“Figured that out, did you?” Jyllith forced a chuckle. “Did you really think you could keep us under your boot forever?”
“We didn’t—“
“Mynt slaughtered thousands of my people as Tellvan stood by and watched. They denied all pleas for aid. Now we’re going to watch you both destroy each other.”
“That’s why you murdered everyone in Taven’s Hamlet?” Aryn stared. “Because of a war ten years ago?” He dared sit up.
Jyllith’s jaw twitched. “They brought that upon themselves. They supported the slaughter.” She did not sound entirely convinced.
“You don’t believe that.” Aryn stepped closer. “Think it through. Whoever owns your allegiance destroyed Talos, not us. They tricked you like they’re trying to trick—”
Something slammed into him, blowing him off his feet like a giant fist. A Hand of Breath as fast and masterful as he had ever seen. Aryn heard a bone snap when he landed and agony raced through his left arm. This time, he did scream.
“That’s how it feels when you lie to me,” Jyllith said. “Do it again and something else will break.”
“Stop!” Sera pulled against the gnarls that held her. “Stop hurting him! What do you want?”
Jyllith turned on her. “You, Kara.”
Aryn cradled his arm and sat up. “That’s not Kara.”
Jyllith turned back, eyes narrowed. She stalked over, scribing a glyph. Fingers of Breath gripped Aryn’s feet and jerked him into the air, hanging him upside down.
“Say that again.” Jyllith closed her eyes. Took the dream world.
Sera shook her head. “Quiet!”
Aryn blinked at the impact of her mindspeak. He felt his blood rushing to his head. He also ignored her.
“This woman is not the one you seek. Her name is Sera Valence, daughter to Cyan’s chief magistrate, and you can ransom both of us for more money than you’ve ever seen.”
“Truth,” Jyllith whispered. She opened her eyes and turned on the waiting gnarls. “You grabbed the wrong girl!”
One of the gnarls that had held Aryn snorted. It stepped forward and crossed its arms across its massive chest. Its fur had a darker tint than its fellows, and a long scar crossed its wolfish face and one closed eye. A red jewel hung from its ear.
“Beg pardon,” the chieftain growled, “but mistress said grab girl with bright orange eyes.”
Jyllith’s leather gloves crackled, and Aryn was certain she would scream at them. She took deep breaths instead. He didn’t like that. Rational people were harder to manipulate.
“I did.” She gripped the gnarl’s shoulder. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t ready for Taven’s Hamlet. I thought I was, but the reality was different.”
The gnarl thumped her arm. Jyllith glanced at Sera and clenched her hands. “It’s my mistake. I’ll tell him.”
Aryn’s ears perked up. Him? Jyllith was working for someone. The elder who had tainted their supplies? It was difficult to think with all the blood rushing to his head.
Grunting, the big gnarl uncrossed its arms. “Try again?”
“No. The carrow root will be through their systems by the time we find them again. Wait here. Guard them.”
“Aryn, why did you tell her?” Sera felt betrayed. “She’ll go after Kara now.”
“She’d do that anyway, but only after she murdered you.” Aryn, still hanging upside down in empty air, pressed ahead with Jyllith. “Ransom us. Send word to Postmaster Ganelle in Locke. Between my father and Sera’s family—”
Air crushed his throat. Aryn choked, wheezing and gasping. Jyllith was suffocating him. He felt like the world had flipped over and he was going to fall into the sky. The wide, yawning sky.
“Stop!” Sera screamed.
“Say another word and I’ll crush your lungs.” Jyllith stalked over and grabbed Sera’s chin, tugging her forward. “Why do this? Why sacrifice yourself for Kara? Are you deluded or stupid?”
“I’m innocent,” Sera said quietly. “We didn’t burn Talos. We didn’t hurt you. We were just children then, like you.”
“No one is innocent.” Jyllith stepped away. “Your legionnaires showed me that when they kicked in my mother’s skull.”
“Mistress!” the big gnarl growled. “Windwalkers.”
Jyllith looked to the darkness, and Aryn craned his neck to find two more gnarls lumbering from the night. The torches held by their captors gave the fur of these new ones a light grayish tint, like the gnarls they had fought in Taven’s Hamlet. One carried a big sack.
As the beastman threw down its burden a man tumbled out of the sack. Aryn did not know him, but he did know the tattered crest painted on his boiled leather armor. A yellow lion roaring before a clear blue sky. This was a Mynt soldier.
“We caught him leaving Taven’s Hamlet, mistress.” Both of the gray-furred gnarls bowed.
Jyllith stalked over. “Get him up.”
The big gnarls forced the man to his feet. Aryn winced as he saw the man’s face. Blood covered it, two teeth were missing, and a bloody rip down his scalp had parted his short blond hair. His mouth made a line and his face was like a carved statue. Hard.
“You.” Jyllith clenched the man’s chin between two fingers. “What were you looking for in Taven’s Hamlet?”
He showed her missing teeth. “A date.”
“You will tell me.” Jyllith scribed another glyph.
Aryn dropped, landing on his working arm. He bit back a scream as his other arm sent a spear of pain through his body. Dots danced before his eyes and he fought the urge to vomit. He could not stop thinking. Not now.
The feeling of being on solid ground, of being upright again, felt wonderful and disorienting at the same time, but his body had to adjust and he couldn’t lose focus of his goal. Saving Sera. He pushed himself up on one knee and watched Jyllith work.
Her other captive grunted as Jyllith lifted him into the air, then twisted him upside down. She clenched his chin and closed her eyes. Aryn realized then she couldn’t lift two targets at once. Useful.
The man spit, a mixture of blood and phlegm that splattered her cheek. She took no notice. Then, he started to scream.
“Stop it!” Sera struggled with the gnarls. “You’re killing him!”
The gathered gnarls seemed entranced by Jyllith’s torture of the Mynt soldier. They weren’t looking at him. Aryn stumbled toward one of the gnarls that held Sera, moving like the town drunk.
As he wobbled, threatening to go down, the gnarl released Sera and bounded over to steady him. Aryn drove his shoulder into its gut as hard as he could. It felt like hitting solid rock.
Pain shot through his other arm and down his spine. He fell and screamed. Sera thrashed and kicked off one gnarl into another, bucking and fighting. Aryn forced his head up and bared his teeth.
He heard a loud pop. The world went utterly silent. Aryn realized then he could not breathe. There was no air any longer.
He saw the gnarls gasping, silently. Sera was as well. Jyllith stood just outside the eerie silence, bloody fingers raised and glyphs floating in air. Just when Aryn’s vision began to vanish, Jyllith mussed her blood glyphs. Thunder deafened him.
“Get up,” Jyllith ordered. Her voice sounded far away.
Aryn breathed. It burned his lungs but felt amazing. By the time he could focus on the world around him, one of the gray-furred gnarls had him completely immobilized and another held Sera the same way. The brown-furred ones were growling on the ground.
Jyllith glared at them all. “You are soldiers of Rain. You do not toy with captives, you immobilize them. You do not hunt for the tribe, you hunt for me. Understand?”
“Mistress, forgive.” Both Rockeaters whined and held out their open paws. Even the chief cowered. They were afraid of her.
Jyllith’s eyes met Aryn’s and for a moment, he saw something behind her hard gaze. Fear. It was the trace of wet at the corner of her eyes, the way one eye twitched almost imperceptibly. Who frightened her? The ma
n who had told her to capture them?
“Enough.” Jyllith looked away. “This scout has reported nothing. Boulderfist, with me. Stoneclaw, hold our captives until I return.”
She walked away with the gnarl chieftain in tow, leaving Aryn and Sera alone with two Windwalkers and one Rockeater. Jyllith was off to report to her master, whoever that might be. Now was Aryn’s chance. He had to convince these beastmen to release them.
No one had seen humans and gnarls together since the All Province War, when the gnarl tribes joined Metla Tassau to attack the Northern Alliance. Aryn had learned about that from his tutors in Locke. Despite his peril, the arrangement intrigued him.
Had these gnarls now joined with rebels in Rain? His father would dearly like to know. Such information would increase the standing of Locke’s nobility with the crown, and Dupret might finally see Aryn had worth — if he survived to bring the news.
Aryn searched his memories for what was written of gnarls. As they multiplied, they had come to worship the Five Who Had Made the World, just like humans. They had tribes: Rockeaters, Windwalkers, Firemakers, Watertakers, and Ruiners. Could he turn two tribes against each other?
“Rockeater.” Aryn stood slowly, the arm he could still move raised. “You let her treat you like that? A human?”
The brown gnarl bared yellowed teeth. “Prey squeaks.”
“And Windwalkers,” Aryn said. “What of the stories I’ve heard of your great campaign against the Firemakers? Are you slaves now?”
The gnarls all started wheezing, repeatedly, and it took a moment for Aryn to realize they were laughing. Aryn kept his face grim, but his heart sank. It ached like his broken arm.
“We have not Hand of Breath,” the remaining Rockeater growled, “but we silence you.” It held its hand up and clicked sharp claws together. “Keep that tongue? Stop squeaking.”
These beastmen were loyal to their mistress, and Aryn could not glyph. The morning’s carrow root still afflicted him. Yet he could not let Sera die. There had to be a way out of this he had missed, some alternative he had yet to consider. Something.
Aryn remembered advice his father had once given Tamen. Listen and think. Learn your opponents’ vices and offer them when he is weakest. Dupret had never shared that with his youngest son.
Aryn only then noticed the wounded Mynt soldier eying him. The man was awake. The Rockeater had not noticed, perhaps because the man’s face had so much blood and dirt on it.
The soldier blinked his eyes once, then twice. Imperial code! Just like in Solyr’s histories.
The blink was a count. Three rapid blinks meant something was going to happen. Aryn did not know what, but anything was better than letting Sera die tonight. He tensed his legs.
On the soldier’s third blink, the man thumped his foot sideways on the earth. A blade tip snapped from his leather boot. He jammed that blade into the ankle of the Rockeater standing over him. The beastman howled. Aryn threw himself into the gnarl’s back as the soldier locked legs around its thick calf.
This time, the gnarl went down, and the man’s boot tip flashed across the monster’s neck. Then he spun his legs up and around like a windmill, flipping to his feet. Quite the acrobat.
The two Windwalkers holding Sera snarled. Sera cried and kicked one of them. She might as well have kicked a rock, but in another moment Aryn and the soldier were on their feet, staring down the two Windwalkers. One gnarl had its axe out, pressed against Sera’s throat.
The soldier used the blade sticking from his boot to cut the rope on his wrists, then slid a real dagger from inside his boot. Aryn wondered how many daggers he had hidden on him. He eyed the gnarls and wished he had his quarterstaff. Or a really big rock.
“Tarel Halen,” the man said, “scout to the Leader of Armies.” He kept his eyes on the gnarls and on Sera. “Can you glyph?”
“Not right now.” Aryn tried to ignore the gnarl at his feet, gurgling and clutching its throat. “What do we do?”
“Run.”
“I’m not leaving Sera.”
“Go, you idiot!” Sera thrashed in the gnarl’s grip. “Don’t let them kill us both!” She twisted and kicked like an animal in a trap.
Tarel thumped Aryn’s shoulder. “Two gnarls are too much for me. Mynt’s going to war if I don’t tell them what I saw in Taven’s Hamlet, and I have to put our province first.” He pressed his dagger into Aryn’s hand. “Good luck, kid.”
With that, he ran.
Aryn stared after him, mouth open. How could he just abandon them? Abandon Sera? Then a massive gust slammed into Tarel from the side, bowling him over. When the man landed, his legs bent wrong under him. Aryn heard bone snap and then Tarel, screaming.
Jyllith rushed into their camp, stared at the dead Rockeater, and spit on the ground. Her narrowed eyes found his. “Well.”
Aryn dropped the dagger and raised his hands. “We had to try. You’re going to kill us.”
Jyllith glanced at Tarel, who was still trying to crawl away. Still fighting. She drew a glyph in the air. “I suppose you did.” Air swept out and gripped Tarel Halen, dragging him back as he grunted and swore. Her gnarls stared at him with bared teeth.
“I’m not going to kill you.” Jyllith altered her glyph, pulling Tarel into the air by his broken legs. She hung him upside down like a cut of meat. “Let me show you what’s going to happen instead.”
Jyllith raised one hand and sliced each finger with the nail on the other. She held her hand out, four fingers and a thumb bleeding. She advanced on Tarel’s floating body with her eyes closed.
“Get away from me, you bitch!” Tarel shouted.
Jyllith opened her eyes. They were stark black. Her flat palm slapped into the center of Tarel’s chest and seared his flesh with a loud hiss.
Tarel screamed again, thrashing against the air that held him. Jyllith pulled her hand free. A charred handprint with five points of open blood remained. Tarel sputtered and coughed.
“The gnarl you murdered was named Stoneclaw,” Jyllith told them quietly. “He has a packmate and four pups waiting at home. Two years ago, he saved my life.”
Tarel twisted and thrashed. Aryn realized why, and it made him tremble. A demon was inside Tarel now, shredding his body from the inside out. Jyllith was not just an Aerial. She was Demonkin!
A mist rose around Tarel’s contorting body, dark and clinging. Bones snapped and twisted. Aryn watched the demon glyph Jyllith had seared into the man’s chest bubble and grow. It turned Tarel’s body inside out.
Blood spewed from Tarel’s mouth. His lips burned away and the cries that burst from his throat were far from human. Black scales popped from beneath his skin and ate his flesh away.
Sera shrieked as they watched deep red pools swallow Tarel’s eyes. When the contorting, screaming, and bursting finally ended, an apelike demon with a huge snout crouched on all fours before them. Discarded skin, blood, and bone surrounded its crouched form.
The demon corpse snorted. Steam rose from its nostrils as it sniffed at the air. Hardened black scales covered it from toes to claws, and its red eyes blazed. Drool dripped from rows of long, jagged teeth that could tear a gnarl in half.
It was a davenger, a demonic tracker and hunter. A killer. Aryn had read stories about them from the darkest days of the All Province War. It was only when the combined forces of Mynt, Tellvan, and Rain began to drive the Metla Tassauns back that they unleashed their most potent weapons. Demons made from flesh.
A Demonkin mage could bring a davenger into the world by scribing the demons’ possessive glyphs on a captive. When Tarel’s corpse glared at him with its red eyes, Aryn knew he was looking into the face of Davazet, the Ripper. A brutal demon that lived to kill.
“I asked if we could spare you.” Jyllith turned on Sera with narrowed eyes. “The answer was no.” She raised her bloody hand. “I know it doesn’t help, but I am sorry.”
Sera stared at Aryn with wide eyes. She crushed herself against the gnarls as they fo
rced her forward, forced her toward Jyllith. Aryn’s heart leapt to his throat as Jyllith once again drew her four-fingered glyph. She was going to send Sera to the Underside.
“Wait!” He stepped forward. “I’ll give you a harvenger!”
Jyllith jerked as if he had struck her, her bloody hand dropping to her waist. “What?”
Aryn had found her vice. “A harvenger.” He knew that because Jyllith had not crushed his lungs.
“What are you doing?” Sera thought.
“Ending this.” Aryn winced at the fear in her thoughts. “Trust me. Everything will be all right.”
He knew Sera had no experience with demon glyphs, just like everyone else who trained at Solyr. Yet his father’s personal library in Locke had several forbidden and priceless books on the subject. During his summers away from Solyr, Aryn had studied them all.
Demon glyphs had been forbidden since the end of the All Province War, a conflict that had erupted after demonic darkness swallowed Metla Tassau. Dupret’s forbidden tomes had done little but provide knowledge Aryn dared not use, until now.
“I know what you just did, though I cannot do it myself.” Aryn’s memory of Balazel’s hate had his heart pounding fast. “I will join you in making a harvenger, a master of death, and in return you will set Sera free. You will not harm her.”
Jyllith’s eyes rolled back in her head and she wavered as if in a trance. Conferring with whoever pulled her strings. Aryn suspected that wasn’t entirely her idea.
Sera jerked in the Windwalker’s grip. “No. I won’t let you do this. I don’t know what you plan, but it’s wrong.”
“Be brave,” he thought back. “And survive. Warn Kara.”
Jyllith’s eyes opened. “How would you do it?”
“I will scribe myself to Balazel.” Aryn fell to one knee, trying not to tremble. “Then you will shape his form.”
Sera stared at him with her jaw clenched. Then she turned to Jyllith. “Don’t you dare do it. Don’t listen to him. He’s mad.”
Jyllith glanced between the two of them, and for the first time she seemed truly lost. New sweat glistened on her brow as she stood stiff as a board. Did she know what she was doing, that by making Tarel Halen into a davenger she had bound herself to the Mavoureen forever? Did she know they would devour her soul?
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