I forced myself to shrug and reached for home in my mind.
The world went white. I landed on the grass, blinked, and saw my father, his face twisted with fury.
“SHARRIM! WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?”
* * *
• • •
EVERYTHING HURT. THE pain wasn’t acute, just thorough. Every cell in my body throbbed.
“ARE YOU HARD OF HEARING, SHARRIM? ANSWER ME! SHARRIM?”
It dawned on me that he expected me to make some sort of sound. “No.”
“DO YOU POSSESS THE GIFT OF SPEECH? DO YOU UNDERSTAND THE WORDS I UTTER?”
“Yes.” I sat up. I was sitting in the clearing outside our backyard. Curran, Hugh, and Elara were standing only a few yards away. They looked like they were screaming, but for some reason I couldn’t hear them.
“REPEAT BACK TO ME WHAT I SAID ABOUT NEIG’S REALM.”
“You forbade me to go,” I intoned.
“AND WHAT DID YOU DO?”
“I went.”
“SO, YOU DELIBERATELY DISOBEYED ME.”
“Yes, Mufasa.”
“DO I LOOK LIKE I AM IN THE MOOD FOR JOKES?” my father thundered.
When not sure what to say, stall for time. I had a role to play in this drama, and I had to think of exactly how to play it to push my dad over the edge. That is, assuming my aunt didn’t chicken out.
“I GAVE YOU A CLEAR SET OF INSTRUCTIONS. MORE, I EXPLAINED WHY CAUTION WAS NECESSARY.”
Curran took a running start and jumped. An invisible wall pulsed with bright crimson, and he bounced back.
“Did you set a blood ward around us, so you could scream at me uninterrupted?”
“YES!”
Of course he did. “Carry on then.”
I lay flat on the grass. It was nice and soft. Come on, Rose of Tigris. Don’t leave me hanging. If Erra didn’t show up, I’d have to rethink my strategy fast.
He bent over me. “You went into the dragon’s den. You could’ve died.”
Ah. That’s why the freak-out. “I’m alive. You’re still with us, Father. Don’t be so dramatic.”
“I WAS WORRIED ABOUT YOU, YOU FOOLISH CHILD!”
“You were worried about your own survival.”
My father slapped his hand over his face. “Why, gods? Why me? What have I done to deserve this punishment?”
“Conquered, pillaged, manipulated, imposed your will on others . . .”
“Murdered your children,” my aunt’s icy voice said behind us.
I almost cheered.
My father went completely still. I twisted my neck and saw Erra. She’d strolled through the blood ward like it wasn’t there.
“So, it is true,” he said, the ancient words lyrical and filled with pain. “You betrayed me.”
“You made an order of assassins to murder me.” There was so much in my aunt’s voice: pain, anger, surprise, grief. It almost broke me.
She could do it. If I had to swallow my pride and deal with a man who wanted to murder my child, she could deal with him, too.
“I never meant for it to be used.”
Erra raised her hand. My father fell silent.
“We’ve destroyed our family, Im,” she said. “We ruined it.”
“We were fighting a war.”
She shook her head. “Death gives you a certain perspective. We broke Shinar. It wasn’t the invaders. It was us. We grieved, and we let rage blind us. We destroyed everything our family had built. Look at us now. Look at our legacy. Mother mourns us.”
My father sneered. It was almost as impressive as when my aunt did it. Apparently, it ran in the family. “Our mother has committed plenty of her own sins.”
“This child”—Erra pointed at me—“is our best hope for the future. How could you?”
Roland raised his chin.
“Yes. I know,” she said. “You bound her. Are you really that terrified of death?”
“I did it out of love,” he ground out.
“You did a thing to a babe in the womb that cannot be undone. Do you wage war on the unborn now, Nimrod? Is this how far you have fallen?”
I got up to my feet and touched the ward. The magic clutched at my wrist. For a moment the ward became visible, a translucent dome of red glass. It held for half a breath, fractured, and shattered, melting into empty air, and Curran’s enraged face greeted me.
Here goes nothing. “It doesn’t matter,” I said. “I’ve seen Neig’s army. He has thousands of warriors. Enough to overrun the city and murder every single person who lives here. In his lair, a horde of yeddimur is waiting. He takes an offering of newborns and then he poisons them with his venom until they turn into those creatures. He told me that they are primitive and filthy beasts who know only rage and hunger and who eat their own. He says this is the true nature of humanity. He is worse than you are, Father. You seek to rule. He wants to exterminate us.”
You could hear a pin drop.
“I have no allies. I’m alone. It’s just me and the city. No help is coming. But I’m the In-Shinar and I won’t bow to a dragon. I will fight for humanity, even if nobody stands with me. I am Sharratum here. I’m responsible for this city. I won’t dishonor my blood and my family.”
Curran frowned at me. Don’t you dare ruin my speech. I pushed every button my dad had.
“Neimheadh is coming for us in three days. Atlanta will fall. We will die. Then you’ll follow, Father. Make your peace.”
I walked away and didn’t look back.
* * *
• • •
I SAT ON the porch steps and held a glass of iced tea. The ice had melted long ago, so what I had was mostly tea-flavored water. My father and my aunt still argued on our lawn. They put the blood ward back up for privacy, I suppose, which didn’t do them a lot of good, because I could still see their faces. All the arm waving and finger pointing was quite entertaining.
Curran sat on my left. Hugh leaned against the porch post on my right. Conlan was inside in the basement, surrounded by werebears and guarded by Adora and Christopher. My father would have to go through me and Curran to get to him, and if it came to that, Christopher would fly him out of there while the werebears held Roland back.
Dali and Doolittle had left once I vanished. It was just us again, family and friends. Well, us and Hugh and Elara.
My father clenched his fists. Light exploded in the dome, hiding him from view. It faded, revealing my aunt, her arms crossed on her chest. She rolled her eyes and said something.
My father spun away, throwing up his arms.
“I stand corrected,” my husband said. “There is another person who can drive your father as crazy as you.”
“This is the most human I’ve ever seen him,” I said.
“You’re not alone,” Hugh said, his voice flat. “That was some speech. I thought you’d lost your mind for a second.”
“We need his army. I primed him for my aunt. If anyone can convince him, she will.”
We watched the drama play out in the bubble. My aunt switched to lecturing. My father pinched the bridge of his nose with his hand, looking down.
“Come on, you selfish asshole,” Hugh growled under his breath.
At the far edge of the lawn, Julie had parked herself, a determined look on her face. Derek waited with her, his face impassive.
“How many troops does Neig have?” Curran asked.
“I stopped counting at thirteen thousand.”
Curran didn’t say anything. A thousand wouldn’t be a problem. Five thousand would be hard. They were armored, so we’d have to wrench them out of their armor to kill them, while they spat fire at us. Ten thousand was impossible.
Ten thousand troops, that’s more soldiers than the National Guard had pre-Shift. And Neig had even more than that.
The bubble of the ward fell. My father turned to us. My aunt walked over to the porch steps.
“Your father has agreed to ally with you to face the dragon.”
“Aha.” Waiting for the other shoe to drop.
“He wants to see Conlan,” Erra said.
“No,” Curran said.
“I will hold my grandson,” Roland said, “and he will know I am his grandfather. That’s my price.”