Chapter 37 Toran #2
He whirled, and Cavallis sliced through what was left of Yonvere’s arm. The corpse didn’t stumble. It barely bled. Bone protruded from the elbow socket like a drumstick picked clean.
Idiot. He could almost hear Nes’s voice in his head. Magic resided in the heart. Chopping off an arm wouldn’t do him any good. And it didn’t. Yonvere’s hand still gripped him, half the arm hanging from him like a leech. He yanked it off and tossed it among the trash, where it wriggled.
“Where is the captain?” Damari demanded. “The one who started this, who massacred all those people?” She lifted a fist and opened her hand. Coins—guard registry coins—dropped into the dumpstreet. “Tell me where I can find him, and maybe you won’t end up among the sixty-three dead.”
Toran laughed. He couldn’t help it.
She wanted to spare him. He knew what it meant to be the one spared. It meant living with the loss. Living with the guilt. It meant living while wishing you were the one dead.
“Sparing me won’t help you,” he said.
“Why’s that?”
“Because the captain you want is already dead.”
He watched his words hit her. The blow struck so hard she swayed a bit where she stood.
“No,” she whispered.
“It’s true. You’re a day late.”
“You’re lying. You’re protecting him.” Her hands crept up to her face, her fingers pressing into the bones below her eyes.
He laughed again, but there was no joy to the sound. “Embley Fell? I wouldn’t protect that man even if he paid me a lifetime’s worth of gadots to do it.”
“You’re lying!” she shrieked.
Again, he was hit from behind. He fell to his knees before her. Though he was at her mercy, he was not the vulnerable one.
He saw Damari for what she was. Not the Witch or murderer he’d been hunting, but a mirror of himself. Someone who’d lost everyone and thought it was their fault. The only difference was where he’d given up on life, she’d let revenge take her by the throat and choke the life from her.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “For what Fell did to you. I know my apology isn’t anywhere near enough, but I also know if Fell were alive, you would have never gotten an apology from him.
Embley Fell was a selfish, prideful man.
” He looked up at the ferocious girl standing above him.
At the grief behind her anger. “You were right to want to avenge your people. But he’s dead now, and your chance of revenge is dead along with him. ”
She bent down, crouching before him. “I will still have my revenge.”
“If that’s what you want, then I won’t stop you,” he said. “But kill me, only me, and be done with it. Enough good men have already died in Fell’s place. Let me be the last.”
He felt her dark eyes on him. Studying, calculating. Just do it.
The world had become too complicated for him. All he’d done was accept a mission from the King. Now here he was, before a girl with staggering magic, and all he wanted to do was look the other way.
He knew who was to blame. Nes had wormed her way inside him. And now her chides and reprimands churned his brain until he couldn’t discern right from wrong—couldn’t figure out if there even was a right or wrong. But if he let it end here, he would never need decide between the two.
“I’ll let Yonvere have the honor,” Damari said, her voice a chill up his spine.
He took a deep breath in, fingers twitching. A bony hand scraped against the back of his jacket.
It was better this way. If he died now, he’d never have to choose a side.
The kitchen door flew open. It slammed against the outside wall with a thwack loud enough to wake the entire Ditch.
In its outline, he could see four figures.
Quint, blocking most of the light with his size alone.
Genna, a fierce but slightly queasy expression twisting her mouth.
Suri, her brilliant green eyes still pricking him with a familiarity he couldn’t place.
And in front of them all, Nes—fear and fury morphing into something truly formidable. Something that made his heartbeat quicken and his palms sweat.
Something that looked like power.
Toran waded through his own shock to take advantage of Damari’s. He elbowed Yonvere hard enough to tip the corpse backward into a pile of trash. Then he gripped his sword and swung low, slicing the skin at Damari’s ankles.
She stumbled back and out of reach, blood trickling from the twin cuts above her shoes.
He pushed to his feet, Cavallis still in hand.
Movement caught his eye, and he looked in time to see Nes plunge her fist into Yonvere’s chest, emerging with his heart.
She dropped it to the ground as casually as she had that night in the distillery and came to stand at his side, the other three on her heels.
Toran watched Damari. She was outnumbered. Magic or not, she wouldn’t win.
But Damari only smiled at them. Smiled and pulled the top of her shirt aside to reveal a symbol. This was one he’d never seen before, but unlike the others, he was certain he didn’t want to know its meaning.
Damari lifted her hand, tracing the symbol with a single finger. Slowly, like she was coaxing an ember to flame, the lines on her chest began to glow until the symbol shone green.
One by one, symbols began to glow up and down the dumpstreet. One, seven, twelve—he lost count. They were surrounded by the green glow of magic. Until suddenly, they weren’t. The light snuffed out, leaving them in the dark of the dumpstreet.
That was when the bodies began to rise.