Page 18 of Tethered Thrones

“We should wait for the others,” I insisted, staring into those glittering, jewel-like eyes, one milky and one sharp. “Something isn’t right, Hadi. This panthera isn’t attack–”

Hadi bristled, not allowing me to finish. He swept me back beside him with a flick of his wrist, pinning my legs and dragging me onto his backside, shouting, unable to kick. Then, he glued my legs to his waist with his web. The next thing I knew, he was rampaging, intending to kill the panthera as brutally as possible.

“We don’t need to wait for them! You have me! I will protect you,” Hadi shouted between strikes and made good onthat promise, slamming a long, spindly leg into the nameless panthera, drawing blood. It growled, howling in pain as it was brought to its knees.

But still, it was not fighting back. It was taking Hadi’s blows without moving an inch, balled in a protective stance against the spider king’s attack.

It pleased me immensely to watch him kill for me, but I needed this panthera to live. Something was amiss.

“Hadi, stop!” I begged, forced to straddle his back, and watch the panthera be brutalized and soon ripped to shreds.

“Why do you defend this thing!? I will kill it, and then you will be safe with me,” Hadi insisted, and even I sounded insane to myself, pleading for my captor’s life. “You are safe with me! I am on your side.”

“I know, I know, but can’t you see it’s not attacking us!” I shouted as a feminine voice cut through the clash of claws and battering of fangs with flesh above.

It couldn’t be. I was surely hallucinating now. But the voice grew louder and closer, and there was no denying it when I whipped around and faced the panthera pinned under Hadi, knowing now she was coming from behind the beast in the forest.

“Sun!” she shouted, crashing through the tree line with a nightwing’s head pierced through a nagin, a long polearm with sharp blades fashionable among female nobles holed away in feudal castles, who too had to take up arms to defend against the nocturnal invasion.

Something spiraled from the trees, narrowly avoiding her, and sliced too close to Hadi’s leg for comfort. A starblade! It was the preferred weapon of spymasters.

Hadi retreated only a step, recognition slowly dawning on his face as the panthera limped away. After all, he’d seen them too, even as a mere shadow in my cell.

“Leave master alone, Zihan! Now!” a male voice joined her shouts, and froze in shock.

My heart skipped a beat, sure I was imagining the owners of these voices. But as Hadi was distracted long enough, I ripped away at his web and flew from his back, showing my back to a hostile noc like some amateur soldier as I bounded over the fallen panthera.

It was unmistakable! It was them.

“Atlan! Jia!”

Chapter 7

Sun

As they emerged from the trees, their faces greeted me with equal parts disbelief and relief, their eyes glassy with unshed tears, and I knew without touching my freezing face that my tears were already rolling down my cheeks.

We embraced in a tangle of arms and legs and nearly fell over, Jia discarding her weapon. My dearest friends, alive, Atlan walking after being so injured he couldn’t stand, and both of them… both of them didn’t harbor a shred of hatred for me in their hearts, for their eyes overflowed with joy and gratitude all directed at me.

We pulled apart long enough to hear Hadi howl. But not in pain. He was furious as we whorled around to see the panthera attempting to gnaw off his leg.

“Zihan! Heel!” Atlan shouted, marching up to the creature without a lick of fear.

I tried to stop him, but Jia stopped me, shaking her head. Her hair was loose, almost down to her back, and it was striking as she had always worn the traditional top knot of all warriors for as long as I knew her. She looked petite and feminine. It didn’t feel right for such a skilled warrior.

“Friend,” Atlan mouthed slowly as he sank to his knees, holding his hand to the panthera. He motioned from his lips to his heart in a sweeping motion, palm down to face up, scooping inward.

It clicked as Atlan repeated the word until the panthera’s chest rose and fell more evenly, bloodlust leaving him.

He wasn’t speaking the southern dialect of Yewan, the imperial dialect imposed on all of Naran. Atlan spoke the western tongue, his regional mother tongue I hadn’t heard in a decade. It wasn’t exactly like that heard in the provisional capital of Ri, but vaguely familiar.

He had spoken only Rin during his training days, earning derision from his fellow conscripts. It was a sign of backwardness, they’d jeered; I scolded them, then beat out any backtalk after that. But after that, Atlan forced himself to speak in the heavier baritone of Yewan, slower, with the words less slurred together.

And that’s how Jia and Atlan bonded, I recalled, as she was from Hae and learned the hard way that although the north and south had been united by Emperor Gaulu, remnants of their independence would not be tolerated. Kari and Hae had fought fiercely against what Gaulu had then called reunification but was merely conquering their territory before the war with the nocs even began.

One empire, under a mad emperor. I closed my eyes and willed away the bile. My closest friends were little more than prisoners to the most powerful warden of the land, one I had served unflinchingly, unquestioningly for years to feed my bloodthirst, to kill as many nocs as I could.

I reopened my eyes and watched in wonder, wandering back to Hadi’s side as Atlan began to stroke Zihan, as he called him, speaking in broken Rin paired with…

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