The Devourer said nothing, just stared at us eerily from within its mask, no eyes or facial expressions to give a clue as to what it was thinking. Fear held me so tightly in its grip I couldn’t move.
In the next instant, the creature was so close the fur from the coyote mask tickled my neck. I fought the urge to vomit. I hadn’t even seen the Devourer move.
“Get away from her,” Talon growled as the walking corpses held him and Baz immobile. Zamir lay motionless, and I watchedher chest, willing it to rise. I bit back a cry of anguish when it didn’t.
“Did you bring this First Daughter to me as an offering?” the creature asked Talon, its voice deep and muffled from the mask it wore.
So many things happened at once I could barely track them. The dead servant holding me let go, and the Devourer grabbed hold instead. The creature’s gray hands, strong as steel and dry as ash, were clamped around my upper arms. A primal fear caught hold of me, every instinct in my body assuring me I stared death in the face.
Talon wrenched his arm free, blood pouring from where the dead servant had restrained him. He brought his sword down in a powerful arc, but the Devourer turned its head toward him, and Talon went flying backward. He slammed into the wall with a brutalcrack.
“Talon!” The scream tore out of me.
The wind built around me, swirling like a tornado, but the Devourer was caught in the calm center of it just as I was. The missing eyes of the coyote mask stared down at me, swallowing me in their depths as I struggled. And then, the mask did something so strange and horrific, I stilled in the midst of my attempts to escape.
Where before the coyote skin was clearly a mask, it began to stretch and grow, until it covered not only the top half of the Devourer’s face, but his whole head. No longer did he have the shadowed chin and lower jaw of something resembling a human. Now, it was the gaping maw of a coyote, with a long snout, yellow teeth, and black gums. The eyes glowed with a smoky-red light, as though a fire burned beneath them. And as the jaw opened wide, saliva glistening, I opened my mouth and screamed.
The wind stole the sound from me as it ripped at my hair and clothes and made the coyote abomination’s gray fur bristle. I kicked powerfully with my legs, using the wind to propel me forward with each thrust. From the corner of my eye, I saw Talon rise.
Baz moved to help Talon. Before he could get to him, the walking corpses who had been thrown against the wall by the wind had recovered, their limbs now at broken angles as they swarmed over Baz. He screamed and screamed as they dragged him down, their broken limbs raking and clawing, pulling flesh from bone.
“No!” I shouted, my cry echoed by Talon, who tried to shake off the effect of his head wound.
No matter how hard I kicked, the Devourer didn’t release its hold.
With its mouth opened wide, the Devourer leaned even closer, until I choked on its fetid breath. The wind grew stronger, and I could see it—a shimmering silver power blasting at the Devourer’s dark aura—but to my horror, I saw it disappearing into the Devourer’s open mouth.
Though I continued to struggle, each movement felt strained, as though I were underwater.
The Devourer is draining you,the wind whispered in my ear.You will have one chance.
Talon lifted his sword, blood running down his cheek from a wound near his right temple.
With every passing breath, I grew weaker. Agony lanced through me. My head felt like it would burst, and my chest tightened so hard I could scarcely draw breath. I didn’t know what the Devourer was doing exactly. Draining my power? My life? But I knew that I didn’t have much time left to free myself. Even now,I might not have enough strength. But it was clear that Talon would attack again, and together, we might be able to push the Devourer back enough to escape.
I just needed to time it right.
I reached for the wind that was being siphoned into the Devourer’s gaping maw. Pain cracked through me like lightning, and my heart slowed. I couldn’t see blood pouring out of me, but it felt like my strength, my energy—mysoul—was slipping away. Spots appeared in my eyes, distorting my vision. I didn’t have long. I reached deep inside myself and called the wind to me with the desperation of the dying. At the same time, I tracked Talon’s movements, waiting until he gathered himself for a thrust of his sword.
One chance,the wind reminded.
I didn’t even have enough strength to form a response. The Devourer pulled harder—like it was unraveling me from the inside—and the room spun. But Talon made his move, and the Devourer’s attention shifted—just for a moment.
I concentrated all the power of the wind that swirled around me like a cyclone and directed it toward the Devourer. It hit the creature with the force of a hurricane. Its blunt fingernails clawed my arms as it was wrenched back, and black blood spilled from its side where Talon’s sword bit into its flesh.
The wind ripped through the remaining walking corpses and Lord Heron, smashing them against the wall. The Devourer, too, was lifted and thrown through the air like a rag doll.
And then I was falling, my energy gone with the wind.
Strong arms wrapped around me and lifted me off my feet. Talon held me against his chest.
“I’m getting you out of here,” he said, running toward the broken window with me cradled in his arms.
With the chaos at our backs and nothing but empty sky beyond the window, I suddenly realized what he meant to do.
“Talon, no! We can’t leave Shazeera!” I cried weakly, but he continued unheedingly.
He launched us through the gaping hole. We plummeted.
