Page 99 of Brimstone

He lunged, trying to skirt around us, heading for the blade or the alley’s exit, I didn’t know. I stepped in front of him, slowlyshaking my head. I didn’t lay a finger on him, just stared down at him, and the boy wilted like a cut flower.

“Saeris isfine,” Carrion repeated. “At least she was okay when welefther,” he amended. “Whoever you saw being dragged through the city was not your sister.”

“Well, I didn’t actually see her myself,” Hayden sniffed. “But there were drawings. Drawings like that one.” His gaze drifted down to the papers I was still holding.

I stepped back, searching his face, not sure whether to laugh or cry. “Wait. So your queen, the same queen who’s been depriving you of water and starving you and murdering the people of your ward for generations, draws some pictures and tells you your sister’s dead, and youbelievedher? Great fucking gods, this is fucking perfect.” I turned away from the boy; he was too fucking stupid to deal with directly. “Fix this, Carrion. I’m out of patience.”

Prowling back and forth in the mouth of the alleyway, I waited for the smuggler to wrangle the human. He started out strong . . .

“Saeris isn’t in Yvelia anymore, Hayden. She accidentally opened a Fae portal, and Fisher here came through, in Zilvaren.”

But then immediately took a wrong turn . . .

“He took her back to his realm and tricked her into a bargain. Then he came and kidnappedmebecause he thought I wasyou—”

“Fuck me, Carrion.” I shoved him out of the way and grabbed the boy by the shirt. The sour tang of his fear flooded my nose. “Do you want to see your sister?” I growled.

“Y-yes!” he stammered.

“All right, then. Let’s fucking go.”

“Wait! Wait—Wecan’tgo!” He dug his boot heels into the sand, almost losing his balance when I pulled him forward.

I wasthisclose to knocking the fucker out and throwing him over my shoulder. “Why not?”

Hayden’s eyes darted to Carrion—wide, afraid, sad. His shoulders sagged, the fight suddenly leaving him. “We need to go back to the Third first,” he whispered. “You need . . . to say goodbye, Carrion. I’m sorry. I . . .”

I watched Carrion’s jaw set. He backed away, hands balled into fists, knuckles white.

“What is it?” I asked.

Hayden didn’t have the heart to answer, it seemed. But somehow Carrion already knew.

“Gracia,” he said softly. “Gracia is dead.”

A lonely parade of mourners trudged single file up the dunes. Their scarves whipped in the wind, streaming westward like prayer flags. Sand stung my cheeks and brought tears to my eyes as I fought my way up the steep incline behind Hayden. Carrion led the way, his gait the resigned lumber of a male headed toward the gallows. He didn’t say anything. No one did.

The occupants of the Third were quarantined. They were forbidden from leaving their ward under any circumstances—apart from one. The poorest residents of the Silver Citywerepermitted to leave their ward to bury their dead.

It was not a kindness.

There were no graveyards in the Third. No mausoleums or crypts. The corpses of the downtrodden and oppressed had to go somewhere, and Madra made sure that the friends and the family of the newly deceased disposed of their remains in a timely fashion. There would be consequences otherwise.

We had left by the south gate. No guardian had stood watch. None was required. Madra knew all too well that those whomade the pilgrimage across the blistering dunes would make their way back soon enough.

The gateway into the desert might as well have been the gateway into hell. There was nowhere to go. No reprieve to be found out here among the endless, haunted dunes. Only death. The people who left to say goodbye to their dead always came back. What other choice did they have?

I was soaked with sweat and beginning to feel the first signs of dehydration by the time we reached the pyre site—impressive, considering it normally took a week or two for a member of the Fae toneedwater.

Thirty or more men and women stood in a silent circle around the burning stack of wood. The shrouded figure laid out atop the pyre was already engulfed in flames. A pillar of flames leaped up at the pale sky, making the air shiver with heat.

In a city of stone and sand, there wasn’t much to burn. Everyone had brought something to feed Gracia Swift’s farewell fire. A shawl. A blanket. Armloads of straw. The woman from the bar yesterday, the one who had screamed at Carrion for causing a scene, tossed pieces of a broken chair onto the fire, crying softly. When she saw Carrion, she shook her head, tears cutting tracks over her dust marked cheeks. “I’m sorry, Carrion. I would have told you. I didn’t know.”

Carrion didn’t see her. He only saw the fire. The woman placed a hand on his shoulder, squeezed it, and left, heading down the dunes, back toward the city.

We stood there, watched the pyre turn white-hot. Eventually, he stepped forward and tossed a book onto the fire. I had seen him pack it into his bag when we’d left his apartment, had noted its title then.Fae Creatures of the Gilarian Mountains.The book had been his only link to his people. His heritage. His entire realm. Gracia’s family had safeguarded the book—and Carrion—his entire life.

The ancient tome went up like kindling.