Chapter 9
She heard me.
I’m positive I didn’t project my voice. It takes a lot of energy to do so, like trying to push my words into the Heshena realm. Different dimensions, different frequencies.
The beast glides back into her room. After watching memories of her smiling gleefully at countless rebel executions, I wish I could just kill her with my sword of shadow. But no, I have to get close to her, earn her trust.
I have to bond with her.
I float down to the lower levels, listening to the conversations of castle staff as I go, trying to glean more information on Nizzara. I find more memories of rebels, and I can’t help but wonder if Lola escaped, if she is with the rebels. Flying through hallways, I catch Tarella, the eldest daughter of Mazzar, whose name I’ve become familiar with through memories, sneaking into the training room, so I follow.
Her memories swarm with Nizzara’s fights, and I’d be lying if I didn’t say the beast is downright captivating when she fights.
Tarella, it seems, has watched every single duel Nizzara has ever fought. As each beautifully violent memory passes through me, I’m starting to wonder if Nizzara has ever lost a duel, because I can’t find one. There’s one where she didn’t use her vessel in the ring, but damn, she managed to take down the man without it.
I’m about to pull out of Tarella’s memories, when she lands on a recent one, from just this afternoon.
Nizzara is in this training room, a longsword in her hand, fighting the infantry general. I can’t even call it a fight. He’s so above her level, he obliterates her. And I wonder what realm chewed him up and spit him out to be able to fight like that.
I keep expecting Nizzara to tap, or pass out, but she keeps getting up, more fire in her eyes than before. Despite blood, broken fingers, and shaking arms, she fights.
And fights.
And fights.
Tarella’s emotions flood my own. Admiration. Jealousy. Bitterness. She whips out her daggers and goes through firing drills with her vessel, shooting them into targets. She tries a backflip over a dagger, but spooks halfway through and lands on her shoulder. She sends daggers flying in all directions with a howl of frustration, clanking against stone walls, before storming out of the training room.
After watching Nizzara through Tarella’s memories, I find myself wondering again what exactly a pure soul is. Obviously, it isn’t a virtuous soul because she’s a violent little thing with a sharp tongue, but the little beast doesn’t exactly scream pure evil either. She has to be some kind of awful, though.
Nil only sends me after wretched souls. My victims are traitors and murderers, like Mazzar, who is both.
Mazzar, who murdered me with one of my father’s soul guns. I fly faster, passing long dark corridors, an idea forming.
If I can get my hands on a soul gun, I won’t need to rely on the little beast to amplify my power. I could just shoot Mazzar point blank, as he did to me.
I navigate the black halls until I reach the armory wing, where swords, axes, and guns are stored. Six palace guards stand in formation beside the armory doors, four with their backs to the wall and the other two pacing up and down the long dark corridor.
I dissolve into the massive iron door, sliding past rows of swords, axes, daggers, even a handful of ordinary rifles, before I halt midair.
The furthest black wall, once adorned with twelve red revolvers, their handles studded in black gems, is empty.
I double check every row, every hook, gun, and blade. No soul guns.
I return to the hall and search through more memories to find what happened to those soul guns, sifting through as many accounts of Mazzar as I can handle. Executions. Starving people. Rabid conditions. Goblets of wine being emptied, and tables being overturned in his frequent rages.
The monster inside me begins climbing out, so I move to the last guard and submerge myself in his memories, finding one without Mazzar.
Black, leaning buildings appear around me, mineral powder and baked biscuits in the air, the scent not like actual bread. More like warm dirt, and because the dust itself is so thick, it is coating the inside of my nose through the memory. I’m in the soldier’s place, scurrying to the furthest end of the golden district, where the mineral dust doesn’t coat the streets, closer to the castle. I’m dressed as a commoner, ducking into a black building that seamlessly blends between two classy inns.
The Red Cape, a Zarr brothel near the outermost wall of Zarr city.
“I wish to get someone out,” he says to a small, cloaked figure, who sits across the marble table.
“Who?” The woman whispers from under her red hood.
The soldier looks over his shoulders and swallows. “My sister was maimed by her husband and—and can’t find work.”
The cloaked woman stiffens. “I cannot guarantee the rebels will take her, but I can get her in contact with someone. It will cost you.”
The soldier nods. “Anything.”
“Bring her here. I’ll do what I can, and we’ll negotiate then.”
The soldier leaves back through the writhing bodies, and my heart jolts when I catch a wave of brown, wavy hair whipping around and darting through the crowd.
I could’ve sworn the woman moved exactly like Lo.