Page 24 (1/2)
She felt Dreadaeleon beside her, the fever of his body seeping out of his glowing red eyes His hair hung about his face, coat about his body as he swayed precariously on overtaxed feet He stared at the ement for the latter’s imminent demise Instead, heupon his pal into burning red flowers ‘HOT!’
The word that followed next, she did not hear But she did see the circle beco like a rose petal as it flew froloard the two combatants The creature took no notice of it as it sizzled over the mist, nor did it look away from its victim as the little spark drifted up and ca’s whisky-soaked brow
HothothothotHOTHOTHOTHOTHOTHOT …
The whispers caotten as the creature erupted into fla out in the inferno that consuure, now illuuely faures, perhaps, or the feathery gills that were burnt away like sticks of incense as it hurled itself to the earth
She wasn’t about to try to get a closer look as the horror pulled its body across the ground, leaving a trail of ash behind it Its wails, its whispers left herbody through a hole in the wall to disappear into the night
Asper watched it for but a ht back to the scrawny boy beside her, legs giving out beneath him
‘Did it …?’ Dreadaeleon ain …’
She knelt beside him, felt his brow The fever was no worse that she could tell; it was simply exhaustion stacked upon exhaustion That simple spark had pushed hih to tread upon And like the spark, he flickered He needed water; he needed rest
‘Stay …’ he whispered, reaching for her ‘Hot … hurts … but I did it … I saved …’
‘I know you did,’ she replied, s the hair from his brow ‘And I’ll be here, but I have to help Denaos, too’
‘Denaos?’ His eyes and ! It was me! I saved you! I’ ‘I’m the … the …’
‘Please, Dread,’ she pleaded as she laid him back down to the stones ‘Just a moment’
‘Assholes,’ he muttered as his eyes closed, mouth still contorted in a snarl ‘Both of you’
No time to heed or take offence, she rose fro his head up to her lap, she could see the wound in his neck, the seeping green veno across his body His breathing ift and laboured, but steady Histo jelly nor hardening with preeour His pulse raced, but was there He ounded and poisoned, but he wasn’t going to die
Because of her
‘Gone,’ he whispered
‘Yeah,’ she said, ‘it ran away’
‘I h a dry mouth
‘Yeah Sorry’
‘Not your fault’ He grinned ‘Not coh, but wound up cringing ‘It hurts’
‘The wound’s not the worst I’ve seen,’ she said with a sigh ‘I think you ht--’
‘Last rites’
‘What?’
‘Last rites’
‘No, you’re not--’
‘I don’t want to die without absolution’
The hand he laid on her ar the ware to tear it away
‘I don’t want to die,’ he whispered
She knew she couldn’t offer hins of a fatal poisoning; the claws had ular, and the venom likely wouldn’t do s he had done, he was going to live … again
To offer last rites would be deception, a sin
She could have told hientle voice, ‘requires confession’
‘I …’ His eyelids flickered with his tre words ‘I – I killed her’
‘Killed who?’
‘She was … it … so beautiful Just cut her … no pain, no screaency she did not understand was in the quaver of her voice and the tension of her hands ‘Who?’
The next words he spoke were choked on spittle The agony was plain in his eyes, as was the alarer to the cleft tops of the walls She followed the tip of it, saw them there, and stared
And in the darkness, dozens of round, yellow eyes stared back
Twelve
INSTINCTUAL SHAME
Semnein Xhai was not obsessed with death She was a Carnassial, proud of the kills she had ht to be called such, but only those kills Deaths wrought by hands not her oere annoying They left her with questions Questions required thinking Thinking was for the weak
And the weak lay at her feet, two cold bodies of the longfaces before her
‘How?’ she snarled through jagged teeth
‘Perhaps they were aested beside her
The male held himself away from the corpses, hands folded cautiously inside his red robe as he surveyed the, purple face was a pristine rooested he was h females are renowned for awareness,’ he said softly
‘They’re renowned for not dying like a pair of worthless, stupid weaklings,’ she growled ‘What did they die fro her voice simmer in her throat After a moment, she turned to the female beside her ‘Well?’
The ferunted at Xhai before stalking to the corpses She surveyed theers, three total with the loo fused together, with conteers, relegated her to using the bow and thus relegated her to conteers ran delicately down the fee cuts, the wicked bruises and particularly well-placed arrows that dominated the purple skin left bare by their iron chestplates and half-skirts After a moment, she nodded, satisfied, and rose up She turned to Xhai and snorted