9 - JASINA

CHAPTER NINE

O h, how they howled . All night long. Just three women. But three is more than enough to make those anguished screams that echoed through the dorms last night.

Eight floors up—at least. They could've been in Gemna's quarters, and then it would've been ten. Or Clara's, and it would've been nine. But still, we could hear them. The entire dorm heard them.

Even we, the down-city rebels sent here to disrupt and tear things apart, felt their suffering.

Haryet Chettle's hours are now numbered.

Tonight, she dies.

Or maybe not. No one knows what happens to the Maidens. My best guess is that the god eats them. He devours them, and at the same time, he steals their spark. And this spark comes back to us as lights in lamps, or hot water from pipes, or heat in the orchards and greenhouses.

But I guess it's just as likely that he rapes them? Tortures them? Tears them to shreds?

He's an angry god, after all.

Because he's a dying god.

And we are part of the reason he's dying.