Something sharp pricked my neck. It took several hard blinks before I managed to make out Amunet’s twisted face. She snarled at me and pressed Keir’s dagger harder against my throat. She looked nothing like the girl I’d served my whole life. Not the savior I’d pictured. She looked like an animal. “Do you have any idea what you’ve just done? That wasmine, and you’ve—”
Something shifted on the altar, and she stopped. I strained past the pain and horror running through me to focus.
My qareen’s blood moved. Twisted along grooves in the altar I hadn’t noticed until just then, slid down to the floor, where more symbols had been carved. Glittering blood, like a river reflecting sunlight. It filled in the ruts on the floor, draining toward us.
Amunet and I watched in stunned silence as it puddled around our feet.
Then disappeared as it seeped into my skin. Only mine.
Wide-eyed, Amunet lowered the dagger and stepped away.
A white, burning pain blasted through me, like a hundred branding irons had been thrust into my core at the same time. I tried to swipe the blood away, smacking at my legs, my arms, but it was useless. It climbed up my thighs like vines, stretched across my shoulders, until it reached my chest. I screamed.
Pain and agony. That was all there was. Soul-wrenchingpain. Bright light burst behind my eyes, and I caved forward, slapping my hands over my face. It scorched me from the inside out, eating away at my organs, evaporating my blood, turning my bone marrow to lava.
When I opened my eyes, the dead girl on the altar was missing her runes, her bronzed skin utterly unblemished.
The pain ripped through me again, knocking me off-balance. I swayed forward but managed to catch myself on the altar before I hit the floor.
With a tattooed hand.
Barely able to catch my breath, I gaped at my knuckles, my wrists. I held them up in front of me, breaths jagged. Both hands were covered in faintly glowing green runes, which reached up my arms, down my torso, painted over my legs.
Every rune that had been on the qareen’s body was now on mine.
I staggered away from the altar, but pain surged up my legs, sapping their strength, and I landed hard on my knees beside the pool.
The water was calm enough this far from the waterfall for me to clearly see my reflection. My eyes weren’t brown anymore.
They were orange.
And they beamed like sunrays out of my skull.
Stupefied, I glanced up at Amunet. Her chest rose and fell rapidly as she took me in. She shook her head once. “You—”
She was wrenched backward, as if an invisible hook had ripped her off her feet. She went sailing through the air, toward the wall—and then through it. Disappeared.
It was the last thing I saw before white, agonizing fire swallowed me up.
SIXTY-THREEAMUNET
Oxygen surged into my lungs, and I sucked in the deepest breath I could, coughing violently. Sand exploded out of my mouth, and light blinded me. My thoughts were sluggish, pulse thundering in my ears. My head flopped forward, chin hitting my chest.
A rope was tied around my ribs. I was being dragged across black sand.What…?
I looked up, and Athar was there. He grinned and waggled his fingers in goodbye.
“Wait,” I croaked. Sand coated my mouth, crunched between my teeth, burned my throat with its dryness. But something was wrong. My power no longer thrashed. My fingertips no longer tingled. In fact, I could hardly feel my power at all beyond a subtle wind. A mere inkling that it was out there somewhere.
With her.
Footsteps shifted behind me. On my flimsy neck, I turned to see a woman with yellow eyes and a face covering. The one from the Cirra Tribe. On my other side was the younger girl. They hauled me toward the shade of trees.
“No.” I struggled weakly. “No, let me go!” But my arms were useless, entirely drained. “Athar!” I tried instead.
But Athar was gone. Vanished like he’d never been there at all.
My head was light, chest searing as I continued to gasp for oxygen, and my legs wouldn’t work. There was nothing I could do as the women dropped me unceremoniously against a tree trunk. I laid there, breathing hard, glaring up at them.
