I flinched when Cheriour yelled. “Yeah, okay,” I said. “Get the wounded to the castle. Got it.” I stared at the array of bodies zigzagging across the ground. There were so many…
“I’ll watch your back.” Cheriour’s voice softened. Just a smidge. But then a Wraith sprinted toward us, and Cheriour shouted again. “Go! Addie, don’t stand there.Go!”
30
Monster
Iremembered falling.
As the floor of our room collapsed, Terrick and I tumbled down, and down, and down. The impact rattled every bone in my body and left me screaming in agony, but I never loosened my grip on Terrick. The building crumbled around us. Wood splintered. Leather burned. The tannery owner and his family were trapped inside. The stench of their singed flesh hovered like a cloud in the air.
In my arms, Terrick melted. His eyes frothed and disintegrated. His skin blistered, blackened, and turned to ash. I held onto him, even when all I had left were charred pieces of bone.
In the end, the city people found me, unclothed but unharmed, hovering over the skeleton of the only father figure I had ever known.
Voices rang out.
“Is that Terrick’s child?”
“Can’t be. Didn’t he say she was too weak to leave bed?”
“Been dying for years as I ‘eard it.”
I crouched lower, wishing they would go away.
They encircled me, stepping over the wreckage. They weren’t fearful, but they didn’t have a reason to be. Terrick had kept me and my curse well-concealed during our time in Darfield.
“Are you alright?” A hand touched my bare shoulder.
I backed away with a scream. The fire had dwindled to a mere flicker at my fingertips, but the itch beneath my skin remained.
“How did you escape?” A man asked.
Nausea coiled in my belly. A sob suffocated me, even as my eyes remained dry. But my numb fingers maintained their iron-clad grip on Terrick’s corpse.
“Come away, child.” More hands touched my shoulders, guiding me away from Terrick.
“No,” I rasped.
“There’s nothing to fear. You’re safe now.”
Safe? I’d never besafeagain. Not when the thing I feared most was myself.
“Your father’s gone, child. I’m sorry.”
They wouldn’tstop.
The itch beneath my skin grew.
Hands touched mine, prying my fingers from Terrick’s skeleton. Someone else patted my shoulder. Yet another person combed their fingers through my hair.
“Don’ttouch me!”The scream exploded from my throat, accompanied by a rush of fire spreading along my arms and torso.
Those attempting to comfort me were the first to die. Their pained cries rang into the night air as they burned.
Run.
I stared at themassacer—massacre before me, my chest painfully tight.
