The Rogue Queen (The Hundredth Queen #3)(66)
A stronger tremor jolts up my legs. I weave, and Ashwin catches my balance. Jagged cracks snake across the ground, spreading wider and wider. Gemi is carried away on the far side of one rift, and we are stranded on the opposite half. Ashwin and I go right up to the ledge. The chasm between us is wider than a catapult wagon.
Gemi summons a bridge of compact sand to span the gap. “Hurry!”
Ashwin pushes for me to go first. I stumble across the temporary conduit, Ashwin right behind me. I reach Gemi on the other side. Just before Ashwin meets us, another tremor opens the crevice broader, and the bridge disintegrates.
Ashwin leaps but misses my outstretched hand. Gemi throws up a burst of sand, blasting him in an arc above our heads. He falls and lands in a roll beside us, dusty and coughing. The ledge beneath us shakes. The two halves of the gulch are closing.
Gemi yanks Ashwin to his feet. We lurch down the shifting dune to the river, side-foot into the muddy bank, and splash into the cool water. Behind us, the quakes in the desert cease. The troops surrounding the city wall have disappeared.
I scan the sandy plain. “Where . . . where did they go?”
Gemi’s chest heaves, her trousers wet up to her knees and her chin quivering. “A powerful Trembler split the desert floor open. The soldiers fell into the cracks, and the Trembler closed them again.”
The warlord did this. Hastin is the most powerful Trembler known. Horses, wagons, catapults, hundreds of men—all devoured in sandy crevices and entombed.
Those soldiers were not our enemy; they were our people.
“Gods save them,” I pray.
Ashwin sloshes out of the river, his strides hasty. We backtrack to the army’s burial site. Gemi closes her eyes in anguish. I listen for the screams of survivors, but death prevails.
Lonely winds swirl sand tunnels across the barren war front. Please let Deven be in the city. Let him be anywhere but here.
The surviving troops have marched beyond the wall. Blue flames and eerie blue-gray smoke mark their progression up the winding roads to the palace. Udug leads the campaign, clearing their path with his destructive cold-fire. Given the number of casualties, his escape must be more than chance. Anjali said he was growing more powerful. He could have burned through the wall, but he relished knocking it down and forcing the rebels to retaliate. In one act, the demon rajah proved that he is beyond Hastin’s abilities.
Ashwin picks up a stray khanda, the only object left of the men who stood here, and steals through the opening. Gemi and I traverse the wrecked clay bricks, my blade drawn and her trident in hand.
Under the shadow of the breeched city wall, Ashwin’s and my gazes are guided to the Turquoise Palace looming above.
“Welcome home,” I tell him.
26
DEVEN
I stand straight as a pole against the corridor wall. Asha waits beside me, listening alertly. My muscles are stiff from hours of skulking down from the upper floor of the outer wing to the center of the palace. The door to the throne room is around the corner, but we can go no farther without the rebel guards at the main entrance seeing us.
Where in gods’ name is Brac? He should have caused his distraction by now.
A quake rattles up from the ground, extending in huge, terrible waves. Tapestries fall, and glass orbs shatter against the floor. Furniture skids across the tiles. I peer around the corner at the main entry. No rebels. I do not know how Brac managed it, but this must be his distraction.
I dart out to check the entry and double stairways. Both are empty. I gesture to Asha, and we slip into the throne room.
Daylight shines down from the high casements. Gone are the tidy rows of floor cushions for the rajah’s court to kneel upon. Tables have replaced them, set up in stations around the room. Upon the dais, the rajah’s throne is tipped over. One leg is broken, as though kicked free.
Asha hurries to the antechamber while I guard the entry. She tugs on the handle, but the door is stuck. “Someone jammed the hinges with stones.” She uses her nails to try to pick the hinges clean.
Noises sound in the entry hall. I snatch up a floor cushion as a defense and lean against the doorframe. The patter comes closer. I hold the cushion like a shield. I should’ve searched for a proper weapon.
A peacock struts by. I lower the cushion on an exhalation. The next intruder could be a rebel, so I leave my post to help Asha unseal the antechamber door.
“We need something to pry it open with,” I say, searching the tables for a makeshift tool.
An errant wind ruffles the swooping draperies, and a voice speaks.
“I thought I heard a couple of rats.” Anjali struts into the throne room. Asha goes stock-still. “Annoying little vermin, aren’t you?”
“We share the same enemy,” I reply, my gaze snug on her weapon. Gusts spin about her, coils of sky poised to strike. “We should help each other.”
“Help us? You’ll only ever be in our way.” Anjali hurls one of her squalls at Asha, slamming the servant into the wall. Then she sweeps a gale at me and tosses me off my feet. I hit the hard floor, pain exploding up my side, and roll over. Anjali crouches down and presses her chakram to my throat. “Don’t move or I’ll take your head off.”
“The demon rajah is coming,” I say. “Give the ranis and courtesans back their weapons and let us fight him with you.”
She scrapes the blade across my throat, almost breaking skin. “Which would upset Kalinda more? Taking your limbs off one by one or winnowing you so slowly you’ll wish I’d decapitated you?”