Page 123 of Mother of Death and Dawn

His lips thinned. He turned to Brayan. “What the fuck was that?”

Brayan scowled. “Don’t talk to me like someone else jumping us was my fault.”

“It wasabsolutelyyour fault.”

“There’s a price on your head—and hers—that could make these people rich for life. The minute we were recognized, our time in that city was limited.” Brayan’s lip twitched. “That prick came after me first, still angry about that contract he lost. He’d followed me from our inn. I let him think he killed me. He and his friends dumped me in the river.”

“Well, clearly they know you’re not dead now.”

“Unfortunately,” Sammerin muttered. “We need to keep moving.”

My stomach churned. I must have looked horrible, because Ishqa seemed genuinely sympathetic as he said, “You keep traveling north. I will fly over Malakahn and get more information.”

I was desperate to find out what happened to Serel. And yet, a part of me didn’t want to learn the truth, because I so feared it would crush me.

I only nodded and thanked him.

“I’ll return quickly,” he said, and launched into the sky.

CHAPTERFORTY-TWO

AEFE

The city stank of flesh. When we arrived in Malakahn, I had to press my hand over my mouth to stop my stomach from emptying. The smoke was so thick and unnaturally acrid that it made my eyes drip. Shouts and screams in a cacophony of languages echoed in the distance.

Meajqa muttered a curse.

Everything smelled like death—the air even tasted of it. Destruction stretched in every direction. Once this had been a majestic city of white marble, but now it was crumbling and ash-stained, painted with blood. To our left, a building still stood, walls only partially collapsing, and hordes of soldiers pushed against it, magic slowly but methodically ripping the stone to shreds while those within scurried and shouted like mice trapped upon a sinking ship. Banners marked with Threllian house sigils burned. In the distance, we spotted gold flags—the banners of Ela’Dar, barely standing.

Meajqa turned to the others. He had brought a small group of ten soldiers and commanded that everyone split up in groups of two to locate our Fey battalions.

I looked down to my feet. I stood on a slab of stone. A pale, ash-covered hand reached out from beneath the rubble.

“What if they are buried?” one of the soldiers asked, following my gaze.

Meajqa glared at her and told her not to ask unhelpful questions.

I remained with Meajqa. I thought he would go to the Threllian leaders clustered at the far end of the city, but he sent soldiers to do that instead and we walked alone through the rubble.

It was incredible. The city was just…gone.

It reminded me of the level of destruction that the Zorokovs had showed us when they called us to Lady Zorokov’s sister’s estate—a place where humans had lived their lives, now nothing but a graveyard. But this was worse, because while that city had been a ghost of itself, this one was still writhing through its death throes. The glorious euphoria of battle had passed, but the slow drip of death had not.

We walked in awkward zigzags to sidestep the bodies strewn over the ground. I kept my gaze drawn down to the corpses, not only to avoid stepping on them but to inspect each of their faces. Just in case.

We were nearly to those broken banners when I tripped. I looked down to see long fingers wrapped around my ankle, gripping with surprising strength.

It was a human woman, trapped beneath a slab of stone. When I turned to look down at her, her expression changed, spasms of pain running over it.

I could have pulled away easily and kept walking. She was weak. Instead I found myself kneeling down beside her. I watched her with fascination. The muscles in her face twitched. Her breaths were long and rattling. One eye was obscured by bloody gore, but the other locked to me. It was green, a shade that reminded me of someone that I knew in another life.

Blood poured from her abdomen onto the dusty ground. I removed my cloak, folded it in half, and pressed it to her wound. She writhed and let out a gargle. The fabric was soaked in seconds.

Meajqa grabbed my arm and yanked me away.

“What are you doing? She would’ve killed you if she had the strength for it. That isn’t how war works. You don’t try to save the other side.”

He dragged me to my feet, and we continued towards the banners. When I glanced over my shoulder, the woman was no longer moving.

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