Prija’s eyes flew open.
I have a twin. He is the other part of me. The woman’s eyes were full of tears. If he died, I might not want to live either.
Prija looked at the sunshine man.
Maybe for him, the woman said. Maybe I would live for him. Can you live for those who love you, Prija? The woman reached back and brought a backpack out. She opened the zippered case and drew out a black-and-red-striped fabric.
Prija cocked her head. It was Intira’s weaving.
“Intira made this for you,” the scribe said. “She wanted Kyra to bring it to you. She said you’d understand.”
“She said”—Kyra spread out the weaving—“you’d understand what it meant. And that you had to come back for Intira to finish. That she wouldn’t finish unless you came back.”
Stubborn, brilliant girl. Prija still didn’t see it. She tried, but…
“Leo thinks it’s some kind of music,” Kyra said.
Music?
One of Prija’s old visions came to life. Stars across the sky. Scattered. Rising and falling voices and notes.
Of course. Intira had taken her own stars and turned them into mathematics. Into geometry. It was how she saw everything.
Did she know?
How could she have known?
She couldn’t hear anymore, but if Prija could read the music, she could kill Arindam the same way she’d killed her father.
This time when she opened her mouth, she couldn’t stop the words.
“Who showed her this song?”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Kyra couldn’t speak Lao, but Leo could.
“Vasu,” he said. “At least that’s who we think showed her.”
“I don’t know… Vasu.” Prija’s voice sounded like rusted nails.
“He’s one of the Fallen.”
Prija’s lip curled.
“But he’s not… predatory. Or not always. He has helped us in the past. And he wants to kill Arindam.”
“Wings,” Prija choked out. “Not… real.”
“They look real to me.”
Prija shook her head. “Created. Mind.”
“He can create wings with his mind?”
Prija nodded.
“So Prija”—Leo leaned forward—“if he can create things in his mind, what can you do?”
Prija’s eyes dropped to the weaving. Then she looked at Kyra. “She hears him?”
“Yes. But she doesn’t know how to write music this way.”
“I don’t.” Prija shook her head. “Intira… not understand. Not all minds like hers.”
Leo’s heart sank. “So this means nothing to you?”
“I know what it means,” Prija said. Her voice was growing stronger the longer she spoke.
Leo handed her water and watched while she drank.
“I know,” Prija said, her voice a little smoother. “But I don’t hear anymore. She thought she could write the music so I could play, but her mind sees things that others don’t.”
Leo didn’t know how to wrap his mind around that, but he tried to make sense of what Prija was saying. “So you’re saying that if you could hear what the angel sounds like, you can do… what?”
“Is my instrument still in the complex?”
“Yes.”
“Then I can do what I do.”
“Is that how you killed your father?”
Prija offered him a narrow smile.
Leo turned to Kyra, who’d been waiting patiently while Prija and Leo spoke in words she had no way of understanding. “Can you sing Arindam’s song to Prija?”
She blinked. “Can I what?”
“Can you sing—”
“I can’t sing. Leo, you know I can’t—”
“Not magical singing. Just… singing. Let her hear what the Fallen sounds like. To your ears, sing that.”
Kyra shook her head. “I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“There are harmonics. There are multiple notes. There are—”
“Tell her to show me,” Prija said.
Leo looked between the two women. “She said you could show her.”
“Show her the music?” Kyra threw up her hands. “I can’t do that either!”
Leo smiled. “Speak to her mind, Kyra. Just like you have been. Listen to Arindam’s song and let her hear it too. You’ve done it with me!”
Kyra shook her head. “You don’t understand. I don’t know how I do that with you. I’ve never done it before. I don’t—”
“Try.” Prija spoke in broken English. She forced her lips and tongue around the words. “You try.”
Leo rose to his feet when he heard footsteps outside.
“It’s Niran,” Kyra said before he could turn. “The fight against Arindam isn’t going well.”
“I’ll go,” Leo said. “You stay with Prija and find a way, Kyra. Find a way to let her hear Arindam’s song.” He grabbed her chin and planted a hard kiss on her mouth. “I know you can do it. Just because it’s not the same as the Irina doesn’t mean you don’t have a song.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Kyra was left with Prija, still having no idea how she was supposed to “show” Arindam’s strange music to the other woman.
“You can understand English?”
Prija nodded.
“More than a little?”
Prija shrugged.
Kyra sighed. “I wish I spoke more Thai.”
“Lao,” Prija croaked. “I speak Lao.”
“Sorry. Lao.” She rose. “You need your instrument from the other building to do this?”
Prija nodded.
“Then that’s what I’m going to do.” She took the gun Leo had given her from the holster at her waist. Silence was no longer an issue. The compound around them rang with sound. Crashing and screaming for the most part. The smell of smoke filled the air. “Can you use this?”
Prija took the gun and nodded again.
“Good. Keep your back to the wall and shoot anyone not friendly.” Kyra just hoped that Rith didn’t come in. He was the only one of the party that Prija had never met. “Unless he’s carrying a black knife about this long.” She held her hands a foot apart. “That one is ours. He’s a scribe.”
Prija curled her lip, but she nodded anyway.
A thought occurred to Kyra. “The men who took you. One of them was a scribe. Is he still here?”
She shook her head. “Dead.”
All in all, it was probably for the best. They didn’t need a seasoned warrior working with their enemy. “Okay, keep your head down and I’ll be back.”
“Not hurt.” Prija sat up. “Only thirsty. Go with you.”
“I’ll bring water to you. Trust me, this place smells a lot better than the last one.” She tucked her stray hair under the watch cap she’d tugged on earlier and ducked out the doorway, following the red glow outside.
The forest was in flames.
Luckily, the compound itself was clear of most brush or anything flammable. Kyra only hoped that Sura had gotten the women away before the fire started. She ran along the path toward the women’s block where they’d rescued the others earlier, keeping to the shadows in the red glow of the forest fire. Overhead, she heard him and her eyes rose.
Arindam the Fallen was thick in the battle.
She didn’t care what Prija said, those wings were real. She’d seen angels grow into monsters. She’d seen them appear and disappear at will. She’d never seen one fly. But when she finally saw the Fallen in the red glow of the fire, she knew what Prija meant. Whatever his original form, he had taken on the body of the idol she’d seen at some of the temples. He had the head of a man with a curved beak like a vulture. His muscled arms stretched out, and wings sprouted from the bottom of them. His body was that of a man, but instead of feet, he had massive claws that clutched a flaming branch.
He perched on the top of the temple and roared over the clearing as the scribes and free Grigori shot at him. One of Niran’s men was using arrows, which seemed to be the only thing not bouncing off the monster’s skin. When he roared, Kyra felt it like a pressure in her mind. She nearly went to her knees, but she remembered Prija waiting for her and moved on. As she ran, she didn’t try to block the monster’s song out. It was the same static, pulsing with an unearthly low rhythm. She focused on it and tried to think of it like the wind through trees—low and repetitive—and not a monster’s siren call.
She entered the building where the women had been kept and was immediately hit in the face by the sour smell of urine again. Arindam truly was a monster if he could keep his own women in this filth. Kyra had seen a lot, but she’d never been subjected to conditions like this.
She ran to the back room and grabbed the long neck of the instrument she’d seen Prija playing, returning at the last minute to grab the thin bow that went with it. She rushed out and ran straight into Leo.
“What are you doing?” he shouted.
“Getting her instrument!” She looked over his shoulder. “What are you doing?”
“Getting nowhere in this fight. This angel is impenetrable to bullets, and we only have one archer.”
“Not something you foresee taking into battle anymore.”
“Niran anticipated.” Leo grimaced. “We’ve killed all the Grigori or they’ve run. It’s just the angel, but nothing we do is working. We can’t even reach him. I think he’s laughing at us.”