Page 93 of All the Wandering Light

Unconsciously, I stepped forward, reaching out to the strands of shadow. I felt nothing but air.

Another scream. I whirled. Against the wall, a towering staircase had appeared, leading to a broken wall—but it too was shadow, darkness without substance. Courtiers were fleeing en masse now, identical looks of horror on their faces. The hall was emptying.

It was all terrifyingly familiar.

“It’s the sky city,” I murmured. River gazed at the apparitions with narrowed eyes. His expression was distant, as if he was sensing something I was not.

I wrenched him around. “What’s happening?”

“I don’t know.” River’s expression was grim. “But it sounds like Esha’s decided to pay a visit.”

Esha. Terror overwhelmed me. “River, Lusha has the star.”

River took my hand again, and we pressed toward the emperor’s dais, which seemed to be at the heart of the disturbance. Hands grasped at River’s arm, and fleeing courtiers called to him to stop. River ignored them.

Someone plowed into us—one of the guards, empty-handed, covered in blood. I recoiled, but River merely shoved the man aside. Ahead of us, through the kaleidoscope of fleeing courtiers in their colorful costumes, I could make out a knot of guards in a semicircle around a hunched figure. Emperor Lozong. And between us and them, battling a dozen guards, was Esha.

It was as if the hall had been upended. Esha was here, tall and skeletal and menacing, a monster from a nightmare. I had last seen him on a snowy mountain crag, and before that—through River’s eyes—in the dark wilds of the Nightwood. Now he was surrounded by the finery of the Three Cities. Two worlds seemed to crash together in a violent swirl.

Esha dodged an obsidian-tipped arrow fired by a guard, then lifted a hand, summoning a wind that lifted the guard off her feet and slammed her into a column. She fell to the floor and was still.

I had thought it a battle, at first glance. But it wasn’t. No guard or shaman could be more than a minor obstacle to a witch as powerful as Esha. They were moments separating him from the emperor. It was a slaughter.

Between Esha and the emperor—wounded, from his posture—were perhaps fifteen guards. Esha had three witches with him—three that I could see. Though the hall was mostly empty now, some people were running toward their emperor, weapons in their hands. A man dressed in shaman’s robes raced past me, brandishing a fistful of glittering talismans. I thought of Norbu and felt a stab of fear. One of the dragons that scampered over the floor transformed into a lean, long-haired witch who dragged the shaman to the ground.

The dragons.

My mind balked, even as I watched another dragon transform into a witch with gleaming eyes. There were dragons at every feast, every gathering throughout the Empire. They were shepherded from place to place by everyone wealthy enough to afford them, as omnipresent as purses or talismans, and as unremarkable.

They were the perfect disguise.

“River,” I breathed, “the witches are—”

“I know.” His voice was dark. “Esha must have gathered all those able to assume the shape of a dragon and snuck them into the palace, disguising them among the royal dragons. It’s . . . well, it’s just the kind of thing he’d come up with.”

“You didn’t think he would attack now,” I said, fury rising again. “You said—”

“I was wrong. I didn’t think he would be this reckless.”

Esha killed another guard, swathing his face in shadow and then running him through with his own sword.

“Hello, Esha,” River said.

He barely raised his voice, despite the chaos of the scene. Yet Esha’s shoulders tensed.

When he met River’s gaze, a smile flickered on his face. It was not a happy expression, but one of dark satisfaction. He held up a hand.

The witches stopped fighting. Shadows writhed and spun, and witches emerged from them. The nearest witch was no more than five paces from the guards’ shields. For a moment, neither side moved. There were perhaps two dozen guards in total—not including those who lay motionless on the marble floor—and as many witches.

River’s gaze held his brother’s. “I didn’t think banquets were to your taste.”

The guards gazed at River in astonishment. One seemed to be motioning him back—he was young, with a boyish face. I recognized him as one of those who had greeted River that morning. Scanning the hall, I reached into the pocket of my dress and withdrew the obsidian dagger River had given me. Where was Lusha?

Esha was smiling—or, rather, he was holding his mouth in a way that might have been a smile, on someone else’s face. “I was hoping we would find you here. Thorn discovered that your body was missing when he returned to the mountain to check. Now we won’t have to hunt you down—it makes things easier.”

“Oh, I’m afraid it doesn’t,” River said.

“It’s interesting, isn’t it?” Esha’s voice was strangely calm, given the blood spattering his face. “Obsidian doesn’t seem to have the same effect on you as it does the rest of us.”