Chapter Thirty-Three

I slip around the shelves, toward the tile. The heel of Omu’s gilded constellation glints dully in the roof above me. Nothing else marks the marble below as anything out of the ordinary, but when I kick it with my toes, it slides out of place with the sound of a spring.

A rickety wooden ladder leans against a dirt wall inside. My mind races through the possibilities. It could be a way out, but it could also be a dead end.

I climb down a few rungs to check. Loose dirt crumbles around my fingers as I brush it. I squint and make out the outline of another ladder—an exit.

My hopes swell, but a flash of metal warns me that I’m not alone. An assassin dressed like a Guardian lunges for me as I scramble back up the ladder with a shriek.

The scarf-clad assassin catches the hem of my skirt, and I squirm for footing. I kick and catch her cheek with the side of my foot. She lets go.

I stomp on the tile to close it, but a gloved hand catches the lip of the stone. The assassin pushes the tile back, and I sprint toward the hallway. How many assassins? One behind me, five ahead, and Nen with a knife.

The assassin jumps free of the tunnel. She bounds forward with long, powerful strides. My shoulder slams into a rickety shelf as I back up, and it nearly topples. I think quick and shove my weight into it again. This time, the old wood groans and topples into the next shelf, where it gets stuck, creating a narrow tunnel.

A metal dart thunks into the wood of the shelf, missing my ear by a few hairs. I scramble out of the way and turn left to lose my pursuer, but the assassin goes the other direction, and I realize my mistake: she knows the layout of the library. A giant pair of double doors, carved from mahogany and banded with steel, is the only way in and out.

One assassin waits at the door for her companions. I recognize her only by the scarf still dangling loose at her neck. They bark words in a northern dialect I can’t understand, but they are dressed like Guardians, and the other melts out the door into the turmoil of the glass fortress unseen. Freezing Hells, I need to warn someone.

My pursuer turns around, and two long daggers glint in her hands as she ducks into stacks one aisle over. I drop a thick tome to the floor at the end of my aisle.

I hear the assassin change course and hug an even thicker tome between my two hands. I swing it into her chest as she rounds the corner.

She stumbles forward, but I’ve only bought myself seconds, not minutes. I glance at the door, and it still looks unguarded, so I run toward it. I hear the sound of metal clanging, as though a fight has broken out. I only pray that real Guardians have discovered the false ones first.

I find one black tunic and red sash fending off two with sashes of blue. Teloh holds a long kampilan in one hand and a short dagger in the other. His face is calm, though one blue-sashed assassin lunges at him from the front and another raises a dagger behind. But the calm does not hold when he sees me.

A body drops in front of Teloh, but there are still two more.

“Narra,” he barks and tosses a dagger to me, and I catch it. There’s no time to think. I whip his dagger backward, and it finds flesh.

My pursuer drops to the floor, clutching the dagger in her neck. I am too stunned to react. A scream wells in my throat, but it sticks there, unable to escape.

Teloh shrugs off a third assassin like an old coat.

I blink, and Teloh is beside me, swearing. “What are you doing here?”

“I was… Archives.” It feels like flower petals are falling from my mouth instead of words.

He swears again.

“You?” I whisper.

“I was following that boy Nen, but I should really just look for you if I’m in the mood for trouble.” His expression betrays a very human temper. “How many more?”

“Three,” I say.

“Go back to your room and stay there.” He races down the hall and whistles for Guardians without a look back.

I shake and steady myself against a wall. What is happening? Would cultists dare threaten Tigang?

I am still pressed against the wall when the library door cracks open again.

Nen creeps out of the archives holding his dagger in front of him like a shield. I should’ve realized he’d stay behind, the coward. I shoot over, pinning him against the wood with a grunt. He struggles against me, and though there is blood on my face and tunic, it’s still my hands that he stares at. He pinches his lips and watches them as if they are weapons.

Superstitious fool. Footsteps echo down the corridor. All I have to do is shout and they’ll all know him for a traitor.

“Galaya? Was she with you and the cultist assassins?” I growl.

“Galaya insisted on playing within the rules.” He shrinks away from me. “She was an unfortunate loss, but we will still win. Omu will be here soon, and we will shape Tigang in Omu’s perfect image.” He smiles with a wide-eyed recklessness I recognize. Nen doesn’t wear a sun disk but embodies that cultist haughtiness just the same.

“You fool! That would destroy us!” The Diwata must be regarded equally so that the cosmos remains in balance. Without that balance, war and destruction would plague the world, even beyond our country.

“We want only what Omu wants. When we listen to her words and follow her command, she blesses us! She would never let us suffer. She’s promised good harvests, full bellies, and the sun upon our fields! Our country could thrive, if only we listened. If only we submit.”

Dangerous words that I pray never come to pass, because if Omu is anything like her followers, only suffering awaits those who refuse her.

“Who else?” The words scrape against my tongue. He cannot be working alone. He is too obvious, too lacking in talent for Reshar or Teloh not to have caught him, and he could not have dug out that tunnel during the Sundo. “Tell me or I will turn you over to Arisa.”

He laughs as if I’ve told a great joke, and I understand it all at once.

Kalena is the word of Omu herself, and though the head Interpreter has never been seen publicly with any cultists, I doubt the same in private. But Arisa has never seemed reverent of anyone. Perhaps Kalena and the cultists promised her respect. Perhaps they promised to let her keep her power.

Arisa is too young to have plotted out such a long game, but I have no such illusions about Kalena. The head Interpreter was an initiate when the previous Astar still lived. She could have pushed Astar off a balcony. She could have groomed Arisa and helped her pass Astar’s test. My mind leaps to the sun comb that Arisa wears, the same symbol around Kalena’s neck. A coincidence? I think not.

“Reshar will not be kind in his questioning of you.”

“It doesn’t matter,” he says and lifts his chin toward my marks. “You’ve already damned me.”

Guardians careen down the hall toward us, but Nen twists out of my grip.

“I’ve caught the traitor, here!” he shouts and slices his neck open.

He drops to the floor with a smile on his face.

“No! No.” I stumble to my knees in shock. Blood slips through my fingers no matter how hard I try to press at his neck. I stare in horror. The blood won’t stop. Nen’s breathing slows. Nen was not my friend, but I am no killer. I didn’t wish him dead or cursed. Fools! I scream aloud in frustration. Nen wasted his life for nothing, because I am not the danger here. I shake him hard, and his head knocks against the stone floor, but he refuses to wake.

Guardians drag me away from his body, but I hardly notice them. I don’t even feel my feet moving. All I see is Nen’s smiling face. Even if I wash the blood from my hands, the stain runs all the way to my heart, and it will stick for all my lives to come.

I laugh, as I realize my curse was no fault of the Heavens. I surely damned myself, and I wonder just how ruined I already am.