His skin is the green of aging leaves, and his body is covered in thorny vines that move like extended limbs. He raises his hand, and a vine slithers out of the center of his palm. I can see the remnants of the man it once was. Its face is distorted and black veins are visible beneath its skin. In its open mouth are black gums and pieces of broken teeth. Gouged eyes are a mess of torn flesh. They don’t need eyes to see. The blind giants.
The giants charge at us from both sides, and the earth trembles under their feet. They shoot vines from their palms to trap us. I create a shield to stop them. I grit my teeth and reach for more power. My arms tremble; my blood rushes to my head. Their vines are laced with the Devourer’s dark power. It burns right through my shield. I direct all my magic into an arrow of lightning. I aim it at the nearest giant. It rips through its chest and electrocutes him.
“Now! Run,” I tell Rishi and Nova. “I’ll be right behind you.”
Two giants replace the one I killed. They land feet from me and close in. I dodge vines that want to pierce my heart.
Fire, the voice tells me.
Heat blisters my skin as I conjure flame. I close my eyes and hiss at the air as I say the words of El Fuego, Bringer of Flame. “Rain of fire! Birth of ash!”
I grind my teeth against the searing pain in my hands. I hold balls of white-and-red flames in my palm. I blast them at two giants that attack me. Their blistering screams become echoes as my fire burns them to a crisp.
Vines snap around my wrists and pull me back. Another giant appears from the shadows and takes hold of me. My muscles and bones strain against the force. A six-inch thorn hits my shoulder. The pain slices through me, and for a moment, all I see is red. Then, the pressure is gone and I fall forward.
“I got you,” Nova says, coughing and wheezing the smoke from his lungs. “I got you, Alex.”
He pulls me up.
“Rishi! Where is she?”
One of the giants is still alive. It crawls toward me, tripping on the bones. Since it’s on its knees, I can look into its decrepit face. My hands are wet and soft with blood pouring from my blistered palms. I find the anger, the fear in my belly, and I scream it out into the giant’s face. I’m a siren, a banshee, howling in the wind. All I have are my hands and my power. So as the giant reaches me, I throw a punch straight into its torso. My hand breaks through its meaty skin, scraping against bone until I wrap my hand around its heart. I squeeze and twist, but it won’t come free. The creature groans, then falls lifeless to the ground, pulling me with it.
“Let go,” Nova shouts. His hands are on my shoulders.
I don’t understand what he means until I realize the reason I can’t break free is because I’m still holding on to its heart.
My body shakes from head to toe, the recoil crippling me to the ground. Nova grunts as something knocks him to the side. But Nova is fast and jumps on the creature’s back. He grips the giant by the throat and struggles to choke it.
There’s a shadow, another creature coming for me. I push myself up. Face the giant. I conjure a ball of flame and hurl it at him. Its skin catches on fire, but the giant keeps advancing. It growls as it pulls back its arms, ready to shoot me down with its vines. I crawl over bones and jagged stones, shielding my face with my arm, but then there’s Rishi, jumping from the ledge above. She cracks the giant’s head open with a whack of the mace. Her dark hair is matted to her cheeks with sweat and blood. I force myself to get up.
“It’s not over, Ladybird,” Nova says, panting.
“Alex,” Rishi says.
The three of us stand back to back to back. More of them climb down from the mountain walls. There are so many blind giants I can’t keep count, and they close in.
The sky trembles above us, matching the rhythm of my heart. I see lightning break across the sky, and I know what I have to do. The power inside of me urges me to reach for it. Every cell in my body wakes up with electricity.
I grab hold of the lightning with a tight fist, feel its current hit my heart. I am an element. I am the storm. The lightning is a whip, and I lash it at the giants. Suddenly, the world is vibrant, overexposed. When my lightning hits the giants, they break apart, all burned limbs and shattered bone.
The explosion blows me back. My ears ring and my skull throbs. I land on top of Rishi and Nova. I call for my mother. Pain sears from my skin down to the core of my bones. I try to push myself up but can’t. I am dead.
No, I am death.
The inside of my eyelids is red. Hands, warm and strong, hold me and carry me. I don’t even have to look. I’ve already memorized the way his heart beats against mine.
Nova buries his face in my hair and then something settles over us. I can feel shadows and fear fill his heart, though the darkness has surrounded him from the moment I met him. I cling to him because I can’t seem to move. It’s the worst recoil yet. How does anyone live with this pain?
“We made it to the other side of the mountain. We’ve made it out,” he whispers, but I know there’s something wrong.
The wind is cold and carries the scent of cinder. My senses are so sensitive, I can hear the spike of Rishi’s heart, the way her lungs expand for air, the way she struggles as something takes hold of her.
“Rishi?” I reach for her in the dark, but Nova holds me tighter.
“Now, Alejandra,” the Devourer says, “let me see how easily you are broken.”
32
Liar’s tongue and feathers fair,
take this path, if lovers dare.
—The Forbidden Canto, a.k.a. the Romeo Death, from The Art of Poison, Angela Aurora Santiago
The Devourer appears out of the dark, a creature of the shadows. She stands feet away from Rishi. My eyes begin to clear, but I wish I couldn’t see anything. I pull myself out of Nova’s hold. When he sets me down, my knees want to give out under me. I fight the urge to cry and scream because the recoil is making it impossible to think clearly. All I see is Rishi, bound and gagged. She shakes her head.
The Devourer’s dress of metal and bone clings to her like darkness. Her red eyes are bright behind the helmet of bone. She traces her long, pointed nails along Rishi’s cheek. Vines rope around Rishi’s feet, keeping her locked to the ground. A thorny rope winds around her arms, torso, neck, and mouth. Blood drips where the thorns pierce her lips shut.
“So tender,” the Devourer says in her smoky voice. “Tell me, Alejandra Mortiz. Did you begin to hope that you three would make it out of here alive?”
“Don’t move,” I tell Rishi. Every time she moves, the vines wrap tighter, the thorns dig deeper. “Let her go,” I say through gritted teeth.
The Devourer walks on the gray earth. For the first time, I notice the dark hill in the background, a great structure erected at the top like a crown. The labyrinth. She stops inches from me. My power is a weak pulse, struggling to come to my aid. I have a dagger, but my mace is on the ground beside Rishi’s feet. How quickly would the Devourer break my neck if I move?
She conjures a glass vial on the palm of her hand. It glows red like lava and has tiny gold flecks inside.
“Nova,” she says, “be a dear, won’t you?”
“I’m sorry,” he whispers. I can hear the regret in his voice.