Chapter Eleven Nina
I saw a glimmer of relief touch my mother’s face.
“Let her down,” Tanner said, and there it came, lifting her eyelids from their closed reprieve, slackening her jaw. Together we let loose a gust of breath. My chest expanded. Yes, I thought. Let her down.
She fell.
The moment the trapdoor swung away, the relief in Rose’s eyes fled. There was only confusion as she sank through, then a pop, her spine disengaging at the neck. The wooden beams creaking as she swung.
And my throat seemed to collapse on itself.
And then Patrick was there, somehow freed of the soldiers who’d restrained him.
He dove under the platform, his hands still bound, and looped his arms under my mother’s shoes and lifted her torso.
The soldiers were slow to follow. Patrick had her neck freed of the rope before they reached him.
She toppled into the dirt below, Patrick feeling along her blue-veined neck for a pulse, yelling something to her.
Even from a distance, I knew it was too late. Her body was limp, as though the noose had stripped free her soul. Her final confusion, though, remained. It lingered in death, her eyes forever half fearful, half deceived.
Tanner looked stunned, as though his own words hadn’t ordered her death. As though he had not, seconds before, read to her the words of his god.
My mother was dead.
My eyes swam until Tanner’s face dissolved. I pushed the heels of my hands into my eye sockets and shouted, hollowing my chest until it protested.
Was it a crime worthy of death, to have been my mother?
And there was Tanner, who had called me a weapon, a knife, a piece of scum.
I saw his face on the walls of Scurry pubs peppered with darts and gobs of spit.
I saw his name in textbooks and on scribbles meant to frighten me.
I saw him standing over me in a long line of men who had stood over me, bending my will until I broke.
Patrick gave up on the corpse and came not to me, but to Theo, his teeth bared. “Do it!” he shouted to Theo. “DO IT!”
I barely heard him.
I stood. My hands lifted of their own accord.
I watched Tanner’s face turn ashen, then afraid.
And I’d never hated anyone as much as I hated him.
If I’d had fire at hand, I’d have scorched him alive. With wood, he’d be staked. But I was a Charmer of earth, and so I’d bury him. Let the worms and beetles consume him down to the bone.
Patrick saw my intent first. His bright eyes turned fraught. His lips formed the shape of my name. He began to rush toward me.
It was Lord Shop who stood in his way, and at the exact same moment, the ground shuddered as though in warning.
But there was no earthquake. Only specks of earth lifting from underfoot, from every corner of the courtyard. Tiny particles I could feel with my mind. A rising dust storm.
The rain ebbed, as though it, too, watched on in awe. A billion flecks of dirt, freestanding in midair, awaiting my command.
The lords looked all around, mouths open.
Tanner stumbled back. “Wait—”
“Enough,” I said, blood in my mouth. And then I sent the earth hurtling toward him like a plague of locusts.
It blinded him first, invading the crevices between his closed lids, wheedling into the ducts and sockets.
The rest funneled through his nose, passed his lips, and he was gagging, choking, scratching at his eyes and throat.
Lords and soldiers who rushed to his side quickly found themselves similarly inflicted and stumbled away.
They left their Head of House on the ground, ears weeping, mouth spewing earth and root and weed.
My mind could feel the way it distended his stomach, his lungs, filling him up, but I wanted it in his blood, in his heart.
My hands shook, and my fingers curled inward.
The ground gave way beneath Tanner. It bowed as though it were a breathing creature, its hands rising to draw Tanner in. Slowly, I bid it devour him, and he sank and sank, heeding its grasp.
And the lords could do nothing but watch. They were weak and fearful and ordinary. They knew nothing of the earth and how it longed to devour them, too. I could make it so, if I wished.
I turned to all the navy blue swimming before my eyes. Rage made my hands into claws.
“Nina!” Theo said. He took my hands, then my face, but he was navy, too.
“DON’T TOUCH ME!” I shouted, shoving him hard. And the ground shook again. A fracture split through the floor of the courtyard.
There were suddenly many hands on me. Guards gripping my arms, my neck. Only now appearing, far later than they should have.
The ground shuddered violently.
And then there was a flash of steel, and for the second time, my arm was slashed and brilliant blood cascaded.
My breath caught at the pain. My heart stuttered, and the earth stilled.
Somewhere beyond, I heard Patrick shout. I saw him buck and kick and free himself from his own wave of guards, throw his fists into their jaws.
I felt the power trickle from me, slowly at first, and then all at once. My vision swam.
A puce-faced lord rose from the ground. “Shackle her!” he roared, pointing a demented finger at me. “Summon the jailer!”
There was an uproar of accession as the other lords recovered, realizing the danger had passed. They rose from the ground with gritty eyes and slack mouths. They looked at the fresh mound of earth where Tanner had been moments ago. Then they looked at me with outright horror. With revulsion.
“She should hang!”
“No, she shall rot in a cell!”
“No,” called Lord Shop, stepping into their midst, his eyes hungry. “No sentence will yet pass down to the earth Charmer.”
The lords brayed. Some wept. The puce-faced lord stepped forward, his chest heaving. “And who are you to decide?” he spat, eyes pulsating. “Who are you to determine the fate of an assassin?”
“I am Lord Tanner’s successor,” Lord Shop said, and it rang out too loud, too final, the other lords becoming quiet. Realization doused fury. The brays and barks tumbled to a halt.
“I am the Head of House Belavere,” Shop said, louder still. “And the earth Charmer will not be touched by a single Artisan or Crafter without my say so.”