Chapter 8
I stalk through puddles of red littered with bits of flesh and bone, breathing metallic air tainted with the reek of excrement, one of Kaan’s dragonscale blades twirling between my bloody fingers.
With a spin, I toss the dagger. Watch it thunk into the tattered remnants of Rekk Zharos’s flayed chest.
He hangs there, stretched arms tethered to the palletposts, head flopped forward—unmoving. Dead.
Very dead.
Hard not to be when your heart’s no longer in your chest. Not that I’ve been able to locate said heart, something I’ve decided never to think about again.
Unless my Other threw it on the fire or perhaps tossed it out the window that overlooks the labyrinth of filthy streets below—doubtful—then I don’t want to know.
I also don’t want to think about … her.
My Other.
Not with the memory of everything I just saw stuffed beneath the ice where it belongs, never to be touched again.
I sigh, tip my head to the side. Scour the mess my Other made of Rekk, leaving him utterly unrecognizable. Again, I hunt the visible parts of his skin, trying to find a segment that’s not been burnt.
Failing.
What I wouldn’t do to have watched her fold him up and stuff him in the fireplace. At least that’s what I imagine she did to cause such damage, forcing him to experience the feel of his flesh melting. To live through the same sizzling torture Líri endured when he flew her too close to the sun.
My gaze bounces from deep gory gash to deep gory gash, each wound likely made from Rekk’s own bloody boots tossed in the corner, the spokes covered in carrion. A creative flourish that went beyond even my own sadistic plans.
Credit where credit’s due.
Never have I seen such brutal slaughtering. She avenged Líri and Essi so thoroughly, there’s nothing left to work with. Only my flare of rage for the scars Líri will always carry and the continued ache of Essi’s absence.
Because of him.
I clear my throat and stride forward. Tuck the itchy tip of my finger beneath Rekk’s chin, push back his head, and look into the empty hollows of his mutilated eye sockets.
No idea where his eyes went, either. Something else I don’t want to think about.
“At least she made you suffer,” I say past the annoying thickness in my throat, dropping my hand.
His head flops forward.
I sigh and yank out the blade, spin on my heel, then stalk back to my spot by the door and toss it.
Thunk—right between his nonexistent eyes.
I crack my neck, advancing again when someone pounds on the door. “Password,” I mutter, trying to wiggle the blade free.
A long pause, a throat clear, followed by a whisper-hiss. “Rekk Zharos can eat a jar of spangle shit.”
I smile, finally free the blade, and tuck it into the laden sheath strapped around my thigh, about to open the door when I realize I’ve been so caught up exercising my frustrations on Rekk’s corpse that I’m still … covered in him. And not much else.
“Just a moment.”
Moving to the washroom, I kick off my heels and shed my lacy scraps of clothing, using a damp cloth to wipe off most of Rekk’s blood. I redress in leather pants and a soft black tunic that laces tight around my waist, then pull on my boots, stash them with blades, and rebuckle my sheaths.
After donning my cloak, I dash a cloth over my shoulder and scoop the door handle from the sink, frowning when I notice a silver shimmer bound around my wrist. Almost … incorporeal.
Odd.
I’m still studying it as I move toward the exit, slide the handle into place, and open the door. “Welcome,” I mumble, then yank a blade free and toss it backward, hearing another fleshy thunk.
There’s a definitive pause before my carter clears his throat again. “I can come back if you like?”
I rip my gaze from the oddity, looking at Utris, arms crossed over his barrel chest.
He scrubs at his thick black beard, a perfect match to his dark leathers and the tone of his skin, contrasting his bright-blue eyes and ruddy Moltenmaw feathers tethered to the end of his many beaded braids. Red and brown. Ignos and Bulder.
My heart squeezes.
Same as Kaan.
I blink. “Huh?”
“The male,” he says in his thick northern accent, brow lifting. “You finished with him, or …”
I snatch another blade from where my Other must’ve plunged it into the wall, flinging it through the air. It thumps into Rekk’s hollowed chest cavity, right where his heart should be. “Unfortunately.”
All I wanted was to spend an entire cycle flaying Rekk, chipping away at his ribs, then unraveling his intestines until he screamed for me to end it. Bit much to ask, apparently.
“Right.” Utris dips his head, stepping farther into the suite.
I boot the door shut, a parchment lark fluttering through the gap just in time to avoid being crushed. It waggles around, trying to regain its bearings before it darts in my direction.
I pluck it from the air and tuck it in the pocket of my cloak, next to Kaan’s málmr. “Need I remind you that if you breathe a word of this to anyone, you’ll find yourself without the extra bag of gold I stashed in Dhomm.”
Hidden, its location on a prefolded lark in my back pocket, ready to be released to him the moment we part ways. Not that he knows that.
“I’ll probably slaughter you, too.” I shrug. “Loose ends and all that.”
“Your secret’s safe with me.” Utris casts an approving glance around the suite, then draws a dagger.
He moves closer to the pallet and angles the blade against one of the tethers keeping Rekk suspended, slicing the coil of fibers.
“I witnessed this fuck spurring that poor Moonplume across the plains,” he seethes, severing the bind.
The right side of Rekk’s body flops down, now hanging by his left wrist. “Had I known how much you were going to make him pay, I would’ve offered my services for free. ”
Well.
Utris slashes through the final tether, releasing Rekk. His mutilated body thumps to the ground.
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
One by one, Utris yanks my blades from Rekk’s body and slides them across the floor.
I snatch them up, blindly wipe and stuff them in my sheaths, my attention again fixed on the obscure tendril of shimmer coiled around my wrist and tangled through my fingers.
I try to wipe it away, but all that does is smear more blood up my arm.
“You still want to feed him to the anthe?”
I look up to see Utris has already wrapped Rekk in a black sheet, now binding him with a length of rope. “No,” I say, letting some of my bubbling bloodlust poison my tone. “Truthfully, I want to leave him trussed in the street for everyone to see, then parade the city with his heart in my fist.”
Utris opens his mouth.
“But,” I interject, snatching the cloth from where it’s draped over my shoulder, using it to clean the blood off my hands, “his heart is nowhere to be seen”—hopefully mulched on the ground and not in a masticated heap in my guts—“and unfortunately, I have too much self-preservation to attempt something so stupid. So let’s get this over with. Did you manage to track down a shroud?”
“I did.” Utris wipes his bloody hands on the sheet. He flips open his satchel, reaches in, and pulls out what looks like nothing. At least until he shakes it out, offering a glimpse of the shroud’s silver underside.
He swaddles Rekk in the heavily runed material, casting him invisible, tucking it in place so it doesn’t come loose.
“Wonderful. How much do I owe you?”
“The merchant wasn’t interested in bloodstone.” He glances up, a wistful warmth in his eyes. “Or gold. In fact, it’s quite possible I’ve met the love of my life this dae. Either that or she just wanted a quick fuck against the bookshelf.”
Oh.
“Good for you,” I intone, not wanting to think about loves of life. Of Kaan’s lips brushing against my temple back in the burrow at Dhomm, nor the final words he passed me.
“Come back to me, Raeve. To us.”
I screw up the cloth and toss it at the wall, watching it slump into a puddle of blood.
Such a beautiful, miraculous male. Such questionable taste in romantic life partners. If he could see me now, I’m certain he’d agree.
The lark in my pocket wiggles free, dashing up to bop my nose—its wings and body covered in blood from my previous lark-handling.
I wince, catching it.
“Sorry.” I pry the poor thing open, my heart stumbling over itself when I see the tiny script. Familiar.
Beautiful.
Kaan’s.
Moonbeam.
I swallow, squeeze my eyes shut. Open them again, my breath catching at the faintest hint of his creamy, robust scent still clinging to the parchment.
I keep reading, eyes widening a little more with each barbed word.
A moonfall is coming.
Our miskunn’s foreseen a catastrophic event. Many will fall, and all at once.
Though she’s unsure when exactly it’ll happen, she believes it’s still a number of cycles away. Perhaps seventeen to twenty, based on the glimpse she caught of the aurora ribbons.
I’ve opened the doors of the Imperial Fortress so my folk can take refuge deep within the mountain burrows, and have sent word to my village leaders to make preparations.
I’m having Líri escorted to our southernmost outpost (west of Bothaim) by a trio of our most competent blue beads. Should you want to meet her there, you won’t find the village on the map, but Utris knows its location.
Raeve, your safest bet is to be underground when the moons fall—at least until things settle, which could take a while. Mah’s mountain retreat has a deep bunker beneath and is packed with provisions. The entrance can be found under the big rug in the living space.
Don’t be stubborn. Please use it.
Others will soon foresee the moonfalls. Once word gets out, folk will panic. Things will get messy. Tell nobody, and please be careful.
I’m here in B
Pinch the return fold if you need me.
Yours.
For a moment, all I can do is stare, breath caught, blood ice cold as I reread the same line over and over …
Many will fall, and all at once.
Creators.
“Everything okay?”
My gaze snaps up, hand clamping shut like a shellfish, hiding the lark’s jarring message.
Tell nobody.
I pull a long, slow breath to tame my rampant heartbeat, stuffing all concerns of the message away until they’re merely a wisp of fog floating atop my icy lake.
I lift my chin. Straighten my shoulders.
“Perfectly fine,” I lie, refolding the bloodstained parchment lark bar the final fold that gives it flight, not wanting it to flutter free of my pocket again.
“It’s just my reckoning for renting every room in the Snog.
More than I thought.” I flick up my hood and make for the door, jerking it wide. “Shall we?”
Utris grunts with the heft of Rekk’s weight, shifting him into position on his shoulders until I can hardly tell he’s carrying an invisible corpse. “After you.”
I swipe the heels of my boots on the doormat partway down the empty stone hall when I hear the click of a weald opening.
My steps speed to match the rhythm of my now-thrashing heart.
Utris speaks a series of too-familiar words that sizzle my soul and make me want to vomit, turning his small flame into a raging inferno intended to gobble every drop of evidence within the suite. Just as we’d discussed prior to the messy slaughtering I wish I could take credit for.
Despite the warmth that radiates down the hall, a shiver crawls up my spine.
I hasten my steps, moving around the corner.
Away.
Though it’s tempting to let Ignos feast on Rekk so we can finish this in a quick and timely manner, a regular fire doesn’t consume …
everything. It gorges on flesh, then spits out the bones and a screaming, thrashing soul, leaving the remains unpalatable to pretty much anything other than a desperate velvet trogg.
What I love about Bothaim is that it sits atop many secrets, including a series of underground tunnels munched into existence by something long ago, now home to a fully grown anthe. A creature that gorges on flesh, yes, but also swallows souls, nulling them into oblivion.
Rekk Zharos deserves nothing more.
Once he’s suitably swallowed … well, then I’ll turn my concerns to the bloody lark in my pocket.