Page 5 of Mother of Death and Dawn

Melina turned to the door, presumably to get help. I moved faster. I leapt to my feet, grabbed her, and pressed my hand to her mouth.

“Don’t move,” I hissed. “I am one of you.”

Her back was against me, my arm firmly around her shoulders to keep her from moving. I could not see her face, but I felt her trembling.

“I am Tisaanah Vytezic,” I whispered. “Do you know that name?”

A pause. Then a small nod.

“I need you to tell me how we can get out of here, Melina. Fast. Quietly.”

She jumped a little. I knew why—the “we.”

That one word made life much more difficult, especially since I barely knew this girl. But I couldn’t leave her alone here to face the consequences of my escape.

Slowly, I removed my hand from her mouth, though I didn’t release her just yet—just in case.

“We can’t,” she whispered. “There’s too many people here now, in the middle of the day.”

“There has to be something.”

“Can’t you just… use magic?”

I almost laughed. I knew what she was thinking:This girl has ended wars, and she can’t get herself out of this stupid house?

I spent a lot of time lately thinking about my magic and all the things it couldn’t do.

“No,” I said. “Not here. There are too many wards.”

Farimov’s estate, like those of many of the Threllian Lords, had been protected with many, many Stratagram wards since the beginning of the war—protection against magic wielding rebel slaves like myself, and against Nura’s armies.

I tried not to think about the fact that if I still had Reshaye, I could tear through those wards easily. If I still harbored a connection to deep magic…

I shook the thought away. Unhelpful.

I reached into my pocket and folded my fingers around the gold feather there. Ishqa was not prepared for me now. Under the original plan, I was to call for him at night, when I could make it past the strongest of the wards, and he would fly me out of the estate. This escape would be much more difficult now, in the middle of the day.

Still, he was our best chance of making it out of here alive.

I pulled out the feather and dipped it into the candle flame. Ishqa would feel its call, but I had no idea where he was right now, or even if he would be able to get to us in time.

“The servants’ tunnels,” I said. “Will they get us out of the house?”

“They aren’t really tunnels. More like… a basement. And they don’t go as far as the estate walls.”

“They just need to take us outside.”

The feather was now a dusting of ash, which I hastily brushed under the table runner.

Weapon. I needed a weapon. A decorative saber hung on the wall, which I yanked free as quietly as I could. It was a gaudy thing, the hilt covered in impractical rubies. The blade was dull. It was clearly never intended to be used for actual combat, but if I stabbed someone with it hard enough, it would do some damage.

“Let’s go.” I was already at the door before I realized that Melina was not with me. I turned to see her standing still, eyes wide, lips parted but releasing no words.

She looked so utterly terrified. Is that how I had looked, I wondered, when Serel put me on that horse and told me to go find a new life?

I never would have said it aloud, but back then, I had been so frightened of leaving everything I had ever known. I dealt with it by drowning myself in my obsession with the future I swore I’d create. But…

Uninvited, the memory settled over me. The snap of a fire in cool night air. A familiar scent of ash and lilac. A little sarcastic laugh. A smile that started on the left side first.

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