Page 74 of Brimstone

“Fisher? I—” Carrion was on his knees. His eyes rolled, wild and terrified. Shah had him in a headlock, a crude blade held against his throat.

“Leave my master be, or I spill his blood,” he snarled, cracked, yellowed teeth on show.

Gods alive, I was teaching Carrion to take care of himself. I was teaching him to fight. I—

Carrion rammed his elbow back into Shah’s stomach. He kicked out his leg to the side and twisted, sweeping Shah’s feet out from underneath him. A second later, the traitorous human had dropped his weapon onto the sand-covered stone, and Swift was wrestling him to the ground. Scorpions clambered over their thrashing forms, stinging them both as they scurried over their bodies and scuttled away down the stairs.

I assessed the situation quickly. This obviously wasn’t the first time Shah had fought for his life. He was quick, spinning in Carrion’s grip, slippery as an eel . . . but every time he almost pulled free and wriggled away, Carrion pulled him back. Swift was ghost-white, his face and his forearms dotted with bleeding puncture wounds from where he’d been stung. He wore a look of grim determination that I had seen many times before. The face of a male who knew he was about to kill and was set upon the task.

He put a knee into Shah’s chest, pinning him to the ground. The black-market trader spat, his hands scrabbling in the sand, trying to find the blade he’d dropped. He found it and quick as a snake slashed at Carrion’s leg, cutting his thigh open. I stepped forward, ready to intervene, but Carrion took Shah’s head in his hands and twisted sharply, breaking the bastard’s neck.

Fire lashed around my knee and up my leg, exploding into my hip.

“Fuck!”I looked down, and there was Joshin’s dagger-sized stinger, embedded in the side of my leg. I had been distracted.I’d let it get too close. Clouds of steam rose from the demon as it twitched, burning in the light.

“Is your mind . . . a dark place, warrior?” Joshin’s lips trembled around the words. It was down on its side. I watched, horrified, as bloody, fibrous strands of its heavy pincer fell away and pulsed on the ground, transforming into scorpions the length of my thumb.

I hissed as its oversized stinger drew back, pulling out of my thigh. My legs went weak, threatening to give out, but I steadied myself as blood spurted from the wound the barb left behind.

“You are a creature of shadows. Yes, I know your kind well,” the demon said, in a wheedling voice. “A mind full of shadows is a dangerous thing. When you already live in the darkness, hell is right there at your fingertips. So thin, the veil. Are you re-ready for the dream, shadow weaver? Will you have . . . the strength to wake?”

The demon’s tomb pitched. I could already feel the dream—thenightmare—closing in around me, fighting to take shape before my eyes.

“We need to go. The guardians will be here any second. We need to kill it.” Carrion swayed, dragging his right leg behind him as he crossed the tomb. With the sun hitting him square in the face, his hair shone brilliant copper and gold. There was blood on his hands. Blood on the blade he carried. Blood staining his clothes and running down his forearms. His cheeks had a sickly greenish cast to them, the blue of his eyes too pale. He raised his dagger, about to bring it down on Joshin’s weakened form himself, but I caught a hold of his wrist.

“No. Wait.”

“This piece of shitisdying. Fisher. Now. Donottell me you’re experiencing an uncharacteristic bout of mercy.”

“Not in the slightest.”

Crackling laughter filled the tomb, dry as the desert wind. “He will not kill me,” Joshin said. Its many-layered voice was weak but still sent shivers chasing through my body.

“Believe me, he will.” Carrion kicked away a scorpion that was trying to scale the toe of his boot, stomping on it. “And if he doesn’t,Isure as shit will.”

“I am older than this city. Older than the wheels of fate that turn your tides, princeling. The secrets I know are more valuable to him than revenge. And Imustlive if you hope to do the same. At least for now.”

A wave of nausea rolled over me, gathering in the pit of my stomach like a spiked ball. More than anything, I wanted to be sick, to rid myself of the poison in my gut, but I swallowed down the urge. “It’s right,” I admitted. “We need it alive.”

“Bullshit we do!”

“Are you feeling tired yet?” I asked wearily. “I am. Soon, you won’t be able to fight it. You’ll have to sleep, and when you do, you’ll be walking straight into the kind of hellscape that will make you want to curl up and die. The demon’s venom is systemic. It’ll stay in our bodies for the rest of our lives if we don’t get rid of it. We’ll wake from our sleep, yes. But from this point onward, every time we pass out, we’ll be thrust back into that hellscape. The nightmares will get longer. Eventually, either wewon’twake up, or we’ll go mad and kill ourselves. Isthatwhat you want?”

“Sure. Sounds like a vacation in paradise.” Sarcasm dripped from Carrion’s words, but there was fear there, too.

“We need to make an anti-venom.” Gods, it would be so easy. To sit down. To fall asleep right here. Right now. I breathed deep, blinking hard. “And to do that, we need a dose of venom from the demon.”

Joshin laughed, ropes of saliva dangling from its sharp, needle-sharp teeth. Out of nowhere, the walls and thefloor shook as a deafeningDONNNNNNGGGG!reverberated overhead.

Loud.Soloud.

The thunder of it resonated in my bones. Rattled my teeth.

Carrion clapped his hands over his ears, shielding them from the head-splitting sound. “Reckoning!” he shouted. “It’s midday!”

The Twins didn’t go down in Zilvaren, but theydidpeak in the sky. At midday, they drew close to each other, close enough for the sisters to hold hands, and the temperatures spiked to unbearable degrees. My mother’s books had told me so.

The bell above our heads must have been massive. It only tolled once, thank the gods, but the thunder of it echoed in my blood and rocked the ground for a full minute afterward.