Racing the sun, p.26
Racing the Sun, page 26
The sabre drops into the waist-deep smoke as Rahat’s hands go to her throat, grappling at Nisha’s tight grasp. She pulls at her fingers, to no avail. Each breath is rasped, strangled. Dying. ‘Haz—eh—’ Her throat cries out in protest, red raw and aching.
Flexing her fingers, Nisha squeezes, making Rahat whimper. The blood is rushing to her head, making her temples pulse with pain. Her eyelids flutter; she won’t last much longer. If only she could just…
Desperate, shaking hands fumble for the knife at her belt.
Qadira melds into the smoke, transforming herself to shadow as she flits to where Hazel remains hidden, pinned to the earth.
Watching Rahat’s face, Nisha grits her wolfish teeth.
The world is spinning. And the world is balanced at the tip of Rahat’s knife. With one last hope, the rajkumari brings her shaking arm up, breaking the bonds that kept her pinned as Nisha watches her with hunger. Those clawed hands tighten about her throat, making the world fade red.
With her dying effort, Rahat swings up the blade, slashing. It happens so quickly that she doesn’t realise she’s caught Nisha’s face till Rahat hits the earth with a heavy thud.
Pain screams through her arms as she lifts her head, squeezing her eyes shut against the embers. Coughing murders her throat as she tries to push up, only to feel a clawed hand snatching at the back of her tunic.
‘HEY, WOLF-BREATH!’ Hazel cries.
It’s just enough of a distraction. Rahat feels the hand slip from her back and she scampers out of reach, daring to open her eyes against the ash. She can feel the blood on her hands, sticky and hot. The knife in her balled fist gleams with it. Yet she’s no idea how much damage she’s done.
Seconds later, she hears the thud of Nisha hitting the ground. Two deep gashes line her cheeks, tearing her face half-open from where Rahat had desperately slashed. A grunt from above forces Rahat onto her feet.
To find Hazel staring Qadira down, the kehrasa palming her mirrored blades. Hazel, oh gods Hazel. Wiping the blood from her face, Rahat hurdles for her, screaming her battle cry. But Qadira vanishes a moment before Rahat can plunge a blade into her neck. She staggers forward, eyes meeting Hazel’s, wide with horror.
‘Where—?’
Tendrils emerge from the smoke, forcing Hazel onto her back. She gasps, dry-wrenching and sucking in embers which burn her throat. Her eyes water. Air tries to force itself down her throat but she splutters, winded.
A quick death—that’s what she wants.
Because there is no way out of this.
Several metres away, Nisha hauls herself out of the darkness. The smile plastered on her face is animal. Her eyes flash murder. ‘Think you can fool me?’ she snarls. The wounds at her cheek gleam red, the gash glowing a strange colour that ends in gold around its edges. As if glowing with heat. The woman stops, hands smacking her face as she scratches at the wounds, desperate against the searing heat. It festers under her skin, making her flesh bubble. Her scream is inhuman, demonic, and the smell makes Hazel vomit in the dark.
Rahat re-adjusts her grip on her knife. She is the only one left standing.
But a sharp intake of breath has her turning to find Qadira at her back, blades in her fists. ‘You tried to kill me,’ she growls.
‘Yeah, well,’ Rahat begins, feigning a grin and lifting her weapon gleaming with blood. Black blood, she realises with revulsion.
The kehrasa leaps at her, arms raised to bring the knives down into Rahat’s chest, but the rajkumari dances out of the way, twirling to bring herself up at Qadira’s side. The faerie grits her teeth, bending to swing her blades, hoping to catch Rahat by the rib, but missing each time.
The air in Rahat’s lungs feels stolen. Dodging blows, she searches for Hazel, nowhere to be seen. And Nisha… she must have dropped to her knees.
A blade almost catches Rahat in the neck and she leaps back, staggering through the thick darkness. It clings to her legs, keeping her pinned as the faerie launches herself at the mortal. Their blades sing out when they meet, making Rahat cringe.
‘Why?’ she spits at her, and the kehrasa pauses. ‘Why are you fighting for her?’
Something shifts in Qadira’s eyes. Shock, dancing in that sunstone brightness. Her slit pupils search Rahat’s face, but the force of her blow does not lessen.
‘Why?’ she demands again.
The faerie opens her mouth to speak, but not a sound emerges. Her brows furrow, and she pushes herself into the knives, forcing Rahat to stagger back.
‘Rahat!’
Hazel leans herself into her blows, forcing Nisha to deflect each with flashes of pure darkness. The sorceress struggles against Hazel’s quick attacks, sweat dripping at her brow. Cropped hair, slick with sweat, sticks to her face. Hazel screams, combatting a low-blow that slices through the heavy-plated armour at her breast. She lunges forward, catching the sorceress off-guard.
Rahat whips around, fleeing from Qadira’s double blades to bring her dagger down—only for it to be caught against those curved knives.
‘Rahat!’ Hazel grits out, as her head collides with the tower base. Nisha has her backed against the stone, smearing blood with each movement. But whose blood? Nisha’s face is covered. ‘Rahat!’ she cries again, the name strangled.
Rahat catches a blow from Qadira, missing the second blow as she tosses her blade, forcing her back. ‘Please,’ she gasps. The sky is the deep orange of the faerie’s eyes. There isn’t time. ‘Qadira,’ she cries, voice thick with desperation.
Out the corner of her eye, Rahat watches as Hazel is forced under the smoke as Nisha grabs her by the hair. A sharpened dagger in hand, she angles it right.
‘Please,’ Rahat spits out, ‘she’ll die.’
Qadira levels her eyes on her. On the two battling at the tower’s doors. As she drops her weapons, she dares steal a glance into the sky to the room where Iliyah resides. The glimmering orange sky peeks through the crystal stone.
Rahat chokes back her sobs. ‘Please.’
Without another word, the kehrasa charges at the tower with her blades raised.
‘Hazel!’ Rahat cries, as the girl is wrenched up and pushed into the stone. Her head lolls, her eyes bleary from the force. But she looks up, her eyes catching on the blades sparking with sunlight in Nisha’s hands.
Hazel doesn’t look away. Staring death in the face, she remains calm, even as she feels the breeze of Nisha’s movements raising the knife.
Qadira appears at the sorceress’ back, daggers raised. And as she brings them down, Hazel screams at the sound the two blades make as they rip through Nisha’s spine.
The hand balled in Hazel’s hair goes slack as Nisha collapses against the stone base of the tower. The world about them spins.
Hazel can feel the blood at the back of her head, hot and wet and making her dizzy. The fog crawls over her, but she pushes herself back up to stand.
Nisha’s face ripples, her features a-morph between wolf and human. Her sharp teeth gleam red in the arcing sunlight as she wrenches back her jaw to scream. Qadira stands panting behind her, staring at the damage she has inflicted. Blood coats her face in splattered freckles. On her dark skin, it looks like paint, but in her ebony hair, it matts. The kehrasa’s tail flicks with agitation as she takes a step backward, only for the witch to lash out, knocking the faerie into the darkness.
But before she can be swallowed, she vanishes, becoming shadow and sand.
With a sickening squelch, Nisha reaches back to pull the knives from either side of her spine. Blood bubbles up her throat, overflowing and coating her face in a fresh layer of it. Those silver eyes turn glassy.
Watching Hazel edge around the circular base of the tower, Rahat stands breathless. The darkness swirls about her feet, but it no longer feels like it’s dragging her down. The weight is gone, stolen away by Qadira’s mirrored blades.
‘H-hazel?’ she stammers.
The Asthori looks up, her face coated in the sorceress’ blood. Eyes wide, Hazel can’t tear her eyes from the carnage that stands before her. And she can’t move away quickly enough.
Nisha takes the blades into her hands and lashes out, digging them into the stone by Hazel’s head. ‘Who said this was over?’ she gasps out, blood dribbling with each word.
Whimpering, Hazel cannot look away. Her limbs refuse to move, and she is weaponless. Bloodied handprints about her neck make her look mortally wounded as Rahat approaches, having to drag her dead limbs through the dark. Shock, that’s what it is. That’s what she knows it is.
She’s never seen a body so broken.
‘Hazel?’
The Asthori grips along the walls by her sides, hands frantically searching for the handle to the armour-piercing dagger at her belt. It’s a thin blade like a needle. With shaking hands, she palms it and shoves upward into Nisha’s gut. She whimpers again as Nisha starts to fall toward her, almost pinning her to the cracked stone.
At the sound, Qadira reappears, perched high up in a tree by the horses. The lindélofs whinny, alarmed, as the kehrasa grips the branches tight to get a closer look.
Rahat crosses the darkness which parts for her like the seas. Relief floods through her as she reaches Hazel’s side, only now seeing the true damage inflicted upon the sorceress. Yet she keeps fighting.
Reaching a hand for Hazel, Rahat takes a wide step, but it’s too late.
‘MOVE!’ screams Qadira, but not before the blade slices through Rahat’s armour.
Hot blood pools at the wound in her side. Rahat staggers back a step, staring down at the blood oozing from the slash. If it weren’t for her armour, she would be bleeding out. But already she can feel the aura of death.
Her skin sizzles, discoloured and blood-slick. Her hands are shaking. She can’t stop herself from shaking. The skin has peeled back, revealing the muscle beneath, and blood—too much blood. Fresh air stings the exposed meat as she sucks in a hissing breath.
Qadira evaporates, again appearing by Hazel’s side in a moment.
‘Hazel,’ Rahat whispers, her dry throat crying out. ‘Hazel.’ Bloodstained hands reach out for the Asthori, but the girl swings her into the doors leading up into the tower.
‘Run,’ orders Hazel, pushing the doors open to shove her up the spiral stairs.
The rajkumari swallows, staring hard at her cousin and her company: the torn-apart madwoman still fighting, and the faerie who has betrayed them before.
‘GO!’
‘But—’
Qadira steps between Nisha gasping for breath and Hazel to place a hand at Rahat’s shoulder. ‘Go. While there is time.’
‘But—’
‘We will deal with the witch,’ says the kehrasa, as they share a look.
Rahat mashes her lips together, unsure, but—there isn’t time for this. She’s right. As Nisha again raises her last weapon to attack, Rahat turns and sprints up the stairs.
The doors slam closed behind her. She hears the screaming of swords meeting as she ascends.
Through the crystal walls, she can see the suns and their light cast across the sky. A dusky orange, soon to be pink, then purple. Then gone. She has but minutes. The pain in her side screams, bringing her to a gasping halt. Minutes, if she’s lucky.
Ripping back her split armour, Rahat reveals the blood and sweat about her wound. The skin is turning green, burning away with some kind of poison.
‘Najir,’ she gasps out, and it’s almost enough that she gives up. If she’s right and this is Naj poison, then there’s no point. She won’t even make it to the top of the stairs.
But she has to try.
Though her strangled cries echo within the spiral staircase, she pushes herself on. Each stair becomes harder. Feverish, she rips away her outer-armour, leaving her tunic in place. The air is so hot, it’s sweltering. She keeps a hand at her side as she runs, putting pressure on the wound even as she feels herself approaching death.
The castle, once crystal, is becoming hard stone around her. The walls shift, the dark grey wicking up the glass like blood on a tapestry. The glass clouds over, blocking out the light until she’s running in near-darkness. Come ON. Not much further. Iliyah is mere seconds away.
Yet her heart is overworked. She can feel the effects of the poison coursing through her blood. A pain at her neck makes her curse; she can feel the bruising already, colouring her a dark purple and green. Black blood seeps from her side.
She daren’t stop. She isn’t sure how much time has passed but it feels like longer with her heart beating so. Small windows the size of her palm start to appear in the now-stone walls, allowing her to glimpse the sky upon its descent. A dusky pink streaked with orange. A sob escapes her throat before she lets it.
‘Iliyah!’ she cries.
‘Rahat?’ comes Iliyah’s voice, ringing down the staircase.
The rajkumari lifts her head. ‘Iya?’
‘Rahat? Rahat!’ comes the call again, echoing all around her.
Hazel.
A glance over her shoulder, but she can no longer see or hear whatever is happening outside now that the crystal is stone.
‘Rahat!’
Never pausing, Rahat runs with those two voices enveloping her. She’s not sure if the venom is making her hallucinate—has she even come close to the top of the tower? Below, she can hear someone’s boots on the steps. Hazel calls for Rahat again, but this time she’s unsure. Witches play tricks like this all the time in tales.
She nearly collapses when she reaches the top of the stairs. She lurches forward, expecting more as she stumbles into the rosewood door. The beating of her heart is wild. She may be just in time.
‘Rahat, we’re okay!’ Hazel’s cry weaves up the stairs. ‘She’s dead, I think!’
Gritting her teeth at her limbs protesting, Rahat places her hand at the door. It swings open as soon as her fingers slide around the brass door-handle, to reveal the room from her projected nightmare.
The room is empty, save for a bed and a large window overlooking the smoke which billows from the Red Temple. The deepening sky peeks through, flooding purple and casting them in blue light. No no no. Wind brushes the hair from Rahat’s face as she enters, holding her wound tight and staggering. Her feet don’t want to move. Pain shoots through her with each step.
The bruises at her neck, at her back, at her sides… they pulse. But Iliyah is all she can see.
The door swings to a light close, silently clicking behind her as she enters the room. Laying there upon the bed, Iliyah’s clean face is a shining beacon. Her ebony hair cascades over the sides of the mattress like a water nymph’s. The lashes that brush her cheeks are long and precious. Long lithe limbs. Skin dark and creamy as night. In a salwar of turquoise, gold, and violet, she is a vision beneath the indigo light. Rahat’s never seen her like this before.
Encased in a thin layer of crystal, she looks like she’s sleeping. In the fading light, the glass gleams a faint blue like water. It’s slippery under Rahat’s bloodied fingers. A tug at the bottom of the crystal case, but it cannot be moved. Her muscles scream out in protest; even her blood feels like it’s become heavier. Her eyes fade in and out of focus as fear grips her about the throat. There are only moments left. Mere seconds on a clock.
‘Come on,’ she whispers. Her escaped sobs ricochet through the tower, and on the other side of the door she hears two sets of feet which grow more frantic. ‘Please,’ she whimpers, leaning against the heavy glass. ‘Hazel!’
When the door flies open, Rahat nearly collapses at the sight of them coated in blood. Qadira’s eyes rake over the scene; she’s by Rahat’s side in a moment, lifting the case from the shehzadi’s body. As Hazel helps guide the crystal over the side of the mattress, it thrums, shattering into hundreds of tiny pieces before hitting the ground.
‘My gods,’ breathes Hazel, as she stares at the glass strewn across the ground.
But the sky around them is almost night. Seconds remain.
And Rahat has no idea what to do.
Pulling herself around the bed to reach her, she hisses at the pain. She leans against the mattress, her blood soaking it through. Beside Iliyah’s clean hand, the blood is wrong, dirty. Their hands feel like magnets, their touch thrumming through Rahat’s fingertips. ‘Please,’ Rahat says, like it were some kind of spell. ‘Please live.’ Glancing up to Qadira, her eyes are pleading. ‘I don’t know what to do,’ she admits. Tears streak channels down her sticky cheeks, her desperation turning to ice-cold fear. ‘Please.’
Hazel’s soft hand at her back only makes her flinch. ‘Kiss her,’ she says. Rahat looks at her with wide eyes before Hazel waves her hands, dismissing her fears. ‘You’re Bound! Now,’ she orders. ‘Kiss her now, you idiot!’ Her eyes remain plastered on the sky as it fades to well past sunset. This might not work. Crossing her fingers, she prays to every god she knows.
Gazing down at Iliyah, Rahat gulps, before leaning over her and pressing her lips gently to the shehzadi’s. The pain at her side makes her whimper, but Hazel’s hand at her back keeps her in place. She feels electric—but that could be the hallucinogens in the venom, or the pain, or even death encroaching. Whatever it is, it makes it hard to breathe. She pulls back a moment later. Iliyah’s lips are so soft that she’s close to forgetting about everything else. Tears stream down her face onto Iliyah’s, dirtying her fresh cheeks with soot and blood.
At Hazel’s gasp, Rahat opens her eyes—
—To find Iliyah staring back at her. Those deep brown eyes glow with warmth, a thick gooey chocolate. Rahat’s so shocked that she pulls back. ‘Iliyah—’ she gasps, before Iliyah silences her with another kiss. The second their lips meet is frantic, as if all these years have been building up to this. This. They lose themselves in each other before Qadira clears her throat, tapping a hand against the bed’s wooden frame.
‘You’re—’
Rahat’s legs give out and she hits the floor hard.
Without a second thought, Iliyah throws herself off the bed to perch by Rahat’s side. Her head spins but she ignores it, her eyes zeroing in on the blood marring the rajkumari’s side. She looks up at Qadira. ‘What happened? You’re both covered in blood.’ Realisation flashes in her dark eyes as she looks them over. ‘My aunt. My aunt did this, didn’t she?’
