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But as I nod at her, something niggles at the back of my mind—Anok’s words. Do not allow yourself to shine too brightly in the dark…. What does that mean, precisely? The gods love speaking in riddles. I continue pondering this mystery as I walk out toward the army, which is saddled and ready for battle.
Only I’m not joining the front lines. I’ll be in the back, with my friends.
I wait until Kweku wheels around a large supply cart, our gryphs and Ixa—now in a fine mimicry of gryph form—attached to the reins. As the commanders shout out their instructions, my friends and I slip behind the cavalry and take our place in the line of carts and wagons that bring up the rear.
As long as we remain among the rest, no one will notice us as we follow the cavalry into the city. And then, once there, we’ll separate from the main force and use our gryphs to sneak to Oyomo’s Eye while everyone is focused on the battle.
It’s a good enough plan, well thought out. Which of course means there are sure to be complications.
I only have to look at Hemaira’s walls to know it.
When I first came to Hemaira just over two years ago, I was in awe of those walls. There they were, stretching nearly up to the sky, the tallest things I’d ever seen. Then I freed the Warthu Bera and battled the Idugu the same night. The walls suffered heavily from my actions. Ancient stones tumbled, cracks appeared in their sides. But despite all that, they remained standing.
There’s never been a weapon large enough to break them, never been a force overwhelming enough to tear them down. They are, in many ways, a symbol of Otera itself.
So why are the battlements empty?
I shade my eyes against the glare of the afternoon sun as I peer at them, the tallest points on Hemaira’s walls. No soldiers stroll their lengths today—not even a priest or two to shout imprecations at us. There’s simply no one there. It’s just like this plain, with all its missing animals, and the silence and stillness of it all.
There’s a strange lull in the air, a foreboding. It becomes even more heightened when White Hands, Gazal at her side, calls for the army to stop in front of the walls.
“It’s so quiet,” Adwapa whispers, watching them. “I don’t like it.”
Her sister nods beside her. “Doesn’t feel right. None of this feels right.”
“They’re about to hit us with something big,” Adwapa says, disgruntled.
Her words make my muscles tense. Adwapa and her sister are the oldest in our group—three hundred years or so, while the rest of us range from seventeen to twenty. And they’ve spent much of that time in White Hands’s employ as her spies.
Despite their jokey tendencies, their instincts are generally sharper than most.
“We just have to gird ourselves, then,” I say grimly, watching the scene in front of me.
Both White Hands and Gazal have now dismounted and are walking up to the walls, blades in hand and nothing else—not even shields.
For a moment, I tense, expecting a volley of spears to come hurtling their way. That’s what the jatu have done every other time an enemy has approached Hemaira’s walls.
But the battlements remain completely silent.
“Well, this is beginning to get worrisome,” Adwapa says, swiftly checking her blades.
“I’d venture it’s almost time to go in, then,” Asha says, eyes narrowed as she regards the wall. “It’s live forever, everyone,” she says, another of our battle cries.
“And in victory,” I add with a nod.
“That too, once we get through the wall,” Li says.
I glance up. “Not to worry,” I say, turning back to the primary gate, where White Hands is now taking off her gauntlets to reveal her small, brown hands. “White Hands has this.”
After all, this is the reason I awakened her gift in Abeya during our confrontation with the goddesses; the reason I unlocked an ability so feared, it was considered unspeakable in ancient times.
White Hands kneels in front of the wall, presses her fingers to it. I can’t hear the words she says when her lips move, but I know them. I heard her say them just once before, saw their power when she turned them on the deathshrieks calling out for mercy from under the Chamber of the Goddesses in Abeya.
“To dust,” White Hands commands, pushing the wall.
For a moment, there’s silence.
Then, a gigantic crack.
