The Library of Fates(50)

“I didn’t say you should return us to Sikander. Besides, Sikander’s got his mind on other things. He’s no longer in charge. His satrap Arjun is,” she said calmly, inspecting her wrists.

My head whipped in Thala’s direction. When had Arjun become Sikander’s satrap? My heart raced in panic. Surely he wouldn’t have taken on this position voluntarily. He must have had to, under duress.

“Seer, you must think me a fool!” Alexi roared. He turned to his men. “This seer thinks I’m a fool! What do you think I should do to her?”

I stiffened as I watched the men standing before Alexi. What would he do to her? What would he do to us?

I looked around at the faces of Alexi’s men, noting the resignation in their eyes. I wondered how long they had marched with Sikander’s army. If they had forgotten the tastes and smells of their homes. If they could still remember the faces of their families.

“You don’t believe me, and you don’t have to,” Thala said. “But if I were you, I’d let us go. If you asked your master, you would know that oracles don’t lie.

“The tide will turn after the storm,” she told Alexi. “It would be to your benefit to shore up the courage of your men.” I wondered what exactly she meant by this, but Thala’s predictions were often cryptic, and Alexi simply scoffed at her. I wasn’t sure whether his disaffection was mere bravado or if he actually believed her.

I turned to look at Spiro. His eyes met mine, but he shook his head slowly, like a man who had no control over his own destiny. Still, he spoke up. “If it’s true,” Spiro asked, his voice trembling, “what can we do about a sandstorm? We don’t have supplies.”

“Turn back, for God’s sake,” Thala said. “Free her.” She gestured to me. “What kind of fool are you? Are you willing to march yourself and your men toward death?”

“You’d love that, wouldn’t you?” Alexi yelled.

“Perhaps she’s right, sir,” Spiro quietly said.

“Right?” Alexi stood up, barreled toward Spiro, and grabbed the scruff of his shirt in his hand. “You want to believe her? Go ahead then,” he said as he shook a frightened Spiro. “But you’re not coming with us to those caves of magic, you understand?”

“I understand!” Spiro begged.

“No, I don’t think you do,” Alexi said. And then he took my dagger, the dagger Mala had given me, and sliced Spiro’s throat open.





Twenty-Four



I TRIED TO QUIET MY MIND, begging the desert for help. Even if I die, please keep my friend safe, I asked. I knew no one was listening, but it felt better just to ask.

It had been a whole day since we had walked away from Spiro’s dead body in the desert, leaving it behind like a thing and not a once-living, breathing person. I remember watching him die, choking on his own blood, falling to his knees before he fell face-first in the sand. I thought about the way my father had died. And Mala. Everywhere I looked, I saw it, again and again. Fear, blood, violence, death.

I remembered Thala’s words about Spiro. I didn’t even know who he was, much less where exactly he came from in Macedon. I wondered about his mother, his father. How they must have worried about him. They must have wondered how he was. Perhaps they would spend the rest of their lives waiting for him to return. Now he never would.

I took a deep breath and leaned back in the sand, feeling broken, defeated. Thala was already lying beside me.

“Stop,” she said to me.

“Stop what?”

“What it is that you’re doing. We’re going to get out of this.”

“How?”

She didn’t have an answer.

“If he doesn’t kill us, the sandstorm will. Either way, we’re dead,” I said.

I looked out into the night sky. What was Arjun doing right now, as Sikander’s satrap? Were Shree and Bandaka safe? Was Sikander’s army marching in the direction of the caves too? Were there search parties out scouring the kingdom for us? Would Sikander find the Sybillines and destroy them?

But every question I asked myself felt like a grain of sand let loose in the wind, merging with billions of other grains of sand, and eventually, my mind had no option but to quiet itself. I was here, in the desert, Alexi beside me, boasting of his fate.

He was the commander of a lucky unit, he told his men. They were headed toward the caves of magic. They would destroy the Sybillines. They would be rich.

I looked again at Alexi’s men and wondered if they had ever felt they had a choice in life, a say in how their destinies had unfolded. All I could see were their tired eyes that looked far too old for their faces.

“Where do you think we’ll go after this life ends?” I asked Thala.

The sun had set, and we were camped around a crackling blaze. The plains were naked, bare, and the moonlight dripped on them like wax from a white candle. Looking out over that endless bowl of sky full of billions of stars, billions of other worlds, I felt like we were the only living creatures left on Earth. The world felt vast, full of mysteries.

“I don’t know. I wish I did. But I can’t see it. There’s a veil between life and death that I can’t see past. You won’t be gone for some time, anyway,” she said.

“I think you’re wrong.”