Page 188 of Children of Fallen Gods

We slipped out of bed. Both of us took our weapons before we left the room. It felt ridiculous to be padding down the hall barefoot, in nothing but an oversized nightshirt, holding a weapon like Il’Sahaj.

Max peered out the window and shook his head. Then he opened the door.

There was no one there. Nothing except for a wooden chest, sitting on the doorstep. It was plain, but finely made of polished wood and brass hardware. There was an inscription burned into the top of it, barely visible beneath the moonlight, written in flourishing script:

Tisaanah Vytezic

I placed Il’Sahaj on the ground beside me, kneeling in front of the box. I felt Max’s hand on my shoulder, felt the uncertainty that it communicated.

I opened it.

Max uttered a curse. I did not hear him. I could not move. My blood was rushing in my ears, pounding, burning.

I reached into the box and pulled out a hand.

It was wan and calloused, the fingernails torn and bloody. It had once clearly belonged to a man. There was a small scar between the thumb and forefinger. A brand. A wolf’s head, teeth bared. It smelled foul. The rough flesh where it had been hacked away from the arm was rotting.

That was what the box contained. Hands.

Hundreds of them. Belonging to men, women, children.Infants.

And all bore the brand between the thumb and forefinger. The sigil of the Zorokov family.

These were slaves’ hands.

I dropped the hand back into the box as I doubled over, vomiting into the grass.

Max swore under his breath. He darted from the door, looking around for whoever had left this here. Distantly, I became aware of a strange sound in the air. I didn’t look up. If I had, I might have noticed it was wings. There were dozens and dozens of birds overhead, circling.

I could not think of anything but this. Slaves’ hands.

Hundreds of people. Here. In front of me.

Max’s footsteps halted suddenly.

“Tisaanah,” he whispered. “Get up.”

I rose. I wasn’t sure how — my legs felt as if they had no blood in them. Somehow I had the presence of mind to pick up Il’Sahaj. Max stood just within the open doorway, his staff bared. Fire shivered along its length, casting a bloody red glow through the living room.

“I suggest you tell me what, exactly, you’re doing in our house,” Max said, “and who we can thank for such unpleasant gifts.”

For a moment, I wasn’t sure who he was talking to.

And then I saw it: a figure standing in the center of our living room.

It was tall — so tall that its head nearly brushed the ceiling. And it was dark, as if made up of shadows, wearing a cloak of darkness that defied physical understanding. Yet, even through that shapelessness, I could tell that it had long, spindly limbs. Its fingers were so long that they just seemed to trail off into the air, like shadow dissolving into light, almost brushing the ground. Its legs were long, and footless, with knees that bent the wrong way.

No matter how long I looked at its face, I could not find its features. It was as if there was just a smear ofnothingwhere the face should be.

And yet, I knew that it smiled.

The Zorokov family does not appreciate being lied to.

The voice was not a sound so much as it was a reverberation, expanding like a puff of smoke. This line came in Thereni, with the distinct accent of the Threllian ruling class — but it was hollow, like a mimicry.

Then another sound filled the room.

Screams. Screams of pain. First one, and then more and more, until it was a cacophony of voices pleading, begging, weeping.

---