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  *

  I wake abruptly and sit bolt upright. My heart beats harder than usual, and at first I attribute it to a forgotten nightmare, but then I hear the merest creak of a step. Esther’s house is built with old wood. Her floorboards creak under pressure, but they also creak as the desert cools and heats.

  It is dark still. I rarely wake before dawn, which tells me that I am supposed to wake. It tells me I am in danger.

  I swing my legs out of the bed, place my feet silently onto the floor, and then check the Ember Stone is still tucked under my tunic. I’ve grown accustomed to sleeping in my clothes, prepared to leave wherever I lay my head in a matter of seconds. After slipping silently from the bed, I retrieve my dagger from under the plain, straw mattress. There is no time to fit the hook Treowe made me onto my arm. I will have to rely on the dagger, and my powers.

  With a sense of foreboding and a racing pulse, I hurry to the door and press my ear against the wood. Whilst the intruder attempts to remain silent, there are quiet creaks as he makes his way around an unknown house. The intruder must know I am in this house, but doesn’t know which room. Esther. I want no harm to come to the woman I have begun to think of as a mentor.

  I concentrate on my breathing, as well as the sounds in the house. I close my eyes and think of soil, letting my powers heighten my senses. I hear him moving, hear the direction his feet are taking him, and then something more extraordinary happens: I see him. The man is large. He carries a scimitar. At first, my muscles clench when I see the familiar weapon—worried that once again Mushtan’s men have chosen to betray me—but then, through the dim light of the moon, I see that the robes are different. They are tattered and white. The man’s face is covered apart from his eyes. He walks barefoot in an attempt to remain silent.

  I keep my eyes closed as I watch him coming through Esther’s small house, stepping silently up her wooden stairs. He is a tall, thin man. He moves in fluid, cat-like motions. I imagine that he is deadly in battle. The thought makes my stomach lurch. If I fight him, it’s not just me fighting him; it’s my child, too. But what else can I do? He is here for me. Why else would the man come if not for the Ember Stone? And he would slit my throat for it, I’m certain.

  Two more swift steps, and he is onto Esther’s small landing, where the two bedrooms are. Only the wood of the door separates us now. My fingers grip the hilt of my dagger. I may only have a moment to do this, and there is a door knob to contend with. I decide to rely on a trick I’ve learned when trying to carry too many items at once. Without opening my eyes, I manoeuvre myself slightly to the left of the door, and lift up my foot, gently feeling for the door knob. Then I wrap my toes around it, and wait for the intruder to be in the perfect position.

  He turns towards Esther’s door, turning his back on my room. This is my chance. The dagger is heavy in my hand, weighing me down as though it is a mighty great-sword. I ignore it, turn the knob with my toes, and burst into the hallway, opening my eyes for the first time. I leap onto the intruders back before he has any time to respond, and put the knife edge to his throat.

  “Move and I will end your life,” I say, inhaling his scent: sweat, sand, and tobacco. I hold back a gag.

  “I warn you. I am faster than you,” he replies in a gruff, heavily accented voice.

  Before I can reply, the adjacent door swings open and Esther stands before us with a long, thin sword in each hand. Her eyes are dark and dangerous. She bares her teeth at the intruder before moving into a battle pose.

  “Are you quicker than both of us?” she snarls.

  I feel the shiver run through the intruder.

  “Thought not,” Esther says. “Drop your weapon and tell me what you are doing in this house.”

  The intruder turns the scimitar over in his hand, as though thinking about dropping it. Then he raises his head towards Esther, and for the first time I see a glimmer of fear in Esther’s eyes.

  “Drop from him at once,” the woman cries.

  I do as she commands, throwing myself back from the man. As I move away from him, there is a sickening crunch, and a muted cry. The scimitar blade sticks through the intruder’s back. He collapses forward, landing face first at Esther’s feet. The man stabbed himself in the heart.

  “The blade would have caught me as well,” I say. “Thank you for your warning.”

  She nods. “We must find out who this man was, and from whom he was sent.” She places her blades on the floor—keeping them close—and turns the man over, removing some of the robes covering him. “I do not recognise the face, but he is dressed in a similar garb to some of the tribes around the village. If I had to guess, I would say the sultan sent him for the Ember Stone. The man knew his death would be slow and painful if he revealed secrets, so he fell on his sword.”

  “What we don’t know is whether the sultan is working alone, or whether he is working with the king,” I say.

  Esther stares down at the man. “He was young. He should have lived longer. This world is too cruel.”

  I open my mouth to agree with her, when there is a commotion below us. Esther retrieves her blades, and strides through the doorway towards the stairs.

  “Whoever intrudes in my home will not be spared. State your purpose,” she booms.

  The man responds in Jakani, and Esther lowers her weapons. She hurries down the steps, and stops in front of a man I recognise as part of our group.

  “What is it?” I ask, rushing towards Esther.

  She turns back to me. “It is Sasha. She has been taken.”

  I push past the two of them, running out into the night air, towards the camp set up by Mushtan and the others. Ellen runs towards me, her hair coming loose from a plait; her eyes ringed with red.

  “I couldn’t stop him. He had a sword. He held it to my throat.”

  “What happened? Slow down and tell me everything.”

  Ellen swallows back a sob, but meets my eyes and calms herself. “We were sleeping when I heard something slice through the tent. The man had a covered face, but I saw his dark eyes. They were brown. I sat up and gasped, and then he held his knife to my throat. Sasha woke, and pulled out her amulet to try and use against him, but the man said he would kill me if she tried anything. Then he said to me: ‘tell the Hada-Ya that if she wants her Borgan bitch back she’d better come to the capital and prepare for battle’. Then he grabbed Sasha, pulled her out of the tent and seemed to disappear into the night.”

  “It has to be the king,” I say, half to myself. “And there must have been transport waiting for them—horses or camels. Why go after my Ember Stone and take Sasha at the same time?”

  “In case one fails,” Esther answers for me. I spin around to see her striding purposefully over to us. “I would think that your Ember Stone was the first plan, and your most trusted friend the second.”

  My heart sinks. Sasha placed in danger because of me. How many more of my friends will be harmed because of my destiny?

  Esther claps my shoulder and lowers her face to mine. “Wipe away your tears, Hada-Ya. There is no time for them now.”

  “She’s right,” Ellen says. “We have to go to Jakani.”

  “It’s a trap, but there is no other choice. You’re not just facing the king, now. You’re facing the king, the sultan, and the desert tribes. Your only option is to defeat them in Jakani.”

  My head spins and I long to slow it down. Instead, I lift my chin and direct a command to the men in the camp. “Get Mushtan. Get everybody. We’re leaving. Esther, I hate to be a strain on your village again.”

  “We will get you provisions for your journey,” she says.

  “Thank you.”

  My heart skips a beat. Now we journey back to Jakani for Sasha, and to face the king once and for all.

  Chapter Thirty-Two – The Return to Jakani

  With Mushtan’s help, we push hard through the Anadi Sands. Adil complains at the speed, letting out the occasional disgruntled
groan. But my mind is focussed on Sasha. She has come to my rescue more than once. Now it is time for me to return the favour.

  “We need to watch for tribes,” Mushtan warns. “This time we cannot stop for many breaks. If we sleep, they will slit our throats. We cannot sleep. We must watch at all times.”

  “I know,” I reply in a monotone voice. The panic from Sasha’s disappearance has made the Ember Stone throb, and I have to concentrate more than ever to stop the darkness seeping under my skin, and corrupting me. The effort has eradicated the last of my patience.

  “Fighting in Jakani will be bad.” Mushtan shakes his head. “It is a place of families, of children, and honest workers. We must do everything we can to ensure their safety.”

  “We will,” I say, my voice a little softer. I hate the thought of fighting in Jakani, but how else am I going to get to the sultan?

  “There will be a barrier around the city,” he continues.

  “They will let me in,” I reply. “I’m what they want.”

  “You cannot go alone.”

  “I can, and I will. I need you to get me to Jakani alive, and I will do the rest.”

  Mushtan turns away from me. I don’t need to see him to know he is frowning. I wipe a slick of sweat from my forehead. We have a long journey ahead of us, and all I can think about is Sasha. We must only be a few hours behind. Yet I continue to examine the miles ahead of us, and I see no trace of the men who took her. As we were setting off, Mushtan told me that he suspected it was a group of three men, and that they used the fast but sturdy Jakani horses to ride through the desert. He reminded me that they could have ridden the horses to their deaths and switched when they reached their tribes. They made excellent time while we lag behind on our camels.

  He also says there is nothing I could have done. But that doesn’t help the frustration bubbling up inside. It doesn’t stop me going over that night in my mind. A good leader would have had men on lookout. But then there is a good chance that the men on lookout would have been killed. I sigh, shake my head, and try not to think anymore.

  Later that night, the group takes turns as look-out. Treowe is the first to volunteer. He sits running a whetstone over his blade, and there is something about the way he holds his head that suddenly reminds me of Cas. A rush of pain hits my heart. It’s followed by a surge of power from the Ember Stone, so intense that I double over. Ellen and Aliyah rush to my side, propping me up by the elbow.

  “Are you hurt?” Aliyah asks.

  I shake my head. “It is the Ember Stone. It strengthens as I weaken.”

  “You must rest. I will take you to your tent,” Ellen says. The expression on her face tells me that I should not argue. “I could stay with you if you like.”

  As we hobble over to the tent, I realise that I’m not the only one suffering with regret and pain since Sasha was taken. I smile at her, trying to deliver some sort of reassurance.

  “We will get her back,” I say. “But, yes, stay with me. The company would be nice.”

  Ellen leaves to fetch her bedroll, hitching up the bottom of her robes. It’s strange to see her in anything but a tight dress, and it’s strange to see her with dirty fingers, and broken nails. Ellen has proved herself strong, resourceful, and hardworking since coming with us into the desert. She never fails to help the group, even though she is unused to the conditions. When she returns, her expression is less clouded and lighter.

  “Who would have thought we could ever be friends?” she says, as she places the bed roll down next to mine.

  “Who would have thought I would marry a prince?” I say, half laughing. “It was the future I dreaded when I was a child, and yet it was the event that made me the happiest in my life.”

  “And who would have thought a dangerous trip through a dirty desert would bring me so much happiness?” She smiles up to the tent ceiling. “Life has a funny way of getting us to exactly where we want to be.”

  As slumber takes hold, I can’t help but agree.

  But it doesn’t take long for my peaceful sleep to take a dark turn, and before long I find myself in and out of nightmares. Cas’s bloody fingers claw their way out of the open gateway in the Sihran temple, but when he raises his head, he has the cold look of Lyndon. He morphs into Sasha, who fights against shadows, screaming for me to rescue her. Every flash of nightmare is shrouded in darkness. There are shadows in all of my dreams. Most are violent and bloody. In some, the people of Jakani scream as I hit them with fire.

  And then my name is called. I open my eyes and raise my sweating body. Sasha stands before me with matted hair and dirty clothes. There’s a gag over her mouth, and her hands are bound. Her face is covered in dust, as though she has been riding fast through the desert without anything to protect her.

  “Am I dreaming?” I whisper into the dark.

  She shakes her head. Her words are muffled through the gag. “Must be careful. Trap.”

  “You must go back. They will think you are dead!”

  “Most asleep. Trap, Mae. Ambush outside Jakani. They want you and Ember Stone. But I won’t be there. They’re taking me to the sultan’s palace.”

  “I’m coming for you. Hold on.”

  She shakes her head. Tears wet her eyes as she fades into the shadows. “Don’t come. Don’t.”

  When her soul dissipates from the tent, I sit up on my bed roll and think for a long time. The king’s men are planning to ambush us outside Jakani. They know we will be weak from travelling through the Anadi Sands. If there is ever a chance to kill me, that would be it. Now I have reason to suspect that the king wants the Ember Stone to himself, and wants me dead. Whether the sultan has joined forces with the king, I don’t know. I must concentrate on what I do know.

  I peek outside the tent. Mushtan is on watch. The night is black, and the stars are bright above. We are far from dawn, yet I dress and sit with the old man.

  “Sasha came to me. The king’s men are going to ambush us outside Jakani.”

  Mushtan only nods, as though I confirmed a suspicion of his. “Then the time comes for us to leave. Alone.”

  I run my finger through the sand and laugh. “I thought you would need more persuading than that.”

  “No, Hada-Ya, I have been waiting for you to realise it.” He flashes me a grin. “A good leader knows when to shoulder the burden alone.”

  “I would go alone, but I cannot follow the Anadi Sands as you do.”

  “Perhaps one day you will,” he says. “When you are a great queen, and you come to visit your homeland.”

  “A great queen,” I whisper. “I will believe it when it happens. Is it possible that Aegunlund will accept a half-breed, one-armed, peasant girl?”

  Mushtan gaze trails over my body as though assessing me. “We’ve had worse.” He rises, stretching his legs and sighing. “My limbs grow older than my mind, Hada-Ya. Now, I must tell at least one of the men so they know to watch for the tribes. You pack what we need. Leave them enough though, Mae. Leave them enough.”

  I nod. Mushtan always thinks of his men. He is a good leader. If I survive this, I must make sure he has a position in my court. Allerton can help me, as can Treowe. They will find the best—and most loyal—people. Ellen should have a place, too. And—of course—Sasha.

  Adil groans as I load him with packs. I shush him. The last thing I want is to wake the entire camp. There are butterflies in my stomach, and the Ember Stone continues to emit dark energy which grows my paranoia, and lets dark thoughts slip into my mind. I push them back by thinking of Cas—and Sasha—and everyone else who has been good to me.

  “This one will not leave your side,” Mushtan says, striding over to me. Behind him walks Treowe, rubbing his eyes.

  “You should not come,” I say.

  “Yer need someone good with a sword,” he replies, and from the set of his jaw I can see that I will not be able to persuade him.

  “I’m good enough with magic,” I remind
him.

  “Not if that Ember Stone takes over,” he points out.

  “Let the boy come, Hada-Ya. I am too old for much more fighting. He can help.” Mushtan’s voice is tired and weary.

  “Very well.” I try to keep the doubts from my voice, but the truth is that the blacksmith’s presence unsettles me. He has shown me a kindness I’ve only experienced from one other man. He fashioned me my beautiful hand, he shows faith in me at every turn, and there is something about him that reminds me of the man I lost only days ago. But as Mushtan says, he could be useful. So I remain silent.

  The three of us mount our camels, and turn them away from the camp. I lean over my shoulder to look back with a pang of guilt. There lies the tent where I left Ellen to sleep. She will be cared for, though. Aliyah and the men will take her back to the village where she will be safe. Mushtan has given them strict instructions not to come to Jakani no matter what. Esther will take care of them. She has to. I can meet Ellen back in the north when all of this is over.

  *

  We make quick time through the desert, only stopping for short breaks, and sleeping in shifts. Each night I wait to see if Sasha will come to me, but she does not, and that makes anxiety build inside my body—tightening my muscles, and letting paranoia slip into my thoughts. There are times when the Ember Stone throbs beneath my tunic, spreading darkness through my body. Paranoid thoughts creep into my mind. I imagine that Mushtan and Treowe are plotting against me, waiting for me to sleep so they can slit my throat and steal the stone. But of course they are not.

  Through our journey, I practise my magic; bouncing fire balls onto the sand, forming tornadoes, and shifting the clouds to give us shade. With the Ember Stone it comes naturally to me, too naturally. Sometimes I am alarmed at how easily it is to create the craft, and it makes me feel that there should be at least some sort of consequence for the magic I use. Otherwise it would be too easy to abuse. I actually prefer to be drained by using my powers. At least then I know there is a line I cannot cross.