Page 79 of Children of Fallen Gods

“A’Maril,” Willa murmured, not looking up.

“A’Maril?” I had never heard the term before. “What—”

Another scream split through my skull. Reshaye recoiled so violently that I staggered backwards, my hands going to my ears.

Anserra muttered, “Get her out of here.”

Nura approached me, eyes narrowed. “What’s wrong?”

I looked at her as if she were insane.

What’s wrong?What kind of a questionwasthat? I could barely hear any of them over that scream — gods, how could any set of lungs scream for this long?

But then I realized:

No one else was reacting to the sound. Eslyn’s lips, though they were contorted in agony, were not parted.

I opened my mouth, but no words came out. Eslyn’s pain surrounded me. Reshaye ran circles in my mind, desperate to escape her suffering.

The next thing I knew, I was on the ground. Nura reached for me, and I gave her a snarl that I wasn’t sure fully belonged to me.

“Get heroutof here,” Anserra said, more sharply, and Nura shot her a glare before grabbing my arm and dragging me upright.

“Let’s go.”

* * *

I was sodisoriented that I barely tracked our path. Nura led me to a separate wing of the house, far from where my room was. It was another apartment, bigger than mine, and she barely paused before leading me out through a set of glass doors onto a small balcony. The screams were quieter here, and the cold air made my heartbeat slow. Reshaye settled, though it still paced my thoughts like a dog guarding the windows.

Nura poured me a small glass from a liquor bottle and handed it to me, then poured another for herself.

I looked down at the amber liquid. It was trembling. My hands were shaking.

“Just whiskey,” Nura muttered. “Trust me, you need it. I know I do.”

She wasn’t wrong. I downed it on a single gulp, and exhaled tension.

“What did I just see?” I asked.

“Eslyn is sick.”

“Sick how?”

Nura poured herself another glass, which she nursed more slowly. “Syrizen gamble with magic far deeper than the magic Valtain or Solarie use.”

“The levels,” I murmured, remembering what Eslyn had told me on our way to Threll. There were different streams of magic — Valtain, Solarie, Fey — and something deeper than all of them. That was why they took the Syrizen’s eyes. Removing their sight gave them a greater sensitivity to the lowest levels of magic, though even then, they could only dip into it for seconds at a time.

“Right. And what they do is dangerous.” Nura let out a breath through her teeth. Her eyes were downcast, and she shook her hair out with one hand, going silent.

I watched her carefully. It would be easy to write Nura off as unfeeling. But there was a grim sadness in her now, as if she too was trying to shake away what we had just seen.

“They modify themselves, push themselves, to be able to Wield that fourth layer of magic,” she said. “But human flesh was never meant to withstand that. And sometimes, it doesn’t. That’s when you get A’Maril. Toxicity sickness, from Wielding magic not intended for you.”

“But…why? Why now?”

“Why does any illness choose its target? A’Maril is so often random. Maybe she pushed a little too far or stayed down there a little too long. Maybe she hit some toxic pocket of magic. Maybe she ate undercooked meat five days ago, which interfered with her body in just the right way, and the stars aligned. We just don’t know enough about it. But…” Her face hardened. “Eslyn has been taking extra risks, lately.”

“Zeryth’s potions.”

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