people I love.”
“Didn’t your mother teach you not to lie?” I grumble.
“My mother couldn’t teach me much of anything. She died of the sweating sickness when I was two. It was only my father, two brothers, and I.”
“Oh.” I wasn’t expecting him to tell me anything so personal. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s the same for so many families in Verdenet. Before we became a Protected Territory, our people perished by the thousands of illness or starvation. Or Zemyan raids.” He nods at me. “But under Ashkar’s safeguard, it’s hardly better. We may have protection and basic medicine, but what does that matter when just as many are carted off to the war front and slaughtered like pigs? Or put to death for simply living our beliefs?”
He gently touches the line of rings down his ear as we enter the temple. “My oldest brother was among those killed for refusing to remove their earrings. I found out weeks later in a one-sentence letter. And it’s the last I’ve heard from my family. The imperial governor has made it impossible to get messages in or out of Verdenet. They could all be dead.”
“Like my family.” Fuzzy memories of the day my village burned shimmer across my vision. The rough jolt of my mother’s hands shoving me out the window before the roof collapsed. The chorus of painful screams as one neighbor after the next burned alive in their huts.
“Skies, that was insensitive. I didn’t think …” Temujin tugs at his hair, which was already sticking up in messy peaks, and scrubs his knuckles over his eyes. They’re bloodshot and ringed with exhaustion, and his tunic is so filthy, I doubt he’s changed in days. Instead of the confident rebel leader I first met, he looks like an unraveled thread from the tapestry.
“I’m just tired and frustrated and crumbling beneath the pressure, obviously. I’m sorry I’ve had to be so heavy-handed with you and Serik, but so many people are depending on me. I’m desperate for your help.”
I perch my elbows on the altar, beside his. I don’t tell him it’s okay. Because it’s not. But part of me can almost understand.
“I swear I didn’t bring you here to listen to my sob story.” Temujin drags his arm across the altar, sending a cascade of tiny dried flowers and incense to the floor. “I just can’t say these things to anyone else. They’re counting on me to be the strong one. To have a plan. But you’re not depending on me for anything, so I can say whatever I want. It’s kind of refreshing.”
“Feel free to find me anytime you need someone to doubt and dislike you.”
He lets out a burst of laughter. “You don’t dislike me.”
“I definitely don’t like you.”
He laughs again, his head thrown all the way back, and I realize my claim may not be entirely true. I could like Temujin—just not the version of himself he shows the world, the boy who tricks and blackmails me.
I like this version of him: raw, vulnerable. Real.
“At least I can count on you to be honest. Now, let’s get down to business.”
The knots in my stomach tighten. I glance around the beautiful temple, with its bright jade columns and canary roof. It should feel open and inviting and right—this is probably how all temples looked across the continent before the Sky King purged the First Gods—but this magnificent sanctuary suddenly feels like another prison. A torture chamber.
Sweat slicks my hands as Ghoa’s and Serik’s disappointed faces swirl through the purple smoke. “I don’t think I can do this,” I whisper.
“I wasn’t lying when I told you I have a way to ensure you maintain perfect control of the night,” Temujin says.
“I’ll believe it when I see it.”
Temujin sweeps his hand across the temple. “You’re looking at it.”
I stare at him, my gaze so hot with skepticism that I’m shocked his skin isn’t smoking. “This temple doesn’t even have walls. It couldn’t possibly contain my power.”
“I assure you, it can. Do you think I would encourage this if it were dangerous?”
“Yes! You are a wild, rebel deserter.”
With a chuckle, he grips either side of the altar and leans over. There’s nowhere to hide from his hypnotic golden eyes. “Look up at the sky and tell me what you see.”
Sighing, I tilt my head and gaze at the patch of pearly blue glinting through the smoke hole. “What am I even looking for? The sky is always the same here: clear and sunny and perfect.”
“Exactly! Darkness