SEVENTY-ONE

Hours later, we gained the summit.

There had been no further assassins awaiting us in the maze, and none awaited us atop the peak of Kurugiri. Only the fortress itself, stark, solid, and forbidding.

One by one by one, members of our company straggled out of the narrow paths-or at least most of us. One dead, another half dozen injured, Hasan Dar among them. We had been forced to leave them behind, swaddled in blankets against the cold.

I dismounted and found my lady Amrita surrounded by anxious guards, and embraced her with relief. “You’re well?”

She shivered. “Well enough, young goddess. Hasan-”

“I know,” I said. “I pray he survives.”

Amrita laid one ice-cold hand against my cheek, shuddering uncontrollably in the thin air. “Let us make an end to this, shall we?”

I nodded. “Yes, my lady.”

“Moirin has agreed to wed me if we survive,” Bao informed her.

Despite everything, it made her smile, made her tired, lustrous eyes sparkle with gladness. “Well, then, we shall have to make sure of it, eh? All this effort and sacrifice must not be made in vain.”

The sun was beginning to sink low in the west, streaking the horizon in tones of gold and saffron. The snow-topped mountain peaks glowed. In the valleys and deep crevasses, the shadows of night were already gathering. Taking the place of his injured commander, Pradeep rallied his troops, assigning them their duties.

The men who had worked so hard to carry the battering ram up the twisting maze gave way gratefully to a fresh crew of guards. The new men wrapped the ropes that bound it around their hands, taking firm stances. On a count of three, they surged forward, swinging the bronze-capped ram.

The sound boomed and echoed over the peaks; but the tall wooden doors held.

“Again!” Pradeep called.

Again and again, they assailed the entrance, until the doors began to bow inward, the bar that held them shut straining. At last, the bar gave way altogether with a creaking, splintery groan, and the doors crashed open. The fellows manning the battering ram backed away hastily, but no one emerged. Although the place seemed almost deserted, the flicker of lamplight within its walls told us otherwise.

Somewhere in the depths of Kurugiri, Kamadeva’s diamond called to me.

Cloaked in the twilight, Bao and I made a careful survey of the entryway and found it empty. “Can you sense them?” he asked me.

I shook my head. “It doesn’t work as well in man-made places. But I know where Kamadeva’s diamond is.” I pointed. “That way.”

“The throne room,” Bao said with satisfaction. “I was right.”

My skin was beginning to feel warm, the call of the diamond like a caress. “Where are all the others? Surely there must be servants.”

“Hiding,” he said briefly. “And like as not praying we succeed.”

We returned to report to Pradeep that the way was clear, and our apprehensive company filed through the doors.

The plan was to have had Hasan Dar and two dozen of his best fighters lead the attack on the Falconer and his assassins, while Pradeep led the rest in rescuing the women and children of the harem. In Hasan Dar’s absence, Bao volunteered to lead the attack on the throne room, and Pradeep readily agreed to let him, not even bothering to hide his relief.

With that, our company divided.

Making our way through the empty fortress was a frightening process, all of us jumping at shadows. Even though I held myself and my lady Amrita wrapped in the twilight, I was tense and fearful. Bao was right, Kurugiri was a strange place. The architecture was plain and utilitarian, but everywhere, opulence gleamed. There were gilded braziers and lamps that burned silvery in the twilight, gorgeous woven hangings on every wall, the spoils of generations’ worth of tribute-and later, outright theft.

I didn’t like it, not one bit. Every wilderness-born instinct I possessed was telling me to turn and flee, that this was a bad man-made place made by bad men. And at the same time, Kamadeva’s diamond was setting my blood to beating hard in my veins, setting Naamah’s gift stirring in me. For once, it didn’t feel like a flock of doves taking flight. Ravens, mayhap-ravens with sharp-edged wings and cruel beaks, ready to pick me apart.

“Moirin?” Amrita took my hand in concern.

It helped, and I squeezed hers in reply. “We are close, my lady. Very close.”

Outside another set of tall doors, Bao gestured silently for everyone to halt. “Is she here, Moirin?” he asked in a low tone.

I stared at the doors. I could almost see Kamadeva’s diamond through them, nestled below the hollow of Jagrati’s long throat. “Yes. Oh, yes.”

Bao laid one hand on the latch. “There is no lock on these doors. Are you ready?”

I shook my head, then nodded; then remembered Bao couldn’t see me. Releasing Amrita’s hand, I unslung my bow from my shoulder and nocked an arrow. “Are you ready, my lady Amrita?”

Her face was resolute. “Yes.”

“We are ready,” I informed Bao.

He turned the latch, shoved the door open with the butt-end of his staff, and jumped backward, cat-quick, his staff at the ready. The door swung inward silently, revealing the throne room.

And Kamadeva’s diamond.

Now I could see it glimmering on the far side of the room; and for a moment, it and Jagrati were all I could see. The strikingly gaunt, high-boned face that had haunted my thoughts, her dark skin gleaming in the twilight. The diamond pulsing at her throat, beating in time with her blood, beating in time with my blood. Even in the twilight, the black diamond made from a god’s ashes glowed with dark, shifting, blood-red fire.

I took an involuntary step forward, lowering my bow.

“No, Moirin!” Deftly, Amrita slipped past me, turning her back on the Spider Queen and raising her hands in a mudra to focus the will. “Be strong, dear one!”

No one could hear us in the twilight unless we willed it. I met her gaze and nodded, lifting my bow once more. “Aye, my lady.”

It was strange, so very strange, stealing into the throne room, coming upon that unholy tableau unseen. They were waiting for us, they were all waiting for us, gazing fixedly at the open doorway. There was one throne and Jagrati sat in it, her long fingers curled into armrests carved in the shape of roaring tigers. Four men were arrayed before her with weapons drawn, the Falconer Tarik Khaga among them.

Two others lurked on either side of the doorway, bristling with more weapons. We were close enough that I could hear them breathing.

“Bao?” I called, willing him to hear me. “Assassins waiting to ambush you on both sides of the door.”

He didn’t answer.

I hoped he had heard me.

Small and fearless, my lady Amrita advanced through the twilight, past the lurking killers, all the way to the foot of the throne. I followed her.

It took every ounce of concentration I had to expand the twilight and spin it around Jagrati, but I did it.

Her head jerked up in surprise as the world dimmed around her, her face contorting with fury. “You! What have you done?”

Behind me, there was shouting. Later, I would learn that Bao had indeed heard my warning, had come through the doorway in a low, diving somersault that took him past the lurking killers and came up fighting, the others crowding behind him.

Now, all I knew was that the battle was engaged, Tarik Khaga and his deadly falcons rushing to join it.

I wanted to look, but I couldn’t. I looked past the Spider Queen instead, keeping my arrow trained in her general direction. “No one but the Rani Amrita and I can see you, Jagrati. Give Kamadeva’s diamond to her, or I will kill you.”

She laughed.