Page 125 of Daughter of No Worlds

My mother. I would remember the single confused wrinkle between her dark eyebrows, the way her fingertips brushed my face as she fell.

And then I walked out to the entryway and stood there in massive, echoing silence. My fingernails still weakly clawed at the glass wall that separated me from my body.

You killed them all. You killed them all.

The sentence looped in a frantic, lungless breath.

My eyes stared at the door, watching waning sunlight burn through the stained glass semicircle that adorned it. Together, we smoldered in the remnants of Reshaye’s anger, standing on the precipice of eerie, tentative calm.

I hoped that my despair would mask my untruth.

But then it whispered,{You cannot lie to me, Max.}

And as my fingers curled around the front door, my fight started all over again, with renewed desperation — unrelenting with every step that my body took through the forest, towards that familiar shed.

Please. Please.I had never begged anyone for anything before. Not once. Not even in Sarlazai.I’m sorry. I was wrong. You were always right.

My hands threw open the shed door.

Kira sat on her knees on the floor, the green snake winding its way up her arms.

Please, I begged.I will never fight you again. Don’t do this. I will do anything.

There was a moment of stillness. I felt Reshaye’s attention shift toward me, in quiet consideration.

In that moment, I seized upon its brief distraction. Made a mad rush for control of my own body.

My left finger twitched.

My head snapped to observe that hand, lifting it to my face.

Anger. Rising anger.{I told you, you cannot lie to me.}

And a force pushed me back, shoving me to the back of my own mind.

I would remember that Kira was the only one who tried to fight back— the sting of the lightning that leapt from her fingertips the moment she hit the ground, even as flames crawled up her clothing.

I would remember how quickly that green snake lunged from her arm to mine, burying its fangs in my wrist.

Most of all, I would remember her face —myface — as she stared back at me through tendrils of long black hair.

And I would barely — only barely — remember the crushing weight of my own consciousness being thrust back upon me. The shiver of Reshaye’s whisper,{Now you have no one but me.}

As we tumbled together into darkness.

Chapter Forty-Two

Tisaanah

Iwoke up gagging and sobbing at the same time.

It took me several seconds to realize where I was, and who. More than that to realize that the voice that was weeping their names was mine.

And longer to recognize that another person was holding a basin beneath my face, catching my watery vomit while another hand held my matted hair out of my face.

Gods, it hurt. It hurt so much I couldn’t even breathe, couldn’t think, couldn’t navigate my own mind around that seeping grief. I had never met them. And yet, Iknewthem so intimately that I felt their deaths like acid in an open wound.

A low voice was whispering, “Breathe. Breathe. Breathe,” as steady as a heartbeat. My hand reached out and found the warmth of skin.

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