I no longer fought the hold Kiyan had on me, and tried to see what they all ran from.
“Stay here,” he said, his soft words in my ear, honing my focus to only him. He pulled me to the side, away from the stampede of fae screaming and pushing each other.
Another roar sounded, and this one much louder than the halmasti from the woods.
Fae, guards, courtiers, and panicked palace staff fell over each other to get away.
And when I saw what they ran from, my heart nearly leapt out of my chest.
The creature before me wasn’t an halmasti, though part if it seemed like it was, once. This was a horrifying thing made of fur and blood, rotting branches, dead pixies and sprites, and bits and pieces of the natural world. Twigs, mulched leaves, decayed mulberries all formed parts of its body that was both the halmasti and several other dead creatures at once.
People scrambled in every direction away from the thing, until it was only Kiyan and I standing in the center of the room.
The monster lurched toward us and I screamed, but Kiyan gripped my arm.
“Don’t move,” he repeated, low.
Instead of attacking us, the creature made of dead animals and leaves and rotted forest floor whirled around to face a figure standing at the other end of the dining hall.
The Viceroy.
He was flanked by his guards, their swords drawn as they advanced on the creature. The monster emitted another great roar and its enormous arm made of uprooted trees and thick swaths of rotting plants swiped at him.
The Viceroy moved in front of his soldiers and raised his arms wide in the air, no weapon in hand.
The map I’d found still dangled around his neck, folded and stored in the golden locket there, above the pieces of gold embedded in his skin.
Kiyan stiffened beside me as the Viceroy walked up to the creature.
He was too confident as he stood, poised to fight the massive creature before him without a sword at his side.
The Viceroy brought his arms together and clapped.
A buzz of something zipped through the hall, like the aftermath of a rifle shot or lightning bolt. Something that cracked across the air and made room for itself, stopping everyone lesser than to take notice. The crown in the Viceroy’s chest seemed to glow like a beating heart of sunlight embedded in his skin.
The creature screamed, and fell to its knees, or whatever twigs and leaves and mulch held it in place, stopped by whatever magic the Viceroy wielded. Its form began to shrink—no,rot, the leaves shriveling.
Kiyan gripped me hard, his hands bruising, but I didn’t care. I was too riveted by the creature as it bowed—and then resisted. It rose up, if possible bigger than before, a deep growl coming from the dead halmasti’s throat, its jaw torn and rotting off.
Abruptly Kiyan released me, his body jerking in shock.
“What...”
But whatever he was about to say was swallowed by the creature’s howl as it lunged for the Viceroy—who hadn’t been expecting the attack.
From our angle behind the beast it looked as though the beast consumed him, the Viceroy’s body had been enveloped by the dark swirling cloud of death.
“No!” I screamed, my only chance of going after the crown now inside the belly of a rotten beast.
Without thinking I wrenched Kiyan’s dagger from its sheath at his waist, despite only ever studying knives like it in archaeological dig sites and Citadel museums.
“Yaseema!” Kiyan shouted, and I didn’t pause to wonder at the panic there. Though my brain did register that it was the only time I’d ever heard him say my name.
It didn’t matter, because I didn’t look back. My only focus was on the map around the Viceroy’s neck. I wasn’t about to let this thing made of darkness, death and rotting forest debris destroy my only chance of saving my family, of finishing the job my mother had set out to do.
I dove toward the creature, the knife in my hand steady.
I didn’t know what it would do, but at least I could try.
