She saw the flames leap higher and sparks fly up against the rock face as the body was placed on the pyre. The mourners embraced one another, and Kreya counted silently. One minute, two, three...
She kept counting, the pipes kept playing, the mourners cried, and the body burned.
Now.
Breathing a word onto the stealth talisman, Kreya shot out of her hiding place, no more visible than a shadow. Her coat flapped around her, but she weaved through the crowd, moving with them as they spoke softly, words of sympathy and words of comfort—all words that Kreya had heard before, the kind of words that didn’t help anyone but had to be said because the silence was worse. A few mourners startled, feeling an unexpected breeze as she passed them, but their eyes darted all around, unable to see her.
Zera always did make the best talismans,Kreya thought. She wished she could thank her old friend, but that would have required explaining what she’d been doing with the power. Also, it meant actually speaking with Zera, which she hadn’t done in twenty-five years.
At the pyre, Kreya didn’t look at the girl’s face. She tried not to think of the corpse as a person at all. Just a collection of ingredients she needed to obtain. Whispering to the strength talisman to activate it as well, she shoved both into her pockets and then grasped the limbs she needed.
The strength of a bear flooded through her, allowing her to yank.
Snap!
One arm bone broke, and she pulled a knife from one of her pockets—
And the magic failed.
She felt it sap out of her, the strength and the stealth simultaneously abandoning her. Around her, she heard the cries of the villagers:
“Thief!”
“Desecrator!”
“Bone worker!”
“Stop her!”
“Grab her!”
“Burn her!”
She hacked at the shoulder, but without the bear strength, she didn’t have the force to slice through the burnt flesh. A hand grabbed her arm, and she pulled away, kicking behind her. She felt her foot make impact.
She thought she heard Jentt shouting at her, inside her head: “Run, Kreya! Run!”
Not without you!she cried back.
Abandoning the shoulder, she hacked at the fingers. One snapped off under her blade. She shoved it in a pocket, and then she ran—not into the crowd, but instead around the pyre toward the Cliff of the Dead. As she ran, she yanked out the talisman for steadiness.
Please, work!
She whispered its word.
Kreya didn’t slow as she ran straight toward the rock face.
Fueled by the talisman, her feet stuck into the crags and nooks. She climbed as fast as she could. Glancing down, she sawthe villagers below her. It was sacrilege to climb a Cliff of the Dead—none would risk angering their beloved lost ones.
But that did not stop them from throwing rocks.
The first hit the stone beside her and shattered. She felt her grip slip.Don’t fail me!Continuing to climb, she pushed herself up higher and higher. Her arms began to shake, and her palms were sweating within the gloves. She didn’t know how long the talisman would last. It had been weak to begin with, and she was draining it fast.
Another rock hit. Even closer.
She kept climbing. She could see the top—
The third rock hit between her shoulder blades. She cried out, but she made herself keep climbing. Another rock hit beside her. One grazed her ankle.
