Deven’s solid form dissolves around me. I open my eyes, and all that remains is his warmth, fading on the sheets.
Someone touches my shoulder. My face is buried in a pillow, but I sense Brac. A Burner’s soul-fire radiates strongest, and only he dares to enter my chamber without knocking.
“Deven’s gone.” My bleak voice nearly pushes me to tears.
The mattress shifts. I look up at Brac seated beside me. His coppery hair sweeps across brows knit over honey-colored eyes. “We’ll find him.”
“I should go after him. I should have gone down there moons ago.”
“Then you’d also be trapped in the Void, and I’d have to free you both.”
He need not clarify why that is a terrible idea. We had this discussion yesterday, and the day before that, and the day before that . . . The issue is not getting into the Void but getting Deven out.
“How is he?” Brac asks.
“Weaker.” Few of our friends and family know Deven is alive. We have left his name carved on the door of my mother’s tomb for simplicity’s sake. Explaining his imprisonment is too complicated. On occasion, he asks to visit with his brother and mother. They dined with him often during the first weeks of his visits, but he has become less sociable. The hour after he leaves is my loneliest. Most mornings I question if he was really here.
Brac hunches over his knees and scrubs at the coppery stubble on his chin. “I’ve thought about going after him too. Until we work out how without risking ourselves, we must stay here.”
Deven learned the complicated route through the roadways of shadow to my chamber after several attempts. Even if he could find me elsewhere, now is not the time to leave. The Tarachand Empire is regaining strength, but we are like an old man overcoming a grave illness. I edge up to Brac and finish the rice left on the food tray.
“Ashwin needs us too,” I say.
“He’ll be safer once he’s rajah.”
“That’s just a title.”
“Titles hold power, Burner Rani.”
Our citizens have taken to calling me “Burner Rani.” It is not intended as a compliment. My tournament championship and short-term marriage to Rajah Tarek as his kindred mean nothing. I am a bhuta, same as the rebels and warlord who occupied the palace to stop the extermination of our kind.
Tarek’s legacy of hate runs deep, so when the demon Udug impersonated him, our people were quick to believe the rajah was back from the dead to defeat the rebels. We unmasked Udug as a fraud, but he released the demon Kur from the Void. With the help of our bhuta allies—the Paljorian airship fleet and Lestarian Navy—we vanquished them and stopped the evernight from conquering the mortal realm.
None of our good deeds matter to the people. They care not that Ashwin banished the last of the rebels. They only care that he suspended his father’s execution order against bhutas and appointed Brac as his bhuta emissary and selected Virtue Guards, including me. To protest our proximity to the throne, countless soldiers have defected from the imperial army. I knew integrating bhutas into society would take time, but after all we have done to preserve the empire, the citizenry’s stubbornness rankles.
Brac claps his knees in preparation to stand. “You’re expected at the amphitheater this morning.”