My knife dug into a rotting log that made up the monster’s middle, Kiyan’s blade breaking the weak wood in two and delving deeper, into the soft underbelly of rotten flesh. It moved around me, letting me in, consuming me as it had the Viceroy.
My skin burned, going black with every inch of it that had been touched. I was folded into the darkness, the small tendrils of decay curling around my shoulders, my hair, and neck, wrapping around my skin until I was sucked in, pulled into the heady dark to become a rotted thing just like it was.
Chapter 27
I wrote to my cousin, but I’m sure Salt is blocking all messages out of our Court. I’ve been sleeping in the city, in doorways like a hearth sprite, growing food with my limited magic. They haven’t found me yet, and I’m going to use that to my advantage. If they don’t know who I am, they won’t know when I’m coming for them.
—Letter from Kiyan to his family, unsent
Kiyan
She disappeared into the belly of the dead beast I’d created, and everything I’d worked for turned to ash.
Reza screamed as my creature consumed him, but the moment Yaseema dove into my dead halmasti it spat him back out again. Even so, part of his leg came away black and rotted.
The map was still around his neck, unscathed.
What was she thinking?
She hadn’t thought. She had simply acted, and I doubted her weak human form could withstand the rotting creature I’d made. The death cycle had likely already eaten her alive.
Bile rose in my throat, and I had the sudden urge to throw up in the middle of the dance floor. Rage and horror consumed me—and inexplicably, sorrow.
The Viceroy’s soldiers rushed at my death beast, but there was nothing they could do.
The girl was already dead.
I curled my fists into my side, almost letting go of the hold I had on the creature.
But no sooner had I thought it than a spark seemed to ignite inside the beast, growing steadily until it had completely burst into flame. Screams sounded around us, even more panicked than when it had chased half of the River Court through the Salt festival.
Because now it was a screeching, dead, rotted thingon fire.
The Salt soldiers stopped battling it and instead began to retreat.
And I saw her, in the middle of the flames, as if they burned around her,forher, and did not consume her.
She was flailing, moving,trying to get out.
I ran.
I didn’t think or question it.
I had made this creature and now was responsible for this human girl burning alive. I thought of her soft voice as she spoke to the golden threads of her magic, the wild storm of her hair, that odd jewelry that sat atop her nose. Those dark eyes, staring up at me.
She didn’t deserve to get dragged into my nightmare too.
I dove into the burning creature, commanding the pieces of death to fall away, to lose shape, to come undone.
It obeyed.
Around me the burning logs and body parts collapsed, the fire receding into a smoldering flame.
And unfathomably, the girl lay in the middle of the pile of embers, unharmed.
Her eyes were closed, her body curled up into a tight ball, as if to escape the flames. Her clothes were burnt off, with thin shreds of blackened fabric remaining, crisscrossing her body. Only her two gold bangles remained on one arm.
I reached for her, and she flinched violently when my hand grazed her sweltering skin. A relieved breath tore through me—a sign at least that she was still alive.
