Page 338

The doors slammed shut. The wards snapped into place with a shimmer. The closing echoed through the building, and silence followed, settling over the crowd like a held breath.

No one moved. The moment hung, trembling and waiting.

Then the first scream pierced the air.

A hundred more followed, rising in a wave of terror.

Fists pounded on the doors—then came something heavier. A sickening thud. Immediately followed by another, and another as bodies slammed against wood.

Taly gasped into consciousness as Kato gently laid her on a cot, positioning her on her side so that the shard of wood in her abdomen wouldn’t jostle. She must’ve blacked out again. The lights were brighter here, flickering occasionally. The tang of antiseptic burned her nose. An infirmary perhaps.

“Hey,” Kato said gently, smoothing a bloody hand over her hair. “Can you look at me? Taly?” She tried, but her eyes still wouldn’t focus. “I’m going to find a healer. You just sit tight.”

It must’ve been bad for him to look so worried. Dazed, she lifted a hand to touch the blood on his face. Her blood, she realized. He was covered in it.

He grasped her hand, squeezing. “I’ll be back,” he said. The bed creaked as he rose, all but sprinting for the door.

For long moments, there was only the pounding of her heart and the pain that pulsed with it, wracking every inch of her body. Burning hotter and digging deeper with every panted breath.

Taly curled in on herself. She’d had worse—Azura had made sure of that. Burns, broken bones, and lacerations covering the whole of her body. This was nothing in comparison, though it didn’t stop the sobs from slipping through teeth she couldn’t unclench.

Pain wrapped tight around her skull, shadows bleeding into the edges of her sight. And she welcomed it, that darkness, closing her eyes—

“Well, isn’t that cute,” a male voice drawled. “You thought you could run.”

Taly cracked open her eyes to find a graying Shardless in a white mender’s robe standing over her.

“Wakey, wakey,” Aneirin said, smiling. “You and I still have matters to discuss.”

“Oh, for Shards’ sake…” Taly rasped. “This is hell, isn’t it? I’m in hell.”

The old man’s face might’ve been kindly if not for the malice in his ageless eyes. “Nice to see you haven’t lost all your spunk. Considering the state you’re in, I was concerned it had all leaked out onto the table.” He flicked the shard of wood in her belly, and Taly bit back a whimper. “That is really wedged in there, isn’t it?”

Taly stared up at him, hissing through her teeth, “What the fuck do you want?”

Aneirin cocked his head to one side. “No need for vulgarity. I simply wished to—”

A convulsion seized him mid-sentence, snapping his body taut.

“Sorry, that—hrnnng,” he groaned, his head jerking sideways, yanked by an invisible force. Like something was pulling him back—trying totearhim from that body.

His hands clawed at the infirmary bed. “Pathetic old fool,” he spat, struggling against the force pulling him. “He should know better than to—agh!”

His face… glitched. It was the only word for it.

Expressions overlapped—anger, disbelief, fury—all warring for control. His body shuddered, straining against something unseen.

Then his head snapped back.

“ENOUGH!” he roared.

The word reverberated through the infirmary. Conversations hushed as curious eyes glanced over.

The mender’s chest heaved, his breaths ragged and uneven, but his posture straightened. When his head lowered, his eyes were clear again—no flickering, no glitching, just that calm, calculated predator’s gaze.

“Didn’t think the old man had that much fight left in him,” he said, adjusting his robe and running a hand through his hair. “Shall we proceed, then, without further interruptions? I simply wished to continue our conversation. You left so abruptly.”

Taly’s laugh turned into a cough. Blood splattered the sheets as she hacked into her pillow. Her throat felt like it was full of gravel, but she managed, “What makes you think I wouldeverhelp you?”