The letter weeps more of his favored color as he squirms, his mouth wide in a silent scream.
Beautiful, blessed silence. I could kiss Clode at times like this.
“She also mentioned that although you don’t make your null son fight in your prestigious Undercity battle pit, you often call upon Ignos to paint him in flames for being such a great disappointment to your bloodline.”
The words are forced past gritted teeth, that immense, icy presence within me shifting.
Rumbling.
I carve a C. Then an A.
Child abuser.
I’m tempted to give him the entire alphabet, but time is of the essence. Instead, I finish him off with three more letters:
A-S-S.
Self-explanatory.
The wind becomes a cutting torrent, whistling around corners, lifting my veil.
Baring me.
I don’t bother trying to cover up, wondering if he still likes my voice.
The color of my dress.
If he regrets following me, trying to assault me against the wall.
His chest jerks to the manic tune of Clode’s twirling giggles, practically hanging from his hand nailed to the wall while treasured breath squeaks through his throat.
“Ignos started speaking to your daughter, did you know?”
His face contorts, baring deeper folds of agony as his boots gouge the blood-steeped snow.
“She’s been escorted out of the city this slumber, along with the rest of your family, but not before your bound told us everything we need to extinguish your fucked-up operations and set those younglings free.”
Take them somewhere safe and secure where they can learn to be children again.
I repeat Clode’s suffocating tune, and she flicks around me at a voracious speed, churning my hair into an inky mess while Tarik’s face turns blue.
Then purple.
“How does it feel to be nulled, Tarik?”
His now-bleeding eyes take in the lobe of my ear. The one supposed to be pierced with a transparent bead to signify my ability to hear Clode’s ever-changing, riotous song. Way I see it, it would only serve to single me out as a threat to The Fade’s militant society.
Fuck their system.
“How does it feel to suffer at the hands of someone ‘beneath’ you?”
Still smacking his throat with his mangled arm, his mouth shapes a single word:
Mercy.
An eviscerating rage torches my spine, licking around my ribs, feasting on my cold black heart.
I wonder how many times the younglings who fought in his pit of death pleaded for that very thing. How many times his son said the word, looking up at the male who was supposed to nurture him.
Protect him.
I wonder how many times hope perished in his small chest before he begged his mah to seek us out. To break free of Tarik’s invisible shackles.
Too many.
“Your family sends their regards,” I sneer, then slash my blade through his throat.
Tarik’s blood splashes across the snow, plumes of it spurting from the gory gash.
I reach into my pocket and slip on my ring.
The racket banging against my eardrums snips off, leaving only the organic sounds of Clode squealing past corners without her manic laughter or slicing song.
I crack my neck from side to side, rolling my shoulders—ever thankful for iron’s nulling properties. I can tune her out on my own if I concentrate, but it takes effort, and my guard drops while I sleep. Clode’s great and all, but not when you’re jostled awake by a midslumber squeal. And she’s painfully loud. Plug-fingers-in-my-ears loud, though I wouldn’t dare.
Don’t want to get on her bad side.
It’s said the louder one hears the elemental songs, the greater the connection, the more power one can derive from learning their language and speaking their words. A blessing and a curse when it comes to the wild Air Goddess, since her squeals can be sharp enough to slit skin. Nothing worse than feeling like your brain’s being filleted into fluffy segments.
I tuck my veil back into place, hiding the bottom half of my face as I move to the wind tunnel’s entrance and peek out, looking left and right along the thin path etched into the wall like a groove. Making sure my cloaked observer hasn’t shown up to play catch the iron blade between your ribs.
Not seeing him or anyone else, I step farther forward, glancing down toward the Ditch far below. Eddies of snow tangle with clusters of luminous sowmoths, but I see no other movement, nor can I see anybody on the stair path beneath me. Nor the one below that.
I look across the massive cleft to the wall’s parallel half, seeing nobody on the north side, nor on the nearby skybridges that stretch between both.
An appreciated surprise.
I step away from the edge and turn, my footsteps echoing as I walk back to Tarik’s corpse still hanging from his hand pinned to the wall, his head flopped to the side. I extract my blade from the stone, and his body heaps into a steaming puddle of red.
Looking at my gown, I click my tongue at the spurts of blood deepening the shade in places. I’d hoped for a clean job this time. Every time.
Never happens.
I unbutton the overlay on my skirt, rip the top layer from my bodice, and pull the tarnished fabric free, revealing the perfect replica beneath—balling the spoiled layer into a parcel I toss down the rubbish chute that’s tunneled into the wall. One of many chutes scattered around the city, which delve past ground level, past a few levels of the Undercity, and spew out into the lair of a full-grown velvet trogg that feasts on Gore’s trash.
I tip my head to the side, gauging the distance between Tarik and the chute, deciding it’s probably a little high for me to heft him into it. Better just to shove him out the hole in the wall for the many Shade-born predators to pick at.
Releasing a sigh, I look at his limp body, picturing a world without those who like to gobble up shiny things then shit them out broken. “Imagine,” I mutter, crouching to wipe my blades on his pants before I tuck them away.
Just … imagine.
I shake my head, grip Tarik around the ankles, and heave his weight with all the strength of my burning thighs, thankful we got almost all the way to the end before he pounced. As I drag him toward the drop, the wind sweeps through the tunnel so hard I’m certain it gives him a shove, and I smile.
Clode’s such a crazy, spiteful bitch.
I love her.
I maneuver Tarik until he’s so close to the edge his arm is dangling, then wipe my hands on his tunic, crouch behind him, and put all my weight into pushing him over, catching myself on the stone as he slips from my grasp. Leaning forward, I watch him plummet toward the wall’s rocky, sawtooth base far below …
He impales upon a slice of stone that cuts all the way through his abdomen, and I find myself wishing I’d kept him alive so he could experience it.
Damn.
Missed opportunity.
Standing, I use the edge of my boot to scrape the bloody smear of snow into a pile and kick it off the side.
Pocketing Tarik’s hand, I saunter down the wind tunnel, pausing just before the entrance, my stare catching on a bit of parchment stuck to the wall.
I step closer, eyes narrowing on the script.
Stealing children?
Exploiting their gifts for our own political gain?
“What a load of spangle shit.”
And The Crown’s no longer threatening those who engage with us, but rather dangling a bountiful lure impossible to turn down. Especially for those who are homeless, working in the mines, getting by on a few pouches of bloodstone per phase.
This changes things …
Snarling, I rip the bullshit parchment free and scrunch it into a ball, just stalking around the corner when I slam into something hard. A firm hand wraps around my wrist, steadying me. The same wrist that’s attached to the hand currently clawed around the balled-up bit of parchment offering a hefty reward for, well …
Me.
I look up in time for a blow of wind to push back the hood of the mysterious male from the Hungry Hollow.
My heart plummets, breath loosens. For the first time since Fallon taught me speech, I’m lost for words.