“How do you know Brother Shaan?” I ask.

Opal flicks a beetle from the tree branch, and it vanishes in the fog below. “Soldiers visited our hut in the middle of the night and broke down the door. Mother told Rohan and me to run to the Brotherhood temple. Brother Shaan hid us from them. A few months later he sneaked us into Janardan.”

“And your mother?”

The Galer pauses, her voice quieting. “She didn’t make it.”

“I’m sorry.”

Opal contemplates the persimmon in her hand. “Sometimes I hear her voice on the wind, whispering that she loves me. She’s gone, but I know it’s her, speaking to me from her next life.”

What I would give to hear Jaya’s voice again.

“Then it must be her,” I reply softly.

Opal tosses off her nostalgia. “Are you really a Burner?” she asks, more inquisitive than accusatory, but I am reluctant to answer. “Even before I saw your hand glowing last night, I knew you were. Brother Shaan swore Rohan and me to secrecy, but I had already guessed that’s how you defeated Kindred Lakia in your rank tournament. You parched her.” I startle at her perceptiveness before I can catch myself. Opal grins. “I told Rohan that’s how you won. Wait until he hears I’m right.”

I lean against an intersection of boughs, unwilling to discuss my rank tournament. I work too hard to forget it. I try to relax and recuperate from our long flight, but my muscles refuse to unwind. Did my group escape the rebels? Duty to the empire or not, we should have stayed together.

“Have you heard anything from the others?” I ask Opal.

“Not yet, but the wind always leads my brother and me to each other.”

I hug my knees to my chest, wishing I had her certainty. “Do you like hearing the secrets of the wind?”

Opal answers after finishing a yawn. “I don’t hear all secrets, but I know yours. You carry the Zhaleh.”

My spine stretches in alarm. The Zhaleh contains the bhutas’ lineage records leading back to when Anu gifted the First Bhutas with godly powers. The book also holds the incantation to release the Voider, a darkness sent to this world by the demon Kur to combat bhutas’ godly light. The warlord seeks to unleash this caged power for revenge against those who persecuted his people under Rajah Tarek’s reign. Hastin desires the promised favor the Voider is said to owe the soul who releases it. One almighty wish.

“May I see it?” asks Opal.

“Why?” I lower my fingers to my dagger sheathed against my thigh. The book cannot be taken by someone who would use it for violence or personal gain. I tire of the responsibility of guarding it. But with whom does the Zhaleh belong?

“Every bhuta’s name from the time of the First Bhutas to when Rajah Tarek stole the book is recorded within.” Opal adds in a small voice, “My mother’s name is inside.”

I have been too intimidated by the Zhaleh to thumb through its pages, not even to see my father’s name. I shiver at the thought of disturbing the book’s slumbering powers and fist the hilt of my dagger beneath my skirt. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“All right,” Opal says. I frown at her hasty compliance. She yawns again, her expression anything but sinister. “I won’t fight you for it, Kindred. I’m just curious.”

She tips her head back against the tree trunk and closes her eyes. I leave my grip on my dagger, should her cooperation be a ruse, but the only movement near us comes from a mosquito landing on my arm. Before the insect can feed off me, I heat my skin with my powers, and the mosquito shrivels to ash.

A bone-chilling yowl rises from the jungle floor. The short hairs on my arms prickle. While Opal rests, I stand watch over the rolling mists and count the minutes until we leave the Morass.

Opal frees the wing flyer from the trees with a hearty breeze, and we rise from the murky canopy into afternoon daylight. I inhale deeply, breathing easier above the closed-in jungle.

Refreshed by a nap and food, Opal calls brisk, fair winds, and we fly eastward. Drowsiness tampers with my attentiveness when the sun begins to sink at our backs and the copse of trees below is parted by a mighty green-hued river.

“The River Ninsar will lead us the rest of the way,” Opal shouts above the rushing air.

Minutes later, twinkling city lanterns manifest on the purple horizon like waking fireflies. She summons a strong gale, and we speed toward the shining beacon of Iresh, racing the final rays of daylight.

We plunge down and graze the river’s surface, our reflection darkening the jade waters. Opal dips her toe in and splashes our legs. I smile, rejuvenated by its coolness.

I’ve done it. I’ve left the Tarachand Empire.

I may as well have stepped into another world. No spiky mountains haunt my peripheral vision, and the dull orange and brown of the desert have been replaced by a flourishing oasis that could revive the whole of any wasteland. Civilization nestles in the heart of the Morass, the reddish-yellow lights the jungle’s lifeblood.

Our wing flyer stays low, gliding over the river alongside a battalion of flitting bugs. Huddled between a tremendous cliff and the River Ninsar, Iresh molds into the lush foliage.

We soar over riverboats that bob along the merchant-lined waterfront. Opal draws a wind beneath us, and we climb steeply. My stomach drops and then floats back up when we level off. I gaze down at circular bamboo huts with domed roofs. Vines buckle the narrow roadways and scale walls, the jungle veins connecting everything and everyone.

Opal flies us higher, trailing a wide, zigzagging stairway etched into the side of a craggy cliff looming over the riverside city. We crest the top, and a tremendous gold-leaf domed palace with low, flat columned outer buildings spans the breadth of the plateau. Living, breathing vines cover the Beryl Palace’s mossy walls. A waterfall engraves a raging path from the center of the palace grounds down the cliff and lays root in the river. Even here the Morass encroaches on man, but the Beryl Palace maintains firm hold against the jungle, a pillar of fortitude for the city at its feet.

The wing flyer glides to an open strip of grassland in a garden within the palace grounds. Opal reins in her winds. We land effortlessly, and she hops off the flyer. I slip down and stretch, my arms and back aching with fatigue.

Soldiers file out from the covered patios stretching alongside the grass. They line a stone path leading to a palace entry and stare straight ahead. Opal stays by the wing flyer. I hover near her, my hand tight on the turquoise hilt of my sheathed dagger. I eye the guards, absorbing every detail of their loose, buttonless tunics and skirted legs, along with the machetes at their hips and the khandas strapped to their backs. The guards in the Turquoise Palace wore stiff, high-buttoned collared jackets and long trousers. This is the first time I have seen men sporting skirts. The bagginess of their apparel must be cooler in this muggy heat.

An elegant young woman in a lime-green sari sweeps down the pathway. “You made good time. Where’s Rohan?”

“We were separated in a rebel attack,” Opal replies. “He and the remainder of the kindred’s party will join us later.”

“You must be Kindred Kalinda,” the young woman says. “I’m Princess Citra, Sultan Kuval’s eldest daughter.” She speaks the same language everyone on the continent does, but her s sounds like a z.

The princess examines me up and down with a summary frown. I am not known for my beauty. I am too thin, too tall. I wear no eye kohl or rouge staining my lips and cheeks. No makeup colors Princess Citra’s face either, yet her eyes shine like the River Ninsar, dark pools reflecting the green of the jungle. Her blackish hair hangs straight down her back, the top strands braided and twisted up in a crown. Her silky yellow-brown skin hints of floral perfume, but she is no delicate bloom. A machete hangs at her waist, and judging from her trim figure, firm stance, and sandaled feet fastened to the land, she is skilled with her blade.

Princess Citra meets my survey of her with a self-assured smirk. “Prince Ashwin requests your company straightaway.” Something possessive, even predatory, takes hold of her when she mentions the prince.

I slide a questioning glance at Opal—is the princess always this intense?—and she motions for me to follow her.

The princess leads us down the path and through a high-arched doorway into the Beryl Palace. Torches light the vacant halls. Ceramic pots with bushy plants bring the verdure of the jungle indoors. Emerald banners hang from ceiling to floor. Each corridor has a gold-framed portrait of the land-goddess Ki wearing a huge black snake draped over her shoulders—a dragon cobra—the sultanate of Janardan’s imperial symbol.

My soul-fire flickers as we navigate the corridors, shrinking and growing every so often. I would think it odd if I was not so tired. I must stoke my inner fire with food and rest. I will not be found defenseless on foreign soil.

I maintain cautious awareness of the Janardanian soldiers. Some wear a yellow cloth band tied around their upper arm, embroidered with one godly symbol: sky, land, or water. No fire symbol, so far. They must be the sultan’s bhuta guards.

“Why don’t you wear a yellow armband?” I whisper to Opal, depending on her sensitive ears to hear me.

After a glance at Princess Citra’s back, she answers. “Bhuta refugees have two choices: sign the peace treaty and agree not to use their powers or swear fealty to Sultan Kuval and join his army. Rohan opted for the latter. The sultan doesn’t retain women in his army, so I signed the treaty. I’ve been given special permission to use my powers so long as I serve as a personal servant to the prince.”

“And who are they?” I ask of the white-clad guards with shaved heads alongside the princess. They are plain faced and fit, with toned torsos and arms.

“Eunuchs. They protect the sultan’s queens, courtesans, and children.”

How strange this place is from home. Not only did Tarek not employ eunuchs to guard his women, his courtesans were forced to entertain his men of court. I grimace at the memory of Tarek’s ill-treatment of Natesa and Mathura.