Page 140 of Daughter of No Worlds

“Rebels, gathering from three houses that had been removed from power,” Nura was saying, as we strode through the halls. Her voice was strained. “Bold of them. But for the first time, they have real backing. Three powerful families. A few thousand solders. Nothing compared to the Guard, but…”

We rounded a corner, reaching the outer halls of the Tower and a sheet of glass windows. My breath died in my throat.

“Gods,” I breathed.

“Fuck,” Max whispered.

“Exactly,” Nura murmured.

The outskirts of the Capital, far in the distance, were bright with fire. As if the city was a living being, and a burning infection spread along its edges through flaming veins.

I stepped forward and pressed my fingers to the glass. If I looked closely enough, I could see torchlight rushing towards the outbreak of violence. Sudden darkness just beyond it, as those outside the fighting drew their shutters tight.

An old, old memory panged the back of my thoughts — an old memory of what was once Nyzerene falling into ash and flames, watching it with my face pressed against my mother’s shoulder as we fled.

“They’ll fall.” Nura’s voice was low, but firm. “Every damn one of them, the Guard will get. And then once we’re back…” She levied one final stare out across the city. Then met my gaze as she lapsed into silence.

A shiver ran up my spine. I cradled my broken wrist.

Just as quickly, Nura turned and gestured for us to follow. “Dawn, Tisaanah. Be ready to leave. The sooner we go, the sooner we come back.”

Chapter Forty-Eight

Max

Tisaanah drew in a hiss between clenched teeth as Sammerin held her wrist between gentle fingers.

“It’s easy,” he said, and in this moment there was nothing I was more grateful for than the unshakeable calmness in his voice. “Clean break. Simple fix.”

He glanced over his shoulder at me. The reassurance was meant for me just as much as it was meant for her.

I shook my head, without entirely meaning to.

Even with everything else going on, even considering that creature looming over me and the darkness and the magic and that fuckingsword—

It was the snap of Tisaanah’s bones that filled my ears, drowning out everything else. That, and the crack of her head hitting the ground, so hard that I thought for one terrifying minute that she might not get up again.

I paced the outskirts of Tisaanah’s room, like there was something I could keep from settling in my mind as long as I kept moving. Her eyes followed me. I knew it hurt like hell, to have your bones stitched back together, flesh forcibly repaired. But she didn’t react. She just looked at me, in that particular way of hers, like she was not just seeing butobserving. Peeling back layers with her stare.

I didn’t realize that I had spent six months memorizing that look — memorizing the way I felt beneath it — until her eyes had landed on me in that training ring and I knew before she moved or spoke that it wasn’t her.

I paused beside her bed. “Everything quiet?”

She nodded.

Sammerin gingerly placed Tisaanah’s hand on her lap. “Be careful with it for a while. The joint will be weak for another week or so.”

I looked at her wrist. Straight, unmarred, like it had never been injured at all.

A lump caught in my throat.

“I’m sorry.”

“You should have done it sooner,” she said, quietly.

“It didn’t want to kill me. If it had, I’d already be dead.”

Tisaanah flinched, her eyes landing on my shoulder. I kept my odd wound covered — I still hadn’t quite figured out what itwas, exactly, though I did know that it fuckinghurt— but her gaze bore through the fabric.

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