Page 96 of Ship of Smoke and Steel

Its jewel-like eye is level with my face. I raise my blades, Melos energy flickering. Still moving slowly, I pull my arms back.

Then I strike. One blade goes in above the eye, the other below it, driving as hard as I can into the rogue angel’s tough flesh. The sudden movement topples me from my perch, makes me drop the plate, and whatever control I had over the gray energy vanishes. The dredwurm’s limbs close in around me, points scraping against my armor, heat blooming across my back as though I were being roasted over a fire. I ignore it, forcing my blades around in a circle, carving away the flesh beneath the eye. The creature grows frantic, ripping at me, and I hear the sizzle of burning skin. I scream.

My blades meet with a fat spark of Melos power, and the eye comes free. It falls, hitting the deck with a metallic clunk. The dredwurm goes still at once, dozens of limbs freezing in place. I carve one out of the way as I pull myself back, gasping. As soon as I’m free I let my armor drop, the air cool as clean water against my abused skin. I can smell myself, burnt cloth and burnt flesh, and my back is a mass of agony.

I’ve had worse. I clench my teeth as I bend to retrieve the eye, feeling skin stretch and crack, and then look around for the others.

I find Berun first, by the splash of red he left when he hit the wall. He’s lying facedown in a pool of blood. The dredwurm’s tail has left a sizable hole in his stomach, and I can see right into the torn purple mess of his guts. The air stinks of blood and shit.

But he’s not dead. Not yet. Bubbles of blood burst around his mouth as he breathes weakly.

He was only here because Meroe asked him. Because I told Meroe to ask him. I’d thought—

Rot, rot rot.

“Meroe! Where are you?”

I turn and find her hurrying across the room. Before I can stop her, she wraps me in a hug, the pressure painful on the skin of my back. I hug her anyway.

“Oh, gods, Isoka, I thought you were going to die. I thought we were all going to die. That thing just—It just stopped—”

“I’m fine,” I say, which is a lie. “Meroe, Berun’s alive. You have to help him.”

“He’s…” Meroe looks over my shoulder, down at the dying boy. She swallows hard. “I … I don’t know.…”

“You can do it.” I pull back, putting my hands on her shoulders, looking into her eyes. “You saved me. You can save him.” She has to. It was a mistake to come here, my mistake. He shouldn’t have to pay for it.

“You don’t understand, Isoka.” She pulls away from me, drops to her knees beside Berun. “It’s not the same. This is … too much.”

“Try.” My voice is tight. “Please.”

“It might not work.”

“He’s dying.”

“It might…” She swallows again, and nods. “I’ll try. Find Aifin.”

I clap her on the shoulder. Aifin is on the other side of the room, lying in a heap of broken mushrooms. When I reach him, I’m glad to find he doesn’t seem too badly injured, though he’s not conscious. I check him for broken bones, and when I don’t find any I pull him out into a more comfortable position and leave him for the moment.

The black bulk of the dredwurm is starting to dissolve, falling apart into loose black ash. I limp past it again, back to Meroe’s side. Her hands are on Berun’s body, and they’re sticky to the wrists with blood.

“This is … not going to be easy,” she says. “You just had broken bones. I need his body to rebuild.…” She shakes her head. “I don’t know if I can.”

“You can.”

She looks up at me, smiles, and then turns to the dying boy with fierce concentration. Light gathers around her hands, a weird, glittering purple. Ghul light. The Forbidden Well. I suppress the inground urge to step away.

The light flows into long, looping strings, from Meroe’s hands into Berun’s wounds, like she’s working on a loom. There’s a hum in the air, and a sharp metallic scent stronger even than the smell of blood. Berun’s hand twitches.

Then he lifts his head back, dripping blood from his nose and forehead, and gasps for breath. Meroe scrambles out of the way as he rolls over, trailing strings of gore. He takes another deep breath, and I can see the wound is shrinking, new pink flesh spreading from the ragged edges like frost closing over a lake.

“It worked!” I grab Meroe’s shoulder. “It rotting worked!”

I see her face. Her eyes are very wide, with tiny pupils. She shakes her head minutely.

Berun sits up, in spite of his shredded stomach. His head is distended, bulging on one side, hair parting around a dome of expanding skull. Something shifts in his shoulder, the bones changing, a pointed growth stretching his skin like a tent. It splits, and whorled bone issues forth from underneath, wet and red with torn meat. One of his legs starts to shiver, and sprouts feathers.

Berun starts to scream.