I dropped to my knees on what remained of the cobblestone street, hands splaying over what lay beneath me. Yes, these were the stones I had played and fought and fallen on. This was my street.
And the house my mother had lived in was gone.
Not just broken. Not flattened. Obliterated.
So thoroughly erased I couldn’t even have told you which of the homes it was—they were all just shards now.
My mother never left her home after dark. Never, never. Which meant she had been inside it when the wall had come down.
That cursed noise sounded in my left ear—metal on metal—not far off, maybe twenty feet away. The sound angled toward me. Followed by footsteps: twin boots tapping on the cobblestones.
Those boots tapped toward me. They weren’t fast, but they weren’t slow; they were thorough and sure and consistent, like someone out for a walk.
“That’s one way to die.”
The voice came from behind me, baritone and full of gravel andforeign. Almost human, but somehow more complex and almost musical, like he could sing a dirge in the next second. One sentence was enough to know this was no night guard. Whoever lurked behind me wasn’t one of us.
It was one ofthem.
The footsteps came closer and only stopped when they were almost directly behind me. Metal sang from a sheath, and fresh pain pricked my back as something hard and sharp pressed up against my spine through my leathers.
I winced, still on my knees, and a thought entered my head, brief and overwhelming.
Just let them have you, Eury.
I could tell from the weapon’s prick that it was poised behind my heart. One thrust would kill me.
Clothing rasped, and that foreign voice sounded close to my ear. “Call to your gods.”
It sounded like a promise. It sounded like death.
My mouth remained closed, even as my chest swelled. I knew—with the same certainty I’d felt in my bunk—I wouldn’t do a fucking thing that creature asked. I’d rather die in silence.
So why was it that my hand went to the grip of the short sword at my waist? Why were my knees straightening, my body rising against every thought screaming to stay down?
I turned toward my killer, my hand still over the grip of mysword in its sheath. The creature held a blade as long as me, its tip as honed and treacherous as an adder’s tooth, pointed straight at my neck.
Before me stood a form wreathed in shadow, twice as tall as me. I couldn’t make out body or face, only that moonlit sword and the bone-deep sense of lethality.
“Call to them,” the creature said again.
I stared, my face stony. My head moved side to side almost imperceptibly, but the monster saw it.
Another screech sounded from our right, and one of those shadow creatures emerged around the corner of a building fifty paces off. It was headed straight for us—for me.
“Damn you—” the creature said. The sword rose, swinging it up with the ease and precision of a child’s toy. From the darkness, he switched his hold to a backhand.
I had seen that move before, in training; he meant to pommel me in the head. My hand went up to protect my skull, but I was too slow, or he was too fast.
Something struck my left temple. I was knocked off my feet, my whole world jarred by a searing white light.
Just before consciousness left me, I realized why I’d taken hold of my sword, why I’d stood and faced the monster at my back.
It was because of my mother’s words from earlier that day, and the promise I’d made to her.
I’d told her I would never sit down.
CHAPTER SIX
