A distant shout sounded when it had consumed me, Kiyan again, calling my name.
The second time he’d said it.
My skin burned, and I knew my flesh was dying too, rotting, decaying, peeling off.
It was agony—until it wasn’t.
Something burned white hot on my wrist as if I’d been lit on fire from within—as if I dove into the creature with an oil lantern and set it ablaze.
Fire foamed around me.
That was the only word for it.
It wasn’t the flickering of orange-blue flames that had coiled up in a violent rage, but a soft burning, one that grew thick and round and frothed up around me.
Dead branches and flesh and fur and mulberries and flowers burned up with me. The smell was smoke and rot and death, but that other smell was there too. Something that wasn’t bad, but new. New growth, like the forest fire that gave way to the sprigs of green trees that came out of the ash.
And the bangles at my wrist—my mother’s bangles—felt heavy and cool as the rest of the world burned around me. Until my clothes gave way, and my hair plastered tightly to my neck.
“You’re safe,” Kiyan said, soft in my ear, and so close. That same voice from the woods with the halmasti, from the prison when he questioned my interest in the crown.
Low, steady, and piercing.
But somehow a voice that was trustworthy. Safe.
Hands gripped my shoulders and slipped under my knees. I was held against a solid chest, the breathing rhythmic and deep, his chest rising and falling against my body, lulling me into soft slumber.
And then the burning stopped.
And the coolness at my wrist faded.
And I fell.
* * *
I woke in my bedroom in the palace, confused at first.
Thick covers were piled on top of me, the smoothness of the sheets like clouds against my bare skin. I gasped, realizing I hadn’t a single thread of clothes on my body, and sat up, checking my wrists quickly. Relief rushed through me that my mother’s bangles still sat there.
“I wasn’t sure if you’d ever wake up.”
A sardonic voice cut through my confusion.
“Mishah!” I nearly leapt out of bed before remembering my nakedness. “What happened?”
“What do you remember?” She leaned forward, her eyes keen, her elbows resting on her knees. My vision was blurry, and I cast my gaze around for my spectacles but didn’t see them anywhere. I glanced back to Mishah and could see enough to tell that she was still wearing her beige kitchen smock and her hair was swept back at the nape of her neck, but she had a look on her face I’d never seen before.
One that reminded me of Nani when she had first asked about the Citadel coming for me—as if shehadto know but didn’t want to.
I frowned.
WhatdidI remember?
“I was inside it. That thing.” I shuddered, and not even the finest of all the Viceroy’s bedsheets could have made me feel safe then.
Ramishah nodded. “You dove in, I’d never seen anything so idiotic. The soldiers tried to fight it off but didn’t seem to do any real damage.”
“But I remember arms pulling me out. And the feeling of fire.” I glanced again at my bracelets, the intricate gold bands unchanged and looping around my arms.
