CoS17

## Chapter 17

**Chapter 17** of **City of Spells** follows **Karam**.

## **Full Version**

*KARAM FELL ONTO THE SAND.*

*It only hurt for a moment—less than a moment—and it was not the kind of pain that mattered. It was like banging her knee on a table, or stepping on something sharp.*

*Quick, dull, and then gone.*

*When the bullet went through her chest, Karam didn’t feel much at all. Just the sand, wet on her face.*

*Still, her only thought was this:*I’m going to die. I think I’m really going to die. *And she had the idea that she should say something, her final words, but she couldn’t think of anything to say and when she tried to move her jaw to speak, all that came was breath.*

*“If magic won’t kill you, then maybe this will,” the Crafter said, stepping closer to her.*

*Karam tried to move to kick his legs out from under him, or charge at him, or do something, but her body felt so heavy. The*world *felt heavy and the more Karam tried to keep her eyes open, the more everything blurred.*

*She wiggled her toes, to check that she could still do that at least. Then she thought about praying to the Indescribable God, but all she wanted to do was curse it.*

*She hadn’t done everything she’d wanted to yet, had she?*

*Could she hold on if the spirits tried to take her?*

*This wasn’t her time. This wasn’t how it was supposed to happen.*

*And yet.*

*And yet.*

*“Long live the Kingpin,” the Crafter said.*

*He raised the gun again.*

*Karam waited for the warm light to reach her eyes and for the spirits to cross over into this world to ferry her back into theirs.*

*They didn’t come.*

*They didn’t need to.*

*A sword cut through the Crafter, from shoulder to torso, slicing him nearly clean in half. He fell to the beach without a scream or a gasp, just the sound of a thump in the sand.*

*Karam caught a final glimpse of Arjun, sword held high, before her eyes got too heavy to keep open.*

*“Karam,” Arjun said. “Don’t do this to me.”*

*She could hear his voice break, but she couldn’t see him.*

*She could only see Saxony’s face, Saxony’s smile, and Saxony’s freckles.*

*Just Saxony, laughing.*

*Saxony, pulling her beautiful hair back from her face.*

*Saxony making her promise to come back alive.*

*“Karam!”*

KARAM SHOT up and reached instinctively for her knife, but the clearing where she and Arjun had set up camp was quiet.

She touched a hand to her heart. It was beating normally, fine, as though death hadn’t come looking for her.

“Bad dream?” Arjun asked.

He sat up from the ground where he had been sleeping beside her.

“I’m okay,” she said.

Arjun didn’t look convinced, but Karam was too tired for convincing.

“How is it?” Arjun asked, gesturing to her chest.

The place the bullet had gone in.

Where Karam’s hand still pressed against her heartbeat.

“You healed it fine,” she said. “As though it never happened.”

But it had happened.

Too much had happened.

“We should leave when the sun comes up,” Karam said. “We’ve spent too long here.”

Here being the Barren Woods of Tisvgen, where Arjun had taken her to heal the rest of her wound. It was a short walk from the Shores of the Dead, and the only shelter they had. It had been three days now—two of which Arjun had spent finishing off the healing on Karam’s wound and his own—plus this one, where all Karam wanted to do was go back to Rishiya.

If Nolan had sent them here to be killed, then who knew what he had sent back to Rishiya to kill their army? Karam couldn’t let anyone else die, not after everything.

Not after Asees.

“We can’t use the railways,” Arjun said. “I haven’t seen any trains when I’ve gone back to the shores to scout. They’re not coming here anymore.”

They both knew what that meant: Something had happened or was happening out in the world. Dante Ashwood’s hold must have been growing and when Karam finally faced Saxony and Tavia again, what would she have to help them? This mission she had been so sure of had brought them nothing but pain.

She hadn’t found Wesley. She’d only lost Asees and the six other Crafters from the Grankan Kin they had recruited.

Karam had wanted to prove she could do some good in this war, and all she had done was lose them more soldiers.

“We’re never going back,” Arjun said.

“Don’t say that.”

“We’re stuck here.”

“We’re not. There has to be a way back.”

“A way back? Neither of us can swim!” Arjun yelled. “And even if we could, it’s miles and miles across the waters. There are no trains, do you hear me? There is *nothing* between us and Rishiya. We can’t go back. We’re trapped here and we’ll die here, just like Asees and the others.”

He threw the blankets off of himself and stood. Karam wasn’t sure what she could do but stand by his side. There wasn’t anything she could say to make it better.

“I don’t know what to do,” Arjun said, burying his face in his hands. “They’re all still on the beach. She’s still . . .”

He dropped off and shook his head, collapsing down beside the small fire they had lit before they drifted off to sleep.

The bodies of his Kin were still scattered across the Shores of the Dead. Karam and Arjun hadn’t had the time to give them a proper funeral, and apparently nobody was coming to Tisvgen anymore.

“That’s what we’ll do first, then,” Karam said. “We’ll send their spirits off well, so that they may join the Indescribable God. After that, we’ll figure out the rest.”

Arjun nodded. “Okay,” he said, and that was all he said.

Even as they gathered what little supplies they had left, rolling up their blankets into their bags and hooking knives to their belts and swords to their shoulder straps, Arjun stayed quiet.

It was only just before they left that he gathered the small barrel of rainwater and turned to her. “Swear that we’ll avenge them,” he said.

“I swear it,” she promised him.

And then Karam watched as Arjun threw water over the fire and the light turned to ash.

IN WRENYAL, when a person died, their body was turned to flame and thrown into sacred water, so that their spirit could be free to escape this world and travel on to the next to join the Indescribable God.

The Onnela Sea wasn’t divine water, but it was water nonetheless and it was the thing that circled this realm before joining on to the mighty ocean that led to Wrenyi. If Karam thought about it that way, then it seemed better, as though the ashes of their friends might just find their way back home to their own realm.

They had gathered the bodies of their fallen soldiers and placed them into a circle, where Karam and Arjun now stood in the center. Karam tried not to look at their faces, but she couldn’t help it. Asees looked calm, not like she was sleeping, but like she was taking in the beauty of the shores and the smell of the ocean salt.

“Let us pray,” Arjun said.

The spell took a few minutes. Arjun couldn’t conjure flame from nowhere like Saxony could and so he had to call upon the spirits to grant him the element.

Karam held his hand until the spell took hold, and together they watched the Shores of the Dead burn.

The bodies of Arjun’s Kin were alight in beautiful yellow flame, so close to the gold of their staves. As the fire grew, so did the wind, and Karam could see Arjun focus his powers to mold the breeze. It swirled around the flames until finally the fire diminished and ash circled in the air.

Arjun kept a tight hold on Karam’s hand.

“Go in peace,” he said. “Be with the spirits and with our god, and look down on us in love, knowing we are warm and we are safe.”

“Go in peace,” Karam echoed.

The ashes of the Kin danced together and swept toward the water. They hovered for a moment and Karam knew that Arjun was hesitating.

She squeezed his hand.

“Let them rest,” she said.

Arjun took in a breath and the ashes slowly fell into the sea.

Karam looked into the distance, hoping there would be answers somewhere on the shores. She wanted to think of something perfect to say to him or something perfect to do to take his mind off of everything. She wanted—

Karam paused.

She didn’t see answers, but she could see *something* on the part of the shore where the forest that had hid them met the sea.

“Are those boats?” she asked.

Arjun turned to follow her stare. “Are *what* boats? Those floating dots?”

“They’re boats,” Karam said, firmer this time.

She could see the outline of their frames and the way they bobbed on the small carcass of wood they were tied to.

“You’ve got eyes like an eagle,” Arjun said.

Karam didn’t answer, she just ran. She ran over the wet sand so fast that her thighs began to ache and the sound of Arjun calling her name as he chased after her faded, as the wind blew so strongly in her ears.

She ran for miles.

For what felt like an hour.

And then she reached them and she saw that she was right.

There were four rowboats pitched to a small pier that was barely the length of an old oak tree. The wood looked a little rotten, but she couldn’t see any holes in the frames and the oars were still intact.

“Are you training for some kind of athletic competition?” Arjun asked.

He was breathless and when Karam turned to face him, Arjun’s hands were pressed against his knees as he bent over to gulp in the air.

“This is how we get back,” Karam said. “This is how we cross to Rishiya without the railways.”

“They’re boats,” Arjun said, as if Karam hadn’t noticed. “You want to cross to another city in those?”

She nodded.

“Karam, we don’t know how to row.”

“We don’t need to.”

“They’re *row*boats,” Arjun said. “And I don’t even think these old things could handle the task.”

He stepped toward them and knocked one lightly with his foot.

“It would be two days’ journey at least.”

“You’re a Spiritcrafter,” Karam said to him. “With the help of your magic, you can harness the wind to propel us onward. We could do it in half the time and with half the effort.”

Arjun’s frown softened as he thought this over. Spiritcrafters could channel the weather, and if Arjun could help them move a train through the perilous waters of Ejm Voten, where nobody dared cross, and toward Dante Ashwood’s hidden isle, then he could push a rowboat over to the next city.

He looked to Karam, and for the first time in days, Arjun smiled.

“We’re not stuck here,” Karam said to him.”We’re going back.”