This was not my ending.

I did not want a hero’s death. I did not want to die in the Underworld, my story reduced to a function, a meal to sate the appetite of ghosts.

Craven, hissed the ojiji. Deserter. Justice—justice! Pay the price. Don’t you care?

“I do care,” I told them, out loud. “I want justice—for you. For everyone. But I have to find a balance. It isn’t enough to pay for past abuses. I have to find a future to live for too.”

The voices paused, considering. Well then, they asked, voices dripping with contempt, what will you live for, Empress Redemptor? What could be more important than us?

I had no answer. My mind yawned blank as wind howled around the tower, raising goose bumps on my skin. Faintly, I realized that the battle had not ended with Zuri’s death. His prediction had been wrong—once the warlords were dead, some of the warriors did not immediately retreat, continuing to cut down commoners.

I gripped the tower balustrade, swearing in helpless rage. “No!” Had all of it been for nothing—the Pinnacle, Zuri’s sacrifice? Would today still end in a massacre?

Then drums sounded in the air—first far away, then nearer, and in a sequence I recognized. Before my eyes, cohorts of plainclothes warriors seemed to pour in from nowhere, flooding into the front lines and overwhelming both warlord and commoner forces.

“Lay down your weapons,” barked a familiar voice. “Down! Let the peasants go free. There will be no more slaughter today.” My vision blurred with incredulous tears. For there on the battlefield, leading the charge against the warlords’ forces, was High General Sanjeet of Dhyrma.

CHAPTER 28

When I descended from the tower, a different battle seemed to be raging in the fortress—one of panicked greed instead of blood and justice. Djbanti courtiers fought with one another in the mudstone fortress corridors, barking at servants, stuffing sacks with tapestries, earthenware, sconce figurines of gold and ivory—any riches they could carry from the now-fallen royal house of Wanguru.

I glided through the looting mobs, numb and directionless until a voice Ray-spoke in my thoughts, low and anxious.

Where are you, sunshine girl? Answer me. Please. Tar, are you all right?

I was too dazed to respond, but could sense the speaker moving toward me, searching the fortress, rounding corners until he appeared before me in a corridor, his armored chest rising and falling.

I said nothing, not quite believing he was there. I’d certainly had more implausible visions. Though in those, I saw floating, undead children—not a man with tea-colored eyes, blood-spattered clothes, and a musical, cavernous voice I had not heard in months.

“Tar,” he breathed, dropping his scimitar to the ground. Absently, I wondered why he wasn’t wearing his Imperial Guard uniform. “I was so worried. When we saw the peasants had killed King Zuri, we couldn’t find you, and I thought . . . but you’re alive. Am’s Story”—his gaze dropped to my mask, which glittered with all twelve colors—“you’re more than alive. You’re . . . done. Then you managed to anoint Zuri before he—”