And yet . . .

The glory of storytelling during the Second Challenge. The way the people had believed in him as their Champion with all their hearts and souls. Boadi’s relief when Malik had intervened on his behalf at Dar Benchekroun. Those moments had belonged to the false persona he’d created, but they were still as dear to him as any of the ones that came before. If only for a little while, he had created something good in the world, and try as he might, Malik could not hate himself for that.

“You tear yourself down for things you could not have known or done,” said Nyeni. “Why punish a seed for not yet being a tree?”

For the first time, Malik truly looked at the griot—past her tattoos and laugh and strange powers, into eyes as human as any Malik had ever known.

“You aren’t a person,” he said.

Nyeni grinned. “An astute observation. One last riddle for you, man-pup: Who am I?”

The griot always knew what was going on, whether she chose to divulge that information or not. She had taken over the chipekwe’s body so easily on Solstasia Eve, and she had no trouble coming and going wherever she pleased.

But most telling of all was Nyeni’s body-heaving cackle, a laugh Malik had only ever heard associated with one creature.

“. . . Hyena,” he breathed out.

The second the name left his mouth, Nyeni’s face twisted into itself. Her nose grew longer and darker, fur matching her tattoos sprouted over her body, and her teeth grew past her chin, until the griot resembled more the animal she was than the human she’d been.

“I honestly thought you would figure it out long before this.” Her laughter rattled the stone around them. Malik didn’t know whether to bow or cower.

Hyena was an anomaly even among their myths, a creature who existed somewhere beyond the boundaries of human, animal, spirit, and god. That she would stand before Malik was impossible, but after all he’d witnessed during Solstasia, the word no longer held any meaning.

Hyena continued, “I have seen our world on the brink of destruction time and time again, man-pup, but Idir poses a threat unlike any I have ever known. He has let his grief consume him into a shadow of the being he once was, and if left unchecked, it will consume the whole world as well. You are one of the last ulraji in existence, which is what drew his attention to you in the first place. If anyone has a chance to go against Idir and win, it’s you.”

“But you’re one of the most powerful creatures alive. Can’t you stop him?”

“If I could, I would have done so already. I may not be human, but I am still bound by the Ancient Laws same as you, as well as by oaths that I cannot break.” For the first time, the smile dropped from Hyena’s face. “Besides, I already interfered with the story of this world a thousand years ago. Never again. I am not, and should not be, the one who faces Idir.”

“But if you can’t defeat him, how can I?” Malik had learned the hard way that his magic was no match for the spirit’s. If Hyena was telling the truth and it was up to him to confront Idir, then the world was as good as doomed.

Hyena’s grin returned. “That, man-pup, is an answer you’ll need to find on your own. But two words of advice before I go, though your kind are notoriously bad at heeding it. First, a story ends when it ends, and not a moment before. If you are unhappy with this ending, make a new one.” Hyena looked over her shoulder at something Malik could not see. “And second, the people meant to help you are often far closer than you realize.”

And then a voice Malik had thought he’d never hear again rang out. “Malik?”

The world seemed to stop. “Leila?”

Malik turned to Hyena, ready to yell if this was another one of her deceptions, but the trickster was gone. He pushed himself against the wall, as if that might remove the thick stone separating him from his older sister.

“Are you all right? Did they hurt you?” he asked. All this time, Leila had been only a few feet away, and he’d been too lost in his own despair to notice.

“I’m fine. They didn’t even put me in chains. What day is it? They won’t tell me if Solstasia is over or not. Did you . . .” Leila’s voice trailed off, and a lump rose in Malik’s throat.

“It was all a trap. I used the spirit blade on Karina, but it didn’t work. It was never supposed to work.”

Fighting back tears, Malik told his sister everything. He left nothing out, not even the parts that made him sound as awful as he now felt. His voice cracked as he revealed his connection to the Ulraji Tel-Ra and again when he described the kiss and the subsequent failed assassination. Even now, with everything he’d loved stripped away, Malik could not forget that kiss; it would haunt him forever, a single glimpse of what his life had almost been.

“You were right,” said Malik. “I was so caught up in being Champion and so confused by my own feelings that I didn’t see what was right in front of me. And now Nadia is—she’s going to . . .” Malik had promised himself he wouldn’t cry. He didn’t want to burden Leila any more than he already had. “I’m sorry. And thank you. I know I don’t say it enough, but thank you.”

“You don’t have anything to thank me for,” she said softly, and Malik could hear her fighting back her own tears as well. “What I said at the Midway, it wasn’t fair. You didn’t ask for any of this, and I . . . I’m not used to not knowing what to do. You and Nadia have been in danger this whole week while I’ve been powerless to stop it, and—I’m so, so sorry.”

Malik wished they were in the same room so he could lay his head against his sister’s shoulder. “If I don’t have to thank you, then you don’t have to apologize to me.”

“Deal. Besides, you’re my little brother. If you didn’t drive me mad, who would?”

The tiniest sliver of hope flickered in Malik’s chest. Being together again wasn’t going to fix everything, but it was already making him feel better. Maybe that was all it had to do.

“All right, enough weeping for now. Let’s focus,” said Leila, and Malik had never been so happy to be ordered around in his life. “Hyena implied the only way we can save Nadia now is by stopping Idir. Perhaps you’re supposed to enchant him with an illusion.”

Malik shook his head. “I tried that before, and it didn’t work. Besides, I can’t use my magic right now. I think the chains are blocking it.” He reached for his power once more. Nothing. Being without his magic felt so wrong, like walking into a dark room while naked and vulnerable. Shifting in his chains, Malik racked his brain for anything that might help him defeat Idir. There had to be something that even he could do, or else Hyena wouldn’t have bothered suggesting it at all.

This was just another riddle. Next to running, riddles were what he did best.

The answer had to lie with Idir himself. He was many things—spirit, father, king. He was prideful and sarcastic, as mercurial as the river he drew his power from.

And he was vengeful. For a thousand years, Idir had honed his wrath into a weapon sharp enough to destroy anyone who got in his way.

But that was the problem with blades. Once sharpened, they could be used against enemy and wielder alike. If Malik wanted any chance of defeating the obosom, he’d have to use Idir’s anger against him.

“What was that thing you told me about on the second day of Solstasia?” Malik asked, an idea dawning on him. “About binding a spirit?”

“A binding only works if the thing you are binding it to is stronger than the creature you are trying to bind.” Malik could practically hear the pieces turning in Leila’s mind as she examined their conundrum. “When Bahia Alahari bound Idir, she needed an entire separate realm to contain him. What do we have that’s strong enough to hold him a second time?”

That was an excellent question that Malik did not have the answer to. He wasn’t as advanced at magic as Bahia Alahari had been, and he didn’t have access to another realm to banish Idir to. What he needed was some sort of neutral ground, a place where he was more powerful than the Faceless King.

But it was as Hyena said. This story wasn’t over until it was over, and he refused to let it end here when there was something he still hadn’t tried.

“I don’t know, but I have to do something.” Malik rattled his chains. “There has to be a way out of here.”

“Can you still summon the spirit blade?” asked Leila.

Malik did so, clutching the dagger uselessly behind his back. “Yes, but I can’t reach my chains like this.”

He could practically hear the grin in his sister’s voice. “Oh, you’re not going to use it on you.”

Minutes later, Leila was screaming at the top of her lungs.

“Help! My brother, he’s hurt himself!”

In seconds, a guard appeared outside Malik’s cell. He swore an oath at the sight of Malik splayed on the ground, the spirit blade protruding from his chest and his body unnaturally still.

“How did this even happen?” the guard snapped, unlocking the cell door and rushing inside.