“Listen…Nikhil…”
“Dina?” He turned to the side but kept his eyes on me. “Have you gone batshit crazy?”
“You’ve got to relax,” I insisted. “Not to tout my horn, but I’m something of an expert in these matters.”
“I’m not going to hurt you, Dina,” the creature said. “Open the door and you can ask me whatever you want.”
“It said it’s not going to hurt me.” I pointed to the room.
“I hope you’re kidding.”
“Okay, look.” I stepped toward the door. “We open the door, ask a few questions, and that’s it. Obviously it can’t get out. And it would have done something to Avisynth by now, if it wanted to. I think it can’t hurt people for some reason. It can’t even open the door on its own.” I put a hand on the door. “And this is important, trust me. There is something happening in Chaya. Maybe more than just Chaya. Something that no one quite understands. This creature might be able to give us answers.”
“What if it’s just Avisynth that it can’t hurt? What if it goes after us and tries to rip our throats out?”
“We walk it off and get my father or your father,” I said. “Simple as that. We’ll close the door again and it’s trapped in there. No harm done.”
“I like the getting help part.”
“I’m telling you, it’s going to be fine. You know alchemy. And this creature, it has no strength unless it gets blood. I’m sure of it.” I glanced into the room again. “And what if Avisynth needs us? What help will it do if we bring people with no proof? They can’t see the creature.”
“Avisynth is half-daemon. We don’t need to worry about him.”
“He’s a citizen of Chaya. I need to worry about him,” I replied.
One day, I would be on a theatre stage in Mimenhi or Qashar, where the arts were properly celebrated, and I would win accolades and awards for these kinds of performances.
Nikhil crossed his arms and regarded me for a long moment, then walked toward the room. His expression had relented after what I said. He pushed his head against the glass pane. He studied the creature, Avisynth, then the door itself, running his hands through the side of its frame like there may have been clues about the creature hidden between its splintered crevices.
The chambers for the palace keepers and maids weren’t much older than the rest of the palace, but they were renovated less frequently and used far more often than any other part. The side of the door squeaked as Nikhil pulled on them. He bent low and swept the sill, dusting off flakes of wood that were sticking to his fingertips. He kicked the bottom gently, sending a hollow thud echoing through the hall.
“Just making sure it’s a regular door,” he said.
“It’s a regular door.”
“Let me go first. If it tries anything, maybe I can hold it off. You go get your father.” He reached into his pockets and drew out a slim knife. Not a dagger, but a dinner knife.
I pointed to it. “Good idea. From the great hall?”
“Yeah, and everything there is silver. Wasn’t going to come here completely unarmed.”
“Don’t be afraid,” I said. “If it attacks you, I’ll close the door and it won’t get anyone else but you. It can’t leave the room.”
He held his chin up, breathed deep, then locked his hand around the doorknob. He paused before turning it, glancing at his bare white knuckles. I wrapped a hand around his elbow.
He began to turn the knob.
The creature stared, its eyes roving up and down the shape of the door.
“Wait!” I yelled, reaching for the doorknob. I wanted to check for open cuts or scabs we might have gotten in the forest before going in, but a fresh one opened just then.
Nikhil jerked his hand back, brushing the edge of the knife against the side of my thumb.
The next few seconds unfolded in a blur, as I staggered backward and fell to the floor.
The creature’s right eye popped in red and yellow colors, growing wide with the hysterical intensity I had seen in the forest. Its mouth, a broken confection of barbed teeth, stretched into a silent yawn, its corners twitching for blood while the flaps of skin above and below it strained to cover the extra area.
It leapt toward the door, shattering the glass pane when its legs crashed into it. The ear-splitting clatter echoed down the corridor. The creature bent forward, its whole body as nimble as a garden snake, and grabbed Nikhil by the collar, pulling him to the door.
Nikhil smacked the air in front of him from both sides, catching the creature’s claw between his palms, four inches away from the pulse of his neck. The claw, a lean and gnarled appendage that appeared an obscure mauve under the moonlight, trembled as it strangled the air in front of Nikhil’s neck, shadows snapping at the edges of its form.
“It’s—it’s—get help, Dina!” Nikhil shouted. “I c-c-can hold it off!” He held the claw at bay, even pushed it farther out from his neck. He bent his knees forward, gritting his teeth and slapping the floor with the ball of a foot through his sable sandals. He took a deep breath, drawing alchemical strength from the earth. It looked like he’d be able to overpower the creature.
The creature sniffed the air. I tried to cover my cut with a hand, but it did nothing. Drops of blood from my finger turned into a misty vapor and trailed toward the daemon. It sucked the mist from the air in a noiseless breath, licking the flaps of its lips afterward with a tongue several shades brighter. I could feel it drinking from me, a strange prickling sensation that made my chest feel—the same feeling I got when physikers drew blood from me with a needle. The edges of my vision dissolved into blurry shapes and the sounds of the world grew distant. I could still see straight—it was just the corners of my eyes where dark shapes quietly teased out noiseless illusions.
The creature began morphing. The white muscles along its forearms bulged into knotted cylinders, wrapping around the bottom of its claws like bone manacles. Its teeth grew longer and sharper, a splatter of glass from a broken chandelier, while its mouth snapped open like a flytrap.
I heard footsteps down the corridor, and voices pointed in our direction.
The claw, doubling in size in just a few seconds, overpowered both of Nikhil’s hands and wrapped around his throat.
“Ahh, that’s interesting, Dina,” the creature whispered. “I’m not allowed to take any of your blood. Did you know that?” Its mouth twisted into a leathery smile.
“Let him go,” I said.
“Invite me in and I’ll let him go,” the creature replied. “There are soldiers coming, Dina. Open the door for me before they get here, or they might find Nikhil in more than one piece.”
“Don’t… D-D-Dina!” Nikhil’s voice was a gurgle. The creature’s nails pressed into his neck.
“Open the door.” Its eyes narrowed at me. “I’m hungry, Dina. If my nails press in a little too much and Nikhil begins… leaking… I don’t think I’ll be able to control myself.
“This way!” a soldier yelled. A voice I had heard earlier today. Nadel. It sounded like there were four or five other soldiers with him.
“You have only a few seconds, Dina,” the creature said. “If I see soldiers, I’ll know he’s going to be the only meal I’ll get tonight.” It shook Nikhil’s head as its nails dug even deeper.
I reached over, my hand trembling with adrenaline. The creature lifted its claw a few inches to let me open the door. I swung it wide, pushing Nikhil back. He fell to the floor, clutching his neck with both hands.
“HERE!” I shouted to the soldiers. “OVER HERE!”
Just as soldiers appeared around the bend of the corridor, the world began changing as it had in the forest. The dust in the room turned into long and heavy strands of ash, rising and falling in loose waves against the dim light of the torches. The side of the hallway with the windows disappeared, and the blackness of it extended past the palace walls. The moon vanished. The smell of old stone and food somewhere in the distance vanished. The clunks of feet shuffl
ing and creaking on stone and wood around us vanished. There were only a handful of cold and clinical sensations, all rooted in this feeling that a carpet of shallow darkness had started pressing onto us from the top of the corridor. Broad strips of night gnawed at the edges of the firelight coming from the torches, putting a granular sheen on everything we could see.
The soldiers hesitated for only a moment when they noticed the changing environment. They charged at the daemon in front of them—trusting that the vampiric creature and a touch of the old magic was responsible for it. Three of the soldiers were from Chaya’s King’s Guard. They would recognize the white beast as the hairless werewolf. One was a soldier from Mimenhi. He had the crest of the emperor skunk on his chest, and golden bracers held in place by obsidian gauntlets. The last soldier was from Xenash, wearing a violet and gold tunic but no armor. She was even barefoot. The girl from Xenash and the man from Mimenhi were the only two alchemists.
The three swordsmen charged first, bellowing for violence as they rushed forward. The two in front scrambled for their swords, while Nadel waved his frantically above his head.
I reeled back with Nikhil, helping him up with my blood-free hand, then drew back to the wall next to Avisynth’s room.
The first soldier swiped down from an angle. She missed, hitting the floor with a metal clang so hard the hilt shook out of her fingers. The creature slid on its heel, swerving to the right to dodge the blow while pushing its body into the second soldier. Its elbows were covered in crusted blocks of skin that swelled tightly around its joints like an enamel carapace. It snapped its jaw at the man, then at the girl, missing by only a fraction of an inch both times.
Nadel came next. He swung his sword sideways, but shifted the angle mid-swing to bluff the direction of his blow. He caught flesh, slicing the creature right underneath its left shoulder. It howled, grimaced, roared, then slashed at Nadel’s face with nails curled forward, edges as sharp and sinuous as iron stilettos. Blood gushed out as Nadel staggered back—his nose cut out of his face. The girl picked her sword back up and lurched toward the creature from behind, trying to catch it off-guard, but the creature leapt to Nadel, too quick for her.
Holding down Nadel with one knee, the creature dug its claws into the soldier’s face once, twice, six times—until Nadel’s head was no more than a splatter of blood and bones. The creature sniffed the air with a growl, inhaling a thick film of blood through Nadel’s open neck. The color in the soldier’s withered body disappeared so quickly, you could see the top edge of his shattered spine inching out of his neck like some kind of colorless flatworm.
The creature grew. Muscles pounded against the flaps of its skin—its shell barely able to contain its engorged size. Crags of teeth glared with firelight, showing off the blood-soaked cravings you’d expect to find in predators with a warped hunger like this one. Its feet thickened into talons, with toes like pincers. Its pupils disappeared entirely behind bright yellow eyes that slanted downward to form inverted peaks. Its torso, big enough to hold two men inside of it, surged with blood.
Both alchemists hurtled forward together, cracking vials of water between their fingers to bind their bodies to earth and water alchemies. The Mimenhish one had no weapon in hand, but enough alchemical strength to knock the creature off Nadel’s body. It was too late to save the soldier, but not to slam the distracted creature against the stone wall of the palace. He came at the creature with an open palm, swinging wildly with a deadpan expression.
“Watch out!” I shouted—not because I could tell what the creature was thinking, but because I saw it grinning with its broken teeth.
The creature ducked a blow from the Xenashi girl, then swung back up to catch the palm of the Mimenhish alchemist, chomping off his wrist with a snap of his jaw. It inhaled so violently that it sucked in the blood spurting out of the man’s arm midair, before the drops even splattered against the wall—then it closed its eyes to absorb the flavors with dulled senses.
The Xenashi alchemist tried to interrupt, but the creature flung the Mimenhish soldier at her while the thrown man panted to keep his breath going. He clutched the top of his arm while more blood leaked out of his body.
“Alchemical blood,” The creature whispered, sniffing again to take more from the alchemist. His tongue flickered out and licked the red mist floating to him. The Mimenhish man’s grip and the concentration of his eyes began to fade. He fell flat to the floor, lying on his side while resting his head against the stone wall. After a few seconds, his expression waned into a blank stare.
The girl was better trained than the man, launching herself with more care toward the creature. A braid of silver-gold Xenashi hair snapped against the wind behind her as she moved with the precise forms Queen O’nell demanded of her alchemists. A punch, a kick, and then a second punch—all flowing with the exactness of a practice routine. Each blow came with measured strength, enough to carry power, but not so much that the momentum might throw her off balance. The creature ducked beneath the first fist, but she caught its ribs with her kick, sending it rolling backward against the floor. It leapt away from her third punch, disappearing behind the dark. She swung her last blow with more strength—hitting the wall of the palace with a splintering smack when she missed. Her knuckles left an imprint on the stone, flattening the surface of it.
The creature surged toward her from the dark, giving her no time to recover. It locked its claws around her, but she pushed off its shoulders with her feet, flying toward Nikhil and me. With her right hand, she dug into her pocket, caught a vial of a clear liquid, and threw it toward the creature’s face midair before landing. The vial burst into smoke as a roar of pain tore through the air.
The girl turned to Nikhil and me, landing a few feet ahead of us. “You two need to get out of here,” she said. “I have no strength left.” She held her chest tightly, wetting her lips. “I’ve bound too much alchemy to myself already.”
The creature bared its throat, rumbling blindly at the air above it. “YOU THINK HOLY WATER WILL SAVE YOU?!” it wailed. It crouched to the floor and began sniffing. “I’ve killed a thousand of you in the Eternal War, drank the flesh of your ancestors who could twist iron and fire, and you think a spit of water from a priest is enough to hold back what is born of the old gods?”
It charged at the girl again, its single eye smoking from holy water. The girl ran toward it, then slid to the left, jumping off the wall on her toes. She rolled through the air above the creature’s head, missing its grasp by several feet as she spiraled back downward.
She realized her mistake only a second too late.
The creature, blind with rage and moving too fast to stop itself, continued its lunge, following any vague scent of flesh it could find. Its feet trampled over the two Chayan soldiers who were nursing their broken bones, and then it continued toward Nikhil and me, a coarse tongue lashing around the side of its mouth like a snakeskin whip.
I could only watch with parted lips. A claw the size of a grappling hook coming down toward your face is not the kind of thing you can outsmart with quick wits.
The creature slashed at our throats. Not even Nikhil had time to react. It was seeing the face of the daemon this close up that paralyzed you—not its nails or its arms or its talons. Its features were a mess of ridges and dents, and down its throat, you could see crimson lumps throbbing to life.
A dense blur of grey connected with the claw when it was less than a foot away from us. The creature stumbled backward, clutching a bleeding hand. One of its fingers had been cut off. Next to it, the thrown weapon clattered to the floor. A second one whistled by, missing the creature’s eye by an inch. The Xenashi alchemist watched with arched eyes as the blur shot through the space above her head—all the way to the end of the hallway without losing speed, where it disappeared into the shadows.
I was expecting a throwing dagger but it was much smaller. Something more like a dart—but in a familiar shape. A long, grey feather, like a quill, with an edg
e as sharp as a knife.
I turned to the end of the corridor to see who had thrown it. A woman wrapped in bandaged grey cloth, the color of ash. It wasn’t linen or silk or wool—not a material I could identify. It didn’t glisten in the firelight, but it had its own kind of tempered radiance. The cloth was rolled around her ankles and her wrists in extra folds, though the entire uniform was still thin and tightly woven, seeming to offer no more protection than a tunic would. She wore a sash around her waist, also grey, but much darker, almost to be black. Her collar extended far from her neck, enough to cover her mouth. She had dark red hair, tied behind her head with a handful of more feather-grey quills to hold it in place. Grey eyes like storms, bursting with intensity.
“You’ll not reach for my daughter like that again, child of Nosa,” she said, with the same tone of finality my sisters had adopted so well.
Nikhil pulled me against the wall, heaving for breath.
The Xenashi girl tried to attack the creature from behind, but it turned too quickly. It grabbed her by the ankle, then threw her toward us with a grunt. With most of her body burned out, she had almost no strength or speed left. She landed on top of both Chayan soldiers with a meaty thump.
The creature straightened, regarding Mother with its grin of broken glass. “Ahhh… the Sisterhood comes for me!?” it raved. “It is about time, then.” It brought its hand to its mouth, licking the wound left behind by its missing finger.
“Queen Anasahara?” The Chayan girl gasped, looking up and down Mother’s grey cloth. “Should we call for help?”
“No,” Mother replied. “No one can hear us. I’d be surprised if anyone could see us. We’re very deep into the dark.” She glanced at the nearest torch, staring into its light for several seconds. She pointed behind her. “Take my daughter farther down,” she said. “But do not wander too far. You will not find the palace beyond the dark here.”
The Xenashi girl interrupted, “Do you want—”
“No,” Mother said, cutting her off. She waved a hand. “Go. Now. All of you. And do not interfere. Keep Dina safe—you have no other priority.”
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