Page 43 of A Court of Truth and Thorns
My arms tremble by the time we scale the temple’s sloping roof toward the flat platform at its zenith. I release my hold on the shadow. The wind, as if offended at the intrusion, picks up with a howl. My hair whips across my cheeks. Grasping the platform’s edge, I haul myself onto it, only to jerk back when the Eye’s brightness hits me with the force of a physical blow.
My sweaty hand springs reflexively to my eyes, my precarious hold wobbling. Rune’s hand presses solidly into the small of my back. My balance steadies. Tapping deeper into my precious well of magic, I deflect the Eye’s light until it no longer threatens to burn our eyes.
“Thank the stars,” Rune breathes. His hand leaves my back, though I still feel the ghost of his touch lingering on my skin. With battlefield efficiency, Rune unties the rope from his waist and secures the line to a stone gargoyle at the eastern corner of the roof.
I start to ease my pack off my shoulders and feel Rune behind me, taking its weight. We repeat the same trick withRune’s pack. Neither of us dares breathe until the barrels of powder stand solid on the roof floor.
Turning my back to the pedestal holding the Eye, I survey the city sprawling beneath us. Small houses. Shops. The occasional night worker scurrying along empty streets. Delta going about its life, oblivious to the death looming over it.
“Are you certain about this?” Rune asks. “You are permitted to change your mind, if your gut tells you to.”
I swallow. “I’m certain.”
His gray gaze skips up to mine, his silvery hair whipping around his angled face in the wind. He squints in the Eye’s fluctuating light despite my efforts to shield us from it. “And I’m certain in you.”
Warmth rises in my chest and I press my lips against his, indulging in a moment of stolen pleasure before yanking myself back.
Focus on the bloody barrels of black powder.The Eye flashes, the light striking deep into my eyes despite my deflection. Stars dance in my vision, a headache cutting through my brain. I realize I’ve stopped moving only when Rune calls my name. Rain has joined the rising wind, and I blink both away.
“The pack’s cloth is too thin, and the barrels aren’t watertight,” Rune says, positioning himself to shield the fuse and powder from the rain. He shouts to be heard over the wind’s howl. “They won’t keep the powder dry enough to work. Can you deflect the rain the way you do light and sound?”
Right. “I love trying new things in the middle of a bloody storm with explosives in my hands,” I murmur. But Rune is right. I reach into my magic reserves and beg the stars to make deflecting water easier than absorbing sound.
It isn’t. It feels like pushing back a river with my barehands. For each particle of the streaking water that I manage to capture and deflect, a hundred more stream by like arrows.
“It’s not working,” Rune informs me, his voice so calm I want to kick him. “Try something else.” Another gust of cold, wet wind.
My barrel of powder shudders. I grab for it, miss, and watch the fuse topple to the stone. A scream builds in my lungs, stopping in my throat as the fuse rolls back and forth like a child’s toy on the roof. I snatch it up. The terror of certain death ebbs, but the stupidity of this whole plan hits me full force. I know nothing of explosives, and I’m trying to save a kingdom by blowing a living crystal the size of three men into pieces when I can’t even keep control of the fuse.
“It’s all right, Kali,” says Rune. Calm. Steady. Strong. A bloody excellent liar. “You are all right.”
I draw in a shaking breath. I have to shield the powder against wind and rain. Have to. If I don’t, I fail Leaf and all the people in Dansil whose lives I so carelessly toyed with. My chest clenches into a painful knot.
I plunge into my magic and throw it with abandon at the elements. No portioning, no reserves. Just the rawness of whatever power I have within me against the wind and the rain and the world.
The world laughs.
It might have worked had I any magic left in my well. My throat closes with a sob.
“Enough!” Rune’s order battles the wind. He grabs the barrels of black powder and the fuse from my hand and covers them with his body. “We set the fuse as is. Let’s move.”
Even that proves more difficult than I expected. The light of the Eye increases exponentially with each step. Rune hisses in pain, covering his eyes with a forearm.
I scrape my magic dry, forcing every bit of my life forceinto the effort to keep the Eye’s light from scorching us blind. My limbs feel like they’re swimming through sand. I focus on words, hold on to them like a rope as we prepare to set our charge. “How... do you think... whisperers get close... enough to tune this?”
“They work from beneath the roof.”
It takes me a heartbeat to realize the answering voice is not Rune’s, but Bahir’s.
29
KALI
My body reacts before I do, slipping a knife free into my palm.
Bahir steps out from behind the Eye, his voice clear and booming. “It takes a special kind of imbecile to climb atop this roof.” The bishop pats the glowing orb and rests his palm on its belly, as if soothing a beloved pet. A band of dark, intricate glass covers his eyes. His red robes and black hair billow in the wind. He wags a finger at me, his heavy ring shimmering like a mirror. The same ring that sent a shock of pain through me at King Firehorn’s dinner party. “You’ve angered the Goddess now. Her gift is not so tame anymore.”
I throw my knife into Bahir’s chest. It slams against an invisible wall and skids harmlessly to the floor.
