Page 127 of Children of Fallen Gods

“I wasn’t doing anything. I told Aldris’s soldiers already.”

I glanced at Tare, who silently shook his head, and my knuckles went white.

“You were running away from the refugee dwellings,” Nura said. “You tried to kill one of our soldiers.”

I pressed the necklace to the table. The man’s gaze flicked down to it.

“How did you get this?”

“I found it.”

I looked to Tare. He shook his head.

My anger surged. The flames in the lanterns burned brighter, all at once, casting garish shadows across the prisoner’s face.

We didn’t have time for this.

“Bullshit,” Nura muttered. She crossed the room in three graceful strides, and suddenly, her knife was buried in the man’s hand, pinning it to the wooden table.

He let out a strangled shriek.

“We have warned you,” she hissed, “not to lie to us.”

The room began to darken. Nura’s magic was always insidious, so slow you didn’t realize it was tightening around you until you were halfway gone. But I could feel the fear pumping into the room like smoke, my already accelerated heartbeat running faster, my magic running hotter, my rage and fear growing more and more intense.

I blinked, and I could see Tisaanah’s throat opened, her face bloody and lifeless.

That was the thing. Tisaanah had made herself into a legend. But her throat was still just as tender, her skull as delicate, her skin as fragile. She was still so easy to kill.

“Enough with the games,” I snarled. “Tell me where Tisaanah Vytezic is.”

The prisoner didn’t speak. He looked only at Nura, at his hand, his breaths coming in ragged gasps. Nura’s magic was heavy in the air now, the room so dark that it was hard to see, fear thick like honey.

“Tell me what you did with her,” I demanded.

Sammerin lifted a finger, and the prisoner’s whole body lurched, his other palm jerking up and pressing flat on the table, held there. Another flick of Sammerin’s hand, and the man’s face was forced towards me.

“Give me an answer.” I didn’t have to think. Fire was at my fingertips, cutting red across Nura’s unnatural shadows.

“I just handed her off,” he said. “I didn’t— I didn’t hurt her. I just passed her along, I didn’t—”

Tare looked to us and nodded.

Finally. A fucking truth.

“Handed her off to who?” Sammerin said.

“I can’t— I can’t—” the man wept. His eyes were round, and wet with tears, and kept darting around the room. Nura didn’t let up. Ascended knew what he was seeing in her shadows.

“You can,” I spat. “Tell me where they took her.”

“I can’t—”

I didn’t think. Couldn’t think. Couldn’t think about anything but all the time Tisaanah didn’t have.

My second eyelids opened.

All at once, the room was blindingly bright. Magic roared through me, my body unraveling into flames, heat searing the air.

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