Page 31 of Storm of Ink and Blood

“Another very good question,” Yasen said.

“Do you think we should expose them for the liars they are?” she asked.

“That’s an entire can of snakes, isn’t it?”

She snorted a wry laugh. If what she was attempting wasn’t bad enough, exposing the Jadugara as frauds might bring this queendom to its knees. She was trying to decide how she felt about that. This was technically her home. These were technically her people. But they’d been operating out of cruelty and malice for so long. How might things have been different if she’d grown up here? Would she also have turned a blind eye to everything?

“I guess one problem at a time,” Zarya said, and she felt Yasen nod.

“So, what’s next?”

“I keep trying until I’m confident enough.”

“Enough for what?”

She twisted her head and looked at him. He met her gaze, open and trusting. She was so grateful she had him and that she could tell him anything without fear of judgment.

“To tell the Farida and the Chandras everything.”

TWELVE

What Zarya hadn’t been ready to confess to Yasen was that she intended to practice on herself with the last of the ink. Animal flesh and skin were only a substitute and no comparison to a living, breathing human being.

Once again, she found herself in the clearing with the last of her ink and her tools.

She started by drawing a five-pointed star on the back of her hand. She went through the motions, which required a little extra effort, but eventually, she managed to lift the ink off her skin. This was progress, and she was pleased, but this was her own magic. It didn’t hurt her. Would it be the same for someone else?

She then pulled out a needle and dipped it into the ink. Bracing herself, she made a small line of dots along her forearm, wincing at the sharp sting. She had to see if embedded markings would react differently. When she’d tried it with the pigskin, it had held on tighter. She watched the blood well on the surface before the dye settled into her skin.

As she predicted, the ink was harder to lift, but after some effort, she managed to peel off the dots before they dispersed. She had the technique down. She knew what to do, but was this enough?

She held up the last bottle of ink, studying the thin layer coating the bottom. This was it. She only had a few more chances before requiring an actual human for this task. She dipped her needle in the ink and then tattooed another line down her other arm. She would let this one sit for a few days before attempting to dissolve it.

A knot formed in her chest as she used up the last drops, tipping the bottle upside down until nothing came out.

When she was done, she sat on the rock, surveying the forest, when her gaze snagged on a dark patch of leaves in the distance.

Her neck prickling with an unwelcome sense of déjà vu, she stood and walked over, peering up at the branches waving softly in the breeze. Blinking hard, she stared up, willing the scene to change. Black leaves. Some of them fully transformed, and some only partially covered in a line of black rot.

She shook her head and stepped back as bile churned up the back of her throat. It couldn’t be. She remembered this. The memory stood out in her mind as if it had only been yesterday when the forests around the seaside cottage had done the same.

The swamp. The rot. The darkness.

Amrita had forced it back, but they hadn’t destroyed it. They weren’t able to. Was it back? They were miles from the Jai Tree, but was the seal a physical thing? Or rather a representation?

She shouldn’t keep this to herself, but the truth clogged in her chest, making it hard to breathe. Row. Was he okay? She should alert the royal family about this threat waiting on their door, but would they believe her? And in doing so, what would she reveal?

Swinging around, she spied more patches of rot scattered through the trees. She wanted to run, but she also couldn’t look away.

Forcing one foot in front of the other, she approached a tree dotted with black leaves and placed her hand on the rough bark of the trunk.

Suddenly, her surroundings went dark before flashes of things she had no memory of materialized in her vision. A dark, opulent palace nestled between soaring snow-capped mountains. Armies of demons wearing beaten metal armor marching over a ruined landscape. Flashes of star-flecked magic and clouds of black smoke. She heard screams and voices—two distinct male ones—speaking a language she didn’t know. In her mind’s eye, she saw a bearded man with fire in his eyes staring at her, ruin and war reflecting in their depths.

Zarya dropped to her knees, striking against hard pebbles, her breath coming in tight, ragged pants. She fell to her hands, her head sagging between her shoulders as it spun and spun, the world tilting on an axis. It took several long seconds before the images dissolved, leaving only the grass and flowers. She blinked several times before she pushed back onto her heels and scanned the forest as the black leaves continued waving overhead.

But there were more now. In fact, the trees surrounding her had all turned completely black. She looked at the tree she’d touched as her breath turned to mud.

A smoking handprint scarred the surface like a brand.