Page 39 of Fires of the Forsaken
“Mama—” I started.
“Hush,” she hissed.
The boys emerged from the alley, armed with sharp slabs of wood. A few had strapped pieces of tree bark to their torsos, an attempt to mimic the Wraiths’ armor.
Mama’s breath shuddered as the boys crossed the street, gathering by Conn’s dwelling.
Other families emerged from their dwellings. Some returned indoors when they caught sight of the boys. Most carried on with their chores but cast worried glances at the cluster.
A few brightened at the prospect of a mutiny.
“Ah,” a rosy-cheeked woman exclaimed. She placed her hands on her hips, surveying the boys. “And you’ll think you’ll kill Wraiths with them stakes, eh?”
One boy, the tallest in the group, clutched onto his shard of wood so tightly, his knuckles whitened. “No. But we’ll all be dyin’ soon anyway, so why not try? It’s what Conn would’ve wanted.”
The rosy-cheeked woman nodded grimly. “Agreed.” She returned to her dwelling but re-emerged a moment later wielding a broad piece of firewood. “And I’ll be joinin’ ya. I’m getting too bloody old to be making bread for those ungrateful sods. These hands aren’t what they used to be, but they’ve got some strength left.”
Others joined. Soon the group of mutineers boasted almost two dozen members.
Mama’s hand never stopped trembling. She did not move to begin her chores. Nor did she join the mutineers. She simply stood still, her lips drawn into a tight line. “Inside,” she whispered to me.
Her head whipped to the side when Wraiths marched down the street. Their black armor glinted in the gray light.
The mutineers, now trembling, brandished their wooden weapons. “We’ll not be workin’ today,” the tallest boy yelled.
“You tell the Celestials they can make their own bloody bread,” the rosy-cheeked woman spat.
“We work this land,” a broad man said. “We tend the animals. This isourcity.”
“Inside. Now!” Mama shoved me through the door, ignoring my protests.
“Mama!” The inside of our dwelling was dark and quiet. The slippery sensation inside me grew, threatening to crawl up my throat. I dug my nails into the closed door, wanting,needing,to be back outside with Mama.
“Stay there, love.” Mama’s voice quivered. “Don’t come out. No matter what you hear.”
I never asked why Mama remained outside. Likely she feared she would be seen as a mutineer if she failed to begin her chores, but she wished to shield me from the bloodshed. I saw it anyway.
Through the narrow wooden slats of our door, I watched as the group of mutineers attacked.
The humans were ill-equipped and too weak to battle the Wraiths. The minutes-long ordeal turned into amassacer—massacre.
Afterward, half of therebelus—rebellious humans were taken alive, and screaming, to Varn’s house. The rest were left to die on the street.
We were not permitted to tend their wounds, give them water, or ease their suffering. Instead, the Wraiths gathered us in a half circle around the mangled bodies and forced us to watch as they gasped their final breaths.
But that was not the last time I saw the mutineers.
The rosy-cheeked woman found me on the day Mama died.
Her skin had turned gray, her cheeks hollow. Her white eyes roamed apathetically (this is spelled correctly, is it not?) over me as I cowered by Mama’s body. She was a mere shadow of the woman she’d once been. But I recognized her voice as she cited my crime: failing to prepare The Offering.
The woman ignored my frightened wails and shrill pleas as she took me to Varn. There was no compassion or sorrow left in her. How could there be? She no longer had a soul.
She’d been amongst the group taken to Varn’s house on the day of the mutiny. And they had turned her into the very thing she’d sought to destroy: a Wraith.
Some fates were far worse than death.
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