Chapter 39 Toran
Toran
An unconscious girl lay at Toran’s feet.
He wished he could say it was the first time he’d been in such a situation. It was not. But it was the first time the girl was bleeding, her blood dripping onto the toe of his boot.
Quint bent down to inspect the wound. Toran watched him press two fingers to the cut. They came away red.
“She’ll be okay,” Quint said. “It’ll bruise, but the cut is shallow.”
“That’s a lot of blood for a shallow cut,” Genna piped up, staring down at Damari. “I thought the Witch was invincible.”
“Invulnerable.”
Heads whipped as attention shifted from the girl on the floor to the one standing in the open doorway. Toran stared at Nes, a trickling sense of dread making the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end.
Her hair, as always, was a disaster. But there was something about the wildness of it that brought out a ferocity—a ferocity bordering on cruelty—in her blue eyes.
It made him pause. Made him wary. And he wasn’t the only one who felt it.
The entire kitchen felt charged. Like they’d just witnessed a close-range lightning strike.
“Nes?” It was Suri who spoke, the girl taking up so little space Toran had forgotten she was there.
Nes offered them all one swift nod. “You mean invulnerable. Invincible means you can’t be defeated. History has proven the Witch can be.”
No one said anything. No one moved. Toran didn’t dare point out the definition of invulnerable.
“Get her up,” he said at last. “The King is waiting.”
Quint pressed a kerchief to Damari’s head before he and Genna hefted her up, supporting her weight between them. They headed for the door, Suri a step behind them.
Toran turned back to Nes. She still stood in the doorway to the dumpstreet. The night cowered behind her. It was only then he realized the doorway was permanently open. The plow that had swept through only moments after they’d left the narrow street had taken the back door with it.
“The symbol,” she said, “on the back of your neck. It’s gone.”
He instinctively reached a hand up to feel the skin there. It was smooth to the touch, no pain igniting as he pressed down. He glanced over his shoulder at the unconscious Damari. “How is that possible?”
Nes’s eyes honed in on the floor. “She needed the magic to use for the corpses.”
He considered her a moment. Considered the stiff way in which she stood under the light. How she refused to meet his eye.
“You coming?”
At last, her gaze drifted from the small puddle of blood on the kitchen floor up to him. “My father will be free,” she whispered, her voice coming out hoarse.
He offered her his hand. “Let’s go.”
She took it without question. As if the other night never happened. As if she were just a girl and he just a boy. As if their whole world wasn’t about to change.
He squeezed her hand.
Toran had picked his side.