To Laya’s shock, her mother let out an ungainly curse. Then her gaze locked on the Kulaws. With a grunt, she hurled a chunk of earth in their direction. It missed them by mere inches, smashing into the dirt at their feet. Imeria stumbled back to avoid it. Vikal dragged her and Luntok bodily from the fighting, barking out orders to retreat. Their surviving soldiers and loyal attendants raced for the carriages.

“Don’t let them escape!” Duja yelled, her voice echoing across the cliffs. She knelt low, the ground rumbling as she erected a great wall to block Imeria from the carriage path. Ojas and his men rushed forward to detain them.

With a frustrated growl, Vikal plunged back into the fray. He headed straight for Ojas, who was limping, a blood-soaked bandage hanging from his side. Ruthlessly, Vikal dug his knee straight into his injury. Ojas yelled and toppled to the ground. Vikal raised his sword, ready to plunge it into his gut.

“No!”

Bulan threw herself in between them. Vikal was twice her size. It took all of her force to deflect his blade. She lunged, but Vikal blocked her easily. He flicked her onto the grass as if she were nothing but a fly. She yelped in pain, her weapon tumbling from her grip. He took a step toward her, his body dwarfing hers, and raised his sword once more.

“Bulan!” Hara Duja gasped. The earth cracked open as she flattened the pedestal back into the dirt. She sprinted toward her, dodging the Kulaw warriors in her path, but her husband got there first.

“Don’t you dare,” the king gritted out, swinging his sword over his head.

Hari Aki was a man of wit, not a fighter. He was no match for Vikal and his warrior’s instinct. In one sweeping motion, Vikal disarmed the king and plunged his blade into his gut.

“Father!” Laya screamed.

Time slowed down. In the moment before she blinked, her father floated, suspended in midair. His head tilted skyward, his back curved in a graceful crescent. The king was no god, but rimmed in the dying sunlight, he became a creature that did not belong to this earth. He was not falling, no, but rising to meet Mulayri in his mountain kingdom. As though the gods had called him by name. As though they had already claimed him.

When she opened her eyes, her father had crumpled onto his back. A bolt of scarlet seeped through his rumpled court silks and dripped onto the dirt. Hara Duja and Bulan huddled around him. One of Ojas’s guards fell to his knees at their side, offering his sash. They pressed it into the wound. The dirt beneath his body turned to mud where the blood continued to pool.

Weakly, he looked up. “Duja,” he said. When he opened his mouth, rivers of blood rippled down his sharp, clever chin.