“May I see it?” asks Opal.
“Why?” I lower my fingers to my dagger sheathed against my thigh. The book cannot be taken by someone who would use it for violence or personal gain. I tire of the responsibility of guarding it. But with whom does the Zhaleh belong?
“Every bhuta’s name from the time of the First Bhutas to when Rajah Tarek stole the book is recorded within.” Opal adds in a small voice, “My mother’s name is inside.”
I have been too intimidated by the Zhaleh to thumb through its pages, not even to see my father’s name. I shiver at the thought of disturbing the book’s slumbering powers and fist the hilt of my dagger beneath my skirt. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“All right,” Opal says. I frown at her hasty compliance. She yawns again, her expression anything but sinister. “I won’t fight you for it, Kindred. I’m just curious.”
She tips her head back against the tree trunk and closes her eyes. I leave my grip on my dagger, should her cooperation be a ruse, but the only movement near us comes from a mosquito landing on my arm. Before the insect can feed off me, I heat my skin with my powers, and the mosquito shrivels to ash.
A bone-chilling yowl rises from the jungle floor. The short hairs on my arms prickle. While Opal rests, I stand watch over the rolling mists and count the minutes until we leave the Morass.
Opal frees the wing flyer from the trees with a hearty breeze, and we rise from the murky canopy into afternoon daylight. I inhale deeply, breathing easier above the closed-in jungle.
Refreshed by a nap and food, Opal calls brisk, fair winds, and we fly eastward. Drowsiness tampers with my attentiveness when the sun begins to sink at our backs and the copse of trees below is parted by a mighty green-hued river.
“The River Ninsar will lead us the rest of the way,” Opal shouts above the rushing air.
Minutes later, twinkling city lanterns manifest on the purple horizon like waking fireflies. She summons a strong gale, and we speed toward the shining beacon of Iresh, racing the final rays of daylight.
We plunge down and graze the river’s surface, our reflection darkening the jade waters. Opal dips her toe in and splashes our legs. I smile, rejuvenated by its coolness.
I’ve done it. I’ve left the Tarachand Empire.
I may as well have stepped into another world. No spiky mountains haunt my peripheral vision, and the dull orange and brown of the desert have been replaced by a flourishing oasis that could revive the whole of any wasteland. Civilization nestles in the heart of the Morass, the reddish-yellow lights the jungle’s lifeblood.
Our wing flyer stays low, gliding over the river alongside a battalion of flitting bugs. Huddled between a tremendous cliff and the River Ninsar, Iresh molds into the lush foliage.
We soar over riverboats that bob along the merchant-lined waterfront. Opal draws a wind beneath us, and we climb steeply. My stomach drops and then floats back up when we level off. I gaze down at circular bamboo huts with domed roofs. Vines buckle the narrow roadways and scale walls, the jungle veins connecting everything and everyone.
Opal flies us higher, trailing a wide, zigzagging stairway etched into the side of a craggy cliff looming over the riverside city. We crest the top, and a tremendous gold-leaf domed palace with low, flat columned outer buildings spans the breadth of the plateau. Living, breathing vines cover the Beryl Palace’s mossy walls. A waterfall engraves a raging path from the center of the palace grounds down the cliff and lays root in the river. Even here the Morass encroaches on man, but the Beryl Palace maintains firm hold against the jungle, a pillar of fortitude for the city at its feet.
The wing flyer glides to an open strip of grassland in a garden within the palace grounds. Opal reins in her winds. We land effortlessly, and she hops off the flyer. I slip down and stretch, my arms and back aching with fatigue.
Soldiers file out from the covered patios stretching alongside the grass. They line a stone path leading to a palace entry and stare straight ahead. Opal stays by the wing flyer. I hover near her, my hand tight on the turquoise hilt of my sheathed dagger. I eye the guards, absorbing every detail of their loose, buttonless tunics and skirted legs, along with the machetes at their hips and the khandas strapped to their backs. The guards in the Turquoise Palace wore stiff, high-buttoned collared jackets and long trousers. This is the first time I have seen men sporting skirts. The bagginess of their apparel must be cooler in this muggy heat.
An elegant young woman in a lime-green sari sweeps down the pathway. “You made good time. Where’s Rohan?”