The Fire Queen (The Hundredth Queen Series Book 2) Read online

  The brother and sister Galers rejoin us by the fire. “We, ah, couldn’t help but overhear you’ve made a decision,” Rohan says.

  Deven lets me go and threads his fingers through mine. We step back into the firelight.

  “We’re going to meet the prince,” I say.

  “How about we go right now?” Opal suggests.

  “Why?” Natesa challenges. “Will you be paid upon our delivery?”

  “We aren’t being paid,” Rohan says. “The rebels are on their way.”

  Deven drops my hand and stalks to the cliff’s edge. A storm gathers in the distance.

  Brac glares at the Galers. “You were followed?”

  “We thought we lost them,” says Rohan, ducking his head in chagrin.

  My skin tingles with the first ominous stirrings of wind blowing through camp. No one need give the command; we all rush to pack up at once.

  “Rohan and I can each carry up to four additional people on our flyers,” Opal says.

  Stronger drafts battle us, building one powerful strand at a time. Across the valley, a wind tunnel careens our way, throwing a curtain of dirt and heaving silver lightning bolts. Thunderclaps roll across the grassland valley. The camels squawk in alarm and kneel, hunkering down for the storm.

  I walk toward the weather, nearer to the cliff side. Flashes of lightning emphasize the silhouette of a young woman suspended inside a giant wind tunnel. Anjali, the warlord’s Galer daughter.

  “Opal,” Deven barks, “take Kali and go.”

  I whirl on him. “I’m staying. Anjali has come for me.” I betrayed her father when I took the Zhaleh and ran. I must be the one to face her.

  “Kali,” he says, uttering my name with commendable calm, “you have to think like a rani. Protecting yourself is preserving the empire.”

  Must the empire come first, before me, before him, before us? Duty would say yes, the empire should be my priority.

  “What about you?” I grip his forearm, the force of the whirlwind shoving us back a pace.

  “We’ll hold them off and meet you in Janardan.” Deven drops my pack over my shoulder, the Zhaleh within. “Brother Shaan said we could trust these Galers, but be careful.”

  Panic takes hold of me. I fist his tunic and drag him close. “Promise you’ll meet me in Janardan?”

  “I swear it.” Deven cups my chin, his touch tainted by hand-shaking alarm. Part of me is relieved that he is not composed either. But if Deven is afraid, then we have much to fear. He rubs his thumb across my cheek and steps into the punishing wind.

  The camels are frightened by the violence of the sky and scatter. Deven braces behind a boulder with Mathura, and Natesa does the same with Yatin. Brac crouches low to the ground, closer to the storm.

  I run for Opal’s wing flyer into the wind’s dusty grip. Opal creates a peaceful air bubble around her like the eye of a hurricane. I throw myself into her safe haven and draw in mouthfuls of clean air.

  “Get in and hold on to the navigation bar,” she says.

  I grip the bamboo bar, and another wider beam braces my hips. I lie suspended over the ground on a platform. Opal climbs on beside me. A gale catches the canvas wings and tries to rip them off like leaves from a tree, but she holds the wing flyer steady and lifts us into the sky.

  A greater squall hurls us back—Anjali is nearly here. Opal fights to level us, one wing precariously close to crashing into the ground. Below, Rohan throws a draft and straightens our lowered wing. Another well-timed gust lifts us higher into the night. I close my eyes, which are now streaming with tears. This would be exhilarating if it was not so terrifying.

  Hail pelts us. Beneath Anjali’s wind tunnel, a young woman rides a horse with her arms raised to the storm. Indira, an Aquifier, is conducting the thunderheads. Two bhutas against two bhutas is a fair match, but my friends have a better chance of winning if Opal and I stay.

  “Turn back!” I shout to her. “They need our help.”

  “I have my orders!”

  Her almighty winds usher us east, away from Tarachand. Away from our friends and family. Away from Deven.

  3

  DEVEN

  Opal’s wing flyer banks east, out of range from the deafening winds.

  Thank the gods. Kali got away.

  The driving rains drench me. Anjali hovers before us, the wind tunnel of hailstones whipping around her. While Rohan runs for the second wing flyer, Brac sends a heatwave at her from behind his boulder. The rainy gales extinguish his fire to smoke. Anjali’s relentless wind pushes aside my brother’s safe cover. He sprints to Mother and me and ducks beside us. Anjali pummels our boulder with gust after gust. I crouch over Mother, our heads bowed, while the hail thrashes against our backs. I have been trained for battle, but my sword is useless here. I have no way of defending my family against these higher powers.

  Something darkens my side vision—Rohan is airborne in his wing flyer. Anjali harnesses her ripping winds and thrusts them full force at him. He twirls, trapped inside the vortex.

  “Help him,” I command Brac.

  He throws several fire blasts in a row at Anjali, each weaker than the last. Nothing slows her. Brac’s hands are barely glowing.

  “Deven, you aren’t going to like this,” he says and then grasps my face. A sudden hold comes over me, and the light inside me jerks. He pulls at my soul-fire, drawing it out like a loose thread. He lets me go, and the strength in my bones goes too. I drop to my side in the mud.

  “What did you do?” Mother demands.

  “I borrowed his soul-fire.” Brac’s hands glow bright again. The gods created all mankind with fire in their soul—and my brother has stolen mine.

  He leans around the boulder and tosses a ribbon of flame into the air. I watch his fire—power he parched from me—careen toward Anjali. She redirects the stream of heat away with a gust and directs it at Rohan. The wing flyer catches on fire and free-falls. The smoking wing tip spirals near the overhang, reeling toward the valley below. Rohan leaps from his flyer at the ledge and rolls behind a rock. The wing flyer disappears and crashes below with a bang.

  Anjali chases Rohan with another flurry. He lies on the ground and shields his head with his arms. I spring up to go to his aid, but rocks and dust bombard him and barrel onward to us, forcing me to hunch down again. Without warning, the howling winds and rain die to a startling halt.

  Yatin peers over the top of his and Natesa’s boulder. “She’s leaving.”

  I push myself up onto shaky legs. Anjali has veered her wind tunnel east. My heart pitches.

  “She’s following Kali.” I stumble to the edge of the cliff. Rohan runs to my side. I pick up a rock the size of a melon. “Can you give this a boost?”

  “Throw it,” he replies.

  Anjali pulls farther away. I take aim and hurl the stone. Rohan flings his winds behind the rock, and it arcs across the sky. I lose sight of our weapon in the dark, and then Anjali’s twisting winds fail, and she plunges to the valley. A plume of dust mushrooms when she lands. Sudden quiet rushes in around us.

  Rohan tilts his ear to the sky. “She’s breathing.”

  “You can hear that?” Natesa asks doubtfully.

  “I can hear her and another,” Rohan replies. “She had an accomplice driving the storm, an Aquifier. Their heartbeats sound like crickets in the night. The Aquifier is riding to her on a horse.”

  “Can you repair the wing flyer?” I ask, pressing a hand to my chest. My heart feels withered and worn from Brac’s parching.

  “The rain put out the fire before the damage spread,” answers Rohan. “I can fix the wing in half an hour with my patch kit.”

  “You have ten minutes.” My tone leaves no quarter for discussion. “We have to leave before Anjali wakes.”

  Rohan stands taller. “Yes, Captain.”

  Skies above, I wish everyone would quit using that title.

  My brother steps forward. “I’ll help Rohan.”

  An inner cold heavies my
core, like impenetrable hoarfrost. “Don’t ever parch my soul-fire again,” I grit out.

  Brac’s mouth turns downward. “Deven . . .” He reaches for me, but I tug away. Brac’s offered hand falls at his side. “I’m sorry,” he says and then goes with Rohan.

  My mother strokes my forearm. “Your brother didn’t mean—”

  “Not now,” I say.

  When Brac and I had disagreements as children, even if he was in the wrong, I would make amends with him to end our mother’s distress. Mother said I was born a peacemaker. Her belief in my capacity for goodness inspired me to join the Brotherhood for a time and later influenced my training as a soldier. I still prefer levelheaded diplomacy over posturing and strong-arming. But Brac did not borrow my toy sword without asking. He took a piece of my soul and sent it burning across the sky.

  Mother brushes the front of my wet tunic, her touch laced with understanding, and leaves to salvage our supplies strewn across the hillside.

  Facing the night sky where Kali disappeared, the stars shine down on me, full of wisdom. I didn’t kiss her good-bye. The last time we kissed was when I found her on the rajah’s balcony, lying in the desert rain, Tarek dead inside the open doors behind her. That was two moons ago. Has it been so long?

  I hobble to the cliff to view Brac and Rohan’s progress repairing the wing flyer; they are nearly finished. I scrub mud off my face, irritated at myself. Anjali came upon us so fast. I chose the advantage of the hillside so we could see our enemies’ approach, but after Rohan and Opal arrived, I lost my vigilance. My error could have gotten us killed.

  Rohan and Brac soar up on the wing flyer and land near camp.

  “We’re ready to go,” says Rohan.

  I eye the flying contraption and its repaired wing. I am not fond of boats, and I doubt navigating waves of wind will be any less unpleasant.

  Brac assists Mother onto the flyer, and Natesa and Yatin squish on next under the opposite wing. Rohan stretches out in the center of the platform. The room left is hardly wide enough for me.

  “Opal said you could carry four additional people,” I say, boarding the contraption. “How overloaded are we with five?” I almost say six, since Yatin’s size could easily count for two men.

  “I can manage,” Rohan says and then lifts us with a gust. My stomach dips to my knees. We tip left, and the toes of my boots brush the ground. Rohan straightens us out, but I do not trust his capacity to carry us all the way to Iresh.

  I do not look down, trying to avoid further aggravating my uneasy gut. “What if you find out midflight that you cannot manage?”

  Rohan grins. “You don’t do well when you aren’t in command, do you, Captain Naik?”

  “I try not to let that happen.”

  On a laugh, Rohan pushes us higher, wings wobbling like a spin-top toy. I grip the bar in a stranglehold. Who thought flying was a good idea? People don’t have wings for a reason.

  We reach a calmer altitude, and Rohan summons a gale that flings us forward. Air rushes at us, expanding my lungs. My turban flies off my head. The wind slicks back my hair over my ears. Brac hoots in pleasure. My mother smiles, her long dark hair streaming behind her. Natesa and Yatin beam at each other.

  I swallow to keep my supper down. I wish I hadn’t eaten the last of the toasted nuts. With my gaze planted on the dim horizon, I promise never to grumble about boats again.

  4

  KALINDA

  Hours later, after flying over the seemingly endless eastern rice fields and marshlands, the road twists south, but Opal stays her course southeast over an endless expanse of trees. We fly above the jungle while I watch the treetops rippling beneath us like emerald waves.

  “I need to rest,” Opal says an hour or so later. “Be ready to descend.”

  The wind lessens, and we dip. I grip the navigation bar as the greenery comes nearer. The emergent trees, tualang and kapok, rise above the rest of the canopy. We dip past one, still coasting downward.

  “Um, Opal? Where are we going to land?”

  “Ever see a myna perch in a tree?”

  I groan. Oh no.

  Opal decreases the wind again, and we drop. I turn my face away from the incoming leaves. Branches snap and slap my face and legs. Opal’s wind dwindles off, and foliage surrounds the wing flyer, slowing us to a jolting halt.

  Our legs dangle behind us, our bodies held up by the passengers’ plank. The wing flyer suspends high above the ground in a giant banyan tree. We are not mynas relaxing in the sun, more like floating lanterns tangled in a maze of branches.

  Opal swings down off the flyer onto a sturdy bough and waves for me to go next. I lower myself beside her, sending the tree limb swaying, and grip another offshoot for balance. The abundant leafage veils the sun. Strange, discordant birdcalls echo across the treetops, and buzzing insects flit about, large as butterflies but with menacing pinchers and iridescent wings. Mists obscure the far-off trees and skulk across the hidden jungle floor.

  “Sorry for the height,” Opal says. “Any lower and the wing flyer couldn’t take off again.”

  “Where are we?”

  “The Morass.”

  Wariness settles inside me. From what I recall of my topography studies, the Morass straddles the border between the Tarachand Empire and the sultanate of Janardan. Old as the primeval gods, the nearly impassable tropical forest is home to deadly serpents, man-eating beasts, and poisonous plants.

  Opal passes me a persimmon from her satchel. “The roadway the refugees travel goes south around the Morass. This is the most direct path. We should arrive in Iresh by nightfall.”

  I cup the ripe fruit loosely and turn my palm over to check my burns. My blisters have popped and scabbed from holding on to the wing flyer for hours.

  Opal devours four pieces of heart-shaped fruit in the same time I eat one. She covered more ground in her wing flyer than I thought possible, but she needs to store up strength for the final portion of our journey.

  “How do you know Brother Shaan?” I ask.

  Opal flicks a beetle from the tree branch, and it vanishes in the fog below. “Soldiers visited our hut in the middle of the night and broke down the door. Mother told Rohan and me to run to the Brotherhood temple. Brother Shaan hid us from them. A few months later he sneaked us into Janardan.”

  “And your mother?”

  The Galer pauses, her voice quieting. “She didn’t make it.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Opal contemplates the persimmon in her hand. “Sometimes I hear her voice on the wind, whispering that she loves me. She’s gone, but I know it’s her, speaking to me from her next life.”

  What I would give to hear Jaya’s voice again.

  “Then it must be her,” I reply softly.

  Opal tosses off her nostalgia. “Are you really a Burner?” she asks, more inquisitive than accusatory, but I am reluctant to answer. “Even before I saw your hand glowing last night, I knew you were. Brother Shaan swore Rohan and me to secrecy, but I had already guessed that’s how you defeated Kindred Lakia in your rank tournament. You parched her.” I startle at her perceptiveness before I can catch myself. Opal grins. “I told Rohan that’s how you won. Wait until he hears I’m right.”

  I lean against an intersection of boughs, unwilling to discuss my rank tournament. I work too hard to forget it. I try to relax and recuperate from our long flight, but my muscles refuse to unwind. Did my group escape the rebels? Duty to the empire or not, we should have stayed together.

  “Have you heard anything from the others?” I ask Opal.

  “Not yet, but the wind always leads my brother and me to each other.”

  I hug my knees to my chest, wishing I had her certainty. “Do you like hearing the secrets of the wind?”

  Opal answers after finishing a yawn. “I don’t hear all secrets, but I know yours. You carry the Zhaleh.”

  My spine stretches in alarm. The Zhaleh contains the bhutas’ lineage records leading back to when Anu gifted the F
irst Bhutas with godly powers. The book also holds the incantation to release the Voider, a darkness sent to this world by the demon Kur to combat bhutas’ godly light. The warlord seeks to unleash this caged power for revenge against those who persecuted his people under Rajah Tarek’s reign. Hastin desires the promised favor the Voider is said to owe the soul who releases it. One almighty wish.

  “May I see it?” asks Opal.

  “Why?” I lower my fingers to my dagger sheathed against my thigh. The book cannot be taken by someone who would use it for violence or personal gain. I tire of the responsibility of guarding it. But with whom does the Zhaleh belong?

  “Every bhuta’s name from the time of the First Bhutas to when Rajah Tarek stole the book is recorded within.” Opal adds in a small voice, “My mother’s name is inside.”

  I have been too intimidated by the Zhaleh to thumb through its pages, not even to see my father’s name. I shiver at the thought of disturbing the book’s slumbering powers and fist the hilt of my dagger beneath my skirt. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  “All right,” Opal says. I frown at her hasty compliance. She yawns again, her expression anything but sinister. “I won’t fight you for it, Kindred. I’m just curious.”

  She tips her head back against the tree trunk and closes her eyes. I leave my grip on my dagger, should her cooperation be a ruse, but the only movement near us comes from a mosquito landing on my arm. Before the insect can feed off me, I heat my skin with my powers, and the mosquito shrivels to ash.

  A bone-chilling yowl rises from the jungle floor. The short hairs on my arms prickle. While Opal rests, I stand watch over the rolling mists and count the minutes until we leave the Morass.

  Opal frees the wing flyer from the trees with a hearty breeze, and we rise from the murky canopy into afternoon daylight. I inhale deeply, breathing easier above the closed-in jungle.

  Refreshed by a nap and food, Opal calls brisk, fair winds, and we fly eastward. Drowsiness tampers with my attentiveness when the sun begins to sink at our backs and the copse of trees below is parted by a mighty green-hued river.