Night Spinner Read online

  The acolytes halt and their eyes widen. This is not what they expected.

  This is not what I expected.

  A warbling sound halfway between a sob and a laugh bursts from my lips, and a spark of pure joy flares through me before fingertips of dread slowly close around my throat.

  Ghoa has no reason to come now, after all this time.

  Unless the abba somehow alerted her to my treason …

  Unless she knows I’ve been meddling with the darkness …

  My heartbeat throbs at my temples. Serik’s bluffing; it’s just a clever lie. I would have seen Ghoa arrive. I was on the rooftop all night.

  And you were so consumed by the darkness that you wouldn’t have seen your own hand waving in front of your face.

  I gape up at Serik, praying he’ll flash me a quick smile or wink. But he continues glaring at the other acolytes until they finally retreat toward the assembly hall, their lips curled into gloating sneers.

  Then it’s just Serik and me, gulping back the chilly morning air. He exhales and scrubs his palm over his head, tugging at phantom locks of floppy brown hair. His hair was shaved to the scalp when he joined the brotherhood, like every acolyte at Ikh Zuree, and I’m still not used to it. Neither, apparently, is he. Though it does make his chin look stronger, the angles of his face sharper. Less like the boy I grew up with and more like a man.

  “Thank you,” I say, panting. “That was a brilliant lie. Though they’ll find out soon enough and make you pay for it.”

  There’s a long beat of silence before Serik looks down at me. His lips are pressed into a thin line and his cheeks are so pale, his light brown freckles look like peppercorns. “It wasn’t a lie.”

  I scrabble to my feet and spin around, as if Ghoa might materialize behind us in the courtyard. “When did she arrive? And why?” I add in an anxious whisper.

  “Just this morning. And I don’t know why. Do you?” He shoots me a meaningful look, then glances up at the temple rooftop. “What were you doing up there, En?”

  “I just needed some air.” The thought of having to admit, even to Serik, how desperate I feel and how reckless I’ve become makes my cheeks burn. He’s no lover of rules, but even he would scold me. Or pity me. Or worse, think me a thankless wretch.

  Serik crosses his arms and narrows his hazel eyes. They’re the same color as the grass poking through the frost, which is convenient, as I’d rather stare at the ground than answer his questions. He clears his throat loudly, but I keep my eyes fixed on the dirt. Finally he lets out a dramatic sigh and pats the cherry-sized lump on his forehead. “Do you think the abba will believe it’s from spending so much time with my head to the floor in prayer?”

  I bark out a laugh. “Not a chance. You are the worst monk at Ikh Zuree.”

  “That’s the finest compliment you’ve ever given me.”

  “It wasn’t a compliment.”

  “Exactly.” Serik grins—a rare, true smile he once shared with every gardener and chambermaid when we were carefree wards running wild on Ghoa’s parents’ estate. A smile I’ve only seen a handful of times at Ikh Zuree.

  “She’s really here?” I knot my hands and look toward the assembly hall. Part of me wants to sprint across the compound and fling myself into her arms. I’ve dreamed of this moment every day for two years. Missed her every day for two years. But the other part of me is sweating and trembling and compulsively licking my lips. Blood thunders in my ears, beating a frantic refrain: She knows, she knows, she knows.

  “She’s really here,” Serik affirms.

  “And she summoned me?”

  He nods once.

  It feels like the ground is rolling beneath my feet. I reach out and steady myself on Serik’s shoulder. “Come with me?” I beg.

  “I think I’d rather attend morning services.”

  “You would not.”

  “You’re right.” He tilts his head back with a groan. “Both prospects are equally horrendous.”

  I consider swatting him but decide I’ve injured him enough for one day. “I’m the one who should be dreading this. You have no reason to—”

  “Oh, I have plenty of reasons,” he interjects. “Ghoa’s going to be as fake and infuriating as always, pretending to be a doting mother hen so she can bend us to her will.”

  I roll my eyes. “Ghoa has only ever tried to help us. And she’s your cousin. Practically your sister.”

  Serik mumbles something about family and obligation and already having a skull-splitting headache, but he dusts off the black cloak with the golden sunbursts he always wears over his robes and then waves me toward the assembly hall. “Fine. But I won’t pretend to be happy to see her.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  THE TOWERING BLACK DOORS OF THE ASSEMBLY HALL SWING inward. Ready to swallow me.

  I dig my nails into Serik’s forearm as we step into the gilt chamber. Flurries of snow blow in on our heels, snuffing the braziers and plunging the life-sized statue of the king into shadow. A senior monk, who’d been reading from a list of transgressions, drops his scroll with a shout. The rest of the acolytes shoot up from their supplication poses and gasp.

  Serik and I freeze. It’s hardly the first time we’ve disrupted morning services. Serik has never felt the need for religion, old or new, and I would rather swallow a handful of slugs than whisper about the petty misdeeds of others to cold stone idols. But this is the first time we’ve disrupted a service while Ghoa is in attendance.

  Normally, the monks squawk and threaten us with lashes until we press our palms together, mumble the prescribed prayer of penance (May the Sky King, in all his blessed glory, forgive my indiscretion), and join the service. But today they don’t make a sound. It’s so quiet, I can hear the drip, drip, drip of the icicles hanging from the windows.

  Heart thundering, I scan the cluster of robes until I spot Ghoa’s high ponytail near the front. She rises with deliberate slowness, and I gape as if she’s a mirage come to life.

  She is just as I remember, but entirely different.

  Ghoa has always been beautiful, with thick chestnut hair and large brown eyes, but now she looks fearsome, too. Like a warrior queen in her gleaming leather armor and finely tooled boots. Her battle-ax and bow lean against the wall, but a curved saber still hangs from her hip.

  As she turns, fissures of pain and elation tear through my chest. My lips feel as brittle as tree bark, my throat drier than the deserts of Verdenet.

  She returned to the war front before I could thank her for convincing the king to spare my life. I never got to explain and apologize for what had happened at Nariin—though I still don’t have an explanation, and all the apologies in the world will never be enough. Does she hate me? Fear me like the rest of Ashkar? She must. She never visited and only responded to my first letter. And she’s so important now; she’s risen so high since my banishment: Commander of the Kalima warriors, the king’s most elite force. Blessed with the ability to fight, not only with sabers and daggers but with driving rain and howling wind. With blasts of bitter cold and blazing pillars of heat.

  And, sometimes, even darkness.

  It probably pains her to look at me. A shame to the Kalima. Stripped of my abilities.

  Ghoa’s eyes flick to Serik, then back to me, traveling the length of the traitor’s mark on my face and down my right arm, which is bisected just above the elbow by a vicious purple scar. A similar scar slashes across my right thigh, the edge of which peeks out from beneath my penance robe like a wriggling earthworm.

  Ghoa winces, and I fall back as if slapped.

  See me, I silently beg. I’m still me beneath these scars. I’m still a girl beneath the monster. But the excruciating silence stretches, wheedling beneath my skin like nits.

  I choke back a sob and shoot Serik a wild-eyed look. He stomps past me and positions himself between me and Ghoa, like a shield. “Hello, cousin. I know you warriors are a barbaric sort, but even you should know it’s impolite to stare.”


  The monks bristle at his audacity and look to Ghoa, who scowls and flexes her fists. In an instant, the temperature in the hall plummets. Hoarfrost flashes down the marble columns and sweeps across the floor, painting everything glittering white.

  “Go. Now.” Ghoa points toward the opulent staterooms at the rear of the temple and advances on us. Billows of frigid air trail her like smoke, and the ends of her ponytail tinkle, singed silver with cold. The monks scramble out of her path. Before I can blink, her hand closes around my good arm, making my robe feel woven from snowflakes rather than silk. She collars Serik and he wails as he slips across the icy tiles.

  I had forgotten the sheer force of Ghoa’s power. Her abilities have always been remarkable, even among the Kalima. She is an Ice Herald. With a snap of her fingers, she can turn a summer’s day to winter. With a twitch of her nose, boiling water becomes ice. Her gift presented almost immediately—just days after her eleventh birthday—and though mine presented faster, that’s never stopped her from bragging endlessly when she’s had too many shots of vorkhi.

  She has every reason to boast. I’ve seen her fell a hundred Zemyan warriors with a flick of her wrist. And her impassable ice floes have single-handedly kept them from crossing the Usinsk Pass. Ancient legends tell of Ice Heralds who could summon Standing Death—a freeze so cold and sudden that horses, cattle, and even people would perish standing up, frozen forever mid-stride—and for a second I wonder if the stories might be true. The air is so cold, my legs certainly feel frozen as she hauls us around the corner and down the hall.

  Away from the service.

  My breath hitches. Unlike me and Serik, Ghoa never misses an opportunity to worship at the Sky King’s altar. She would only leave early under the direst of circumstances.

  Life-and-death circumstances.

  “I’m s-sorry!” I stammer. “I didn’t mean to … The monks purposely provoked me—”

  Ghoa shoves us through a red lacquered door and slams it behind us. I brace for the hard bite of the tiles, but she releases us and leans against a straight-backed chair. She blows out several long breaths. When she finally looks up, the incoherent babbles wither in my throat because her heart-shaped face is pale and stricken.

  “Forgive me,” she says, panting. “This isn’t the reunion I imagined, but you know what my position requires.” She shakes her head several times before straightening and smoothing her leathers. “I suppose I should have expected such a brazen greeting from you, cousin. It’s good to see you.” She flashes Serik a wry grin, but he stares as if bog vipers are slithering from her lips.

  After an awkward beat, Ghoa turns to me. A warm smile spreads across her suntanned face, all the way up to her eyes that crinkle around the edges, making her look older and gentler than I remember. “I’ve missed you, En,” she says softly.

  My fingers anxiously reach for the moonstone. “You didn’t come to punish me?”

  She barks out a laugh. “Why would I do that?”

  “Because—” I’ve been meddling with the darkness. Because I’m dangerous and unpredictable. I cut one of the acolytes just this morning. “You haven’t heard?”

  Ghoa waves a hand. “I’ve heard too much. The monks have been nattering in my ear since the moment I arrived, detailing every infraction ever committed by every citizen of Ashkar. I’m sick to death of it. As far as I can see, everyone is alive, so it can’t have been that bad. And our little display in the prayer hall should have satisfied them. Now stop standing there, wringing your hands, and come celebrate. The three of us are reunited at last.” She flings her arms wide.

  Serik purses his lips and holds his ground, but a relieved sob bursts from my mouth and the last of my apprehension washes away like snowmelt in the springtime. This is what I wanted. This is what I dreamed of. The thought of this moment carried me through each excruciating day of my imprisonment—all seven hundred and forty-three of them.

  I trip across the lavish room I am usually forbidden to enter, past a velvet divan and floor-length looking glass, and bury my face in Ghoa’s neck. She smells of horses and leather and iron, of snow and grass and wide-open air. Her arms are harder, her hair longer—nearly to the middle of her back now—but she’s still Ghoa. My Ghoa. Sister, mother, and friend, all in one.

  “You came,” I cry. “Finally.”

  “Look at you.” Ghoa pulls back to examine my face—this time she doesn’t even flinch. “So grown-up. What happened to my little Enebish?”

  She tries to pat my cheek, but I bat her away. “I was sixteen when you brought me here. That’s hardly little. Your eyesight must be failing you in your old age.”

  “Old age? I’m only five years older than you! That isn’t so many.”

  “It’s a lifetime. Look at all those new wrinkles.”

  She massages her forehead with a laugh. “Such a wicked tongue! Need I remind you that I’ve saved your life? Twice now.”

  “Not out of kindness,” Serik interjects.

  Ghoa stiffens, and for half a second, hurt clouds her eyes. I reach for her hand and give it a gentle squeeze. So she knows I don’t share Serik’s sentiment.

  In addition to securing my sanctuary at Ikh Zuree, Ghoa saved my life ten years ago when my village in the southern deserts of Verdenet, one of the Protected Territories, was sacked by Zemyan raiders. She found me in the ashes, trying to drag my parents’ bodies from our smoldering hut, and even though there were hundreds of survivors swarming the warriors like beetles on a trash heap, she chose me. She brought me back to her parents’ estate in Sagaan and convinced them to accept me as another ward, alongside Serik. She taught me how to use a bow and ride a horse and paraded me before the king, cheering like a proud mother, when my Kalima power presented at the stroke of midnight on my eleventh birthday.

  “You realize that’s why she saved you,” Serik whispered that night when I’d returned from the Sky Palace. His quilt was pulled up over his face as if he were asleep, but the bitter accusation hissed across the room. “Not because she loves you, but because she knew she could use you.”

  What are you talking about? I wanted to snap back, but I forced myself to be kind. He was still licking his wounds after being recalled from the war front. “Ghoa didn’t know I would be blessed with a Kalima power.”

  “Didn’t she? You were the only one from your village with blistered palms and singed hair. The only child who performed a feat of bravery noble enough to potentially qualify for the power of the sky.”

  I didn’t let Serik’s bitter grudge with Ghoa poison me back then, and I certainly won’t let it ruin our reunion now.

  I squeeze her hand tighter and restring my smile. “Tell me everything. Where have you been? What have you seen? Two years is an eternity. The king couldn’t have needed you all that time.”

  “The Sky King,” she corrects me, enunciating his official title, which I’ve never used. Not even when I was one of his most decorated warriors. A mortal king cannot just decide one day to usurp the Goddess. But Ghoa looks at me pointedly until I let out an exasperated breath. Fine. “The Sky King couldn’t have needed you all that time.”

  With a pleased nod, she drops into the straight-backed chair and begins untying her boots. “He most certainly did. The Zemyans are still battering our eastern border with legions of depraved sorcerers. You’d think they’d eventually realize the feud between Ashkar and Zemya is archaic and unnecessary. No one believes in the First Gods, so holding a grudge is senseless. Especially since they attacked us first. We’re not even asking them to drain their enchanted hot spring. They can meddle with their wicked magic all they’d like, so long as they do it on their own lands and leave us be. But Empress Danashti is envious and fearful of how large our nation has become with the Protected Territories. She can’t stand to see us surpass them in greatness.”

  I nod sagely, even though I only agree with half of Ghoa’s claims. Empress Danashti is spiteful and paranoid, but can she be blamed for not trusting Ashkar when we’ve
swallowed every other neighboring nation in the past two decades?

  Not to mention some of us still believe in the First Gods.

  “You should see the war front. It’s horrific,” Ghoa continues, her face grave as she tosses her boots aside.

  “It’s always been horrific,” Serik cuts in with a flippant wave of his hand. “Quit trying to goad us with details that haven’t changed in centuries.”

  He has a point. We’ve been at war with Zemya since the birth of the First Gods and the beginning of time. When the Lady of the Sky and Father Guzan bore the first humans, a boy and a girl—Ashkar and Zemya. While Ashkar developed divine gifts from his parents, Zemya couldn’t move the clouds or bend the light. People whispered that it was due to her churlish nature. While Ashkar was warm and generous and quick to smile, Zemya was short-tempered and competitive. Not wanting to be outdone by her brother or forgotten by her parents, she found other ways to make herself powerful.

  She manipulated metals found deep in the earth to forge weapons of unfathomable strength. She learned incantations that allowed her to snag colors and patterns from the weave of the world itself to conjure illusions. Zemya was so excited to show her parents her progress, but the Lady of the Sky and Father Guzan were horrified. They banished her to the blistering sands by the sea, hoping the lashing winds and isolation would foster obedience. But Zemya denounced her parents and redoubled her efforts, ripping more and more magic from the earth, which she siphoned into a hot spring and encouraged her children to drink, giving them power without discretion.

  Then she sent them to attack Ashkar and his descendants.

  “It’s worse than ever before,” Ghoa insists. “The Zemyans are like roaches. You stomp them and they do not flatten. You freeze them and they sleep until the ice melts. Again and again they rise from the dust with darker and deadlier tricks. They slew half of the 121st battalion just last week, outside of Chalida.”