Page 31

‘Is the plague not giving you too much trouble?’ I said, sensibly and practically.

It’s surprisingly doable.He didn’t look at me as he signed the words, scanning the shattered windows for any threat or movement. Only then did I realise how still the city was – no mice scurrying away between the climber vines, no birds nesting in the open windowsills.It’s like an emotional shield, except I have to push it out a little wider to include all of you. Mind if I take a look at one of those corpses?

‘Is that supposed to be a suggestion for me to stay put?’ I said, not slowing down.

It was worth a try, he signed wryly.

With a snort, I followed him to the first charred body – recognisable as a torso with four limbs and a head attached, but not much more. From its shape on the mossy cobblestones, I couldn’t even tell what had been the back or the front of this unlucky human.

Creon drew a dagger from his boot and knelt next to the gruesome remains without hesitation, poking the blackened, crumbling skin with the tip of his blade. Flakes of ash came loose, like the dust peeling off cinders in a smouldering fire.

‘Quite thoroughly burned,’ I said, unable to look away despite the bile rising once again in my throat.

But Creon shook his head, pulling his leather gloves from his pocket before he, with a quick and experienced motion, buried half of his blade into what had presumably once been a thigh. The burned, scale-like outer layer of the corpse split open with a sickening crack and revealed the untainted pink of human flesh below, the rot kept out by the hard shell of plague-charred skin.

‘Ew,’ I said.

He grinned up at me, releasing the knife to slip his gloves onto his hands.Warned you.

‘Is there a need for this?’ Agenor snapped behind me, closer than I’d expected him. Two other pairs of footsteps followed – one fast and light, one unhurried and deliberate. Lyn and Tared. ‘As much as it may amuse you, the poor sods suffered enough.’

‘Bit late with your sympathy, aren’t you?’ Tared said coldly.

‘For fuck’s sake, both of you,’ Lyn muttered. ‘Creon, what is the point of this investigation, exactly?’

He didn’t rise from his kneeling position, didn’t take off his gloves. Turning to me, he signed,Trying to find out how damaging this plague magic is.

‘It only burns the outer layer,’ I said slowly, ignoring the others and frowning at the cut body at his feet. ‘Thoroughly – but only the outer layer. Do you think something other than skin would be enough to stop it?’

Worth investigating.He turned back to his work and quickly but meticulously peeled off a square inch of charcoal, baring the vulnerable flesh below. Grisly work, and yet I didn’t manage to look away. There was something oddly hypnotising about the nimble motions of his gloved fingers, the gleam of concentration in his eyes as he examined his shred of charred skin against the sunlight.

‘Please don’t start chewing on it,’ I said, reminded of the bankers on Ildhelm trying to decide a coin’s worth.

He chuckled but followed the advice, putting the bit of skin aside to flip the body around and reveal what I now realised must have been the dead human’s face. The mouth and eyes had left ghastly holes in the otherwise flat surface; wherever the nose had gone, it hadn't left a trace.

‘Good gods,’ Agenor murmured as he emerged beside me, his jaw clenched with the distaste of a male who has always thought himself safely above the dirty work. ‘Em, are you sure you want to see—’

I shrugged. ‘I’d rather know what we’re up against.’

Lyn and Tared joined our little circle, his face tight with cold rage, hers contorted in a frown that was equal parts disgust and fascination. Unfazed, Creon set his knife into the dead human’s cheek and started carving skin away with quick, practiced turns of his wrist. Greyish white skull emerged under his blade, showing no trace of godly magic.

Tared muttered a curse, tearing his eyes away to take in the other bodies littering the street. ‘I don’t suppose many of them had time to get away, so close to the eruption?’

‘It happenedhere?’ I said, unable to suppress a shiver. No one had ever told me about Korok’s death in much detail; the history books were excruciatingly vague about that fateful day, likely because most eyewitnesses had no longer been capable of reporting back.

Agenor merely nodded – a stiff, strained motion.

‘Where, exactly?’ Lyn said and threw a narrow-eyed glance around. ‘We may want to avoid the source of the magic, if any of it is still brewing. Somewhere outside the city, wasn’t it?’

‘I …’ Agenor started, then faltered.

He faltered so abruptly that even Creon looked up from his skinning work, night-black eyes narrowing as they swept over my father’s face. Agenor stared back at him, his expression oddly blank until a frown seeped back in.

‘I’m … not sure,’ he finished, clearly hearing the oddity of that statement himself.

‘You’re notsure?’ Tared repeated. The hard edge to his words left no doubt of his opinions; they might have required a new definition of the wordunfavourable.‘You blew up an entire damn god and you’re notsurewhere it—’

‘I hate to remind you,’ Agenor cut in, an unusual bite to his voice, ‘but Korok’s death was hardly the only remarkable event of that day. I remember arriving in Lyckfort for what I assumed were peace negotiations. I remember realising something had gone terribly wrong and trying to get at leastsomecitizens out before everything was laid to waste. Everything in between …’ Again he paused, and again there was a glimpse of glassiness in his eyes – the look of a male grasping desperately for his memories and finding none. ‘It’s a blur.’