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The exchange was over in an instant.
The Sorqan Sira reeled back. She seemed to have shrunk in on herself. For the first time, Rin saw fear on her face.
“Bekter,” she said. “Please.”
Bekter spoke an order.
Arrows dotted the earth around Augus’s feet. Augus gave a strangled yelp. Rin lunged forward, but it was too late. She heard a click, then a small explosion.
The Sorqan Sira dropped to the ground. Smoke curled from the spot where the bullet had burrowed into her chest. She looked down, then back up at Augus, face contorted in disbelief, before slumping to the side.
Chaghan rushed forward. “Ama!”
Augus dropped the arquebus he’d fired and raised the second one to his shoulder.
Several things happened at once.
Augus pulled the trigger. Qara threw herself in front of her brother. A bang split the night and together the twins collapsed, Qara falling back into Chaghan’s arms.
The riders turned to flee.
Rin screamed. A rivulet of fire shot from her mouth and slammed into Augus’s chest, knocking him over. He shouted, writhing madly to put out the flames, but the fire didn’t stop; it consumed his air, poured into his lungs, seized him from inside like a hand until his torso was charcoal and he couldn’t scream anymore.
Augus’s death throes slowed to an insectlike twitching as Rin sank to her knees. She closed her mouth. The flames died away, and Augus lay still.
Behind her Chaghan was cradling his sister. A dark splotch of blood appeared over Qara’s right breast as if painted by an invisible artist, blossoming larger and larger like a blooming poppy flower.
“Qara—Qara, no . . .” Chaghan’s hands moved frantically over her breast, but there was no arrowhead to pull out; the metal shard had buried itself too deep for him to save her.
“Stop,” Qara gasped. She lifted a shaking hand and touched it to Chaghan’s chest. Blood bubbled out between her teeth. “Let go. You have to let go.”
“I’m going with you,” Chaghan said.
Qara’s breath came in short, pained gasps. “No. Too important.”
“Qara . . .”
“Do this for me,” Qara whispered. “Please.”
Chaghan pressed his forehead against Qara’s. Something passed between them, an exchange of thoughts that Rin could not hear. Qara reached a shaking hand to her chest, drew a pattern in her own blood on the pale skin of Chaghan’s cheek, and then placed her palm against it.
Chaghan exhaled. Rin thought she saw something pass in the space between them—a gust of air, a shimmer of light.
Qara’s head fell to the side. Chaghan pulled her limp form into his arms and dropped his head.
“Rin,” Kitay said urgently.
She spun around. Ten feet away, Bekter sat astride his horse, bow raised.
She lifted her trident, but she had no chance. From this close Bekter had an easy shot. They’d be dead in seconds.
But Bekter wasn’t shooting. His arrow was nocked to his bow, but the string wasn’t pulled taut. He had a dazed look in his eye; his gaze flickered between the bodies of the Sorqan Sira and Qara.
He’s in shock, Rin realized. Bekter couldn’t believe what he’d done.
She hefted her trident over her head, poised to throw. “Murder’s not so easy, is it?”
Bekter blinked, as if just coming to his senses, and then aimed his bow at her.
“Go on,” she told him. “We’ll see who’s faster.”
Bekter looked at the gleaming tips of her trident, then down at Chaghan, who was rocking back and forth over Qara’s form. He lowered his bow just a fraction.
“You did this,” Bekter said. “You killed Mother. That’s what I’ll tell them. This is your fault.” His voice wavered; he seemed to be trying to convince himself. His bow shook in his hands. “All of this is your fault.”
Rin hurled her trident. Bekter’s horse bolted. The trident flew a foot over his head and shot through empty air. Rin aimed a burst of flame in his direction, but she was too slow—within seconds Bekter was gone from her sight, disappeared into the forest to follow his band of traitors.
For a long time, the only sound in the clearing came from Chaghan. He wasn’t crying, not quite. His eyes were dry. But his chest heaved erratically, his breath came out in short, strangled bursts, and his eyes stared wide, down at his sister’s corpse as if he couldn’t believe what he was looking at.
Our wills have been united since we were children, Qara had said. We are two halves of the same person.
Rin couldn’t possibly imagine how it felt to have that stripped away.
At last Kitay bent down over the Sorqan Sira’s body and rolled her flat on her back. He pulled her eyelids closed.
Then he touched Chaghan gently on the shoulder. “Is there something we should—”
“There’s going to be war,” Chaghan said abruptly. He laid Qara out on the dirt before him, then arranged her hands on her chest, one clasped over the other. His voice was flat, emotionless. “Bekter’s the chieftain now.”
“Chieftain?” Kitay repeated. “He just killed his own mother!”
“Not by his own hand. That’s why he gave the Hesperians those guns. He didn’t touch her, and his riders will attest to that. They’ll be able to swear it before the Pantheon, because it’s true.”
There was no emotion on Chaghan’s face. He looked utterly, terrifyingly calm.
Rin understood. He’d shut down, replaced his feelings with a focus on calm pragmatism, because that was the only way he could block out the pain.
Chaghan took a deep, shuddering breath. For a moment the facade cracked, and Rin could see pain twisting across his face, but it disappeared just as fast as it came. “This is . . . this changes everything. The Sorqan Sira was the only one keeping the Ketreyids in check. Now Bekter will lead them to slaughter the Naimads.”
“Then go,” Rin said. “Take the warhorse. Ride north. Go back to your clan and warn them.”
Chaghan blinked at her. “That horse is for you.”
“Don’t be an idiot.”
“We’ll find another way,” Kitay said. “It’ll take us a little longer, but we’ll figure it out. You need to go.”
Slowly, Chaghan stood up on shaky legs and followed them to the riverbank.
The horse was waiting tamely where they’d left it. It seemed completely unbothered by the commotion in the clearing. It had been trained well not to panic.
Chaghan lifted his foot into the stirrup and swung himself up into the saddle in one graceful, practiced movement. He grasped the reins in both hands and looked down at them. He swallowed. “Rin . . .”
“Yes?” she answered.
He looked very small atop the horse. For the first time, she saw him for what he was: not a fearsome shaman, not a mysterious Seer, but just a boy, really. She’d always thought Chaghan so ethereally powerful, so detached from the realm of mortals. But he was human after all, smaller and thinner than the rest of them.
And for the first time in his life, he was alone.
“What am I going to do?” he asked quietly.
His voice trembled. He looked so utterly lost.
Rin reached for his hand. Then she looked at him, really looked him in the eyes. They were so similar when she thought about it. Too young to be so powerful, not close to ready for the positions they had been thrust into.
