“What should I do, Kull?” Merik gazed at the fresco’s gruesome face, half expecting it to answer. But nothing came. It never would. Kullen—and these stones—would remain silent forever.
Except that in the silence came a thought. Something Aunt Evrane had always said whenever she scolded Merik: The Fury never forgets, Merik. Whatever you have done will come back to you tenfold, and it will haunt you until you make amends.
Merik slowly swiveled his wrists, reveling in how the new skin protested. How the blistered, dirt-lined strips tore apart. He was haunted by his mistakes, but maybe … If he tilted his head at just the right angle, he could view this not as a curse but as a gift.
The assassin in the night. The fire on the Jana. The woman in Judgment Square. Each event had led Merik here, to Noden’s temple. To a fresco of the god’s Left Hand.
And only a fool ignored Noden’s gifts.
Why do you hold a razor in one hand?
“So men remember,” Merik whispered to the stones, “that I am sharp as any edge.”
And why do you hold broken glass in the other?
“So men remember that I am always watching.”
Take the god’s gift. Become the Fury.
It was time to become the monster Merik had been all along. No more numbed distance. No more fighting the Nihar temper. Only vicious, hungry heat.
One for the sake of many; vengeance for those he’d lost.
It was time to make amends. Time to bring justice to the wronged. Time to bring punishment to the wicked.
Merik knew exactly where to begin.
TEN
Safi wished she were dead. At least then she could return as a ghost to terrorize these Hell-Bards.
They hadn’t taken Safi or Vaness into the settlement. They hadn’t even stopped nearby. Only the woman, Lev, had cut off from the group to vanish into the jungle. Which direction she’d taken, Safi couldn’t guess.
One moment, Lev was there, walking silent as a deer behind the commander, who trod behind Safi. Then suddenly Lev was gone, and when Safi glanced back to scan the dense foliage, she earned a blade against her topmost vertebra.
“Keep moving, Heretic.”
Heretic. It was the word for an unregistered witch in the Empire of Cartorra. It was the word for fugitives of the law.
And it was what the Hell-Bards were sworn to recognize and to eliminate. They could sense hidden witcheries. They could hunt hidden witches.
“My feet hurt, Hell-Bard.”
“Good for you.”
“My wrists hurt too.”
“Fascinating.”
Safi offered a sweet smile over her shoulder. “You’re a bastard.”
No reaction from within his helm. Just a metallic, “That’s what they tell me.”
Well, Safi was only just warming up. “Where are we going?”
The commander didn’t answer that one. So onward she pressed: “When will we get there?”
Still nothing.
“What poison did you give the empress? Do you plan to feed us, or will starvation run its course? And do all Hell-Bards waddle like a duck, or is it just you?”
When he still refused to offer a reaction: “I will scream, you know.”
A sigh bounced from his helmet. “And I will gag you, Heretic. That little trick you attempted by folding your wrists? It won’t work with a gag.”
That shut up Safi. Though not because of the threat in his words but rather the lack of anything else. No truth, no lies. None of the Hell-Bards registered with her witchery. How, she wanted to know, was such a thing possible?
It was the only thing Safi had learned about her opponents since capture, and it was of no use for an escape. Nonetheless, when an opportunity finally came, she was ready for it.
Vaness woke up.
It wasn’t a gradual, groggy glide into awareness, but rather a panicked, predatory explosion. One moment, the empress lay limp in the giant’s arms while Zander crossed a low gully. He had to lean forward to climb, his body awkwardly angled.
Meanwhile, Safi had paused ten paces behind, the commander’s sword keeping her still. She watched Zander, impressed by how easily he carted Vaness up a rise almost as tall as he.
Halfway up the hill, though, Vaness became a hurricane.
She kicked. She screamed. She fell to the ground while Zander fought to stay upright.
The empress was on her feet before Safi’s mind had even processed the awakening. And Vaness was running away before the giant or the commander—or Safi too—could chase after.
Vaness didn’t get far, though. Zander’s legs were twice as long, and he grabbed her from behind in mere seconds. She screeched like a Cleaved.
It was enough time for Safi to make a move. More than enough time. She dropped to her knees, spinning backward. With her torso, she tackled into the commander’s knees, then lifted her left shoulder into his groin. Even with a long brigandine on, it had to hurt.
He certainly dropped fast enough, his back slamming into the streambed’s wall.
Then Safi kicked—a hard side thrust of her heel into his exposed throat.
Except she missed and got a leather-clad shoulder instead.