Instead, I hear slithering, like a hundred serpents uncoiling.
I’ve fallen into a pit. I can see almost nothing, except for pale shapes bobbing in the distance. The slithering intensifies. As it nears, I realize precisely what I’ve stumbled into:banshees.
My skin crawls. The daemons are skeletal and faintly humanoid. There is something feline in their movements. I count four of them: shrunken, emaciated bodies in dark cloaks. Their faces are ghostly, and when one yawns, it reveals a mouth of sharklike teeth. Their beady black eyes catch the light.
“We’ve been waiting for you,”the nearest one moans, with a voice like howling wind.
I am already reaching for my Talent, yanking on the thread as hard as I can, shooting the energy into my leg, trying to seal the flesh. But my focus is torn as they slink closer, one hissing with my mother’s voice:“Lyria, will you join ussss?”
“GET AWAY!” I howl, pounding at my leg with my fist. I need to shove the bone back in place, but the agony is overwhelming. Stars pop at the edge of my vision. I’m fighting for consciousness. Darkness blooms, and I think I pass out again, because when I blink, the banshees are closer.
“They dare send their acolyte,”one murmurs in a high, reedy voice.
“Will her blood be sweet, I wonder?”another asks.“It’s been too long since I’ve tasted flesh.”
“She’ll be sweeter than the boy. A wellborn daughter, kissed by the Goddess…”
“Stay back!” I scream. I send a violent wave of magic their direction, but it drifts away like mist. The banshees might as well be made of smoke and shadows. There is nothing for my Talent to seize on, nothing alive in them to manipulate. Terror consumes me.
They keep slinking forward with the curious, unhurried speed of scavengers. I start digging in my rucksack, trying to find something—anything—to fight back with. My hand wraps around the throwing knives.
I hurl the first blade at the nearest monster, and it catches her firmly in the chest. She crumples but does not stop. I have enough time to try the second knife, missing another approaching banshee, before the first reaches me, and—creeping steadily—draws forward and sinks her teeth into my calf. I scream again as a second does the same, ripping into the soft flesh of my stomach. I struggle for the dagger strapped to my belt, but I can’t reach it. So I dig again into the sack, finding the third knife. I roar as I draw it out, burying it firmly into the banshee’s skull latched onto my side. I manage to shake her off as the other two close in. I dig into the pack one more time…
And my fingers close on the drakesbane.
I smash the bottle onto the ground as hard as I can.
Emerald fyre explodes around us. The daemons shriek with inhuman fury as flames quickly catch onto their robes and swallow their figures. I’m on fyre, too. The flames gobble my skirts, spreading to my torso, and it takes every bit of my strength toheavesideways, rolling to extinguish the flames.My boot melts against my flesh; I can smell my skin charring. But I fight back, slapping the flames, until I can finally focus, scanning the broken bodies of the daemons, still sputtering fyre around me.
Cygnus.I have to reach Cygnus.
I reach down to my thigh. Grit my teeth. And slam my femur back into place.
The sound that tears out of me isn’t human. It’s the howl of an animal, the monster within, roaring for dominance. I don’t know where I find the strength, but I force myself to my knees. Then to my feet. I stumble forward until my hands meet rock. I have reached the cliffside. Distantly, I hear another scream—unmistakably Cygnus.
There’s no time to feel sorry for myself. No time for hesitation. So, fighting the nauseating agony…
I climb.
The cliffside is jagged marble. I fell maybe two dozen feet. I scramble as fast as I can, cursing my limp arms and the searing pain in my thigh. The agony doesn’t ease, even as my magic stitches together flesh and bone faster than I’ve ever healed before.
The effort is draining. My physical and magical strength is plummeting, but I am determined. Grappling, I drag up one foot. Another. Finally, I crest the ridge and haul myself onto solid ground, panting.
Finding the torch I dropped, I scoop it up.
The path in front of me splits two ways. I hear Cygnus again. Steeling myself, I make a choice. I go left.
A prayer of thanks hisses out of me as I round a corner and find him straightaway. Cornered by a pair of daemons but untouched, Cygnus is kneeling, and it takes me a moment to understand what I am staring at. He holds a dagger at chest height, not in defense but pointed toward his own heart. Hiseyes are glazed as the banshees circle him, chanting something wordless, tuneless, and otherworldly.
“NO!”
I fling out both hands, and with a single, desperate thought, I shatter both his eardrums.
Cygnus doubles over, bellowing. I take the opportunity to strike, hurling my father’s dagger at the nearest banshee. Blessedly, it connects with its target.
Whatever spell they have cast over Cygnus breaks. As I surge forward to meet another banshee, its teeth yawning open like the maw of a shark, something in Cygnus activates. Leaping up, he swings his sword and lops off the daemon’s head with a single swipe. Itthudsand rolls away.
At last, all is still. In the stunning silence, the exhaustion seizes me full force.
