hack to expel the cloying scent of tea soap. I hate that smell. Almost as much as I hate the imploring look in his golden eyes. And the fact that I once relished our shared heritage. And how I wrote with him in his Book of Whisperings and shivered at the feel of his fingertips on my scars.
“It wasn’t all a lie,” he continues. “I really was abandoned at Novesti. My battalion left me bleeding in the snow.”
“Do you expect me to feel sorry for you?”
“The Lady of the Sky didn’t heal me.”
I snort and glower at him. “I gathered as much.”
“Kartok did. He was healing his warriors with Loridium and executing the wounded—stabbing an enchanted spear through each Ashkarian gut—but I cried out. Vowed to do anything they asked if he would spare me. So we struck a bargain. He and the other Zemyan sorcerers had invented a xanav—that’s what they call this place: a pocket world in which to hide their armies—but they couldn’t venture far enough across Ashkar’s border to plant it. And sorcerers cannot enter a realm of their own creation or the weft of the magic frays and collapses—as you’re witnessing now. I agreed to plant the xanav, to raise a rebel army and ferry soldiers across the border, in exchange for my life—and a better life once the Zemyans are in command. I am to be governor of Sagaan.”
“Again, do you expect me to congratulate you? Why are you wasting your breath telling me this?”
He steps into the temple and crouches beside me. Too close. I lurch away from the terrible warmth of his skin.
He has the gall to look hurt. “It doesn’t have to be like this, En. You don’t have to be a prisoner. We don’t have to leech your Kalima power from you. You could help us of your own accord. Use your darkness and starfire to help us take Ashkar, and together we can restore peace and prosperity to Verdenet and Chotgor and Namaag. We can help the starving refugees and children sent like chaff to the war front. This is the only way to end the conflict and help our people. To restore our way of life.”
I laugh so hard, I choke. “Restore our way of life? Last I checked, you have little autonomy when you’re enslaved. There will be nothing left of any nation, other than Zemya, once Empress Danashti is finished with us.”
“You’re wrong. Her Noble Excellency doesn’t share the greed and conquering mentality of the Sky King. She simply wants us to stop battering her border. We have always been the aggressors. The Zemyans are only defending what’s rightfully theirs. Empress Danashti plans to give us full independence in exchange for a small tax. Not only that, she is a rigorous supporter of religious freedom and cultural expression. We won’t have to live in fear of losing ourselves and our ways of life.” He gestures to the rings in his ears and the ink on his calves. “We will finally be able to worship the Lady of the Sky in peace.”
“You’re even more deluded than I am if you believe such empty promises! We’ve been at war with the Zemyans for centuries. There will be consequences. Fallout. And you can’t honestly expect me to believe you care a whit about ‘worshiping the Lady of the Sky in peace’ after making such a mockery of Her. Pretending to be Goddess-touched! Calling this despicable world of Zemyan magic the realm of the Eternal Blue!”
Temujin bites his lip and looks down, spinning the rings on his hands. “I’d like to think the Lady of the Sky understands. That She approves of my dedication and diligence.”
The words he scrawled into his Book of Whisperings reappear in my mind with a new meaning: Are we ever beyond redemption?
I shake my head and scoff.
He hadn’t written them for me. He had been thinking only of himself.
“I had to recruit people to our cause,” he explains when I say nothing, “and this was the only way I could think to gain support.”
“And do you expect to keep their support once they know you’re a lying, treasonous heretic?”
He flinches slightly, then makes a point of sitting taller. “I do. As it stands, the majority of our ranks are Zemyan and the rest are people like Chanar, who have been wronged by the Sky King and are desperate for vengeance and change. The few who have been deceived will fall in line. They can’t be