Before his nephew could respond, a light burst between them, hot and dazzling; red and yellow like a burning sunset, so bright Khaisan stepped back and shielded his eyes.

Then a curse rippled through his soldiers. Without warning one pierced his blade through his own stomach; another ran a dagger clean across his own neck. Here and there more followed like a contagion, all seemingly at random, and everyone else dissolved into wild confusion. Gazhani called them all to order, the shock and anger clear in his own voice, but Kiet knew.

Isla.

His vision swarmed red, and it was not the copper glow pouring out of her pendant.

What is she still doing here?

Gods, he should have taken more from her! She had one job! Sindhu had one job! All they needed to do was leave and they disregarded even that!

Khaisan saw the look in his eyes, and his own became knowing. He yelled at his commander, 'Your jii! Watch your jii!'

But Isla needed not control them all. It was unclear how many, but enough amongst them drew arms against their own neighbours, and then was it chaos.

A cage had been wheeled in for Nagha. They had him pinned to the ground, but one of his captors took out his dagger and began hacking at the netting entangled in his feathers. Fadjira and two others made a quick job of him, but then another soldier took his place—then another—

Kiet's own men saw the uprise, saw their enemies distracted with their own, and saw their opportunity. They recovered their weapons and charged forwards with a vicious cry.

Fools! All of them! It was a losing fight. A dozen men, a budding capradon, Kiet, and a mind-crafter together could not two hundred slay—not when hundreds more lay waiting just beyond the complex walls, and thousands more could yet quickly be rallied. Not when the greater war—the greater conflict could with bloodshed not be undone.

'Who is it?' The tip of Khaisan's blade dropped low against Kiet's neck. 'Which of your silver-servants command this power?'

Kiet sneered. 'What power?'

At last Gazhani had a few dozen of his unmolested men assembled, now they came flooding up the courtyard. But Kiet's soldiers arrived first. One of his pyrekins opened with a wave of flames that swept in from the lanterns, and the air was soon dense with the smell of burning flesh and leather.

Khaisan snapped the young man's neck with the blink of an eye. 'Kill them all!' He ordered, but the light from Isla's pendant grew brighter, its heat burning deep into Kiet's chest.

'No!' Surely she would be not so foolish as to attempt—

Khaisan's sword dropped. He staggered back, anger and confusion all over his face. All at once the weight lifted from Kiet's body.

No. What was she thinking? How was she doing it? Kiet leapt to his feet, drawing Sandyakala from its sheath. But someone pulled Khaisan back moments before his blade would graze his nephew's chest.

Gazhani's dha met his kalis with a clatter and screech.

'I've not done what he accuses me of.' Kiet disengaged and held his weapon to a guard. 'And I'll not start now.'

'It does not need to end this way, Kiet.' Gazhani circled him, calm as a breeze. Much of Kiet's own skill with the blade had from him come, but the composure most of all. Kiet's men were holding their own around him, but they were falling; outmatched, outnumbered against the endless influx of Maha Garda.

'Let me prove my innocence.'

'Yield. Bind yourself. Your men will be spared and I will do what I can to see to a just trial.'

And Isla? 'A just trial.' The theurgic cuff was cold in Kiet's offhand. He stuffed it into the pocket of his robe. 'Tell me, commander, how will you ensure that?'

'How will you prove your innocence?' Gazhani struck forwards, fast and sudden—but the blow was meant only to disarm him, and with a turn of his wrist Kiet let the commander's edge pass harmlessly through his flat.

Where is she? Isla could never hold against Khaisan for long. His nephew was hunched a stone's throw away, fenced from battle by a handful of the Maha Garda. Isla must have dropped her coercion on everyone else to muster the strength to subdue Khaisan, and even then she struggled to overpower him. His eyes still fought for clarity, his hands trembled back and forth, reaching for the sword that lay abandoned before him.

What is her plan? Have him slit his own wrists? Cut his own neck?

Across the court, Nagha called out with a snap of his hooked beak. He may be free of Khaisan's bending, but the rope and net still kept him from true flight. A good dozen men ringed him with spears, pushing him into his cage, but he made them earn it with their eyes and fingers.

Kiet realised it suddenly with a cold rush. It was now her buying him time.

Kill Khaisan, free the bird.

Easier said than done, my love. Besides, Nagha had grown large, but not large enough to carry the weight of a full-grown adult, let alone two; and if she thought he would leave her in the hopes that she would make it to the tunnels in time—

Gazhani's dha sung low. Kiet leapt back, weaving around a pair of grappling men. A sword came slicing up but he caught it between the waves of his kalis. He gripped the man who dared interrupt, dug his nails into his arm and drank before pulling the soldier—dazed and weakened—into the commander's path.

'You're distracted.' Gazhani merely stepped around the stumbling man, his sword held now low in a resting serpent. Even for a dha was his a short blade, and the commander already made a fast opponent without it.

He pushed Kiet further and further back with every cut, his steel a white blur in the copper light. Kiet glanced each blow off his own blade, here and there stealing for a glimpse through the tangle of battle around him.

Another quick thrust, this one proving Gazhani's point, and Kiet edged back as the sharp pain rippled from his side. The attack had come too shallow and too wide for any serious injury, but it was deep enough to incapacitate a man.

But Gazhani forgot with whom he was dealing.

Kiet had drunk twice already within the hour. His offhand twitched with the raw power swimming in its veins, itching for a fuller taste. For the first time in so long, he obliged.

Kiet drew into his core every last drop—a long thirst finally quenched. He sighed. How he had forgotten that sweet ecstasy; the relief that coursed through his muscles, the air that filled his head, the blood that pumped afresh in his beating heart. More, it begged, more!

Another sword came for him from aside, broad and heavy and slow. Kiet stepped in quick with a slash to the man's gut. His leather tore with a beautiful whisper, almost inaudible with all the screaming and clashing. But Kiet could hear everything; every gasp and shudder beside him. The pain was already gone from his side. He danced away from another blade, deflected a second as he spun—but they were all around him, now. His own men were down to a scatter, and there were fewer yet who had managed to rally behind him.

Isla's pendant dimmed. She's losing it. Kiet snapped back to attention just as Gazhani lurched forwards. He caught the thrust of his dha in time, swiped it away before meeting him high in a bind. For a few seconds were they locked, testing the other's weight, and then came the shot to his shoulder.

An arrow sunk hard into Kiet's arm. He cried out more from shock than pain, dulled as it was by his theurgy—but in the small fraction that his hold faltered, Gazhani slipped free of his bind and the edge of his upswept blade came slashing across Kiet's chest.

This time, the pain did reach him. He stumbled back with a howl but managed to keep from falling. Isla's bloodrune was flickering, its light fading even more—he had to keep pushing on. She'll not hold it for much longer.

Of course not.

That she succeeded in the first place was still inexplicable to Kiet. He needed to get to Khaisan, subdue him before he subdued her—but there were an endless stream of soldiers coming between him and his nephew. He could exert his jii, but that would incapacitate Isla as much as it would incapacitate Khaisan's soldiers, and to have her fold whilst she was battling for control in Khaisan's mind ...

Kiet grit his teeth, wrenched the arrow off his shoulder, and charged through, two of his men at his shoulders. An eyrkin stepped out behind Gazhani's ranks and with a push of his hands sent a wild wind through both friend and foe. One of Kiet's men went careening back with a force that knocked three others into a heap on the ground. It was a good second before they disentangled themselves and rolled to their feet, and in that brief moment Kiet glimpsed the walkway behind them all, basked in the glow of fire and moonlight.

They stood just by the edge of the steps, Sindhu holding Isla up by her waist.

What are they doing here, so close to battle? 'The tunnels!' He waved at them, yelling curses at his servant. 'Get her out of here!'

Sindhu shouted something back, but he heard nothing over all the clatter and screams. Kiet turned, drove his kalis into the eyrkin's gut just as he was building another blow, but not before drinking from him. A little of his pain subsided, but the warmth was still rapidly dissipating from his chest. Isla's pendant was cooling, he realised with a dread far greater than any jii he had ever felt.

How long had she now been fighting in Khaisan's head?

His kalis ripped through a man's arm, taking a chunk of his flesh in its waves.

Did she know not what he could do to her from within?

Gazhani's winged honour hat flashed in the corner of his eyes, but Kiet was interested in only one man, and there he was, across the fray. Khaisan was rising to his feet, his face contorted in anger, glowing red from ear to ear. 'I—see—you!' he declared into the air, his voice rising above the sounds of battle.

Isla collapsed into Sindhu's arms just as the bloodrune turned dull in its cage.

'No!' Kiet's own cry was drowned between Khaisan's victorious roar and the discordant pitch that rung through his ears. Two of his soldiers dropped like rag dolls to the ground, necks cracking at a grotesque angle.

'Khaisan!' Kiet kicked a man down, plunged his blade into the back of another. Someone cut him across his shoulder, down his back. The pain blossomed over him slowly at first, then all at once. Still he pushed his way towards his nephew. He grabbed a man by the neck and fed from him, but it was not enough. He was losing too much blood and too quickly, his jii would never be strong enough to subjugate Khaisan's—

Then his nephew turned and his eyes found him.

He was too weak, too tired to resist the invisible force that clamped suddenly down around his neck. Khaisan's theurgy was feeble still after Isla's mind-crafting, but with every breath Kiet felt it gathering heat, building tighter and tighter, lifting him higher and higher ...

Then something hurtled between them and shattered inches from his nephew's feet, and the court turned dark.

Sindhu's smoke bomb.

Kiet coughed and spluttered as its acrid smell flooded his lungs. The haze stung his eyes, but at least Khaisan's theurgy faded in the rising darkness. Everyone turned into shadows in the swirling smoke, choking and flailing aimlessly. It bought him time, but the fumes would remain not for long, and he could never make it to Khaisan—especially not when he was equally as blinded.

Kiet dropped low and squinted in the darkness. Someone was coming for him—a shadow that knew exactly where it was going. Once again Kiet stirred his core awake, his fingers already twitching for another drink—but the clouds parted as the figure approached, and Kiet could make enough of his face. It was Sindhu, running between his men with a cloth covering half his face.

And he had come alone.

'Why are you still here?' demanded Kiet, the anger only aggravating his lungs. 'You should be taking her to the tunnels!'

Sindhu only shook his head. 'I cannot wake her, m-maharaj.'

And he certainly cannot carry her. Not with those needle arms. 'How many of those bombs have you left?' The smoke was the only thing holding Khaisan's theurgy at bay. They would need a lot of it if he were to carry Isla all the way to the tunnels ... but there were also the rest of Khaisan's soldiers to account for ...

The look of defeat on Sindhu's face said it all. 'This was n-not our p-plan.'

'Plan? You should have left when you had the chance!'

'They would've k-killed you the second they had you in their d-d-dungeons!'

Kiet grabbed him by the wrist, pulled him down into a whisper. 'And now they will kill us all!'

'No, m-maharaj.' He squeezed Kiet's hand just as hard, his eyes wide and glassy. 'I'm sorry about your dhayang.'

Kiet realised too late. The last thing he remembered was a flash of silver as Sindhu slipped a ring around his finger, and then the world went quiet.

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↝ END CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR ↜

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☆ this chapter is dedicated to KaiSpeir ☆

Video: Song is 너, 너 (You, You) by The Stray
Image: Top right image—© Aliya Chen at ArtStation; remaining images—original artists unknown