The Dew of Flesh

by Gregory Ashe

  Chapter 76

  Ilahe held still, eyes fixed on the woman in white across the chamber from her. Ayde stretched, drawing her arms behind her back, and a smile drew her dark red lips out.

  “No need to hide, you Cenarbasin bitch,” Ayde called out, turning to look at Ilahe. “I saw you while I was toying with Maq’s pet. I thought you had no interest in our god. I thought you wanted to be left alone.”

  Ilahe straightened; there was no point crouching like a toad. One hand moved slowly toward the cam-ad; all she needed to do was break the glass, and she would be more than Ayde’s equal.

  “I’m not interested in you or your god,” Ilahe shouted back. “But I don’t like my friends being killed. I just want to find her, and I’ll leave, no more trouble.” She was almost there—fingers inches from the silver frame.

  There was no blurring, no flicker of movement. Just a pop, a rush of air stirring the mourning cloths, and Ayde stood next to her, wrenching her arm back. The white-haired woman drove a knee into Ilahe’s stomach, and Ilahe crumpled. As Ilahe fell, Ayde twisted, and a flare of pain raced up Ilahe’s arm. A breathless yelp forced its way from Ilahe’s mouth as she hit the ground, her cheek burning as it scraped along the edge of the packed earth step.

  “You stupid woman,” Ayde said. Ilahe blinked back tears, tried to push herself up, but with one elbow damaged, and the other arm hurt by Ayde, the effort brought only a whimper.

  Ayde’s kick—delivered with a stained white slipper—caught Ilahe in the belly and sent her rolling through the air. She hit a terrace hard, pain sending white stars before her eyes. Ilahe rolled until she came to a stop against one of the irregular mounds dotting the terraces, but it made no difference. Pain wracked her body. She could not move, could barely draw breath. Another whisper of air, and, through tears, Ilahe saw the white slippers.

  One foot drew back, revealing the scuffed sole, just above Ilahe’s head. A killing blow, with the woman’s enhanced strength.

  Suddenly, the delicate white foot gave a little kick, knocking chips of packed earth from the sole of the slipper, and a tremor ran up the white skirt. Then, with a jerk, everything went still.

  A heartbeat later, Ayde dropped to the ground, vacant eyes staring at Ilahe’s face. Blood pooled underneath the woman, invisible against the dark soil, staining the white dress red and pink, its salty tang mixing with the fetor of the pit.

  Another thud. Ilahe pushed herself up, arms shaking, pain making her tremble like a leaf in a spring storm. She glanced past Ayde. The bearded man, his face pale, had dropped to his knees. He held a blade in one hand, the metal stained dark red—the same blade he had been stabbed with. In one quick motion, he opened Ayde’s throat, then slid her halfway over the lip of the terrace, letting her head and arms dangle in the air. Ayde’s blood spattered onto the terrace below like a newborn waterfall; Ilahe did not think she would ever forget the sound.

  With a grunt, the bearded man collapsed sideway against the wall of the terrace above them, his back to Ilahe. From where she crouched, Ilahe could see the wound in his back; the man should have been dead. As she watched, a tremor shook his body, and then another more severe. Then he was still.

  Ilahe stayed on the ground for long moments, in part from the pain, in part from fear. The man did not move, though, did not draw breath. The chime of draining blood had faded to a trickle, like the last bit of wine from a skin, and Ayde did not move. Every inch of her body aching in time to her heartbeat, Ilahe pushed herself to her feet and, with uneven steps, made her way to the stairs.

  Somehow she still had her swords, and the cam-ad remained intact, although both arms screamed when she tried to bend them. Each step brought more pain, but Ilahe stumbled down, toward the center of the pits. Daye needed her, and Ilahe would not let that blind, foolish woman be hurt because she had tried to help. The pain of her body, though, the fatigue, the stress of the days and weeks leading up to this moment—a flight of interminable, painful steps—washed over Ilahe. She would save Daye. And then what? More fighting? A return to Cenarbasi, to search out vengeance that—compared to the few days of happiness Ilahe had felt—no longer tasted as sweet? Days and weeks and months of loneliness, of self-hate, of living with the knowledge of what she had lost? Hash’s face floated in front of her eyes and Ilahe realized, half in despair, half in surprise, that losing him hurt more than the old wounds. Was this life, then? To love and lose, over and over again? To be forever a weapon, forged by gods and men, cutting asunder her ties to anyone that loved her? The thoughts settled around her like a black cloud. Freeing Daye would change nothing. Why not just stop—stop fighting, stop trying, stop everything?

  Only when she reached the bottom of the pit did Ilahe realize there were people there, and the shock brought her, for a moment, out of her despair. A man, his hair the dark red of lit coals, knelt next to a blonde woman on the ground. His legs ended in stumps at the ankle, and a pair of rough-hewn crutches lay on the ground next to him. Another man, with dark hair—as dark as Ilahe’s, even if his skin was still pale—and a protruding belly. All three wore identical brown tunics that hung to their knees. The cripple glanced up at Ilahe, hazel eyes hard, and he lifted a sword that had been hidden behind the unconscious woman.

  “What do you want?” he asked.

  “Where’s Ayde?” the chubby one asked. “And the other one--what happened to them?”

  Ilahe glanced at them. Her heart felt like a stone inside her. She glanced around the bottom of the pit and found a tunnel leading away from where she had come—deeper into the earth, further into this midnight realm of the tair.

  “Dead,” Ilahe said. Her tongue was dry and thick in her mouth. “Where do they take the people for the harvest?”

  The chubby one glanced at the cripple and bit his lip. Setting the tip of the sword in the dirt, the cripple leaned back on his legs and stared at Ilahe. Something about the man irritated Ilahe—the set of his shoulders reminded her of a fighter; the way he gripped the sword, even kneeling, told her he had held one before. More than that, though, was the look of confidence in his eyes. Solid, unwavering hazel met her gaze for gaze, even though he was a cripple. It made Ilahe want to strike him.

  “Where?” she said.

  “We need help,” the cripple said. “She won’t wake, and Vas can’t carry her alone.”

  A smile crept onto Ilahe’s mouth—she had hurt so long, and pain and grief weighed down on her. To hear this cripple, with all his arrogance, demanding her help, it brought back all the times men had hurt her, ordered her about, made her feel helpless and weak.

  “Can’t quite get your feet under you?” Ilahe asked.

  Red spots bloomed in the man’s cheeks, and he bit his lip, but the sword, its tip buried in the dirt, did not waver. The chubby man surged forward, face as red as an oven, shouting. “How dare you?” he said. “Who do you think you are, to come here and treat people this way?”

  “Enough, Vas,” the cripple said, although his cheeks were still flushed.

  “No,” the chubby one—Vas—said. “No, it’s bad enough that the Khacens treat their own this way, but she’s a Cenarbasin; tair bless me, you’d think she’d have some idea what it is to be treated poorly.”

  “Enough,” the cripple repeated, and Vas, his face aflame, clamped his mouth shut and retreated.

  Ilahe made her way to the tunnel and glanced down it. Darkness met her, and a gentle breeze that dispersed the heavy tang of the pit. And in that moment, Ilahe knew she couldn’t go on. Not into another dark tunnel. Not into another chamber. Not into another fight, struggling to eke out one more breath, one more heartbeat, when all she wanted was for the blackness to wrap her up and snuff out the light of her life, once and for all.

  Body aching, Ilahe unstrapped her swords, tossed them to the ground, and then slid to the base of the wall, resting her back against the cool, packed soil. It leeched the pain from her bruises, replacing everything with a distancing numbness. She closed her eyes. Blackne
ss, pure and simple. No more pain. Just a great weariness, tugging at her, pulling her into a place between dream and waking, between breaths.

  Distantly, Ilahe heard a crack, and then another. Like branches breaking in a storm, or the crunch of chicken bones in a hound’s mouth. They punctuated her reverie like flashes of lightning, but she ignored them. The blackness could take her now—she had failed Daye, but it did not matter. Both women would be at peace soon enough.

  Through the chilly cocoon, Ilahe heard something. A voice, distant.

  “Wake up,” someone said. Not angry. Firm. Insistent. “Now. Get up. You’re going to die if you don’t.”

  Ilahe tried to press the voice out, but it filled her, echoed in the emptiness she had sought. Then someone was shaking her by the arm, and Ilahe found reality rushing back in around her—the pain in her body, like a signal fire in her wounded elbow as someone pulled on her arm, the stench of the pit, the weight of her grief.

  Flicking her eyes open, Ilahe stared up at the cripple. Hazel eyes, still hard, fixed her.

  “Let go of me,” Ilahe snapped, grabbing his hand. Her other arm, just as wounded, protested, but she did not let go. The cripple stopped pulling on her arm, but he did not release his grip either.

  “Get up,” he said. “The seiri are waking. I thought . . . I thought we’d stopped them, but . . .” He stopped, shook his head. “You can still make it out of here. Vas can show you the way out. Now get up!” The last words he said in that same commanding tone—the way Dorur would have spoken to Ilahe, when he trained her in the sword all that time ago, when she thought she was too tired to ever lift a blade again.

  Now, though, it was not the weight of steel that held her—it was the thousand gossamer chains of a life gone wrong: unfulfilled expectations, old dreams, heartbreak and loss. Each one tied her down, and Ilahe no longer had the strength to go on. Not when the future promised nothing besides more loss, more chains, until the weight crushed her.

  “Get up!” That command again, punctuated by the crack and snap of something in the distance. “That’s an order.”

  “I don’t want to,” Ilahe said, shouting back at him. “I want to be done! Don’t you understand? I want to be done. Leave me alone. You have no idea what I’ve gone through!”

  The hazel eyes did not waver; no angry red spots marked the man’s pale cheeks. When he spoke, his voice still carried that ring of authority, but his words were pitched for her alone.

  “I’ve seen your type before. Hard, strong. Right up until the moment that things don’t go your way. I don’t know what happened in your life, but trust me—I understand. I was just like you.”

  “You could never understand,” Ilahe said, held by his gaze. The words poured out of her. “I lost everything.”

  “The god I swore to serve took my feet,” the cripple said. “What good is a soldier who can’t even stand? His priests beat me and mocked me. The love of my life deserted me when she found out I was in the Garden, and my family can do nothing to help me. And you tell me that I don’t understand what it is to lose everything?”

  Ilahe could only stare, her heart hammering so hard that she thought he must feel it through his grip on her arm.

  “True strength means getting back on your feet,” and his mouth curved into a hard smile, “and doing what you must, because life only has the meaning we give it. I may not have feet, and I may not be a soldier, but my life still has meaning. And I make it that way.”

  Without another word he released her arm, rose, and, swinging himself awkwardly on the crutches, turned and made his way back into the pit. He stopped for a moment near the blonde woman; she had regained consciousness and was looking around in confusion. After a moment she stood and wrapped her arms around the cripple’s waist, pressing her cheek to his. Ilahe watched, her eyes locked on the woman’s face, as she whispered something in the cripple’s ear. Tears ran down her face. A moment later, she released the cripple, wiping her eyes and laughing at something he said. Clutching the sword in one hand as he tried to work the crutches, the cripple moved forward, toward one of the terraces, where Ilahe could see figures moving.

  Pain, worse than pain, filled Ilahe, threatening to choke her. All her life was gone, taken from her by the priests. What did she have to live for? Even the cripple had the blonde girl—her caresses, her whispered words, her tears. Ilahe had nothing. No love. No hope. No future.

  And then she remembered the feel of the babe in her arms. Ly’s babe. The child she had saved, the child she had brought in the world, a life to balance the one taken from her. And she remembered the feeling of that night, when it seemed that the vast expanse of sky was no longer a threatening void, but an endless horizon of possibility, of hope, of happiness. And she had done that, made it possible, because she had decided to stay and help.

  The man’s words sank deep inside her, pushing back the tide of pain and self-pity, shoring it up behind a wall of resolution. Every muscle protested as Ilahe got to her feet. Her arms felt like burning weights as she retrieved the swords from the ground. Each step sent a jolt of agony through her, but she walked forward.

  She walked forward because she could still walk, and while she could still walk, she could do something with her life. The cripple was right about that. And right now, that meant saving these people. Then she would find Daye. After that . . . perhaps it did not matter. Not now.

  As Ilahe reached the center of the pit, she glanced at the blonde and at Vas and then nodded toward the tunnel. “Get back there,” she said. “I can’t do anything for you if you get surrounded.”

  “Siniq-elb,” the woman said, her eyes going to the cripple. He had almost reached the lowest terrace, and he trembled on the crutches. As he lifted the sword, the cripple slipped and almost fell.

  “I’ll get him,” Ilahe said. “Help him into the tunnel, and then shout if they get past me.”

  The cripple—Siniq-elb—had regained his balance, and he held himself up with one crutch now, the sword in the other hand. For the first time, Ilahe got a good look at the creatures that covered the terraces. Seiri, he had called them. Muddy, skin hanging in wrinkled folds like wet laundry, the creatures clawed their way free from the mounds covering the terraces. Although they looked like men, their hands ended in long metal claws crusted with dirt. Ilahe felt her stomach twist; the wights, creatures of stone, had been terribly fierce. These things looked related somehow, but they seemed slower. Unsteady.

  Siniq-elb slashed at the closest creature—the seir. Legends, superstition of foolish Khacens, Ilahe had thought. Whatever it was, the creature stumbled back as Siniq-elb’s sword clipped its chest with a spray of mud. A moment later, though, it surged forward, claws flashing for the cripple’s face. Siniq-elb slashed and thrust, but the creature—slow and stumbling as it was—bore down on him, ignoring his blows as though they did not exist.

  Ilahe darted forward, grabbed Siniq-elb by the shoulder and pulled him back as a set of claws raked the air where his face had been. She parried the second set of claws and moved backward, dragging Siniq-elb. The cripple stumbled and almost fell, but Ilahe kept moving, and somehow Siniq-elb kept hold of his sword and his remaining crutch. Only when Ilahe was halfway to the tunnel, where the blonde woman stood ready to help Siniq-elb into the tunnel, did she stop dragging him.

  Swords ready, Ilahe took a step toward the terraces.

  “Stop,” Siniq-elb said, his voice thick with frustration. “You can’t fight them alone. There are too many, and soon they’ll finish waking up, and then they’ll move like lightning. With the blood of a Renewed awakening them, they’ll just get faster. And they’ll cut you down. Take Vas and Mece. Run—I’ll distract them.”

  Ilahe turned back, looked at him. Mece, the blonde woman, knelt at his back, her hands under his arm, ready to help him into the tunnel. For the first time, Ilahe noticed the woman’s hands. Horribly disfigured, as though the fingers had been broken over and over again, and mis-set each time. Perhaps no one’
s life was without loss.

  Fear and love and helplessness warred in the Mece’s face. At a nod from Ilahe, Mece lifted Siniq-elb, her cheeks flushing at the effort, and dragged him toward the tunnel. Siniq-elb’s face filled with fury.

  “Let me go,” he shouted, but he did not let go of the sword or the crutch, and he could do little more than thrash against Mece’s grip. “You can’t do this alone. You’re going to die!”

  “You were right,” Ilahe said, watching as Mece pulled him to safety. She could hear the seiri moving; wet footsteps slapped the ground behind her. “You were right, Siniq-elb. We give our lives meaning. And I—” she stopped for a moment, a sad smile tugging at her mouth. “I was wrong. You see they did take everything.” Ilahe drove one sword into the ground, flinching at the pain in her wounded arm, and then fished out the cam-ad. It was cool and clean against her sweaty palm. Dreams of revenge, the only that had kept her moving all these months, resided in that cam-ad. It was supposed to open the door to vengeance. Those dreams flitted away like ash before a strong wind. “They took everything,” Ilahe repeated. “But I took something too.”

  She closed her eyes. With the flat of her palm she slapped the flower, with its beautiful silver wire and colored glass, against her chest. The glass splintered underneath her hand, shrieking like a tea-kettle, burning and freezing all at once. Pain and color flared in Ilahe’s hand and breasts. The world shifted around her, flattening into angles and planes, perfect lines of clarity and symmetry. A world of infinite precision.

  Each shard of glass burned, as though embers had found their way under her skin, and the fire that the glass kindled roared to life in her veins. Ilahe trembled as the flames coursed through her body, scouring it of every other sensation, until it seemed that every hair, every inch of skin, was alight with power. And then, between one heartbeat and the next, she was ice. Cold, hard, numb. The pain in her arms, her battered body—it was all gone. Ilahe pulled her sword free, and with that movement she realized that this cam-ad, like the first, had brought her great speed. Ilahe crouched, tensed, and sprang into the air.

  She somersaulted backward, soaring up—this cam-ad brought strength, too, in addition to healing and speed—and over the pit, flying up to middle of the terraces. Ilahe landed easily, the packed dirt giving way slightly as she struck the ground. Most of the seiri, naked and muddy, turned to follow her movement. Some still stumbled, awkward and slow, but several of them raced toward her with a speed that was more than normal. Perhaps there was some truth to the old stories.

  As the first of the seiri reached her, Ilahe leaped into the air, grateful to see that—unlike the wights—the seiri slowed as they came within reach of her salt-blades. For whatever reason, the blades affected them the same way they did a sarkomancer. As Ilahe leaped, she struck, one sword cutting through the first seir’s neck, the second taking off a mud-colored arm at the wrist. The metal claws hit the dirt with a muted clink.

  Then Ilahe was dancing among them, her speed and precision like that of light itself, as merciless as the foreign sun. The seiri, slowed by her salt-blades, fell before her, but each blow took a bit more effort. Their bodies were like mud—thick and viscous, and more than once Ilahe worried that her blade would not come free of the sticky flesh.

  Launching herself off the shoulder of a dying seir, Ilahe flew across the pit and slammed into a knot of seiri that had just awoken. She bowled through them, knocking them to the ground as the force of her jump carried her to the edge of the terrace. A slight tug at her waist, and Ilahe looked down to find one seir’s claws buried in her gut. She felt nothing—no pain, no terror. Only the chill of the cam-ad. Ilahe smashed the hilt of one sword in the seir’s face, and it caved in like fresh pottery. It began to jerk, its claws flailing, and Ilahe noticed detachedly as the metal blades buried in her flesh ripped up and out, tearing long red lines up to her breasts before the seir’s thrashing carried it away from her.

  Ilahe rolled to her feet carefully, one hand pressed against the wound, but even as she did, she saw the flesh stitching itself back together—although the same could not be said for the yellow dress, now little more than tattered cloth. Moving with the perfect precision of the world of the cam-ad, Ilahe stepped between the newly awakened seiri, lopping off heads and arms as she made her way toward the next terrace.

  Each step brought more of the seiri, and they moved faster. Some—the ones she had ignored at the beginning—seemed to catch on to the effect of her blades, for they kept their distance and watched as newly awakened seiri lurched into Ilahe’s path. Ilahe saw them, but could do nothing—the newer seiri were still dangerous, and at times the crowd threatened to overwhelm her.

  Her arms burned as she sliced through thick, muddy tendons and muscle. The wounds seeped a brown sludge that smelled worse than the terraces—as though the essence of that stench had been boiled down and poured into the creatures’ veins. Ilahe fought on, grateful for the soothing cool of the cam-ad that, in the same way it numbed her wounds, made the acidic smell distant.

  And then, suddenly, there were no more seiri to fight. Ilahe paused, her breath coming in puffs of frosted air, her arms throbbing even under the numbness of the cam-ad. A shout rang through the air, facets of air forcing their way through the even lines of light and darkness. Mece.

  Cursing, Ilahe launched herself into the air, grateful that this cam-ad brought both strength and speed, for she flew into the air faster than her frosted breath could disperse. The jump brought her to the middle of the pit, and Ilahe plummeted down, cursing the blackness again as she saw a lone seir moving toward the tunnel. For whatever reason, it had not rushed the tunnel with its enhanced speed; if it had, the three humans would have been dead in heartbeats. There was still time.

  Ilahe hit the ground hard, swords held parallel to the packed earth. With all the speed of the cam-ad, she darted forward, swords sliding into the seir’s back. The creature let out a howl, deep and reverberating—the first time any of the creatures had done more than draw breath. It reached down and gripped the blades, and as it did, a half-dozen seiri dropped from the darkness above, where they had been hidden.

  Panic rose in Ilahe, stronger even than the cool serenity of the cam-ad. She yanked on the swords, but, buried in the thick molasses of the seir’s body, and held by the fully awakened seir, even in its death-throes, the swords did not move. The seiri rushed in, ignoring their companion, who sank to the ground, his bellow fading to a breathy moan. Ilahe had no time for the dying seir; one last attempt proved her swords were stuck, and the seir—although slowed by the salt-blades—were still coming toward her.

  Blackness take them, the creatures were smarter than Ilahe had realized. The trap had worked perfectly. She let the first seir drive its claws into her chest, where her breasts met, and—thanks to the numbness of the cam-ad—Ilahe planted her feet and with all the strength of the cam-ad, gripped the creature’s arm and swung. The seir spun around, carried forward by its own momentum and Ilahe’s throw, and slammed into three of the other seiri, tangling in their legs and sending all four to the ground.

  A pin-prick of pain in her chest, and red blood on the buttery fabric, told Ilahe that the cam-ad was losing its power. In a moment of concentration, she could sense the fragments of glass working their way through her flesh, and they had almost reached her heart. A glance at the tunnel told her that the three were still safe—ridiculously, Vas cowered behind both Mece and Siniq-elb. Without time for anything else, Ilahe launched herself into the air.

  She landed behind one of the two seiri still standing. The creature spun to face her—she was too far from the swords, Ilahe realized—but Ilahe was already moving. Her knee to its groin, and it was like kneeing the ground. The shock of the blow set Ilahe’s teeth on edge, but the creature stumbled back from the cam-ad powered blow. Ilahe pushed forward, knocking aside its claws, and gripped the mud-colored head right at the jaw. With a kick, Ilahe flew into the air and twisted.

  She felt t
he pain even through the dwindling cool of the cam-ad, her muscles straining against the thick clay-flesh, and then as she flew up, Ilahe heard a pop and the strain vanished. She landed next to her salt-blades, seir’s head still in her hands.

  Dropping the head, Ilahe knelt next to her blades. She pulled on them, arms burning, the fading cam-ad sending panic and frustration through her. Slowly one blade came free, and it had to be enough, for the fallen seiri were regaining their feet.

  Before they could right themselves, Ilahe was there, her heart pumping fire and ice, so that cold sweat burst on her forehead. She drew on the last of the cam-ad’s power, exulting in it. She was a creature of light and perfection, a goddess, pure energy refracted through panes of flesh. The sword flashed in the rigid lines of the lantern light, and Ilahe slid between the seiri, severing heads as she panted for air, drowning under the power running through her veins.

  And then the seiri were dead, the brown ooze making viscous pools on the ground. Ilahe dropped to one knee. The last moments of the cam-ad were painful, as though a miniature sun had been born inside her heart, all its light and heat forced through veins too fragile to hold it. Ilahe blinked away tears and sweat, trying to catch her breath, staring at her body and wondering that she was not shining like a candle.

  She had done it. She had saved them.

  “Watch out,” came a voice.

  Ilahe turned, sluggish from the fatigue that had invaded her body. The last seir—the one she had forgotten--stood a few feet away. Even with the salt-blade, it was still faster than her, for Ilahe was exhausted and in pain, and the seir was a creature of earth. It crossed the distance between them in a single step and one clawed hand swept toward her.

  The metal blades caught Ilahe in the side and sent her flying through the air. She struck the earth wall of the lowest terrace, and sparks filled her vision. Ilahe slid to the ground, unable to see, her head swimming, her heart still burning like a risen star.

  Sticky, slapping footsteps sounded. Ilahe struggled to push aside the pain, to focus on the world around her. Her side burned, and the heat seemed to spread, running down her leg. Bleeding. Blackness take the seir.

  Ilahe pushed herself up, but everything spun around her, and she could not seem to find her sword. She had held it in her hand just a moment ago . . . darkness gathered again at the edge of her vision, and Ilahe dropped back to the ground, one hand pressed over the wet warmth of her side. So much pain.

  Her vision cleared as the seir reached her, its toes inches from her face, like melted flesh or tangled roots—she could not tell which. The creature’s impassive face stared down at her, the dark, wrinkled flesh worse than any corpse Ilahe had seen. She stared up into the face of something beyond death, and for a moment, Ilahe felt fear.

  Then, suddenly, there was relief. She had done her best. If she died now, it would simply be peace after a long struggle. Tears gathered in the corner of her eyes and, for a reason Ilahe could not explain, she found herself praying, for the first time since that night all those months ago, to whatever god would hear her. Not for herself. She prayed that the cripple and the blonde would escape and be happy somewhere, because someone deserved to be happy in this world. She prayed that Daye would be safe, and would continue to be foolish and kind. Most of all, she prayed that Hash would be happy.

  The seir leaned down, its long metal claws racing for her face. Ilahe pulled away, unable to face her own death.

  Suddenly the seir jerked back, its claws retreating. Something flashed overhead in the deep yellow light of the lanterns. A plop, and something hit the ground next to Ilahe. Long moments passed before she realized she was still alive.

  Shifting, Ilahe turned to see the seir’s head sitting a few feet away. A moment later, the muddy body collapsed to lie next to it.

  Heart pounding, Ilahe glanced up.

  Crutches propped under his arms, brown-stained sword in his other hand, Siniq-elb stared down at her, face hard.

  “Come on,” Siniq-elb said. “We need to get out of here.”

  His words, spoken in that tone of unshakeable self-confidence, ran through Ilahe like lightning and warm honey. There was so much life packed into those words; the simple phrase, in all its practicality, seemed to hold within itself the seeds of life. The need to keep going. Hope for another day. The certainty that the meaning of life could be found in the living. For a pair of cripples in love. For a woman who thought she was a weapon.

  Clutching her side, the blood warm and real against her fingers, Ilahe felt tears slide down her face as she let Siniq-elb help her to her feet.