Nelay dropped into one of the chairs. “How so?”
“My tribes will cut off the Clansmen’s supply route, starve them out, and molest them throughout Idara. The Clansmen have to do something now or nothing at all.” Rycus folded his arms. “But if we can just survive a few weeks, I believe they will be forced to retreat behind one of their captured city’s high walls.”
“We might not last that long,” Nashur said. “The Clansmen don’t attack when the wind is in our favor. And the luminash won’t last forever—we’ve already used half of it.”
“But the Clansmen don’t know that,” Rycus replied.
“They do not,” Nashur said a little grudgingly.
“What about the sand?” Rycus asked.
Nashur nodded. “That we have plenty of. And we can make more pots.”
Rycus studied the map. “If we can make them think we’ll never run out of luminash, this just might work.”
Nelay felt hope for the first time since the siege had begun. She had all the players to win this game. They would save the city. They would save Idara.
As Jezzel instructed Scand on his new guard duties, Nelay opened the doors to her rooms. Maran stood up from where she sat in a chair at the table, nursing her baby. She gestured to a covered tray on a table before the hearth. “I’ve had food brought for you, my queen. I’ll see no one disturbs you.”
Nelay blushed furiously as Rycus stepped up behind her. “Unless the wall’s breached.”
“At which point, I’m sure you’ll hear the horns,” Maran said with a smile. She shooed the others out and slipped outside, then shut the door behind her.
Nelay turned toward Rycus, expecting him to hold her, to want to be with her as much as she wanted to be with him. But he strode out of sight into her bedroom. A little flustered, she lifted the lid from the tray to reveal fresh fruit, sliced cheese, and bread. She wasted no time taking a bite of cheese and bread, then popped a handful of pomegranate seeds into her mouth. “Want something to eat?” she called toward the bedroom.
“Give me a few minutes,” he replied.
She heard water splashing and decided he’d just wanted to clean up first. She settled herself down to eat while she waited.
When he emerged a short while later, he wore a pair of loose trousers and nothing more. Nelay stared at his lean body as he sat down beside her and devoured the bread and cheese in a few bites. He wiped a bit of mango juice off the side of his mouth, then sucked it off his thumb.
He caught her watching him and reached out to unclip her silk veil, which he pulled off and let slide onto the floor. Nelay closed her eyes as the hot breeze from the window wicked over her sweaty skin.
“You don’t bear this burden alone,” Rycus said gently. “Share it with me. Between the two of us, it won’t be so overwhelming.”
Tears burned in Nelay’s eyes. She realized she was exhausted, body and soul. “I don’t know how.”
“Let me help you.”
She looked up into his eyes, so dark they were almost black. “I’ll try.”
The back of his fingers traced her jaw and moved down her neck to rest on her collarbone. “I’m in no rush, Nelay. It’s all right if we take things slow.” He pulled back from her. “Where would you like me to sleep?”
Her body cried out at his absence even as humiliation slid across her skin. She shot to her feet and turned her back on him. “I thought that would be fairly obvious, but perhaps not.”
She heard him stand up and come up behind her. He wrapped his arms around her from behind, but she pulled away. He raised his hand in a placating gesture. “I just . . . I don’t want to push you.”
She whirled around to face him. “Push me?”
His gaze locked on hers. “I know you were with Zatal only a few days ago. I don’t know what happened between you, but I don’t imagine it was pleasant.”
She softened. “Oh, that’s what you’re worried about?”
“I just want you to know we don’t have to hurry things.”
“Zatal never touched me,” she said. A look of relief washed over her new husband. “Would it matter if he did?”
Rycus shook his head. “I just want to be gentle.”
She stood before him and looked into his eyes. “I want you to kiss me.”
He pressed his lips softly to her forehead. “Like this?” he said, a dull hope in his eyes.
She pulled back and tapped her lips. “No. Not like that. Here.”
He grinned before leaning in and obliging, a soft gentle kiss that spread through her like warm honey, sweet and slow. It wasn’t nearly long enough. “Like that?”
She licked her lips, tasting him. “Let me show you.”
And she did.
The breeze stirred across Nelay’s skin, and she shivered in her robes and curled closer against Rycus. But then she remembered he had shut the patio doors before they’d gone to sleep. She shot up just in time to see two forms slip inside.
“Rycus!” was all she had time to say before a man was on her, his knife plunging toward her chest. Her training kicked in and she blocked with her wrists, wrapped her legs around his waist, and rolled him under her.
She pinned his knife hand to the bed and punched him in the throat. Gasping for breath, her attacker cuffed her on the side of the head with his free hand. Nelay ignored the ringing in her ears and chopped down on his hand, aiming for the spot that would make his fingers numb. He released the knife.
Before she could grab it, he rolled under her, taking her with him. They both fell to the floor, her back taking most of the impact. She heard a crash and knew Rycus was fighting a battle to the death against at least two men. She had to finish this and help him!
Had anyone heard her initial cry? Nelay wanted to scream—needed to scream for help, but the effort would cost her, and she was barely holding him off.
And then another figure cast a shadow from her balcony.
She and Rycus would not win against so many. She let out a scream. It cost her, as she’d known it would. The man pinned her on her stomach, his other arm wrapping her in a headlock. Stars cascaded across Nelay’s vision.
She threw her head back and felt his nose break. She flung her elbow into his gut. A knife hit her arm instead of her vitals. There was no pain, only the sensation of her flesh parting and something sharp and foreign inside her. He drew away to stab her again. Nelay threw her weight back and twisted to get on top of him. They rolled on the floor, fighting for the knife.
The door banged open, sending in a shaft of lamplight. Someone darted into the room, but Nelay couldn’t see who. She was aware of flashes of metal and clanging steel, but that was all.
Scand suddenly appeared above her. He drove his blade into the man on the ground, mortally wounding him. Nelay wrenched the knife from his failing grip. Instinctively she wrapped a hand around her bleeding arm and staggered to her feet. Rycus had managed to fend off his attackers and find his swords. He was fighting two men, also bearing swords.
Scand started toward him, but another attacker jumped the old man from behind. They fell to the floor. The attacker clearly had the advantage as they grappled, trying to choke one another.
Nelay couldn’t decide whom to help, Scand or Rycus. Then a fourth man landed on the balcony and sprinted for Rycus from behind. Nelay took a step closer to get the rotation right and threw. The knife hit the attacker in the chest, right where she’d aimed. He glanced at her and she was shocked to see blue eyes. Clansmen. In her city. And wielding swords.
“Nelay!” Maran stood at the door, Concon nowhere in sight. She motioned for Nelay to come toward her. “Quick!”
Nelay’s fingers searched for the swords she always kept beside her bed as she scanned the fights. Rycus was holding his own. And in the dark Nelay couldn’t tell Scand from the Clansmen as they rolled across the floor.
Jezzel suddenly darted into the room. Unable to find her swords, Nelay snatched a vase and threw it at one of the Clansmen figh
ting Rycus. He stumbled back and Jezzel swung, her sword sinking into his abdomen. He glared at them and tried to thrust again, but Jezzel pulled her sword free and he sank to his knees, one hand pressed against his belly. He struggled to stand again, but only managed to fall on his back.
Jezzel whirled around. “Where are your swords, Nelay?”
A flash of shame tore through Nelay. “I don’t know!”
Jezzel grabbed Nelay’s arm and tried to haul her out of the room, but she planted her feet. “No! What about Scand and Rycus?”
“Without a weapon, you’re a liability!” Jezzel said.
Hating that her friend was right, Nelay allowed herself to be dragged into the antechamber as the city’s warning horns sounded.
“Maran, hide,” Jezzel whispered loudly.
She backed them up to a corner and passed Nelay her throwing knives. Hearing quick footsteps in the hall, Nelay tensed, preparing to throw.
Hazar and Ahzem came running through her doors wearing only their dhotis, swords clenched in their hands. Nelay relaxed her grip on the knives. Jezzel barked orders. The three of them formed a half circle, with Nelay in the center.
More Immortals darted into her bedroom. They came back out moments later, dragging a half-conscious Clansman between them.
“Take him to the dungeon for questioning,” Jezzel said coldly.
Rycus burst into Nelay’s antechamber, looking around frantically. The moment he saw her, he sagged in relief. “Have the palace searched. Give no quarter,” he said to Jezzel.
As she barked out orders, Rycus nodded to Nelay and disappeared back in her rooms. An Immortal left her chambers at a run, presumably to round up whomever he could find, as most of the guard had been sent to defend the city.
“On me,” Jezzel said to Hazar and Ahzem. “We’re going to search every corner of her rooms, then search them again.”
Maran emerged from behind a wall hanging. Hazar spun around, his sword out. She gave a little scream and he scowled before moving past her. She ran to a drawer, pulled Concon out, and tucked him to her chest. The baby was sound asleep.
“You did the right thing, coming to get me,” Jezzel said.
Maran nodded, and something seemed to pass between the two, something that looked like the start of a friendship. Then Maran glanced at Nelay and a soft cry left her lips. “You’re hurt!”
Nelay felt it then, the distant pain. Her left side was soaked with clammy blood from the wound in her arm, warm drops dripping from her fingers. “It won’t kill me,” she said dismissively. “I should go to the observation tower—see what’s going on.”
Jezzel moved to stand between her and the door. “Not until the palace is secure.”
Delir, Bahar, Cinab, and Ashar burst into the room, along with more Immortals. Jezzel ordered one of them to fetch the healer. At Nelay’s request, she ordered the Tribesmen to stand guard at the door. The Immortals she sent to search the palace.
Then she and Maran knelt beside Nelay and looked at her arm. After a quick inspection, Jezzel relaxed. “It’s a flesh wound. You’ll have a nasty scar, but you’ll live.”
Maran tore off a strip of cloth from a towel in the cupboard and handed it to Jezzel, who wrapped it so tightly around Nelay’s arm that she hissed through her teeth.
An Immortal returned and began reporting to Jezzel. Nelay looked around the room, scanning to make sure everyone was accounted for, and suddenly realized she’d never seen Scand come from her bedroom—the room Rycus had disappeared in the moment he’d known she was safe.
“Scand?” Nelay’s voice sounded small. She took off at a run. No one made a move to stop her as she entered the bedroom. Scand lay crumpled beside her bed. Rycus knelt beside him, pressing Nelay’s balled-up sheets against the old man’s chest. The sheets were soaked in blood.
She rushed to kneel at Scand’s other side. He gave a slight shake of his head. “Ten years ago, I’d have bested him easily.” The old man tried to laugh, but it came out as a wet, gurgling cough.
Nelay wiped the blood from his mouth with the corner of a sheet.
Scand gripped Rycus’s hand. “My wife . . .”
Rycus nodded. “I’ll tell her. And I’ll see she wants for nothing.”
A lump formed in Nelay’s throat. She hadn’t even considered Scand’s wife, and now he was dying—no one survived an injury to the lungs.
“You saved our lives,” she choked out.
Scand grunted. “This wasn’t the first time—just the last.”
A tear slipped down Nelay’s cheek.
“The Clansmen are in the city,” Jezzel cried from the other room.
Nelay’s head snapped up and she rose to her feet. She started for the door before pausing to look back. “Thank you, Scand.” Such a trivial thing, those words, but it was all she had to offer.
Scand lifted a hand in farewell. Rycus caught her gaze, and she tried to convey her sorrow. Just as she crossed the threshold, she heard Scand say, “Give me your knife while I can still do it.”
Her steps stuttered, knowing the old man meant to kill himself quickly rather than die slowly. Should she go back, be there for Rycus? But then Jezzel swore, and the fear in her voice drove Nelay to the other room.
She spotted Rycus’s cousins. “Go to him. Now,” she said. The men exchanged looks before moving to obey. Pushing away the thought of what would greet them, she strode to Jezzel, who stood at the open window. Nelay took the telescope her friend handed to her and peered through it to see Clansmen fighting inside the city walls. She sucked in a breath, temporarily losing her bearings before she located one gate after another. “They’re all intact?”
“As far as I can tell,” Jezzel responded.
“Then how did they get inside?” But then she saw the wall itself had collapsed. Clansmen streamed over the rubble.
Nelay touched the glass idol at her throat. “Jez, the Goddess of Fire has betrayed us.”
“I know,” Jezzel answered softly.
“I don’t think we can beat this.”
“I know.”
Nelay’s grip tightened and she pulled the necklace over her head to stare at the idol’s worn body. She opened her fingers, letting the idol fall with a small clink on the ground. Then she brought her heel down on top of it and broke it into pieces. As she looked at the bits of glass, a feeling of loss shot through her, like the last connection with her father was gone.
“What’s that?” Maran asked from behind her.
“Just a piece of glass,” Nelay replied.
Nelay needed her armor and weapons. She turned, intending to get them. But Maran was coming from her bedroom, her face ashen and her arms full of Nelay’s things. Nelay didn’t know whether to say thank you for thinking ahead or sorry for what she’d had to see. In the end, Maran met her gaze, tears streaming down her face. Nelay nodded and Maran seemed to understand.
She helped Nelay into her armor while Jezzel helped herself to a couple extra knives and strapped them to her ankles.
A messenger burst into the room. “Commander Nashur sent me, my queen. The palace is secure. You are to come with me.”
Rycus approached the door, his face blank. Without a word, he started out, taking the lead as the rest of them followed.
“How did they get inside the city?” Jezzel asked.
“They collapsed the wall,” said the messenger.
“How?” Nelay burst out.
“I’m not sure,” he replied. They hustled through the war room and up the winding stairs to the observation tower. At the top, the Immortal commanders were running and shouting, the luminash flashing and horns sounding.
Nashur stood before the brazier, holding a map down. He glanced at them and began talking before they’d even reached him. “They infiltrated the palace before attacking the city.”
“But how did they get inside the palace?” Jezzel demanded. “How did they know which rooms to target?”
“We don’t know that yet,” Nashur said. r />
Nelay rubbed her throat. “One of the men who attacked us survived.”
“I know. My men are questioning him now.”
Rycus leaned forward. “And if he doesn’t talk?”
“He will,” Nashur assured him.
Nelay swallowed. “Is there anything else we can do?”
Nashur stared at the map as if the answer might reveal itself at any moment. But he remained silent.
Nelay covered her mouth with her hand, not sure if she was going to cry or vomit or both. Just yesterday, victory had been days away. She stared out over the falling city. “I had all the players. All of them.” Her gaze sought out Jezzel’s. “Maybe . . . maybe I should go to Suka.”
Jezzel shook her head over and over, but she said nothing.
“Go to Suka?” Rycus said. “What’s that supposed to mean?” When no one answered him, he stepped closer to Nelay. “What does that mean?”
Jezzel took him aside and spoke in low whispers.
One of the palace guards strode up to Nashur and said something too soft for Nelay to make out.
“My queen,” Nashur began, “the populace has gathered at the palace gates. They want inside.”
“Let them in.”
“I must caution you, there may be assassins among them.”
“Let them in,” Nelay said more firmly.
Nashur inclined his head and called for a flag she’d never seen, a centurion standing before a set of gates. Nelay stepped to the banister to watch as the palace’s heavy gates heaved open and Idarans spilled inside. She studied them through her telescope. None seemed injured. Most had arms full of bedding and food.
She shifted her focus to the city. Jezzel and Rycus came to stand beside her. Morning wasn’t far off now, and Nelay could make out men fighting in the streets. The fighting was concentrated around the collapsed sections of wall, all clustered fairly close to each other and a gate.
“You can’t do it—what Suka’s asked you,” Rycus said from behind her. “We’ll find another way.”
“Everything we try fails,” Nelay gasped out. “No matter how many times I rework the field and the players, more of my people end up dead.” The Idaran soldiers were fighting for their lives and the lives of their families. And they were dying.