Chapter 47

The grass is tickly and sweet smelling.

I push my curls from my eyes and pick another flower—this one tall with tiny, pink petals that make me smile.

I add it to my pile, squeezing my fingers around the stems.

My brother giggles, and I look up to where he and Mommy are snuggling under the shade of a sad-looking tree, making shapes with their hands.

Love hearts. Diamonds. Birdies.

I pick another flower, blowing away the bee that tries to land on it.

If I pick lots and lots, maybe my brother will make me something pretty with them.

“Momma ...”

“Yeah, my boy?”

“What happens when we die?”

I look up, watching them through the gaps in the grass.

Mommy’s hand-bird stops flying, but only for a little bit. “Well, it’s said that your heart must be full to pass through Kvath—the God of Death—on your journey to Mala. The afterworld. But once you’re there, your soul will soar on an eternal wind through a world where the colors never fade and the smells are always sweet. Where the sea is always warm and clear and kind, and the sand sparkles just like your beautiful eyes,” she says, leaning forward to kiss his nose.

Those are my favorite sort of kisses. One day, when I have my words, I’m going to tell her that.

“Oh ...”

Gripping my blooms, I crawl through the grass that tickles my cheeks and lips.

Mommy smiles when I reach them and pass my flowers off one by one, putting them on my brother’s tummy until I have only one left. My favorite.

It’s smaller than the rest, white like the stars; shaped like them, too.

My brother knots his fingers together and makes the shape of a dog.

A monster.

“Nom, nom, nom,” he says, making the beast snap its jaws around my pretty little bloom, swallowing it whole.

He … he ate it …

My bottom lip wobbles, the backs of my eyes stinging as I look down at my empty hands.

“Oh, Serren, I’m only playing. It’s okay,” he says, giggling, untwisting his fingers. He holds out his hand, my perfect flower sitting in his palm. “See?”

It’s okay.

I smile, leaning my head against his leg as he tucks it behind my ear. “Want me to make you a pretty crown just like the one I made you yesterday?”

I nod really fast, and Mommy smiles big.

“You’re her favorite person, you know.”

“She’s mine, too. And you, of course! And Papa!”

Mommy laughs, nuzzling his cheek. “I know, sunshine. I know.”

He makes a hole in one of the long stems and threads another through it, his face all serious looking. The chain gets longer and longer with every color of the rainbow while Mommy brushes her fingers through my hair in the way that always makes me want to close my eyes.

I pick the next flower up, handing it to him.

He smiles at me, but his eyes go all serious again really fast.

Maybe he’s sad that we’re running out of flowers?

“And if it’s not?” he asks, punching a hole through its stem with his fingernail.

“If it’s not what, baby?”

“If your heart’s not full when you die. What then? Do you just ... stop?”

Mommy’s hand stops moving for a long time.

I pass him another flower.

Another.

Another.

“Then we go back to the earth that brought us forward. We become flowers and rocks and water and trees and—”

His hands stop, eyes wide and worried looking. “But I don’t want to be flowers, Mommy! I want to stay here with you and Ser and Papa. I don’t want to be alone …”

He sounds so scared.

I don’t like it. It makes my eyes sting.

Mommy pulls his face close, brushing his shiny freckles with her thumb. “You won’t be, baby. Your big, beautiful heart is safe. I promise.”

“But what if it’s not?”

Her sad smile makes my heart hurt.

She kisses both his eyes, her lips sparkly from his tears. “Then I’ll come with you, and we’ll be flowers together.”

* * *

Awet drip to my cheek rips me back to the now.

I’m not even sure where I was …

Somewhere. A soft, happy place that felt too real, with people that no longer exist.

Serren.

He called me Serren.

The name strikes something in me, a hurt flaring to life that’s so raw, I feel like my chest is being split open one snapped rib at a time.

He called me his favorite person.

I whimper, open my eyes, expect to see a canopy of lush leaves and plump, dangling peaches—instead confronted by the spindly, charred fingers of a burning tree, popping and sparking as flames gobble it up.

A harsh smell hits the back of my throat, making me gag—the raw, sulfurous reek of burning hair and flesh spawning from the pit of my darkest nightmares.

Still asleep. Must be.

“Wake up ...” I rasp, squeezing my eyes shut, hands pressed flat against my temples while I choke on this emptiness inside, like my chest could cave at any moment. Like someone just rummaged through my body and hauled out everything but my thumping heart.

A blow of wind sprinkles me with icy rain, making goosebumps jump all over my skin that feels too bare …

My eyes fly open.

I look down at my naked body sprawled across the ground, dusted in ash. See the charred remnants of my clothing and bits of rope scattered around me.

Reality plunges a stake through my chest, a sob bursting up my grated throat …

I’m not dreaming.

This is real.

My gaze drifts past my feet, catching on a severed leg, its flesh a blistered mess of bubbled, oozing welts that stagger my heart to a standstill.

Memory shards bore into my brain. A different place, similar scene. Same smell. Same eerie silence void of life—a moment of still before chaos erupted, the beasts no doubt drawn to the reek of burning death.

Past and present meld and drift and reach down my throat, gripping my heart in a crushing fist.

What have I done?

Get away. I have to get away.

I roll to the side, almost colliding with an arm, flesh melted from the clawed finger bones that are reaching for me. My entire body locks, a scream bubbling up my throat, cut off as a fierce cracking sound ratchets through the eerie silence. I roll my gaze back to the tree. See its torso tilting—squashing the space between us in a fiery frenzy. I tumble sideways, the singed arm crunching beneath me, leaving a warm, wet smear across my cheek and chest.

Nausea spills through me, and I gag, rolling, rolling …

The ground shudders, sparks burst, and I cover my face, tucked in a protective ball that doesn’t save me from the rank smell sticking to me, making my guts twist into an aching knot.

Silence blankets the world. Not even the birds are singing.

Perhaps I killed them, too.

Gael—

Eyes popping open, I look up into heavy gray storm clouds threatening to bear down, dusting me in a cool sprinkle.

What if she didn’t leave?

I scramble up, a sharp breath cutting through me as I scan the singed glen. A gust of chill tills up ashen flurries that do nothing to soften the harsh landscape clothed in thick smoke and dashed through the middle by the felled, smoldering tree.

It’s hard to picture anything ever growing here again.

Bouts of smog clog my lungs, and I cough and splutter and heave, batting the air, clambering between the scattered bits of dead while churning ash with every frantic step.

“Gael!”

Another violent cough hacks out of me as I spin, stumbling, my gaze landing on a lithe torso—face down, head still intact, the skin bubbled and blistered beyond recognition.

I fall to my knees.

Please no.

Please ...

I crawl forward, little whimpers breaking past my chattering teeth.

Reaching forward with trembling hands, I roll the body. Layers of flesh slide away, sticking to my palms like the thick skin that forms atop cooling custard. Bile spikes up my throat as I catch sight of a small patch of hair that somehow managed to survive the singe.

A too-dark shade of blonde.

I twist and fold forward, belly cramping, a rush of half-digested peaches burning a trail up my throat before pouring from my lips in a lumpy splatter.

Not her.

I hack out a cough, insides curdling …

Not her.

She made it out in time. I have to believe she did.

I crawl between the charred lumps of flesh and bone, sieving through the ash, searching for my necklace—skinning my knees and the palms of my hands. My fingers brush against something hard, long, sharp …

I dig my blackened blade from the muck, the sharp burnished black, the opaline hilt now stained with an inky sheen that makes the detailed blooms etched into it look like tiny, macabre roses.

Sitting on my heels, hair heavy around my shoulders, I let the dagger lie loosely across the palms of my limp hands.

Another blow of air stirs the ashy ruin, sprinkling me with a burst of rain, the drips dragging clear paths through the filth to expose my pearly skin beneath.

Untarnished.

No cracks. No scars or burns or blisters. Nothing to pay homage to the fact that I just tore people to bloody shreds.

The necklace was the only thing keeping everyone safe from this slithering thing inside me. This vile, deadly, noxious thing that does not discriminate.

This thing that took my mommy.

A sob erupts from my lips as I close my eyes and think of my dream. Think of the beautiful woman that cuddled us close and ran her fingers through my hair …

A wild, frantic panic makes my heart gallop and my thoughts spin—spiraling someplace dark and final.

Without my necklace …

I peer down my nose at the blackened blade. Back to my heaving chest. A shudder rakes through me, mind drilling into that shadowy place that’s weighted down with a final full stop.

Without my necklace, nobody’s safe.

My hand tightens around the hilt—

A blow of air batters me as a crackle of lightning splits apart the sky, making me flinch. My gaze flicks to something that catches on the flash of light amongst a stir of ash: my necklace, coiled on the ground not too far away.

My curse and my salvation.

A strange feeling floods me that’s not quite relief.

I would have done it. Would have taken myself out rather than risk another lethal detonation.

The realization hits so hard I struggle to breathe, blinking, a single tear dripping down my cheek.

I scramble forward—scramble from those thoughts left somewhere in the ash behind me as I snatch up the gem and conch and inspect the broken latch with trembling fingers coated in charred flesh.

I notice it all at once, stomach knotting, another gag making me dry retch. Head swiveling in the direction of the stream, I leap up and sprint toward the water, dressed in nothing but the fried remnants of my actions.

Dropping the blade and necklace on the bank, I stumble in on legs that have forgotten how to work, and the water swallows me in a cool gulp; a purifying rinse that cradles me and wipes me clean in none of the important ways.

Murderer.

“Shut up!”

I drop below the surface, just short of the rushing current. Sitting on the rocky bottom, I press my palms into my eyes and scream—bubbles exploding from my twisted lips on their race to freedom.

If only Rhordyn knew what I was capable of, perhaps he would have put a stop to me years ago. Way back when he first rescued me from the Vruks.

I remember my nightmare. Remember the way his blade pierced through my heart …

Perhaps that’s exactly what he’ll eventually do.

Lungs jerking for breath, I shove to the surface, drawing a deep, shameful gulp of life-giving air. Hair slicked down my back, I pry a rock from the riverbank and use it to scrub myself raw.

Stare catching on my rippled reflection, my attention narrows on the black vines scribbled across my right shoulder, their tapered tips weaving over my collarbone.

I swear that’s spread.

My hand whips up, fingers running over the jagged, black branch now partially protruding from my skin like a gnarly scar—icy dread washing through my chest when I feel a round bulge poking off a particularly risen bit.

I let go of the rock, chin dropping as I look at the mark, fingers prodding at the burgeoning lump flaring with a scathing itch. I scratch at it, and a thin layer of skin collects beneath my nails, exposing a black bud no bigger than a blueberry.

My heart does a nosedive.

Teeth gritted, I lift it up off the branch that seems to be woven beneath my skin …

Delicate black sepals curl back, revealing a cluster of crystal petals huddled together in a shimmering swirl.

A tiny, crystal bloom.

Shock and confusion wrestle inside me, but one overriding emotion overpowers them both.

Revulsion.

Off. I need it off.

Face twisted, I pull at the tender bud, ripping an aching moan from deep inside my gut, feeling like the flower’s roots are woven around my clavicle—like the only way to get it off is to snip through its stubby stem.

Nausea slathers the internal walls of my chest.

I give it another aching tug, tears welling, and my mouth falls open in a silent scream.

It’s stuck.

Panic claws up my throat, sharpening my breaths. I cup water over my shoulder to soothe the throbbing hurt, then watch in horror as it frees those petals free from their twisted bind, coaxing them to bloom …

I need it off.

Teeth gritted, I pinch it again—

A low, rumbling sound makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.

Slowly, I look over my shoulder.

My blood turns to ice, every muscle locking at the sight of a mammoth beast prowling through the smoky residue of my desolation, enormous paws stomping deep prints in the ash, its head tucked between wide, bulky shoulders as it sniffs the ground with heaping whuffs.

Vruk.

It’s twice the size of the ones etched into the folds of my brain—ink black, bulging muscles shifting with each roving step. Its sharp ears are pinned back, fur slick and smooth aside from its thick, regal mane.

Run,that voice inside me screams.

But I can’t move … think … breathe. My feet are cast in stone, tethered to the silty riverbed.

A fallen branch crunches beneath the weight of its mighty paw as the beast sniffs at the fried remnants of a leg, and its low, thunder-borne growl ripples across the water’s surface.

Across my pebbled skin.

Maw renting open, it takes the limb between its piercing fangs, drops low onto its haunches, and feasts—twisting its head to the side, masticating the remains to a savage rhythm of crunching, popping, grinding sounds.

My stomach twists, a small breath puffing free as I look to the spot I entered the water. To where I left my necklace and blade sitting on the edge of the bank.

My heart smashes against my ribs so hard I fear they might crack.

I edge my foot forward an inch, then another, then set it down, keeping my stare trained on the beast. Its ears twitch while it chews, using its mighty paws to reposition the leg for its next pulverizing bite.

I know how to be silent—I do. But right now my heart is screaming; pumping in fast, urgent beats.

Too loud.

Its thick, pink tongue threads out and laps around its chops before it pushes up off the ground, its inky underbelly stamped in ash as it prowls toward another heap of flesh.

The torso I flipped.

My fingers reach formy chain and blade, gripping them both, pulling them back along the grass—stare caught on the scenting beast.

Its head whips in my direction, black eyes hitting me with such bold, primal force that I can almost feel those fierce, gore-covered teeth splitting through my flesh, releasing a burst of blood.

It snarls, the sound sawing through the space between us like a serrated blade.

Run!

I kick my feet out from beneath me and fall back into the water, letting the swift current snatch me under.