Behind the army, Aria focused on ice, pulling it out of the air, raining hail on the army. She could see that she was succeeding. The army was thinner, more spread out, not the solid mass it had been before she and the seekers had started their attack. She turned to grin at Gavi, then froze as an impossibly loud voice rang out over the force.
Aria went as cold as the ice she had been throwing.
It was the king. She couldn’t move. Desperation, longing, and hatred swam in her head as she heard his words. He spoke to Isika and the cruelty of his words stabbed through her.
She fell where she stood. The man—her father—kept speaking, and his words were unceasing, they were swollen around her, a cold, raging river that she couldn’t escape. He spoke to Isika alone. He didn’t even seem to know that Aria was there, back among his men, doing magic even she had never known she could do. He spoke to Isika, not to Aria.
I only care about you. The others are nothing to me.
Nothing,
Nothing,
Nothing.
She was seven years old again. The bells rang out in harsh, jarring clangs, sealing her fate. Nirloth’s face was hard, like flint. “We’re sending her over. We can’t be the only ones who don’t send a child to stop the famine. The other villagers will revolt.”
Aria’s mother cried and fought him, screaming that sending a child away wouldn’t help anything, telling him that he couldn’t take her child.
“Aria is mine! You cannot send her. She has never been yours!”
In response, he locked her in the house.
Aria remembered. She remembered. There was the long procession down to the harbor, the icy black water. She remembered her fear, a constant ache in her stomach, screaming for her mother. Then Isika pushing her into the boat, her hand hard on Aria’s arm.
It wasn’t Isika. But she couldn’t help it. She remembered Isika’s face near hers, laughing at her, sending the boat into the water. Casting her away. Then a ripple, a shudder and the memory changed. She was staring at the Desert King’s face, and she didn’t know how she recognized him, because she had never seen him before. She only knew that he was sending her away, his eyes like black chips of stone in his face.
They mean nothing to me.
Sharp pain made her cry out as the poisoned arrow lodged deeper inside her body, very near to her heart. If she moved at all, it would kill her. She lay very still but as the Desert King’s words went on, the arrow responded to his voice. It knew him. He had made the poison of this arrow, and it moved again. Aria screamed as the point pierced her heart. The pain was so terrible she knew she was dying. She lay sobbing, waiting to die. Maybe it would be best after all. Better if there were no more surprises, no more moments like this one. No new ways that she could be rejected.
She remembered the cold faces, the shrieking voices. The bitter tea that she spat out when she got a chance. The boat pitching in the waves, how she nearly froze in the icy water that sloshed over the sides. She sobbed and sobbed, calling for her mother, screaming for Isika, who had always looked out for her, to come get her. Isika didn’t come. Aria remembered lying there for what felt like forever, wet and alone, waiting to die.
The pain was horrible.
Aria.
She remembered the long boat full of rescuers, pulling up beside her boat. The rescuers exclaiming aloud at the sight of her, dark-skinned child, far older than the other cast away children, eyes open. She couldn’t speak, couldn’t tell them who she was. They had warm hands, warm eyes. They had black skin, but she was so tired she couldn’t feel anything about that. She didn’t know who they were or what was happening to her. She didn’t care.
No, leave me, she thought. This time I don’t want to be rescued. Let me die in the waves.
Aria.
No.
“Aria!”
She opened her eyes to find herself lying on the scorched grass, her cheek pressed against the ground. Through the earth she could feel something, faintly, and she closed her eyes again to hear it better. It was her sister. Isika was in distress, and Aria always knew when Isika was in distress. Never mind. She wanted to go back under. All the way down and down. She let her eyes drift closed. Leave me. This time I don’t want to be rescued.
“Aria! It’s not time to take a nap!” She opened her eyes again, angry this time.
It was Gavi, not the rescuers, who had his face close to hers.
“I’m not taking a nap,” she protested, her voice weak. I think I’m dying, she thought, but couldn’t be bothered to say it aloud. She blinked again. She wasn’t in the boat; she was lying on burned grasses in a field that teemed with warriors. And it seemed that her sister needed her. A wave of despair hit her. How long would she be confused about past and present and where the pain came from, who had betrayed her?
Gavi looked at her anxiously, scanning her face. His hair stuck up as usual, and he was on his knees by her side, holding his hand out for her to take so he could help her up. His eyes looked very blue in his face and she stared into them for a long moment. Blue eyes. When she was younger, she had asked Nirloth if it hurt to have blue eyes. He laughed his empty laugh and asked her if it hurt to have skin that looked burnt, like bread too long in the fire. She held her hand out to Gavi, noticing how dark it was against his skin, though he was tanned and golden, living and real, not pale like her stepfather. Not cruel. One father dark, one light. Neither of them wanted her.
They mean nothing to me.
She faltered, trying to sit up, breathing in sharp pants.
“What is it?”
“Something changed with the arrow,” she said. “It’s making it hard for me to breathe.”
Gavi stopped trying to pull her to her feet. They sat close together on the ground, and somewhere, the man’s voice went on. There were cries, sounds of fighting, but Gavi leaned his forehead against hers. He gasped and drew back in shock. His face drained of color.
“What happened, Aria? This is really bad—I…”
“I don’t know,” she said, though she had a pretty good idea.
He shook his head, looking into her face. “No, Aria. You can’t listen to him. He’s evil. You’re ours. We rescued you. We want you. You don’t belong to him.”
“He’s my father, Gavi.”
“He’s not. He doesn’t deserve it. Don’t listen to him.”
She glanced away. He’s my father.
“Don’t you think we’d better do something?” she asked. “We can’t sit here in the middle of a battle.”
Gavi looked up. “True,” he said. “Abbas has been giving us space, but we should help him.”
As soon as he said it, Aria saw what he meant. They were huddled in a little stand of trees, hidden on one side by the thick bushes beside them. Abbas was on the other side, dancing a wide half circle around them, teeth bared, knocking down men who were lunging at her and Gavi. She frowned. The warriors all seemed to be pressing toward them specifically.
“Why are they all coming to us?” she asked, feeling dazed. Her heart hurt so badly that every breath felt like a knife. She watched as the warriors pressed in, their own faces dazed, only to meet Abbas’s whirling staff with their heads.
“I have no idea,” Gavi said, frowning at the persistent warriors. “But what do you think about getting up and away?”
“Let’s keep fighting,” Aria said.
Gavi shook his head. “No, we need to get you away. You’re not able to fight.”
“We need to keep fighting,” Aria insisted. “Isika needs us.”
“Are you sure?” Gavi asked, his face unhappy and unsure.
“Yes,” Aria said, nodding. “It seems to be the only way we’ll be able to get home and sleep in our own beds. One last push. Let’s harass them enough that Isika can deal with the Desert King.” Pain took her breath away. She paused, panting in little gasps, the arrow aching inside her chest. After a moment, she could continue. “Right?”
Gavi looked at her for a long while. Then he nodded.
“Okay,” he said. “We can do that.”
They stood and joined Abbas and Ivy in the fight. Aria pulled more hail out of the air and threw it over the warriors in the plain where they stood, and beside her, Abbas used his staff to incapacitate nearly every person who ran their way. She noticed dimly that the warriors still all hurtled toward her, and she found this curious, but the pain in her rib cage was so all encompassing that all she could do was hurl hail, over and over, trying to push farther in, to where Isika stood on her horse. Fires still burned around them, and she began experimenting with water, trying to throw ice on the fire. She found that she could also throw cold water on the fire, and this was vaguely interesting to her, but her attention was elsewhere.
She wanted her sister. The single-minded magic that told her where Isika was and whether she was safe wanted her to be near Isika. Lights flickered at the edges of her vision as she pressed forward, exhausted. The whole world seemed to be made of smoke, fire, and men with leering faces trying to hurt her. She pressed toward her sister, fighting the hurt and hatred she felt. She was angry, livid with fury. She was heartbroken and wounded. Still, her magic wouldn’t leave her alone. Get to her. Tell her not to go to him. Make her stay.
The warriors ran toward her, though, a sea of faces and masks, dark-skinned people with paint on their faces, people who looked like Abbas, with braided hair and strong brows. They ran toward her with shields and spears out. She turned them back with hail that dropped against their foreheads and hands. Her friends swirled around her, protecting her. They were all confused by this attack, Aria could tell, but they focused on keeping Aria safe. Abbas and Gavi fought with staffs, knocking men out and leaping over their prone bodies as they slowly advanced on the king, and beyond him, Isika. Ivy fought hand to hand, and she always won. Aria fought the deathly pain in her heart, pushing thoughts of it away until she was only a machine, moving steadily, doing the same things over and over with her hands. She pushed thoughts of death away, of simply lying on the ground and allowing them to come to her. She noticed dimly that they were in a different section of the force now, where men had swords instead of spears. Interesting, she thought.
Then one of those swords flashed toward her, and she couldn’t move. Time seemed to slow and she knew she would die, but then Gavi was in front of her, and the sword still moved toward them, striking Gavi across the shoulder and upper chest. Aria screamed as he fell. Abbas became a whirlwind, pulling out his own sword and killing the other swordsman in the next breath. Aria threw herself on the ground beside Gavi, placing a hand over the bleeding wound. It was not good, large and bleeding steadily. She pulled her ser off her head and bound it around his chest. It was immediately soaked through with blood. She pushed her hand down to stop the bleeding. Gavi was pale and unconscious, all the golden color drained out of him.
Still Abbas and Ivy had to fight people away from them, and Aria knew that if this battle didn’t end, if they didn’t get Gavi to a healer, he would die. Abbas was a storm of arms and legs, sword flashing and long hair streaming. Ivy leapt on warriors before they even caught sight of her. All of them were trying so hard, but Aria bowed her head. It felt impossible. They couldn’t do this alone. The battle raged on. Aria tied the ser tighter around Gavi, tears running down her face.