I drew a breath and nodded. “You’re wrong. I know what it is to lose people. I see my brother even though he’s dead. He’s gone but not. Maks . . . is the same.” I looked back to Ford. “We have to go on, Ford. He’s gone.”
“For now. He saved you because he loves you, Zam. Because he loves us,” Lila said. My eyes went to her again.
Before I could say anything, she lifted off and shot into the sky, tiny crystalline tear drops falling from her eyes like sparkling jewels.
She was right about that. Maks had done what he’d done so there would be no guilt on us, but also because Marsum would have kept coming. He would have kept chasing us. Maybe Maks could hold back those urges?
Only time would tell.
And until then, I knew my heart would remain as it was . . . shattered.
The watering hole Ford led us to was smaller than the Oasis, but it was fine for our needs.
We untacked the horses, rubbed them down and fed them before our group huddled around a fire. The first night, I bade them all sleep, and I would take the watch. I couldn’t sleep. Every time I closed my eyes I saw Maks and heard him whisper goodbye.
The fire we lit burned bright against the dark of the night, and the flames hypnotized me. I know, because I blinked and Ishtar was there, standing at the edge of it. Around her was the ghostly edges of her room.
“You . . . how did you call me here?” she asked softly.
Both my eyebrows shot up. “I did not call you here.”
She stared hard at me. “You did, Zamira. How is it that my hyenas have not caught you?”
I shrugged. “Never send a dog to do a cat’s job, Ish. You should know that by now. They’re all dead.”
Her eyes narrowed. “You think to mock me?”
“I think you’re a fucking douche,” I snapped. “Which means you have something up your sleeve.”
“Give me the jewels and I will leave you to live in peace. You cannot understand what needs to be done. You are a child, and a weak one at that.”
Oh, she just had to go there, didn’t she?
I made myself smile. “You can have the jewels—” her eyes lit up, “over my dead and rotting corpse.”
The smile slid. “That can be arranged.”
“Not if I get to you first.” Shit, shit, shit, where did that come from? I was not going to take on a desert goddess! But my blood was boiling—that same heat Marsum started as he kissed me had lit me once more. I snapped my fingers and waved a hand as if dismissing her, and the vision was gone.
Only it didn’t just erase her, it replaced her with another person who liked the visionary shit.
The Emperor did a slow turn while his ghostly image stood in the fire. “Interesting that you can do this so soon after being awakened. I suppose I should not be surprised.” He nodded slowly. “What is it you wish to discuss?”
I frowned. If he thought like Ishtar that I’d called him here, then I didn’t want to look like a fool as I’d done with her. “I didn’t take your fucking jewel from Marsum.”
He closed his eyes. “That is rather bad news.”
I frowned. Why didn’t he flip out? Where was the monster everyone told me he was? Was this a game like Ishtar where he would try and lull me into believing he was something he was not?
I tried another tactic. Prove him wrong. “You said I would die without your help.”
“I’ve been known to be wrong once or twice in a thousand years.” He smiled as if some inside joke were being shared between us. Seriously, what the fuck was his game?
I went on. “And that if I killed Marsum, with your help, you would return my brother to me. Marsum is dead. I want my brother back. Now.”
He shrugged. “You didn’t kill Marsum. That was the deal.”
I took a step toward the fire. “You fucking dirt bag!”
He held up a hand. “Peace, granddaughter. There is always a way to return the dead to life. Within the wyvern’s lair is a way to do so. That is all I can tell you.”
I opened my mouth and another question popped out. “You were impersonating my brother. Weren’t you? To motivate me?”
He smiled. “Ah, perhaps my skills have gotten rusty. Yes, that was me.”
The Emperor had used my own grief against me. I gritted my teeth, struggling to talk evenly. “And my brother in the strange box?”
“That was real. His soul is trapped. It’s the only way of possibly bringing him back if he is not allowed to move on.” He sighed. “I am tired, and my fool of a son is here. I must go.”
He made the same hand wave motion that I’d used to dismiss Ishtar and I was once more the only one awake at the campsite, no vision haunting me.
I sucked in a sharp breath and stumbled back a few steps. “How the fuck did I do that?”
The question was not meant to be answered.
“Your magic, much of it is instinctive,” Flora said quietly from my right. I turned to her.
“Instinctive?”
“You will need some training, to tap into it, but much will come to you as you need it. That is the way of some magic.” She shrugged. “But try not to get into a pissing match with Ishtar. She might have loved you once, but she has lost her marbles as she gained stones.”
I didn’t disagree. But I knew Ishtar and I were far from done.
Flora and I spoke at length, quietly, throughout the remainder of the night about what we should do next. The next morning, I was ready to move us on.
I waited until their bellies were full and their guards were down before I stood. I’d been unable to eat, my stomach churning with the thought of what was coming.
“We cannot go to the Stockyards. Ishtar has returned to the land and that is her home.” I felt the weight of their eyes settle on me. “The Emperor is not yet free, but it could happen. And then there is the falak to consider. If someone were to kill the Emperor, then the falak would be freed onto the world. We can’t have that. But the Emperor is growing in strength and it may be a matter of time before he is free. Unless something is done about it.” I drew a slow breath, trying not to think of the falak, the one monster bigger than even the Emperor. How the hell he kept it from devouring us, I would have to find out in order to keep it from happening. But that was not today. Today was about pulling our shit together and standing tall. “I am the alpha of the Bright Lion Pride, a family whose calling was to give protection to those who needed it. The world needs protection now more than ever, and I intend to do something about this.” Fucked if I knew what, but those words needed to be said. I drew another breath. “Those who wish to stay with me may stay. Those who wish to go may go.”
Steve stood. Of course, the dumb fuck did. “I’m not bowing to you.”
I curled my lips. “Didn’t ask you to bow, dipshit. I said you could come with me, or you could go your own way.”
He glared at me. “You’re saying that you’re going to save the world? That’s what you’re saying?”
I swallowed hard once, pushing the doubt away, and then nodded. “Yeah, something like that.”
Ford looked up at me. “And how do you intend to do that?”
Lila sat on my shoulder and tightened her hold on my ear. “We have a journey ahead of us. One that will be fraught with danger and death.”
I rolled my eyes to her. “You really think that’s the way to convince anyone?”
She shrugged and I saw the glint of humor in her eyes. “Well, I think that some of them need to understand how bad it could be. This is not a game. This is a real as it gets.”
Slowly, they all stood. Even Benji, even Nell, Frankie and Asuga. Shit, even Steve. That was going to be a fucking gong show the first time he decided to challenge me. And I was sure as the sun rising in the east that it would happen.
Fuck my life, it would only be a matter of when.
Kiara locked eyes with me. “I want to make this world better. Safer for all of us.”
My heart swelled as their energy fed into one another, as their strength buoyed each other. I nodded. “Then we’re in for a wild one. We still have Ishtar’s hunters to contend with, as I’m damn sure she’s going to send more. The Jinn to the west. And then whatever we are going to face to the east.”