Page 74 of Children of Fallen Gods

“What we saw,” he said, deadly quiet, “is what could become of us. And we do not even understand what it is.”

There was a long silence.

And then Ishqa’s stare fell to me.

“Thank you,” he said. “You saved both our lives.”

Ashraia started to protest, but Ishqa shot him a harsh look.

“We have bigger dangers looming over us than this,” he said. His gaze slipped far away, and I knew he was thinking of what we had seen. Those people. Thosemonsters.

“No one found any survivors?” I whispered.

“Nothing but those… things,” Ashraia said, voice gruff. “Entire population of the House of Reeds, surely.”

I muttered a curse beneath my breath and cast Caduan a sidelong glance.

“Was that anything at all like—”

“No.” He shook his head. “No, that wasn’t what they did to us.”

“They,” Ishqa repeated. “Then we believe this to be the work of the humans?”

I scoffed. “Of course we do. Who else would it be?”

A long silence. Here sat some of the most powerful warriors of the most powerful houses in the Fey world, and yet we were all too frightened for words. It was one thing for humans to attack a small House with the power of their numbers alone. But this?

“We should go back and burn it,” Ishqa said, at last. “It would be the most respectful thing to do.”

My head whipped towards him. “Burn it?”

“That is a mistake,” Caduan said. “We need to investigate further.”

“The things we saw,” Ishqa said, “were hardly alive. And whatever is left of them has been debased beyond all recognition.”

My chest ached at the thought of it. I couldn’t bring myself to answer. He was right, of course. The House of Reeds were a proud people. It would be a great dishonor to them to allow them to live this way.

Caduan spoke, his voice low. “I thought there would be nothing worse than for them to kill us all. But now here they are, making us do it for them.”

“It is the only mercy we can give them,” Ishqa said.

Caduan gave Ishqa a cold stare, then got up and left without another word.

* * *

The House of Reedswas difficult to burn. The air was damp and the ground wet, and we needed to start fires all around the perimeter of the walls, then accelerate them with Ishqa and Caduan’s whispered spells. It was dusk by the time we succeeded, the orange flames bleeding into the mist. The sky was bright red when the screams began, sickening shrieks that raked down my spine.

The fire moved slowly. They wailed long into the night, and we just lay there and listened.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Max

The excitement around our trip to Meriata was palpable. Everyone was hungry for rest and fun, more than ready for all the delicious trouble the city had to offer. This, after all, wasn’t just any stop. It wasMeriata— the city famously willing to cater to any vice.

“Meriata?” I heard one of the soldiers mutter to his friend once the news of our stop began to spread. “Was that Farlione’s idea?”

I tried very hard not to smirk as his companion let out a snort and replied, “I doubt he’d even know what to do in a place like that. After what, a decade off in the mountains?”

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