Darbaran charged at me, recklessness making him unpredictable. His sword missed me by inches. I struck his blade down with the edge of my dagger but couldn’t get close enough with my knife to land a real hit given how wildly he was swinging.
I needed my sword.
I maneuvered myself toward the room behind me, spying my talwar hanging on the wall over the divan. I dove for the doorway, but Darbaran cut me off with his sword raised above his head.
He wavered on his feet, looking as if a strong wind could blow him over.
He let out a howl, lurching forward. But before he could strike, he pitched facedown onto the stone walkway in front of me. I gaped at him as he lay on the ground, groaning.
Noor stood behind him, holding a large dahl pot in her hand.
Darbaran struggled to his feet with a grunt and whirled on her, his sword pointed in Noor’s direction now. A roar sounded in my ears, drowning out everything, until I could only hear the faint sound of screaming.
And I realized that sound was coming from me.
I was too late. I would get there too late.
Noor would die.
“No!”
Darbaran rushed at Noor with his scimitar, and panic filled her face as she lost her footing.
I ran full speed at them, shoving Noor out of the way at the same time Darbaran’s sword plunged toward her. Burning pain lit my body as his scimitar pierced my abdomen instead.
I looked down at the golden filigree hilt of the scimitar lodged in my stomach and realized this, too, was a blade made by my father. I raised my head, coming face-to-face with Darbaran and every inch of his triumphant smile.
Pain clenched in my heart—not just the pain of the curved blade impaling my body, but the denial of justice, the unfulfilled vengeance piling up inside my chest so that the pressure was too great to bear.
No.I clenched my teeth and stared at his smug, disgusting face.
No, it would be harder than this to best me.
My fingers clenched tightly over my father’s katar dagger, the bite of the snake pattern on the hilt forming an impression on my scarred hand. Darbaran’s face was so close to mine, close enough that I could make out the yellow threads in the whites of his eyes, the speckled poresin his nose. Close enough that I could watch the victory in his face twist into stunned agony when I sliced him across the throat with my knife.
His mouth dropped open and he tried to move it.
Once. Twice. Forming words with no sound.
But I had enough for the both of us.
“You were destined for this end,” I whispered to him, his lifeless body dropping to the ground. I sank to my knees beside him, then fell to my side, my hands holding the hilt of my father’s sword, the blade that had killed me.
Perhaps I was destined for this too.
Thirty-four
“You don’t get to die yet.” Noor’s desperate voice filtered through the darkness. “You can’t leave me in the middle of all this shit and expect me to dig my way out. Not today,” she muttered, but I could feel fear behind the words. Fear that I shouldn’t be able to recognize. Not when I was dead.
“You aren’t dead. Not yet.”
I must have said the words out loud, but when I tried to respond, a rough groan burst out instead.
Noor’s voice echoed around me once more, but my insides were twisting together, burning, a river of lava running through me instead of my blood.
I howled, arching my back, the pain worse than the sword lodged in my body and piercing my intestines.
“I’ve made the best healing blend of zoraat I know. If this doesn’t work, you’re officially too stubborn to listen to anyone else.”
