Her passenger spasmed violently. A rustle in the desert brush made both her and Casandra turn, to see a man in a hooded black robe. Where he’d come from, or how long he’d been there, Ysira could not say. And . . .no.
This was not a man. Not exactly.
Even in the twilight, he appeared out of place, as if he belonged somewhere that hadn’t seen sunlight in a thousand years. There was no flush of red blood beneath his larva-pale skin and greyish lips. He was tall and narrow, utterly hairless, with disproportionately long, four-fingered hands and pointed ears. Bony ridges lined his jaw and forehead.
From certain angles, he might pass for human. Then he moved, and Ysira glimpsed something . . . else. Something slithered beneath that papery-white skin, older than the stars and not entirely at home in this universe. He blinked at her. A second set of eyelids moved sideways, meeting in the middle with aclickover luminous golden irises and ink-black sclerae.
The god appeared unsurprised to see them, as though someone had warned him they were coming. As though he had been waiting. He fixated on Neri.
Ysira put herself in front of her son. She hated the pitiful timbre of her voice as she rasped, “Stay away from him.”
Casandra was still on her knees, breathing ragged as she whimpered, again, “Oh, gods.”
“Give me the boy.” The god’s manner of speaking was cold and clipped but more human than expected. “I will not ask twice.”
Ysira didn’t move. “What do you want with him?”
“I am Nabatar, Lord of Sickness,” he said. “And I will not explain to an insect.”
Ysira reached for a knife. The god lifted a strange metal device. A sharp black blur shot forward. First came a thud of cold pressure. Next, blinding pain.
A gigantic black thorn impaled her through the torso, pinning her to the rock formation. Had probably ripped through her spine and every organ in her abdominal cavity. Her heart seized in her chest, hammering uselessly. The thorn disintegrated into black mist. She dropped to the ground. Her vision went dark.
Somewhere to her left, Casandra was screaming.
Consciousness flickered—and came surging back. Ysira gasped for air, ineffectually, mouth open wide. She lay paralyzed, helpless as her passenger worked. The Lord of Sickness did not spare her a second glance. He had eyes only for Neri, whose face lay a few feet from Ysira’s own.
Nabatar knelt beside the boy. He did something with his expression that might have been a frown. He reached out—hesitant, as though afraid Neri’s flesh might burn him.
Afraid.The god was afraid.
Ysira twitched the fingers of her right hand, then the whole arm. Agonizingly slow, she managed to move it enough to palm a knife. Pain surged through her body. She struggled not to cry out. But if she hadn’t died yet . . . this would not kill her. This was not the end.
In her peripheral vision, Casandra still screamed, crumpled on the ground and clutching the obliterated stump of her left leg. Nabatar paid her no more mind than he did Ysira. He put a hand to Neri’s thin brown arm and seemed to realize it was safe. Her window was closing.
Ysira levered herself to her knees and hurled her weapon. She did not miss. Nabatar turned, impossibly fast. He caught it by the hilt an inch from his face. But as she leapt to her feet and readied her best steel knife, he stared at her. Stunned speechless.
It lasted long enough for her to lunge. She’d have stabbed him in the heart, but he snatched the blade with his bare hand. Four digits curled around the metal. He seized Ysira by the wrist with that same awful strength, baring his teeth at her. “What’s this?”
Ysira howled in agony as he ground her wrist bones to gravel beneath his fingertips and loosened his grip just enough to feel them reconstitute. He leaned in close andsniffed,inhaling her scent.
“Valak,” he hissed. “Every time I think we’ve killed the last of you . . .” Ysira’s heart pounded in her ears, her thoughts a tangle of incoherent terror. Something itched at the apex of her spine, like the spindly legs of a spider probing for purchase—for a way inside her head.
And then?—
Light.A boy’s scream, and a brilliant, blinding red that forced Ysira to shut her eyes. The god released her. Light rippled out from Neri in waves, bringing with it a heat so intense, it made the desert air feel chilled.
Transfixed, Ysira watched her raised fingers redden, bubble, and blister, then heal, then burn again, caught between equal and opposite forces. She barely registered the pain. The energy around Neri surged, red appendages pulsating as though waking from centuries of slumber, atrophied muscles recalling whispers of their old strength.
“Stop,” came the faintest of cries. Neri was on his knees, hugging himself as if trying to pull the energy inward. The world seemed to tilt. The air shimmered and warped. Dust skittered toward the light—and a devouring void at its core. One tendrilflashed out, brighter than the sun. Ysira buried her face in her elbow.
The rock trembled. She was certain they were about to die, but then—as suddenly as it had appeared—the light faded. Neri lay on the ground, unscathed but hunched in the fetal position, sobbing. And Casandra . . .
The girl was burned beyond recognition. Clothes and armor fused to her skin, head stuck at an angle as her face melted into her shoulder. Her hair was gone, her scalp a misshapen lump of bloody tissue. She groaned weakly. Still alive, though not for long.
The same could not be said of the god.
Nabatar, Lord of Sickness, had caught the full force of that staggering power, and nothing remained of him but a charred and shattered skeleton. Ysira stared at it, one thought drowning out all others.
