Lux dove to the safety of a random building’s front as a death-cart passed over the exact space she’d been a moment before. Barreling away, the driver, a reaper, waved his crop in the airat her in irritation before shifting in his seat, hunching forward. The old horse picked up its pace.
And she watched as a foot bounced along in its new rhythm. Blue, stiff, and covered with monstrous black boils, it fell further from beneath its covering. One by one, the pustules burst. Dark fluid spread like ink upon parchment. Lux had never seen anything like it. Just as she had never seen a death-cart move so fast, or a driver so panicked.
She returned to the street, glancing back the way it’d come, and then toward its destination.
She broke into a sprint.
Slumped over the bridge’s joined stones, Lux heaved gulping breaths. The wagon had slowed at last, navigating the narrow path with care before reaching the grassy stretch on its opposite side. With another crack through the air, the reaper pushed the horse faster than it had likely gone in years, disappearing into the hovering tree line.
Lux swore she heard them groan in anticipation.
She had never crossed the bridge. Not even when it was her own parents entering the looming darkness. The trees tracked her movements, she was sure of it, and she didn’t know what they would do to her should she enter their domain.
And so, she waited.
She waited until the reaper’s eyes widened above his simple black mask, taking her in upon his return. He slowed the horse to a stop, and the poor beast was too tired to even blow out a breath of greeting as it lowered its head in appreciation of the reprieve.
“Well, well. The little girl that almost hitched a ride to the trees.” His eyes creased at their corners as he jabbed a thumb at the wagon behind him. Clearly having been relieved of his cargo had elevated his spirits.
“I never knew death-carts could move so fast.” Lux sniffed at his flippant disregard in nearly trampling her. “And I’ve never seen a body covered in black, festering boils before. Do you know what caused the death?”
The man shrugged. “I don’t get paid enough to care. All I know is the building he came from stunk of jasmine and rotten flesh. Bad mix.” He shuddered, his mask slipping from his hooked nose. “I wanted that body out of my wagon as fast as could be.”
“Which side of town?”
The man studied her like she’d gone addled before his mouth twisted beneath the fabric stretched across it. “Which do you think?”
Chapter nine
Twilight found her proppedagainst the bridge, staring into the trees with a fiercer expression than was her norm. Though, for once, it wasn’t directed at the wood itself, or even in remembrance of her parents. Tonight, Lux focused on the mayor.
Waves of grey crawled toward her, rolling from the impassable marshes and across Ghadra’s bleak walls to greet the forest beyond. The trees swallowed it greedily, but Lux barely registered the damp clinging to her.
Two hundred and twenty-seven.The mayor celebrated each and every birthday with a fanfare second only to the Festival of Light at high summer. Of course, only the wealthy were invited, those above Ghadra’s invisible line. And Lux herself, though she’d yet to attend.
Self-centered clod.He spent more on those parties than would be required to feed the poor of his city for months—and Lux had never truly cared what he did. Until now. Because it hadbeen one thing to count on her attempts at his revival being rendered useless someday soon, an end to the mayor’s reign in sight, a decade or two out of reach. But now… Now Ghadra sank beneath a man seeking immortality, who clearly didn’t care how he achieved it.
“What have I done?”
The trees bent and sighed, lapping at her horror like parasites. Maybe she would have noticed it sooner had she not been so absorbed in her own misery. If she’d not purposefully dulled her senses, her emotions, her mind. Maybe—
Lux pressed the heels of her palms to her eyes and forced the guilt back. She couldn’t change the past version of herself. The version that had crawled within, folded about her insides, shutting out the world even as it clawed for air that was alwaysjustout of reach. And light... Light so unreachable, it may as well have been lost to the stars.
A little of that air finally seeped in now, and she relaxed her gritted teeth, breathing deeply. Her nostrils flared, her mind tricking her into believing she could smell jasmine on the wind. Her thoughts abandoned the mayor as it reached her.
Lucena. Lucenaaa.
The driver had scoffed at her question. Of course, the body had come from the Dark. If it hadn’t, his family would have sought Lux out, seeking her brilliance, dumping goldquins into her pasted-together crock.
What could cause such a terrifying symptom? Lux pinched the bridge of her nose. It wasn’t as if she knew all the diseases of the world. She dealt with death, not the sickness that led to it. Her breath lodged tight. No, she didn’t often have a care for sickness.
She shoved away from the slick stone beneath her fingertips.
But healers did.
Riselda’s eyes widened almostimperceptibly over her disheveled state. Lux knew her hair had to be a wild mass, but she didn’t bother to smooth it. Instead, she rocked on her heels.
“A body was taken to the forest today. His limbs oozed: some watery, dark substance bursting from black boils. Have you ever seen such a thing?”
