47. Kat
Kat
D istant at first, I thought the screams were part of a performance.
Folk continued milling along the roads, but then they grew louder, closer, more numerous, and the crowd responded.
Tension thrummed as people lifted their heads, frowning, listening, turning towards the sounds coming from the city walls.
I craned and tiptoed, trying to spot something, anything , but all I could see were the backs of fae much taller than me.
Unsafe.
My rushing blood knew it a split second before the crowd turned.
Like a tidal wave, they surged.
They carried me along, faster and faster, a frightened buzz of questions and warnings swallowing me up.
“Did you see?”
“My boy! Where’s my boy?”
I pulled my coat tight around myself and checked my sleeves overlapped with my gloves as I fought to keep up. Looking back, I couldn’t spot anything, but their panicked eyes and the screams that came ever closer told me enough to know that away was the right direction.
“What is it?” I tried to ask, but people pressed in from all sides. I used my elbows to keep enough space around myself to breathe in the hot, stuffy air and keep one foot in front of the other.
A terrible stench rose over the smell of sweat and fear and forgotten spiced buns. It blocked my throat, and as the crowd surged, I lost my footing, lifted in the swell of bodies.
I wasn’t touching the floor anymore. There was no space to breathe. My bow dug into my spine—if it had been a human-crafted weapon, it would’ve snapped by now.
Panting, I lifted my head and tried to keep my face above the smother of coats and backs and away from grasping hands. I stretched my feet down. I needed control. Solid ground.
If I fell, I’d be crushed.
Elbows jabbed my ribs, pushing out the little air I managed to suck in. Magic hummed around me, aggressive and dangerous. I didn’t need to see my hands to know they were fully stained. I could feel the poisonous haze threatening to break through my skin.
No. Not here. Not now.
Whatever was back there would be nothing compared to the devastation I could cause if I lost control.
I gave up reaching for the floor and clung to the thick, woollen coat before me, gambling on the tall fae to keep me upright.
What do you see? What can you feel?
Green wool flecked with lavender. The stink of sweat. The acrid stench of something familiar, just on the edge of recollection. Not comforting, but real and grounding.
My panic and my poison ebbed.
I pulled myself up and found space to draw a full breath. The fae grunted and frowned over his shoulder. I was too busy gasping to apologise.
A terrible clicking rose over the crowd’s fearful chatter.
I knew that sound.
From a turning loomed a huge, dark shape. Sunlight rainbowed on a black carapace as the Horror’s scythe-like front legs reached into the crowd.
Screams. So many screams.
I couldn’t make any sound as I stared at the thing. How was it here? How had it reached the city? How ?
Its claws emerged with a figure dangling from them.
Like we were one organism, the people charged right, and suddenly there was no press of bodies. The coat slipped from my fingers, and the crowd spat me out. I stumbled, fell, wrapped my arms around my head as I rolled.
Somehow, no one trod on me. I scrambled to my feet, finding the street empty save for me and the Horror and the terrible sucking sound of it feeding.
At the crossroads, it crouched over its victim, body wrapped around them so I couldn’t see.
Bile rose in my throat and goosebumps prickled across my body as I fought to breathe slower, deeper than this shallow, desperate panting.
Pull yourself together, Katherine . It was the practical inner voice that had kept me alive for thirty years.
I needed to move or else that winning streak was going to come to an end.
The crowd had gone right. They were as dangerous as the Horror, as two bodies splayed in the street could attest. Their broken shapes and staring eyes said there was nothing I could do for them.
I could only try to stay alive.
The Horror had come from the main street on the left. Likely that way would be clear of people and I wouldn’t get caught up in another deadly crowd.
It lifted its head and sniffed the air.
Nothing to smell here. No magic. No tasty morsel.
Slowly, slowly, I backed away. A narrow alley opened to my left. A few paces more. Quiet, now. You can make it.
As the Horror turned its head, I dived down the alley.