Page 95 of All the Wandering Light

I let River drag me to the bottom of the mad staircase. There we reached a long, low corridor—such as none that I had seen in the palace. It was shadow; everything was shadow, featureless and undulating.

“Where are we?” I yelled, shaking off River’s hand.

“Somewhere that shouldn’t exist,” River said. “The sky city is taking over the palace.” River, infuriating River, wasn’t panicking at all. He gazed around as if we had just stepped into a gallery lined with unusual paintings.

My head spun. I thought of Lusha, standing at Esha’s side, and Tem, who had been in the libraries when the witches attacked, and could be in as much danger. “How do we get out?” I was still yelling. And shaking. I had just descended a staircase made of shadow, in a tower that had formed out of thin air.

River placed his hand over my mouth and shoved me into a bracket in the wall.

I was so angry I contemplated biting him, but at that moment, the dead creatures reached the base of the staircase and thundered past us. River waited until they were gone—to my eyes, they were simply swallowed by the darkness—then he grabbed my hand again. When he pulled, however, I didn’t move.

I cried out. I was stuck—the shadow-wall clung to me, drawing me back into itself.

“Kamzin!” River looked alarmed at last. He wrapped his arms around me and pulled me free. The shadows fell back like obedient dogs, but River didn’t let me go. He took my face in his hands and kissed me.

I drew back, my heart pounding. “I don’t think that’s helpful right now!”

“Oh,” he said, as if this was actually news to him. “Sorry. Are you all right?”

“Of course I’m not all right! I didn’t particularly like your ancestral home the last time I visited. It isn’t growing on me.”

He gripped my hand. “Stay close.”

We were running again, into pitch darkness. I couldn’t see a thing. River, though, pulled me along without pausing—clearly, I was supposed to trust that he wouldn’t slam us into a wall. I was beginning to feel like a doll dragged along by an absentminded child.

“River,” I gasped as I stumbled over my own feet again. Light flickered—River cupped a small, dusky flame in his palm, not as bright as ordinary fire, but enough to illuminate my way. We came to the bottom of another tower that curved upward into gray light. The banquet hall? Did it even exist anymore, or had the shadow city replaced it? This tower had no stairs, unlike the first—there was no way up.

I brushed the wall. It seemed more solid now, clearly stone, though it was a strange, black stone like nothing I’d ever seen. It reminded me of witch fire, which was both like and unlike ordinary flame, a thing of nature subtly twisted, wrong.

“I hear fighting,” River said, gazing up at the light. “The emperor’s reinforcements must have arrived.” He turned to me. “I can—”

He got no further, as one of the dead witches lunged out of the wall.

Twenty-Nine

I SCREAMED. THE witch was part darkness, like the dead who had chased us, but more defined—were the creatures gaining substance? Her hair floated, as if she stood underwater, and her feet didn’t quite touch the ground. I couldn’t make out any features in her face, apart from the hint of a mouth, stretched in a grimace or scream.

She went straight for me, but River raised a hand and blasted her back.

Other figures leaped out of the darkness, faster than River could react. One grabbed at my hair and wrenched me so hard I fell to the floor with a cry of pain. Another was on me in a heartbeat, grasping at my neck. Its hands were the texture of dried flowers, light and brittle.

“Kamzin!” Out of the corner of my eye, I saw River make a sweeping gesture. The shadow-figures began to whirl and spin together, as if caught in a fierce wind. They tried to struggle, but it was no use. River sent them soaring back down the passage, where they were swallowed by the darkness.

I stood up, rubbing my head. Apart from a scratch on my neck from the shadow-creatures’ hands, I wasn’t hurt. River, though, was leaning back against the wall, breathing hard.

“Are you all right?” I asked nervously. The last time I had seen River look like this, it had been in the Aryas, after he had used Azar-at to cast the spell that rescued us from the avalanche.

River gazed down at his hands. He let out an incredulous laugh.

“I think Esha was right,” he said.

“That is the least comforting thing you could say right now,” I said. “Right about what?”

“The Crown.”

“What’s that?” I said. “You mentioned it before. Or Esha did, in the Ashes.” I couldn’t remember, precisely, how I had learned of the Crown. A thread of memory stirred from the moments I had spent in River’s mind. He had thought about it, at least briefly. “It’s not an actual crown, is it?”

“No. It’s a sort of magical gift. Passed down from one ruler to the next.” He brushed his hand against the black stone. “I wonder . . .”