No one is coming. Not for cursed girls. Even if there were, it would be too late. Too many would die waiting. The answer rises in my mind, obvious and horrifying. I push it away.
Kaelzar must have had the same thought, but he doesn’t shy away from it. “Listen to your magic, Trouble.” He says. “Find those who suffer needlessly. Ease their pain.”
In an instinctive response to his quiet command, my other magic, Decay’s twin, unspools like a net. I reel at the sudden reminder of its strength. Fueled by so many prayers, it feels intricate and nearly sentient, aware not only of what it can do but of what must be done. I feel every broken body, every heartbeat slipping away. Every scream they don’t have the breath to release.
If I had lifeforce to spare, I’d save them all. But I don’t. Even the greatest healers couldn’t fix this without it. The memory of the dying wolf flickers in my mind. The guilt. The relief when the pain ended. The screams will go quiet. I know that.
But I can’t. I can’t be the one to do this.
A whisper reaches me. “Please…”
I turn.
A body lies nearby, charred and twitching. No hair, no clothes. Just raw, cracked skin.
“Please,” she whispers again, tears falling over ruined flesh.
I blink my own tears away. Another soft sob draws me left.
An older woman rocks back and forth in the dirt, arms wrapped around herself. Her face is burned, but not beyond recognition. She murmurs through cracked lips over and over, “Why her? Why not me?” The woman clutches a smaller form, her child, already gone. “Let me go with her,” she begs into the ashy nothingness, not realizing that I hold the power to make it so.
And for a moment, I want to honor her plea, let her slip into the silence she craves. But I can’t. Not for grief.
“It’s not up to me to take your pain,” I whisper. “Only to give youthe chance to carry it.”
“Ray…lane,” the voice croaks, ragged and thin, and I snap my head toward the sound.
It’s the first woman I noticed. I step closer, and the last thread of resolve holding me upright snaps in an instant.
I recognize her, though just barely.
Brienne.
The girl I helped avoid the lashing. The girl Peonica risked her life to save.
Dying anyway.
Despite everything, they made her suffer more. And now, after all of it, she’s at the end. Her lips move, but no sound escapes. I don’t think she’s capable of speech anymore. Just one more tear slips from the raw rim of her eyelid, no lashes left to catch it. In her eyes, there’s no anger. No blame. Only a quiet plea for mercy.
I can’t deny it, I realize. Not to her or to any of those who need it.
I close my eyes, uncurl my fingers… and release the rot.
It spreads like fog across still water. The mental web I wove with my Blood magic guides it now, outlining only those beyond saving.
Ten bodies.
Twenty.
Forty.
Sixty.
Ninety-eight.
It’s too easy to direct the magic now. I offer it so much death, and it rushes to take it. Or maybe it’s because some part of me feels relieved to finally let it loose. As if the destruction gives me permission to stop holding back. As if a necessary killing is the excuse I’ve been waiting for.
Mael’s words drift through my mind.But I see you. You like the weight of life and death in your hands. Careful, Raylane. That sort of appetite has a way of growing.
