Well, everything save the heart of a king. But she’d worry about that later.

Everywhere Karina turned, the Faceless King’s eyes seemed to follow her, though she knew it was a simple trick of the mural. He was technically her ancestor, but Karina felt nothing but contempt for the figure. He’d forfeited any right to be remembered as family when he’d betrayed Bahia.

Karina’s stomach tightened in on itself, and she noticed Adil eyeing the centuries-old fruit lining the stalls. Eventually, it got to the point where they were both too tired and hungry to walk another step, and they lay on the ground side by side next to the roaring river. Karina stared up at what she could see of the top of the cavern, and tried to remember if fatigue or starvation would kill a person first.

She glanced at Adil out of the corner of her eye, and the memory of the kiss that had almost occurred just before they’d defeated the serpopard sent heat curling through her core.

“Is something the matter?” he asked. Karina shook her head, but the image of Adil’s mouth on hers refused to leave it.

“No. Though since you saved my life, I believe I owe you an apology for dropping you in the lake.”

“It’s all right. Besides, it helped me sober up, which I desperately needed.” Adil paused. “However, if I may ask about the conversation we were having before that, why do you want me to leave the competition?”

Karina’s fantasies shattered as she saw the genuine hurt in Adil’s eyes. She supposed that after all they’d been through, the least she could do was give him part of the truth.

“My father broke a previous engagement to be with my mother, and his family disowned him as a consequence,” she replied slowly. “After going through all that, he moved into Ksar Alahari, only to discover he loathed palace life. He loved my mother and sister and me, but the court made him miserable.” Karina sighed. “My mother tried to shield him from the worst of their machinations, but they got to him all the same. In the last years of his life, he rarely left his quarters when not forced to. Is that really the kind of life you’d choose for yourself?”

Of the three remaining Champions, Adil was the only one who had not grown up knowing how insidious courtly life really was. It pained her to imagine the boy’s kindness being warped into something ugly by people like her, almost as much as it pained her to imagine ripping the heart from his chest. She didn’t want to kill this boy. She wouldn’t.

For several long moments the only sound was the gentle ripple of the river, and Karina was grateful that Adil didn’t rush to speak. Even after all these years, recalling Baba’s story stung in a place she did not know how to name. There were only so many ways to reckon with the fact that one of the people she’d loved most in the world had made himself miserable just to stay by her side.

Adil finally spoke. “What was your father like?”

Karina closed her eyes and thought, her lips curling into a wistful smile. “He could make anyone laugh, even my mother. He was the best musician I’ve ever heard. There wasn’t a song he couldn’t play perfectly after hearing it once. And if you’re going to say you’re sorry, don’t. It doesn’t change anything.”

“I wouldn’t say that.” Adil’s voice was soft, far from the beguiling tone he’d used during the Second Challenge, yet Karina was enraptured all the same. “Sorry, that is. When my father . . . when he left us, all anyone would say was, ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry.’ I always hated it, because it’s not like ‘sorry’ would bring him back. So . . . I won’t say I understand how you feel, but I know what you mean.” He paused. “For what it’s worth, it’s clear you loved him a lot.”

“I do.”

Silence fell between them as they lay there, each lost in a world of their own. Karina suspected it would always hurt to access the part of her heart that held Baba. But talking with this strange, night-eyed boy who had surprised her again and again . . . It didn’t make the pain disappear, but for the first time, the thought of facing it didn’t scare her.

There was something about Adil that Karina couldn’t put into words, something kind and courageous that she had never felt before. But even more than that, when she spoke, he actually listened. And he trusted her in a way no one, not even Farid or Aminata, ever had before. He’d trusted her with his life during the serpopard attack, and the gravity of that was both heartwarming and intimidating.

“If I asked you to catch me the moon with your bare hands, how would you do it?” she asked suddenly.

Adil closed his eyes, and Karina could not stop staring at the way the gold light illuminated his dark skin. “When the moon began to set, I’d wait with my hands beneath it until it sank right into them. And then I’d turn around and give it to you.” He turned to his side and gave Karina a shy smile. “But that’s a stupid answer, isn’t it?”

All at once, the world was too much and not enough, as if one wrong word might break it into a million tiny pieces. Karina felt like she’d tripped over a barrier she hadn’t even known was there, and then not realized she was falling until the ground had rushed to meet her.

Yet the impact didn’t hurt. Karina knew pain, and this dizzying feeling was far from it.

“It’s not,” she replied, breathless. “It’s not stupid at all.”

That she would come to such a realization here, within a stone’s throw of the worst violence her family had ever been forced to endure, was a testament to the strange, unknowable way in which the world operated.

But it didn’t matter, because if Adil won Solstasia, he’d die, and if he didn’t, they would never be together. Whatever was happening between them couldn’t happen, and that was that.

Karina’s chest constricted, and she forced herself to look at the waves of the Gonyama. Santrofie had told her to trust the river, and it had brought her to the blood moon flower. Perhaps trusting it would bring her where she needed to go one more time.

“I think we should try to get out through the river,” Karina declared, hoping the idea sounded better aloud than it did in her head.

Adil stared at her. “The river that almost killed us.”

Karina sighed. It did not sound better aloud.

“But it didn’t.” Was it her imagination, or was her voice higher than normal? How was someone supposed to speak to the person they were maybe possibly falling for? “Besides, I don’t see you coming up with any better ideas.”

“But at least I’m not suggesting we jump in the river.”

They both snorted, too tired to laugh.

With no other options to try, they returned to the spot where they had first climbed from the water. The current was still strong enough that they’d die if they hit the riverbank or a rock in the wrong way.

But Santrofie was her patron deity. Surely he wouldn’t suggest something that would kill her. Karina held her hand out to Adil. “Trust me.”

Adil’s eyes darkened, disarming Karina momentarily until he nodded and grabbed her hand. An odd shiver spread through her, not unlike the feeling of stepping into the shade after a day in the sunlight. But as soon as the feeling came, it was gone.

Karina took one last look at the necropolis, burning into her memory every face that had been trapped down there for far too long. She understood why her ancestors had chosen to keep this place intact, but no longer. Once she was officially sultana, her first act would be to have the necropolis destroyed and to give every person here a proper burial. Slaves deserve to be remembered just as much as queens.

With one last breath and Adil’s hand tight around hers, Karina leaped into the water.

The force of the Gonyama crushed down on her once more, and all too soon her lungs screamed for air. Just as Karina’s vision began to dim, her head broke the surface, and she tasted cool night air as the river deposited her on the bank of the canal that ran behind the palace kitchens.

Stars shined down on Karina as she coughed water from her lungs. Thank the Great Mother, it was still night on the fourth day of Solstasia; she still had three full days to complete the ritual. Her bushel of blood moon flowers was waterlogged but miraculously unharmed.

Karina looked up at six servants who stared at her with wide eyes. Knowing she probably had only minutes until the news of her return spread, she ordered, “Get me a towel. And Farid.”