell.”

Before Melantha could react, the girl darted close and plucked a knife from her belt. Her arm rose to block a strike, but that wasn’t Moth’s intention. Instead she brought the blade down the outside of her own left wrist. Blood trickled into her palm and dripped between her fingers. At its touch, the ruby blazed with hot red light, and a shining veil of power rose around them.

“What is that?” Adam asked.

“A ward. Isyllt left it for me to find. She must have known—”

Another chunk of masonry crashed down, but the shield held. As she watched the city collapse around them, Melantha couldn’t find any gratitude for Iskaldur’s foresight.

“I have to get to the temple,” she said to Moth.

Magelight sparked in the girl’s eyes. “I know. So let’s go.”

They dodged falling pillars and teetering walls. Somewhere along the way Moth had sliced her other wrist; blood streaked her face and rained from her fingers, faster than the shallow wound should allow. The more she bled, the brighter the protective spell burned.

As they cleared the hypostyle, Melantha drew up short, breath abandoning her lungs. The ghost wind poured screaming from the fractured temple, stronger than she had ever seen it. But instead of grief and despair, this storm howled in exultation, fierce and free.

At the base of the temple steps, in the shadow of the maelstrom, Nerium and Kash struggled. The jinni fought with savage desperation, but he was still weak from last night’s defeat. Nerium flung him away, crushing him to the ground with a word.

Melantha moved to join her, but paused as Iskaldur and Asheris descended from the storm, held aloft on flaming wings.

“What have you done?” Nerium shouted over the roar of falling masonry. Her nightdress was smeared with dirt and sweat, and blood trickled from a shallow cut on her cheek. Power crackled at her fingertips.

“It’s over.” Iskaldur’s voice rang with inhuman strength. Another column split and fell. She gestured to the ruined temple and corrosion flew from her fingers to splinter the steps. Her hair writhed around a death-white face, floating in the draft of the void.

Melantha’s chest hitched as she understood: Iskaldur had succeeded where she had failed so many years ago. She had become the void.

“It’s over,” the necromancer said again. Her voice was nearly human this time.

Nerium’s face was grey and streaked with tears. Melantha couldn’t remember when she’d last seen her mother cry. “I thought you understood. All we’ve done, all the sacrifices—”

“I do understand. That’s why I did it. No one ever needs to make those sacrifices again. This has gone on too long, Nerium.”

“Look up, you fool! Look at what you’ve unleashed.”

Iskaldur lifted her head to the storm, jaw gaping as if she only just noticed the widening spiral.

Now
, Melantha thought.
While she’s distracted
. Her fist clenched around a knife. Demons could still die. And if she couldn’t kill the necromancer, at least she could distract her for Nerium. It might be the last chance she had—

To do what, she asked herself. To make her mother proud?

She coiled to strike, but fell instead as Adam hooked her legs and tugged them out from under her. She lunged up, spitting sand, and he caught her knife-arm and twisted.

“No,” he said, his voice as gentle as his grip wasn’t. “I can’t let you do that. I have to trust her.”

“Trust?” She spat the word in his face. “Trust that?”

Asheris’s shout drew their attention in time to see Nerium strike, magic a killing blade in her hand. The jinni threw himself in front of Iskaldur, wings flaring.

Kash got there first.

“It’s over,” he said, all the malice drained from his voice. Four gaunt arms held Nerium close and his killing beak brushed her cheek, soft as a kiss. “It’s done, Nerium. Now we can both be free. Now you can rest.”

His wings flared, obsidian feathers slicing open the night. He fell backward, Nerium cradled against his chest. The void took them both.

“No!” Melantha flung Adam aside, ripping open the night as she dove.

A storm raged beneath the skin of the world. The tempest caught her, spun her, sucked her down. Blind and breathless, she fought the current, reaching frantically for her mother. Instead familiar cold fingers closed on her wrist, steadying her amid the whirlpool.

“It’s done, Arha,” Kash whispered. Instead of spite or mockery, his voice was soft and tired. “Let her go. You’re free now.”

Free. The word was hollow, just as she was. She’d said she wanted out, but without Quietus what was she? An empty shell, full of ghosts and other people’s memories.

“Are you going to kill me, too?” It would be easier if he did. How many times could she kill herself and start over? She felt like salted earth inside.

“No,” Kash said. “I have something else for you. Talia.”

“What?” The sound echoed in her head like a forgotten dream.

“Talia. That was the name your mother gave you, the name you lost to the void. It can be yours again, if you want it.”

“What do I do with it?”

She felt his shrug. “Whatever you like.”

He let go, and she fell through shadow and out the other side, to collapse weeping onto the sands of Qais.

Asheris sighed as Kash and Nerium vanished, his wings slowly furling. “It’s done,” he repeated.

Isyllt shook her head. “No.” Her hard-won control slipped, and the denial opened a gash across his cheek. They both flinched and she turned away, hugging herself as if that could contain the destruction. “Not yet. Al-Jodâ’im didn’t deserve what happened to them, but the world doesn’t deserve this. They don’t want to be here—it hurts them, even as they destroy us. I have to send them home.”

She understood in that heartbeat how to do it. And something else, too. She turned back to Asheris, and the voice that strained her throat to bursting was not her own.

“We can set you free, jinni.”
Her hands rose like a puppet’s to cradle his face. Ahmar’s curse disintegrated at the touch, wiped away as easily as a spiderweb. Darkness rose from her skin like smoke, and the fire in his blood flared to meet it.
“You are trapped as we were. We can take apart your prison as you did ours, till only the fire remains. You would be as you were once more.”

“Free.” Wonder and disbelief transfigured his face, lit his eyes like flame within crystal.

“You can go home.”

His hands closed over Isyllt’s as if in prayer, and his eyes sagged shut. When they opened again their light was fiercer, sharper, and so very sad.

“Thank you. More than I can ever say. But no.”

“What?” Isyllt reclaimed her voice, shoving Al-Jodâ’im aside even as she questioned the wisdom of interrupting cosmic powers. “What do you mean,
no
?”

“I can go home to Mazikeen, hide behind shining walls, while the Fata bleeds dry. Or I can fight. I thought I was trapped between two worlds—what if I can be a bridge instead?” He gave her a lopsided smile. “And you were right—I would miss the theater.”

“Very well,”
said the Undoing, returning Isyllt’s mental equivalent of a rude elbow.
“We have learned something of sacrifice in that pit, for good or ill. We’ve learned about vengeance too, and enemies. So we can give you another gift instead.”

Isyllt felt that gift leave her, disappearing into the roiling storm above their heads. Her awareness followed, and for an instant she saw through the eyes of the storm. It spiraled across the desert, spinning faster and faster. The black wind swept toward the northern coast, where its daughter-storms would founder ships and douse the flames of lighthouses. It swirled west to the mountains of Ninaya to wake avalanches on their shoulders. In the shining city of Mazikeen, jinn drew back in horror as their glass-walled towers fissured and leaves fell from the Tree of Sirité, and to the south little spirits cowered as the gale shook the jungle canopy.

But it was east that the Undoing flew, east to Ta’ashlan. Darkness broke in a wave over the City of Lions, and a thousand screams rose and were snuffed. Men and women fell in the streets, and those indoors fell to their knees and prayed. In the imperial palace, the empress collapsed on her balcony, clutching her stomach as the wind brushed past. But the storm gathered thickest over the great cathedral. One of the Pillars of the Sun split and crashed into the street below, destroying a line of buildings with its rubble. On the Illumined Chair, an old woman’s heart burst as she cried out to her god. And in the apiary, her hands sticky with honey and pollen, Ahmar Asalar looked up in horror and awe as the full force of the Undoing descended on her. And fell, dying, amid the ruin of her hives.