Chapter 33
We’re split up into six groups.
In the first group, four fiends are led to the Fire to test their blood, including Rimona.
She bites on her lip nervously as she’s led away.
Three more people are added to the Drought group with Nicklaus, while two fiends go to the Poisoned moat with Garren.
The other two groups, each with three people, go to the mound of dirt and the metal building farther away, accompanied by Piper.
Kaetir is in that group, and he shoots me a nervous wave as he leaves.
I’m left behind with the sixth group.
I stand here with all eleven fiends from Odelina’s batch, plus three from Hamelyn. Everyone shifts uncomfortably under the watchful eyes of two guards.
“This is incredible, isn’t it?” Odelina says beside me.
“Yes,” I reply quietly, but my frown hasn’t lifted from my brow.
Her eyes rove over my face. “You’re troubled. Is this about Nell? Ignore her. It’s nobody’s business that you’re sleeping with the Piper.”
I jerk my head to look at her. “I’m not sleeping with him!”
Her brows lift. “Oh. Of course. I apologize,” she says, nervously smoothing her curls away from her horns. “Then if it’s not that . . . what’s troubling you?”
I hesitate before lifting a hand to gesture around. “I can’t help but wonder what this will mean for us.”
Her head tilts. “Well, it should mean that we’re protected, right? The Governs won’t be able to ignore us. We’ll be needed.”
“Yeah,” I reply, looking ahead to where the red flames of the Fire spit and hiss while fiends toss their blood into it. “That’s what I’m worried about.”
Odelina falls quiet after that and then drifts away to be with her group. I hear them chatter, and I envy them being able to feel so eager, so full of hope.
Because all I feel is worry.
Ciona returns from the Fire, her cheeks pinched pink, though I think it might be more from excitement than heat.
“Alright, since I haven’t had a chance to properly scent you since you’ve only just arrived, we’ll test your blood directly on each of the five Plagues,” she says to Odelina’s group. “If that’s agreeable?”
Odelina looks around to the others and they all nod in agreement. “Yes.”
Ciona then looks at my smaller group from Hamelyn. “For you four, I haven’t been able to trace you yet, so you’ll be tested everywhere as well.” Her gaze moves past us. “Everyone ready?”
“Yes, we’re ready,” Odelina answers with an enthusiastic smile.
I’m decidedly not ready, but when it’s my turn, I wordlessly hold out my arm to be cut anyway.
* * *
When we test for Drought, two people’s blood soaks in, while for the rest of us, it puddles like glossy blisters, unable to flatten.
For Fire, we stand at the wall of chest-high flames as red as Ciona’s stained ears and hold drops of our blood in our palms before tossing it to the tendrils. For five fiends, the flames react, nearly flickering out like fingers pinching a lit wick.
Eight of us test for Poison, and we crouch beside the moat. The water reeks up close, like something rancid and bitter, the pitch-black color making our reflections glint with shadowy malice.
My arm aches where I was sliced, but I dig my finger in against the split, encouraging blood to gather. When I turn my arm over and watch the drops fall into the water, nothing happens.
Down the line, there’s a gasp, and Odelina covers her mouth with her hand as she stares. “Fates . . .”
I look to where her blood has fallen and see the black color leaching away from the drops of red, leaving behind a circle of clear water like the Poison is repelled by her blood. Everyone titters excitedly, Odelina beaming with flustered joy.
Sweat drips down my face as I turn and trudge away from the Fire and Poison. There are two more Plagues to test, so the last seven of us veer away from the moat, following Ciona toward the metal building.
A familiar, chilling buzz fills the air.
I hesitate alongside the other remaining fiend from Hamelyn—a man with shorter horns than mine, just an inch off his shaved head. “Fucking Flies,” he mutters. “Had enough to do with them, haven’t we?”
I nod, barely resisting the urge to take my veillet and pull it over my face.
Ciona stops at the front of the strange-looking metal building. The roof is completely flat, the walls soldered together, and there isn’t a single window or open seam in sight. Just an entryway that’s popped out, narrower than the rest of it.
I hear Flies battering against the walls.
There’s a guard sitting beside the door with his face covering yanked down, hanging uselessly over his shirt. A net is propped up beside him with dead Flies inside.
Ciona comes to a stop beside him. “Seven jars, please.”
He gives us a once-over before getting to his feet and turning around to the crate he was sitting on.
He yanks it open and then starts passing out a jar to each of us.
I take mine with a shaky grip, frowning at the glass container that has a handful of Flies inside.
My ears ring, and it takes everything in me not to fling the jar away.
“Don’t touch that,” the guard snaps, and I look over at one of the fiends, who was messing with the part of the lid that appears to pop up without having to unscrew the entire thing.
The fiend wrenches his fingers away.
“Careful,” Ciona cautions. “We try not to let any of them loose. It can be quite the hassle.”
She reaches into the open crate and grabs a rolled bandage. I watch as she rips seven pieces off, and then she passes them out.
“Blot your blood on the bandage,” she instructs. “It will need to be completely saturated, so make sure you have enough on there. Then quickly pop open the top part of the lid, stuff the bandage inside, and shut it—ideally without releasing any Flies.”
Someone grumbles about needing to reopen their wound, but I pinch at my cut until I soak the bandage. Then I yank up the cellar top of the jar and shove my bandage inside before snapping it closed.
The Flies become frenzied. I watch their bulbous black bodies attack the bloodied cloth, ramming into the glass and buzzing with a furor that makes me grimace.
The activity increases for the other fiends too, making my nerves split.
I lived with this sound for months, and hearing it again makes my skin crawl.
The Flies in my jar clamber over each other to try to get to my blood, and the rest that can’t fit on the scrap are running into the glass again and again, right where my hand clutches it, like they’re trying to break through and bite me.
Ciona walks down our line and peers into our jars. “Hmm. It seems none of you affect this Plague.” She plucks the jars out of our hands, passing them off to the guard to stow away. “No matter, we have one more Plague to test,” she tells us, motioning ahead.
I turn to look at the mound of dirt ahead, and my apprehension shifts. “What’s the last Plague?” I ask warily.
She glances over at me. “Oh, I thought you’d have guessed,” she says as she leads us forward. “It’s Rats.”
My anxiety pitches.
She’s right. I should’ve guessed.
We leave behind the overwhelming buzz of the Flies, only to walk closer to another unsettling sound: Rats squeaking in endless chatter, their nails scraping in high-pitched scours.
“Watch your step,” Ciona calls as we near the mound.
It’s quite a steep slope of unearthed dirt that’s been shoveled out into this makeshift hill. My legs burn as I trudge up the incline, and I’m panting by the time we reach the top. I look down at the gruesome sight of a pit full of Rats.
The trench is deep, reaching twenty feet at least, but with a marvel of glass across the sides so the creatures can’t clamber up. The sight of their writhing bodies as they crawl over each other makes a repulsed shiver go down my spine.
And suddenly, I’m back there. Chained to the punishment post. Hearing the vermin stream below me, gnawing through buildings, swarming over people. Rats eating them alive until they were nothing but bones and blood on the street—
“Estinya.”
My eyes snap open, and I realize I’m drenched in sweat, and my hands are slapped over my ears. I’m trembling. Nausea rakes down into my stomach with poison-tipped claws.
Piper’s molten brown eyes burn into my face, scalding me from cheek to lips.
He stands in front of me, blocking out the pit and the Rats and the rest of the fiends, but I can still hear everything.
Their squeaks hammering against my skull, the echoes of those horrifying screams. Then the sound of the whip against my flesh.
Striking. Again and again. Flaying my skin. Splitting me apart.
A whimper escapes me as my vision tunnels.
But then, music begins to play.
It’s measured and deliberate, anchored by a low pitch and an unhurried pace that cuts through my terror. There’s a gravity to it that takes hold of my limbs and weighs down my jumping muscles until my trembling eases.
My whimper cuts off, and my hands drop away from my ears.
I look up at him as the tune slips out from his instrument with intentional calm.
Silvery smoke twists from the end while he moves his fingers with a depth of dexterity I couldn’t possibly replicate.
The red engravings glow along the length of the pipe, burning like the drag of flowing lava, and casting his face in faint light as he watches me.
His song is quiet but seeping, a slow soak that permeates my senses and pulls away the rest of the fingers of panic that trapped me in their grip. I let out a shuddering breath as I’m released from the last of it, the music drowning out the memories of the horror I was forced to watch.
To endure.
When it falls away, all that’s left is the song and the smoke and his mooring presence.
Slowly, he eases the music to a whispering end before pulling his lips away for a breath of praise. “Good, blight.”