The Last Namsara (Iskari #1)(4)

Furious, Iskari left the sovereign god and went hunting. She hunted for days. Days turned to weeks. As her fury grew, her bloodlust became insatiable. She killed mercilessly and without feeling and all the while, her hate swelled within her. She hated her brother for being happy and beloved. She hated the Old One for making it so.

So the next time she went hunting, Iskari set her traps for the Old One himself.

This was a terrible mistake.

The Old One struck Iskari down, leaving a scar as long and wide as the Rift mountain range. For attempting to take his life, he stripped her of her immortality, ripping it off her like a silk garment. So that she could atone for her crime, he cursed her name and sent her to wander the desert alone, haunted by stinging winds and howling sandstorms. To wither beneath the parching sun. To freeze beneath the icy cloak of night.

But neither the heat nor the cold killed her.

An unbearable loneliness did.

Namsara searched the desert for Iskari. The sky changed seven times before he found her body in the sand, her skin blistered by the sun, her eyes eaten by carrion crows.

At the sight of his sister, dead, Namsara fell to his knees and he wept.





Two


Normally after a kill, Asha bathed. Scrubbing the blood, sand, and sweat from her body was a ritual that helped her transition from the wild, rugged world beyond the palace walls to a life that tied itself around her ribs and squeezed like a too-tight sash.

Today, though, Asha skipped the bath. Despite her father’s summons, she slipped right past her guards and headed for the sickroom, where the medicines were kept. It was a whitewashed room smelling of lime. Sunlight spilled through the open terrace, alighting the flower pattern mosaicked into the floor, then painting the shelves of terra-cotta jars in yellows and golds.

She’d woken in this room eight years ago, after Kozu, the First Dragon, burned her. Asha remembered it clearly: lying on a sickbed, her body wrapped in bandages, that awful feeling pressing down on her chest, heavy as a boulder, telling her she’d done something horribly wrong.

Shaking the memory loose, Asha stepped through the archway. She unbuckled her armor and gloves, shedding them piece by piece, then laid her axe on top of the pile.

One of the dangers of dragonfire—besides melting your skin to the bone—was that it was toxic. The smallest burn would kill you from the inside out if treated poorly or too late. A severe burn, like the one Asha suffered eight years ago, needed to be treated immediately and, even then, the victim’s chances of survival were slim.

Asha had a recipe to draw the toxins out, but the treatment required the burn to be covered for two days. She didn’t have that kind of time. Her father had summoned her. News of her return had probably reached him already. She had a hundred-hundred heartbeats, not days.

Asha opened cupboards and pulled down pots full of dried barks and roots, looking for one ingredient in particular. In her haste, she reached with her burned hand, and the moment she grabbed the smooth terra-cotta jar, pain seared through her and she let go.

The jar shattered across the floor in a burst of red shards and linen bandages.

Asha cursed, kneeling to pick up the mess one-handed. Her mind was so hazy with pain, she didn’t notice when someone dropped to his knees beside her, his fingers picking up shards alongside hers.

“I’ll get this, Iskari.”

The voice made her jump. She glanced up to a silver collar, then a tangle of hair.

Asha watched his hands sweep up her mess. She knew those freckled hands. They were the same hands that brought out Jarek’s platters at dinner. The same hands that served her steaming mint tea in Jarek’s glass cups.

Asha tensed. If her betrothed’s slave was in the palace, so was her betrothed. Jarek must have returned from the scrublands, where he’d been sent to keep an eye on Dax’s negotiations.

Is that the reason for my father’s summons?

The slave’s fingers went suddenly still. When Asha looked up, she caught him staring at her burn.

“Iskari . . .” His brow furrowed. “You need to treat that.”

Her annoyance flared like a freshly fed fire. Obviously she needed to treat it. She’d be treating it now if she hadn’t been so careless.

But just as important as treating her burn was securing this slave’s silence. Jarek often used his slaves to spy on his enemies. The moment Asha dismissed this one, he might go running to his master and tell him everything.

And once Jarek knew, so would her father.

The moment her father heard of it, he’d know she’d been telling the old stories. He would know she was the same corrupted girl she’d always been.

“Tell anyone about this, skral, and the last thing you’ll see is my face staring down at you from the top of the pit.”

His mouth flattened into a hard line and his gaze lowered to the tile work at their feet, where elegant namsaras—rare desert flowers that could heal any ailment—repeated themselves in an elaborate pattern across the floor.

“Forgive me, Iskari,” he said, his fingers sweeping up terra-cotta shards. “But I’m not supposed to take commands from you. My master’s orders.”

Her fingers itched for her axe—which was on the floor against the wall, with the rest of her armor.

She could threaten him, but that might make him retaliate by spilling her secrets. A bribe would work better.