Kreya had already begun.
She’d cut a slit in Stran’s arm. Coating the old soldiers’ bones with blood, she was pushing them into Amurra’s sternum. As Kreya chanted the words of the spell, the bones sank into Amurra’s flesh, like sugar dissolving into water.
Bone after bone.
A femur, a rib, a vertebra.
Clavicle.
Humerus.
More ribs. Another vertebra.
Last, Kreya pushed a skull into Amurra’s body, and it melted into her, jaw first, nasal cavity, empty eye sockets, crown, until every last trace of it was gone. Zera realized Kreya hadn’t answered Marso’s question—would it be enough?
I guess we’ll see,she thought. Every bone had been used. It had to be enough.
A sheen of sweat glistened on Kreya’s face. Zera wished she could help. She stood ready with the bandages. But Stran still needed to bleed.
Silent, Marso had sunk to the floor to sit cross-legged besidethe bed. He was stroking his chicken bones without looking at them, as if afraid to see what they’d say. She was oddly glad that he couldn’t read them as well as he used to. Somehow not knowing if they’d succeed or fail made this mean more.
There’s beauty in trying,Zera thought.
That was the difference between them and Eklor. When they lost a loved one, they...
Well, hedidtry to save his own loved ones first, and only after he was stopped did he seek revenge. Like Kreya on the plains. Maybe they weren’t so different. They’d all crossed lines.We have yet to resort to attempting a massacre, though,Zera thought.So we’re winning.
Staggering backward, Kreya gasped for air. “Done.”
Jentt caught her and steadied her.
Moving quickly, Zera pressed gauze against Stran’s wound. It was deep, and the blood still surged sluggishly from it. It would need to be sewn, and he’d need to rest. She readied the needle and surgical thread.
Beside Stran, Amurra’s chest rose and fell. Color had spread to her cheeks. Her eyes fluttered open as if she were waking from a peaceful night’s sleep. She turned her head. “Stran?”
His voice was choked. “Amurra.”
“You’re going to kill that bastard, aren’t you?” she rasped. Her voice sounded as if all moisture in her throat had evaporated. She swallowed painfully.
“Absolutely,” he swore.
“I didn’t like dying.”
“I won’t let it happen again,” Stran said.
Kreya murmured, “Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”
Amurra sat up. “What did you do, Stran? What did all of you do?”
Jentt answered. “He shared his remaining life with you. Half of all his future years.”
When Stran struggled to sit up with her, Zera poked him in the shoulder until he lay still. “I’m sewing you up. Don’t move unless you want me to miss.” Focusing on the wound, she knit together the flesh. Blood stained her fingers, but she ignored it. He lay still as she made neat, even stitches.
But his wife did not lie still. She pressed herself against his side, turned his head so he faced her, and kissed him thoroughly. He smiled, she smiled, and it was a lovely moment that would have made Zera roll her eyes if she hadn’t been so focused on making sure he didn’t bleed out. Finishing the stitches, she cleaned the blood as best she could and then wrapped the wound in clean gauze, covered in bandages.
When the two of them finally quit staring into one another’s eyes as if they’d each invented the sun, Amurra asked, “How many years?”
“No way for me to know,” Kreya said. She sounded extremely tired, and Zera was happy to see that Jentt had his arm around her, supporting her. Maybe they were past their issues, at least for now. Certainly there couldn’t have been a better object lesson for Jentt for how he should have behaved.At least something good has come out of this,Zera thought. She thought also of Guine and how she’d never told him he mattered to her. Of course, in that case, he was an idiot for not realizing it.
