Sword and Verse (28 page)

Every fragment of stone from the tablet, however, had disappeared.

In the distance, a bell began to toll without stopping.

“What did you do?” Mati asked, his voice shaking.

I swallowed hard. “I think . . . the stone was a kind of key. The tablet was a prison, and the stone unlocked it.” I started to explain about the room in the tombs, but Mati cut me off.

“And who was inside?”

I could see in his eyes that he already knew the answer, but it was illogical, impossible, and he needed me to say it out loud. “Sotia.”

As if in response, the earth rumbled, and the statue of Qora toppled from its base, narrowly missing us. “We have to get out of here,” I said, grabbing Mati's hand.

We raced for the doors, which were hanging off their hinges. Mati started to heave one aside. The statue of Suna, lying prone a few feet away, rolled into a pillar and shattered. I skidded on the fragments and fell, but Mati pulled me to my feet and dragged the door open.

We spilled out into a crowd of people running from the direction of the front doors of the palace, pushing, shoving, and screaming their way toward the stairs. I caught sight of Soraya
Gamo in a purple dress, the white flowers in her hair askew, dragging her sister Alshara, and old Priasi Jin clutching the rapidly reddening sleeve of his tunic.

Pursuing the crowd were Resistance fighters with swords—familiar faces among them. Adin. Tomis. Ranal. Kiti.

We pressed back against the ruined Library doors to avoid being trampled, Mati angling his body in front of me as he drew his sword.

The hall cleared. “Are you all right?” Mati asked me.

But my eyes were locked on the front doors of the palace, where Jonis, sword held high, had just caught sight of me.

Finally free from her prison, Sotia turned her thoughts to revenge. First she found Suna and Qora in Qora's garden, where she wiped them from the world as easily as crossing out a line of script.

Next she dealt with Lila. The goddess of war thought to fight her, but wisdom always defeats might, and Sotia's quill moved far faster than Lila's arrows. Sotia pried Lila's bow from her stiff fingers and crushed it to dust beneath her feet.

No pity tinged Sotia's vengeance, for the others had felt none for her.

JONIS SHOUTED AND
ran at me, but Mati's sword blocked his. Mati glared at Jonis, and Jonis glared at me.

“Traitor,” Jonis snarled.

I had been called a traitor so often that the word no longer hurt. But all at once I realized how things must look to him—Sotia's release had touched off the battle prematurely, and he thought I had informed the other side.

“Jonis, no, it's not—”

“Don't bother to lie.” He sidestepped Mati's blade and swung, but again Mati blocked him. Mati was tense, his eyes following Jonis's every move. My stomach dropped. Mati had years of
training—he could dispose of Jonis easily if it came to that.

“Jonis, the goddess. Sotia was . . . in the tablet. . . .” The story tumbled out of me incoherently. “You felt the quakes—the city isn't safe!”

Jonis's face registered confusion. I seized on that. “Gamo has reinforcements coming from Emtiria. Mati told me and we were on our way to warn you when—”

Jonis shook his head and lunged. Mati whirled and forced him farther away from me. “More lies,” Jonis shouted at me over Mati's shoulder.

“She's telling you the truth,” said Mati.

Jonis snarled and sprang at him.

“Jonis, you have to—” The floor lurched beneath me and I staggered to my knees, my words lost.

Jonis and Mati both went down too, but Jonis swung for Mati's shoulder before he'd even righted himself. Mati blocked him from the floor, then jumped to his feet in one swift motion, already ducking Jonis's next thrust. Even with the golden circlet askew and dust covering his fine clothes, he looked every inch a king. He fought with calculated efficiency, never wasting a stroke, not pressing Jonis back but not allowing him to gain any ground either.

Jonis, on the other hand, made up for what he lacked in skill with sheer ferocity. He swung savagely at every opening, his eyes burning with hatred.

I heaved myself up, leaning on the wall. Mati warned me with a glance not to interfere, but I had to do
something
. I thought about throwing myself between them, but, as Jonis would undoubtedly
kill me right now, that wouldn't do any good.

I couldn't let them hurt each other, though. So I cast around for something I could use, and my eyes lit on the shattered stone of Suna's statue, which had rolled out into the corridor. I seized the goddess's head and maneuvered behind Jonis. But he sensed me just as I was bringing it down on his shoulder, and he whirled around. The stone glanced off his arm, but disrupted his aim enough that the thrust meant for my heart only sliced my left thigh.

I yelped and clutched my leg as I crumpled to the floor. I didn't see what Mati did, but a moment later, Jonis was on his back, Mati's sword at his throat and Mati's foot pinning his sword hand.

“Drop it,” Mati growled.

Jonis's fingers curled more tightly around the sword, and he called Mati something that would have gotten him immediately executed on a normal day.

“Mati is not your enemy!” I shouted. “If he was, you'd be dead by now. Rale is the real enemy, and this is exactly what he wants—us fighting each other so we won't fight him!”

Mati's eyes went to the blood spreading across my trousers, and he looked like he wasn't quite sure he agreed about not being Jonis's enemy.

“It's shallow,” I lied. “It just stings a little.”

“I thought we'd agreed,” Mati said evenly, “that we weren't going to lie to each other anymore.” Before I could respond, he brushed his sword lightly across Jonis's throat, just enough to get his attention. “She doesn't want me to kill you,” he told Jonis
flatly. “And you won't even listen to her. Maybe I'm not a great leader, but one thing I know is that leaders get all the facts before they make a decision. And
you're
missing some.”

I pressed my hands against the gash on my thigh and looked at Jonis. Uncertainty had crept into his expression, and I knew why—he couldn't believe that any Qilarite would have him at his mercy like this without immediately killing him. Still he didn't let go of his sword. “I'm supposed to believe some nonsense about a goddess?” he said.

“Sotia,” I said. “She was imprisoned in the tablet and we freed her.”

Mati looked just as skeptical as Jonis, but he obviously didn't want to contradict me. “You were there!” I told him. “You saw it!”

Mati shook his head. “I don't know what I saw. But I know the city's not safe. The earthquakes—”

“The quakes will set off a tidal wave,” I said with certainty. The vision I'd had sharpened in my mind. Somehow, when the tablet had exploded, I'd seen through Sotia's eyes, seen her controlling the sea with her symbols. My chest constricted with remembered rage.

Mati didn't question how I knew this. “Then we need to raise the floodwalls, get everyone to higher ground,” he said. He looked at Jonis. “Do you care about your people's lives, or just about winning?”

The earth shuddered, and Mati swung his sword away from Jonis's throat. It might have appeared that he was thrown off balance, but his foot stayed firm on Jonis's wrist, and I knew that he was trying to avoid hurting Jonis, even by accident.

Jonis seemed to realize this too. He pursed his lips, then said, “Where's the floodwall?”

“We'll take care of that,” said Mati. “You work on getting your people to the temple hill—that's the closest high ground. They won't listen to us. And once you get there you can start figuring out what to do about the Emtirians.” Jonis nodded and moved to sit up. But Mati pointed his sword at Jonis's chest. “If you hurt her again, I
will
kill you.”

Mati's eyes were hard, and Jonis's were equally hard as he stared right back at him. But the two of them seemed to come to some silent agreement. Mati lifted his foot and Jonis stood, shifting his sword to his left hand and flexing his right wrist. Mati watched him warily, but Jonis only made for the doors.

As soon as Jonis was gone, Mati crouched beside me. “Can you walk?”

“I think so.” Leaning on him, I got to my feet and took a few steps. My legs trembled, and I thought it was from the injury, but then I realized that it was the earth, reminding me that I had no time to dwell on pain. So I grabbed Mati's hand and ran across the entrance hall, ignoring the ache in my thigh.

The front courtyard was in chaos, a mass of humanity roiling in blinding sunlight. It took me a moment to distinguish individual shapes, green-clad Arnathim, and here and there dark-skinned Resistance fighters dressed as Qilarite servants, battling with guards and Scholars.

A distant rumbling sounded. Gray clouds blocked the sun, extinguishing the light. “This way!” Mati shouted, pulling me down the steps and to the left. “The controls are in the guard
tower. If we get the palace floodwall all the way up, that will trigger the harbor wall going up too. We'll have to—”

Someone slammed into his right side. He went down, but caught himself on one knee and shoved me behind a pillar as he turned to face his attacker, who wore the uniform of a King's Guard.

I clung to the pillar—the same I had been tied to when I'd been whipped—and watched as Mati forced the man away from me. This was no half-trained Resistance fighter, but a skilled soldier attacking his king. Mati fought just as confidently as he had inside, but I saw sweat on his brow and his chest heaving as he and the man moved in and out of the other battles raging in the courtyard.

Nearby, I heard familiar voices, but I couldn't turn away from the battle. “Where're the others?” Jonis was shouting.

“Still outside the gates,” Deshti replied. “Why'd you give the signal so early?”

“
I
didn't,” shouted Jonis. “This area's going to flood. We have to get everyone to the temple hill.”

Deshti grunted, and swords clanged. “Guess you haven't seen Rale and his fire-shooter then,” she said.

“What?” Jonis and I said together, and I pushed myself up on tiptoe to see over the fighters.

And there was Rale, by the outer gates. His high forehead shone with sweat as he did something to the long metal tube in his hands—the same he had used for his fire effects at the pantomime. Flames poured out of the end and caught the back of a curly-haired woman in green—Anet. She rolled on the ground,
screaming, to put out the flames. Before she could rise, a guard put a sword through her throat. I gasped, my fingers digging into the stone pillar, as Rale gleefully shot flames into the crowd without seeming to care if he hit friend or foe. The fighters pressed away from him, back toward the palace.

My eyes raked the crowd, but I'd lost sight of Mati in the battle. My throat constricted. But then I saw a flash of white by the orchard—Mati, huddled behind a tree with Laiyonea and Jera. Their white and green dresses were streaked with dirt, and Jera clung to Laiyonea's singed skirt, hiding her face. Mati's white tunic was spattered with blood and ripped at the shoulder, but he seemed unhurt as he spoke urgently to Laiyonea.

I ran around the edge of the courtyard, dodging swords and skirting fighters from both sides. I slammed into Mati and wrapped my arms around him.

He held me close and spoke into my hair. “I have to get up to the tower. Go with Laiyonea and Jera to the temple hill. I'll come find you there.”

“I'm coming with you.”

“I need you to keep them safe,” he said. But his eyes said,
I need
you
to be safe.

“How are we supposed to get out?” I argued. “Did you see what Rale has? And we're not even armed!”

“Yes, we are,” said Laiyonea. She darted out from behind the tree and returned with two bloody swords. She handed me one of them and held Jera to her side, eyeing me coldly. I knew what she was thinking—I was being a distraction again, one Mati couldn't afford.

So I pulled Mati to me and kissed him, hard, and then said, “Go. We'll be waiting at the temple hill.”

I turned away before I could change my mind, and started toward the gates. I didn't see Rale anywhere, just isolated fires burning wherever there was something to fuel them. The stench told me that a great deal of that fuel was human. On the far side of the courtyard, the garden was alight.

I turned to tell Laiyonea that the gates might be clear if Rale was in the garden, but the ground shifted and screams filled the air as the heaving earth threw the fighters off balance. With a great crack, a slab of the palace roof slid into the courtyard, crushing people under its weight.

Some of the fighters tried to run then, but found themselves trapped by debris and fire. A mass of people pressed up the steps and into the front doors of the palace.

“No!” I screamed. “Not inside! What are you doing?” But they couldn't hear me, of course.

Suddenly Laiyonea shoved me to the ground, so hard that my knees cracked against stone and my wounded thigh burned. I rolled onto my back and swung the sword up wildly—why had she given it to me if she'd planned to attack me?

But Laiyonea wasn't looking at me—her sword went unhesitatingly through the neck of the tall figure in green who had come after me. The man dropped to the ground, and the lifeless face of Ris ko Karmik stared at me, eyes accusatory even in death.

“Well, your new friends seem nice,” Laiyonea said as she pulled me to my feet. I gaped at her. How did she know how to use a sword like that?

There was no time to ask. I clutched her arm, and she clutched Jera, as thunder rent the air and the front doors of the palace caved in, showering us with rock and dust.

I squinted through the haze. Most of the Scholars had fled into the palace in the wake of the roof's collapse, and the destroyed doors cut them off. Three pillars had fallen in the tremors; the remaining four wavered as though they might go at any moment. A few fights still raged around the courtyard, but mostly people were getting to their feet, looking dazed, or lying on the ground, never to get up again.

I saw Jonis helping another man up. Just as I registered the blood on his tunic, someone ran past me.

“Jonis!” It was Jera, launching herself at her brother.

“Jera, no!” Jonis cried, holding one hand out to stop her while trying to support the man beside him.

I wondered, for a second, why he was warning her away. Then I saw Penta Rale nearby, his face split in a horrible grin, a stream of fire shooting from the tube in his hands toward the little girl. It happened so quickly that all I could do was gasp and shut my eyes.

I heard a cry of agony, but not from Jera. My eyes flew open and saw Mati lying on the ground in front of her, his tunic afire. The odor of burning flesh filled the air.

Penta Rale stood above Mati. He lifted the tube again, his hands working at the end, and aimed it right at Mati's chest.

Laiyonea and I moved at the same time.

She swung the bloody sword down on Rale's shoulder, but he'd already ducked away. I threw myself to the ground beside Mati as Rale's next blast of fire shot past me.

“Don't touch him, traitor,” said Laiyonea, placing herself in front of us.

I beat at the flames engulfing the right arm of Mati's tunic as Laiyonea pushed Rale back with her sword and her words. “You sent Tyasha to her death,” she said. “You used her in your plan to take the throne.”