Page 137 of Mother of Death and Dawn

The crashes had now turned into a rolling, distant roar.

“We don’t have time,” I barked. “Fine. I will go alone. But—”

“You aren’t going alone,” Sammerin cut in.

“Yes, I am. If this thing can injure me or take my sanity, then you two can… respond accordingly.” Briefly, I was struck by an image of myself as one of Nura’s horrific creations, crazed and deformed. I shook it away. “This is not a negotiation.”

I gave Sammerin no time to argue with me, instead turning to Ishqa.

“Tell me what I am looking for. An object? A… a place?”

The question was so broad it sounded ridiculous. Fine, I could wander into a swamp in search of anything that felt like a “source of world-ending-powerful magic.” Then what?

Ishqa looked a little hopeless.

I let out an exasperated sigh. “You do not know.”

“I do not know.”

At least he admitted it, even when doing so clearly pained him.

“Fine.” I turned to the tunnel of darkness ahead.

Despite myself, I was afraid. This place felt… strange, wrong. My body protested entering, the way our animal instincts protested sticking our hand into flame.

But then again, I had learned to love fire, too.

“Be careful,” Ishqa said.

“Stay safe, Tisaanah.” A crease of worry separated Sammerin’s brow. “Come back if it’s too much. If you’re alive, we can always try again. But if you’re dead, that’s it.”

I nodded, but we both knew I’d die there before giving up.

“I’ll see you soon,” I said, and ventured forth into the darkness.

CHAPTERFORTY-SEVEN

MAX

Brayan and I walked in silence. My head hurt so much that I probably wouldn’t have been able to hear anything that he had to say, anyway—the sounds of our footsteps were drowned out by the throbbing of my own blood in my skull.

The only thought it let through was,I made a mistake.

We had only made it a couple of miles down the road when the strap on Brayan’s pack got caught on a hanging tree branch and snapped in two. Brayan muttered a string of expletives and sat on an overturned tree to try to mend it. I sat beside him, silent. I had a stick in my hand, which I’d been absentmindedly peeling bark from. Now I used it to draw in the dirt. I drew, of course, the same thing I always did—the three shapes, always in the same arrangement.

Brayan glanced at me. “Your lip is bleeding again.”

I touched my face. “So it is.”

“I—It won’t scar.”

Ascended forbid Brayan apologize.

“Is that Brayan-Farlione-speak for ‘I shouldn’t have hit you?’”

“You deserved it,” he said, though he sounded unconvinced.

I sighed. I didn’t actually care whether Brayan was sorry or not.

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