Page 88 of Dance of Stars and Ashes

“We’re going this way?” she asked.

“The Bayangoma grove is on an island off the southern coast. We have to go through the swamp. From the coast, we’ll take a boat to Ranpur Island.”

“Can’t you use magic to get there and skip the swamp?”

“I can transport one, maybe two other people at a time, depending on their size, but transporting you all wouldn’t save much time.”

Zarya took a deep breath as they passed the city walls. The gates had crumbled in the last attack, leaving a pile of rubble, reminding them all this was a queendom teetering on the edge of ruin.

Row pulled ahead, and Zarya hung back as awareness pricked up the back of her scalp. She hadn’t ventured into the swamp since the night of the ajakava attack. Not since she’d embraced her sixth anchor.

Was she imagining things, or did it feel… different?

As they crossed into the blight, she swore she could hear the sound of heartbeats and rattling breaths buried within a soft whisper. Did the ghost army still linger in this place? Or was the swamp more alive than she’d ever given it credit for? She scrubbed the back of her hand across her eyes, trying to dispel this foreign tension that wound up her spine.

“Are you okay?” came a deep voice, and Zarya looked over to find Rabin trotting beside her.

“I’m fine. This place is just… unsettling.”

They traveled slowly, their horses hampered by the bog sticking to their horses’ hooves.

“What about you?” Zarya asked. “Do you want to talk about what just happened with your father?”

“No,” he said, the firmness in his tone clear.

“Okay,” she said before he cut a glance to her, his gaze softening.

“I’m sorry. That wasn’t your fault. He just”—he let out a low growl—“pisses me the fuck off.”

“I understand. He seems like he would have been a warm kind of father you could really look up to.”

That almost elicited a smile, the corner of Rabin’s mouth twitching reluctantly.

They continued riding as everyone fell into silence, clearly sensing the wrongness of this place, too. Zarya did her best not to steal a thousand looks in Rabin’s direction. Sitting on his horse in his black armor that formed to his muscles, his midnight hair gleaming in the sunlight, he was like some dark god chiseled from the ruins of sin. But the last thing he needed was anything else to inflate his ego.

“I have a question,” she asked after they’d been riding for a while. “The day the blight attacked Dharati, you talked me through how to use Aazheri magic, but the day you fixed the rift by the palace, you said your magic was different from mine. How did you know what to do?”

He shrugged one of his broad shoulders.

“I’ve always had a keen interest in magic. I’ve read a lot about Aazheri, so I have some idea of how it works.”

“So, why didn’t you show me when I tried to fix the rift?”

Rabin looked away and ran a hand along the top of his head. Was he blushing?

“Maybe I was trying to show off?”

Zarya barked out a laugh that echoed through the silent swamp.

“That’s cute,” she said as Rabin glared at her. “I was very impressed, Commander.”

“I am not cute, Spitfire,” he growled.

Zarya batted her eyelashes, and he continued scowling as she laughed.

“So, do you believe this is the darkness, then?” Zarya gestured to the decay surrounding them.

He flicked his reins as he surveyed their surroundings. “Power, magic—they aren’t inherently evil. They are simply tools. What matters is how they’re used. It’s just a name. The darkness isn’t any more evil than water or air.”