Chapter 16 #3
A flash of rage sears through me. I wish I had something to throw straight into his smug face. He can call me whatever he wants, but one thing I am not is someone who abandons others to die.
“Two minutes,” Kaelzar warns, his urgency slicing through the air.
The right thing would be saving them all.
Seraphina’s words echo through me, driving me forward. My arms snap out, reaching for everyone within my grasp.
“Go!” I scream, charging into the crowd, touching anyone I can reach. Chains screech. An ungodly shriek erupts from the Fleshleeches’ maws. The ground trembles.
My father’s drunk and furious face flashes before me. He’ll hear about this. Maybe he’s watching already, watching me make the biggest mistake of my life. I don’t know if he’ll disown me, if he hasn’t already. But after this? After risking everything to free every last person—
I push onward, brushing hands, arms, shoulders. Some flinch from my touch, and something ugly stirs inside me.
Jealousy. For Seraphina’s resolve. For her ability to do what’s expected, no matter the cost. For how she buries what she feels and endures, while I… I can’t.
Though that kind of strength is a torture of its own. I’ll never be that unfeeling.
The last person—a young man—jerks away the instant I touch him. Without even a glance, he bolts.
I turn to look at the clock. But it’s not the dwindling sand that catches my eye.
It’s Kaelzar.
He stands amid the chaos, shadows unfurling around him like living things, herding the terrified crowd toward my Sanctum.
Kaelzar’s commanding voice cuts through the panic. The strongest don’t trample the weakest. He won’t let them.
A girl, maybe fifteen, her hair a bright Rust Hollow red, stumbles as two men shove her aside, their desperation stronger than their shame.
Kaelzar catches her. One steadying hand. A shield between her and those who would cast her out.
Then his shadows strike. The two men jerk upward, choking, their feet scraping for purchase as darkness coils around their throats. Their gasps mingle with the din of fleeing bodies as he reprimands them.
Even now. Even in the face of death, people refuse to stand together. They cast out the Rust Hollow women like refuse.
Heat coils in my chest. As if he knew. As if Kaelzar understood exactly what I’d have wanted before I even knew it myself.
It unsettles me, the way he always seems to anticipate me, as if he’s mapped out every thought, every impulse before I’ve even felt them.
As if he knows me better than I know myself.
And maybe, in some terrible, inescapable way… he does.
I don’t have time to dwell on it. The sand in the hourglass is almost gone.
I rip the sharp hairpin—jammed in by Eva despite my protests—from my hair and sprint toward the nearest leech. I have to kill it before it gets loose. Before it reaches the people.
It’s a good plan... until it moves.
The Fleshleech surges forward, its bloated, segmented body stretching and contracting with impossible speed. Sickly greens and browns ripple across its slick hide, the surface pulsing as if something inside is trying to claw its way free.
The spiral of jagged teeth in its maw grinds together, releasing a chittering sound that scrapes down my spine.
My stomach drops. It’s wrong. All of it. A violation of life itself.
My legs lock. My grip on the hairpin tightens, and suddenly, the weapon feels absurd. What did I think I’d do? Stab it? It would swallow me whole before I even got close.
No. I need to turn back. Get to the others. Reinforce the safety lines. Hide. Regroup.
The leech lunges. I stumble back as the chain jerks it short, its maw snapping shut inches from my face. A sharp breath escapes me in relief.
Too soon.
The creature whips sideways. I don’t see the tail coming.
It slams into me with crushing force and then I’m airborne.
I hit the stone wall hard. Air bursts from my lungs in a broken gasp. My body jerks like a marionette with its strings cut. For a heartbeat, everything goes black.
I try to move, but my limbs won’t obey. I blink, dazed.
The Fleshleech’s bloated mass slams into me, pinning me against the wall as it strains toward me with its maw. Thankfully, the chain still holds.
Its slick hide seeps through my dress, cold and foul. I twist, thrashing, but the creature only tightens, coiling, repositioning. It’s going to crush me.
Dark thoughts tear through me: I’m not strong enough. Not fast enough. Not… enough.
But instinct screams louder. My magic surges, wild and hungry, begging to be released, but I clamp down on it. I can’t let it loose. I can’t let it destroy more than the monsters ever could.
I have to be worthy of these people. Me. Not the corrupted power of a damned Goddess.
I shove upward, boots scraping over stone slick with grime and leech slime.
The creature presses harder, its worm-like body crushing the air from my lungs. I wedge my hands between its pulsing flesh and the wall, fingers slipping, nails splitting as I fight for a hold.
The chain clanks. The leech jerks forward with a wet squelch, its gaping maw snapping inches from my face.
The stench hits—rotting meat and old—sickly-sweet—blood that burns my nostrils. But the chain holds.
That’s it. The idea hits fast and hard.
Using its own weight, I brace one foot on the wall and the other against its slick hide, forcing leverage between us.
The mucus helps. It’s vile, but it makes me slide. I twist, shove with everything I have and suddenly, the crushing pressure breaks.
I wrench free, gasping, half-climbing, half-sliding over its glistening back.
The leech lunges again.
I leap.
The chain snaps taut, yanking it short. Its maw slams into the wall with a bone-deep crack that rattles the stone. I hit the ground hard, knees buckling, breath torn from my chest, but I’m free.
My hand still squeezed hard around the hairpin Eva forced into my hair earlier, her little stroke of genius. I thrust it forward, driving it into the creature’s eye.
The Fleshleech screams, a sound so shrill it tears the air. Its body convulses, twisting into its own chain, crushing itself in spasms of panic.
I stagger back, panting, shaking. My hands sting, coated in its thick, putrid blood.
But I’m alive. And I don’t have time to think about that. Because there are still three more.
And their chains are gone.