Galt nodded mutely and picked up the cloth, shoving it into his pocket.
When Sandis pulled her gaze away from the handkerchief, she saw Kazen looking at her almost . . . cheerfully. “Don’t worry about that ruckus, my dear. I had to finish procuring your replacement, and his owner didn’t approve of my method of bargaining. It’s been dealt with.”
Sandis blinked, the words churning through her head too slowly. “My replacement?”
His meaning hit her like a gunshot. Chills coursed down her cheeks, neck, arms, thighs. Her skeleton seemed to disappear from within her. Her fingers numbed; her tongue thickened.
Why hadn’t she realized it before? Replacement. Kazen wanted to use her to summon Kolosos, but her body could not be used for any other numen so long as it was bound to Ireth.
A hard sob ripped up her throat. She backed away from Kazen, from Galt, until she hit the table in the back of the room. “No, please, no,” she begged, but her words sounded broken and small. “Please, Kazen.” She dropped to her knees. Reached behind her neck to the name inked at its base, as if she could shield it. “Please don’t do this!”
Kazen sighed. “See what you can do, Galt. I’d like to get this done now, without reinforcements.”
Galt reached for her.
“No!” she screamed, and she struck out at him with her arms and legs. She tried to reach for her forehead to summon Ireth, but Galt seized her wrist. She attempted the move Arnae had taught her, but Galt’s strength far exceeded her own. He hauled her upright and grabbed her in the vise of his arms. “No!” Her throat bled with the volume of her shouts. “No! Kazen, no! Stop!”
Not Ireth. Not Ireth.
Ireth was all she had left.
Galt slammed her onto the table, belly down. She hit her chin, and her canine pierced her bottom lip.
She flailed, tried to push herself up. Galt pressed his weight into her until she couldn’t breathe. Until her body threatened to snap from the pressure. She didn’t feel Kazen strap down her legs until the cloth pulled tight across her calves.
Tears puddled on the tabletop. “Listen to me, please!” she begged. “Kazen, listen! You can’t do this! Galt! Stop!”
Kazen pulled straps over her shoulders and, as he cinched them, said, “This is for a greater purpose, Sandis. You’ll understand soon enough. I’ll expose their lies to everyone.” He leaned toward her ear. “I’ll show them I was right.”
Galt moved behind her, grabbing something from that cupboard. He handed a bottle to Kazen, who dumped the contents onto the base of Sandis’s exposed neck.
She pulled at the restraints, and actually managed to move one of them.
“Galt.” Kazen’s bland tone reeked of disappointment.
Galt climbed onto the table and sat on her, straddling her, pinning her hands with his legs.
Sandis tried to scream, but Galt’s weight pushed all the air out of her lungs. She tried to move, but she was utterly and completely trapped.
Kazen lifted some sort of scraper, maybe a razor, crafted out of obsidian. Pressed it to her skin.
Ireth? Ireth, can you hear me? Are you there? I’m so sorry, I— The blade dragged across her skin, pinching like a fingernail. Only a small section of it; the corner of the fire horse’s name. That was all it took; a simple mistake in his name, and the magic disintegrated.
Sandis’s core shrunk in on itself, cold, dark, and empty.
Kazen pulled back, looking pleased. When Galt lifted himself from her, Sandis didn’t move. Didn’t scream. Barely breathed.
Just like that. Ireth was gone.
Gone.
Gone.
Now she was truly, purely, and absolutely alone.
Chapter 24
His mother looked so much better. Almost like herself.
Though her apartment had been ransacked, Rone had the money to buy her a house. He’d decided on an inn room on the south side of Dresberg, where he’d proceeded to order his mother anything she could possibly want and had four new dresses delivered to her. She was regaining her health quickly, though the cough she’d developed in Gerech still stuck with her.
She just needs good air, he told himself as their hired carriage rocked back and forth on the uneven road. Apparently not enough people came to the pass in the Fortitude Mountains for the government to put any money into keeping it up. Some good air and sunshine and she’ll heal right up.
It was this pollution. This grime. This place. They were a long ways from Dresberg and its soot-spewing factories, but the sky was still gray and overcast. The land was dreary. His stomach bled with the constant rolling of that damnable ball.
His mother looked so much better. He clung to that fact.
She held a book in her hands, something she’d been eyeing in the gift shop outside the inn, so Rone had bought it for her. She was near the end now, but her gaze looked out the window at the passing landscape: jagged hills, few trees, little green. Even in the summer, everything looked gray and brown and sad.
Rone pressed his fingers into his eyes, his thoughts drifting back to Dresberg. What did her smile look like? God’s tower, he couldn’t remember her smile . . .
“Rone?”
He dropped his hand and blinked spots from his eyes. “Hm?”
His mother frowned at him. “Did you drink that tea?”
The medicinal garbage she’d gotten at the last inn? “Yeah.”
Her head shook like she didn’t believe him. “You look terrible.”
She’d told him that more than once. How sick he looked. How pale.
Half-consciously rubbing his stomach, Rone said, “I’m fine. Just travel sick.”
He saw the same question in her eyes. How did you get the papers? She’d wept upon first seeing them, but he’d avoided answering her every question about how he’d obtained them, how he’d freed her. Even after living her own personal horror, his mother was smart enough to recognize his evasion. She hadn’t pushed it. But over the last few days, some skepticism had crept in. Maybe because Rone should have been more excited.
The ball dug in hard, making him jump. The rocking of the carriage masked the action. His mother looked back to her book.
“What’s happening now?” he asked.
She offered a small smile and talked about how the Serranese duke in the novel had finally realized his mistake and was riding hard to beat a bad storm and profess his love for the duchess.
Rone pressed a thumb into his stomach to stop that ball. They had almost reached the border. It was almost over.
And his mother looked so much better.
Rone had thought he understood the enormity of the wall of mountains separating Kolingrad from the rest of the world.
How wrong he had been.
As the carriage pulled closer and closer to the behemoths, and Rone leaned more and more out the window, he realized he couldn’t see the sky. Only the mountains, steep and relentless and reaching up until the clouds swallowed their peaks. The carriage slowed as its horses struggled to pull it up the incline. The snapping of the driver’s whip echoed in his ears.
They won’t hurt her, he told himself. She said so herself.
He clenched his teeth together to keep from throwing up.
It felt like eternity before the driver called, “Whoa!” and Rone was able to open the door to his carriage—cage—and stretch his legs and back. He offered a hand to his mother, who held her book under one arm. As soon as she had her feet under her, Rone went to the back of the carriage and grabbed their single trunk. Everything else they needed they could get once they were through the pass.