Chapter Nine. In Which the Girl Attempts to Survive （Again） #3
Now Risa knew what she’d felt from her first step on the bridge.
The tingling of magic at work, trying to remake the world in a way that was wrong.
Terrifying power had amassed in Cairn, had seeped through the cracks and taken hold of the town, forcing its people to remain unwitting and vulnerable.
This was far-reaching magic. Colossal in comparison to the small pond of magic she’d felt from Brunhilda.
The Fangal’s magic was trying to tear her open from the inside out.
Prince Javi sucked in a breath as her binds finally fell away.
“That’s your Fangal!” she shouted, pointing at the rippling dark form.
Essence dripped onto the platform, wood hissing on contact.
Alarm rose from the crowd; gone were the adulation and the wonder.
Now the people of Cairn were attempting to back away from the platform as one.
“He’s forced you to kill for this. For his greed, for his thrill.
It wasn’t enough to be a god. He wanted humanity. ”
The shadow of the Fangal trembled with anger, turned its unseeing face toward the twins. “Kill her!” it demanded. But the twins fell back, eyes wild with terror. “Without spilled blood, I will die!”
“You were right before,” Prince Javi said, hand at her elbow. “We need to go.”
Risa dug her heels in and shrugged out of his grip.
She had spent her entire life being called a Bad Thing.
Accused of being a monster hiding in the body of a girl.
Here was a monster. Duping people into sacrificial murder for what?
Control? Greed? A year of feeling the heat on borrowed skin?
The answer was immaterial; no reason would be enough to warrant what had been done.
It was as if a veil had lifted. Her vision sharpened.
She saw the monster clearly, how its writhing shape was made of thousands of tendrils and vines of smoke.
She could follow them much like she followed the lines of her own face when she stared in a mirror, trying to find the crack that revealed her own monstrous nature.
She destroyed things. And if this was the only gift she could give, then it would count for something.
“You’re nothing without their devotion,” Risa told the Fangal as the former god screeched.
She focused on a tendril of shadow and pulled at it with her mind as if it were a weed that needed getting rid of.
She felt it give, felt it unravel, felt it pull with it more weeds, more tendrils.
She egged on the destruction, imagining the collapse of the monster’s hold on Cairn like withered vines turning to dust. “All things have to end.”
The Fangal’s shadow body blew out like a candle. Another shriek came from the crowd as Miss Rivera turned into a wisp. The hollow, echoing screams of hundreds of girls rose up into the air before the cacophony abruptly cut out.
The Fangal was gone.
Prince Javi tugged at her elbow, insistent, blond hair damp against his temple. It made her head ache.
“What was—” He stopped, then asked more urgently, “Are you well?”
Risa didn’t know.
Once again she felt lightheaded and sick and cold and hot, all at once.
She was consumed by the thought of the nameless, faceless girls before her who had died believing they were meant to sacrifice themselves for the greater good of their town.
Caught up in a lie, gobbled up by greed, the town too concerned over its future to question whether these girls deserved to have a life of their own.
There was a groan from the crowd.
“Oh,” an anguished voice cried out. No more singing. “I’m feeling depressed.”
“Me too,” another answered.
“What do we do now?” asked another voice.
“I don’t know,” a man said. He stood near a lamppost, face distorted in anger, and pointed an accusing finger at the makeshift stage. “I kind of blame her.”
“Me too,” agreed another.
“Kill them anyway!”
“That’s the thanks we get?” Prince Javi shouted at the crowd. He slipped his fingers between Risa’s and pulled her behind him. “She saved you from the controlling grasp of a cursed god!”
“Yeah,” answered the burly young man the prince had flirted with just a few hours earlier. He did not look overjoyed at the prospect of speaking to the prince anymore. “But we were pretty happy with him.”
Within moments, the townspeople surged forward, suddenly holding torches, pitchforks, and shovels, which Risa suspected had been used to dig a grave for their future sacrifice.
The prince yanked, and together he and Risa jumped from the platform and ran for the bridge, Brunie sprinting behind them.
As they crossed the stream, there was a deep rumble through the air.
Something cold and wet landed on Risa’s cheek.
She glanced up in time to see gray clouds block out the moon and break open.
Rain followed them down a dirt path that led away from the bridge. It didn’t head for the Bosque, which was good enough for Risa.
“Prince Javi—”
“I think we’re at the point where you can simply call me Javi,” he said with a wheeze. The blond hair made him look sickly, as did the sweat along his brow and lip.
“Can you outrun them?”
“If I must.”
“You can call me Risa,” she decided to tell him then, because at least if they were caught and sacrificed anyway, he would know her name.
“Risa,” he repeated with a lopsided smile.