“We can’t help that now,” Kiyan’s sister said, comforting the Queen. “But he won’t be there as long as we were, I promise you.” Kiyan’s sister’s words were low, and I sensed the ferocity in them.
The Queen took another longing glance at the doors, and I could sense the conflict in her heart, just like mine.
But I also had Kiyan’s voice in my head, urging me on, getting me to finish what I had started, what my mother had started.
Now that I had the crown, I could at least do that.
Safiyya’s scowling face appeared in my mind, and my grandmother’s blazing eyes. They deserved to be free, just like the River Court.
“Come,” said the Queen, glancing down at me. “Let’s see what this world has become in our absence.”
We walked out toward the steps, the sunshine bright on our faces. Below, I could see rebels and soldiers alike staring up at the Mountain, waiting to see if the curse had been lifted.
If only.
“What is your name, human?”
The Queen looked down at me, her eyes kind. She rested a hand on my shoulder as if she somehow understood my connection to Kiyan, understood the devastation in my eyes.
“My name is Yaseema,” I said, finding my voice again. I looked over at Azari’s crown, gracing his sister’s head, and I thought of Kiyan’s final words to me.
Light the River on fire.
I turned to face the three of them, resolve steeling my shoulders. “And I’m afraid I have to ask you a favor.”
* * *
Kiyan’s mother took me to the River, while his sister and brother joined the rebels in the Khangar Pass, healing the injured and rounding up the final soldiers of the Court of Salt.
They barely asked me any questions about why I needed the crown, and why I wanted to go to the River.
It seemed enough that I had helped them, had released them from Tirich Mir, even at the expense of Kiyan’s imprisonment. I told them what I wanted to do, and why, and his sister had handed over the crown without question.
The Queen had used her own life magic to take me there, conjuring the wind, the trees, and even wildlife to carry us over half the Court and reach the rushing water border where I had first arrived.
I stood at the edge of the River, the same spot I had weeks ago. But it all felt different now.
Instead of that girl who ran from the Citadel, who hunted at night to thwart the Empress, I would be returning to lead a revolution. I was going to bring down the barrier that blocked the Empire’s ability to starve us into submission, and then I was going to bring them down.
Light the River on fire.
I put the crown on my head, walked closer to the riverbank, and closed my eyes. I pulled my magic inward, toward the crown, just as I had done with my mother’s bangles.
But nothing happened.
Sweat collected in my palms, and my heartbeat was going so fast it nearly drowned out the rushing river. I pushed down the panic in my chest, focusing all my energy on bringing the wall down, on using the crown.
Maybe I was doing it wrong?
I pushed my magic out this time, my golden threads slamming into the wall, but not combining with the crown in the way they did with the bangles when I’d used them.
I looked back at Kiyan’s mother. “Nothing is happening.”
Surely, she would know how ancient peri objects worked, or maybe the wall had to be destroyed by a peri anyway.
“I could try,” she offered, looking over at the wall. “It’s been a long time since we’ve tried to take it down, but I didn’t have Azari’s crown then. The ancient peris had erected it, desperate to avoid an evil that they never named. The humans agreed, as they were afraid of our magic.”
I wondered if the Citadel had been that unnamed evil, but that thought only increased my anger. If they had erected the wall to avoid the Citadel, then they’d condemned the human lands to them.
