Page 44 of The Maiden and Her Monster

“Is she your accomplice?” demanded the guard who held the sword at Malka’s back.

Nimrah smirked. “Much to her frustration.”

The sword clattered to the ground as the guard behind Malka tripped on vines Nimrah had raised from under his feet.

Malka picked up his sword, and powered by ferocious adrenaline, cracked the hilt against the guard’s head. He dropped unconscious.

The younger guard advanced, sword catching on Nimrah’s vine.

Nimrah clutched the vine’s other end, cording it around her wrists to trap the guard.

But the guard, instead of attempting to untangle himself or his blade, yanked his sword back with all his might.

Nimrah jerked forward and fell. Before she could get up, the guard kicked her side, then yanked her up by her cloak and threw her against the wall.

She pummeled against the stone with a sickening crack, moaning as she crumpled to the ground.

Something uncomfortable tightened in Malka at the sight.

She didn’t have the time to analyze it. The guard turned on her, backing her into the wall. “You know what we do to betrayers?” He licked the sweat from his upper lip. “We lower them into the ground, into a space so small, you can feel your own breath bounce off the walls.”

Malka splayed her hand against the wall, an idea sprouting.

She didn’t know if it could work; if it would be enough.

But she had to try. She began to dig her fingernails into the stone, hoping it was hard enough to scuff the surface.

Nun. Kaph. She bit her lip as blood began to well under her nails, but she did not relent.

“It’s not with the other prisoners. Oh, no.

It’s somewhere where souls are laid bare.

The others are here at ground level, but those who need to be taught a lesson…

they get sent below. But maybe I’ll have some fun with you first.” He drew his hand along Malka’s cheek, and she tried not to vomit. “Get on your knees.”

Malka was tired of men intimidating her, tired of their teeth-bared threats.

She was tired of being at the end of their swords because of her religion, because she was a woman.

She thought of Brother Asak and the threat he had hissed sinisterly into her ear, of Václav’s disgusting jabs as she turned to sleep.

One more letter: Hey. And the word was written: ??? .

Nakhah. Strike. The magic flowed through her.

As commanded, the stone wall began to pelt shards toward the guard.

They all struck true, each shard digging into his skin.

He stumbled back but couldn’t escape them.

When a shard pierced an artery in his neck, blood lashed the air like the violent whip of a rope.

Eyes bulging, he cupped his neck, yet still blood seeped through his fingers.

Malka watched as he grew paler and paler before his eyes rolled back and he dropped to the ground. He would be dead in minutes.

She wore his blood in a sash across her vest. She could taste the tang of it in her mouth. It sent Malka back to Mavetéh, where Aleksi had been decapitated by the creature who crawled out of the tree cavity and used its branches as weapons.

And Malka had killed someone else, using the same magic.

It was different now, just as it had been different when she had shoved Václav, and the rock had pierced his temple.

Malka shivered, thinking of her fate if she had not commanded Kefesh to save her now.

She imagined a screwworm burrowing between her thighs and breasts.

Her insides writhed. She chose instead to imagine the screwworm under her knife.

Nimrah roused.

Malka ran to her, dropping to her knees.

“You killed him,” Nimrah said, eyeing the now dead guard.

Malka swallowed, shame heating her face. “I—”

Nimrah shook her head. “I didn’t mean it like that. You defended yourself. I meant, you managed to overtake a trained guard with only Kefesh to help you.”

“Yes,” Malka responded. She knew Nimrah desired more from her, but it was all she could say. She surprised herself.

An unbridled smile teased at Nimrah’s mouth. So sincere, Malka realized she had not seen the golem truly smile until now.

“We don’t have long,” Malka said finally, breaking whatever lingered between them.

Nimrah groaned as she picked herself up from the ground. “His belt,” she said, motioning toward the older guard. “The gate key should be on there.”

Malka nodded and unclasped the key from the ring at the guard’s belt, heaving open the gate.

The dungeon odor was foul—feces and urine tangled in dank air. Malka’s stomach twisted. For once, she was glad she had not eaten since dawn.

The cells were built into uniform pockets of the wall, a hive-like formation stretching down the length of the corridor.

A rusted metal gate at each cell served to trap its inhabitant.

As they walked, dull moans echoed across the hall, reminiscent of the groans from overworked cattle.

Raucous sobs came from one of the shaded cells.

“Here!” Nimrah shouted.

Malka’s blood pounded through her veins as she approached the Maharal.

So many of the stories she had been told portrayed him as a great man touched by Yohev. The commander of Yahadi magic and forbidden wisdom.

She had seen no portraits of the rabbi, only heard descriptions. Each person had shaped him in a different way…

“His skin glistens when he uses his magic, his hands made permanently silver by their holy work.”

“He appears either as an old man, or a young one. With wrinkles that sag his skin, or the deepest raven hair that looks purple in the sun.”

“He has a beard that brushes the floor. Some say it can perform its own magic…”

Now, he was nothing like what the stories had conjured up in her mind. Behind the iron bars, so small Malka could almost miss him if the torchlight didn’t illuminate his pallid skin, he curled into himself. Wilted.

He was pitifully thin. His sleeves were hiked up to his elbows, revealing skin and bone splotched with pale, ugly bruises. His mouth held ajar, yellow crooked teeth hiding behind his cracked, bloody lips drained of any color.

Malka wondered if they had made a mistake—if the Maharal was truly sick. But Sévren’s claims of his care were obviously false. If he was sickened, it was the result of Sévren’s abusive orders.

Though, the stories did get one thing right about the Maharal.

Even in his sallow, starved form, there was something magical about him.

Magic prickled her palms and she craved to command the earth once more.

Malka thought of the boy-turned-man in Nimrah’s story, how he was always destined for greatness.

She couldn’t confirm the Maharal’s silver hands, for both of them were missing. Instead, his skin had been clumsily stitched at his wrists.

“Rav,” Nimrah broke the lock with her fist and dropped to her knees inside the gate. “What did they do to you?”

“Nimrah?”

His voice was scratchy from disuse, so threadbare Malka could hardly imagine him with the commanding voice from the stories that preceded him.

“I am here,” Nimrah said, encircling the Maharal in her arms and running her thumb along his frail arm.

His eyes finally opened, and Malka’s breath hitched.

They were bloodshot, hardly any color seeping behind the red. When they landed on Malka, her neck prickled.

Shouts echoed down the tunnel, approaching rapidly.

If they were caught now, they’d be rounded up and thrown in here with him, and Imma would be as good as dead.

“I’ll stay,” Nimrah said. “You get him out of here.”

But there was no way Malka could carry the Maharal.

She was not strong enough. And they’d be too slow if she tried to shoulder his weight.

Nimrah had taken a serious beating and swayed on her feet despite her declaration.

She would not last long, even with her powers.

Blood trickled down the flesh side of her face, tinting the skin red.

“No,” Malka said, before she could think better of it. “I’m not strong enough to carry the Maharal out of here alone. You take him. I’ll buy you some time. It’s the only way we can free him.”

Nimrah’s wide eyes found hers, the crease between her forehead deepening. “You don’t have to do this.”

Malka stared back, eyes tracing Nimrah’s stone cheek, which had split like the veins of cracked glass from her fall. “Go. Our bargain, remember?”

Nimrah was silent for a moment, peering to the door where shadows clipped onto the walls, then back to the Maharal’s pale face. “Alright,” she said, but her voice lacked its usual prickly bite. “But take this.” From her cloak, she withdrew Abba’s dagger.

Malka nodded, soothed to be reunited with the blade, and wrapped the dagger in her hand.

Nimrah lifted the Maharal’s arm around her shoulder and hoisted him into her arms. She opened her mouth, closed it. At war with herself over her words.

But the voices of the guards drew ever closer, forcing Nimrah to forgo any last words. She jogged back into the tunnel with the Maharal in her arms, veering away from the entrance where the guards would soon appear.

Once she was gone, Malka paced.

Alone, the hilarity of her situation hit all at once. Who was she, to think she could defend herself? That she could stand up to trained guards with only a dagger and her hands, calloused not from battle, but delicate suturing.

She wasn’t like the brave women from her people’s stories.

She wasn’t the Shabhe Queen, who would save the fate of her people with her cunning words.

And that was fine with her. She admired those, like Chaia, who sought adventure.

Who let defiance and rebellion simmer in their bones.

She was not one of them. All Malka longed for were leisurely cold walks in Eskravé at dawn, and shaping paper cuts with Hadar and Danya on the floor of their bedroom.

But now, she had no choice.

Kefesh made her feel different, powerful for the first time. It was impossible to want. A magical thing, twisted from religion and morphed into something abashedly human. But she wanted it all the same.

Malka slipped the dagger into the band of her apron.

It would be her last resort, as she at least showed some skill with Kefesh.

As Nimrah retreated, the rooting spell began its rebellion.

Her world began to tilt as the unmooring sensation yanked her from her body.

Nausea made a home in the pit of Malka’s belly, twisting her insides with pain.

Malka breathed, gritted her teeth, desperate to push through the sensation.

Four men reared around the corner, hands gripped tight on their swords. Their armor gleamed in the torchlight and clanked against their bodies as they jogged closer.

The guards stopped short and took in Malka’s appearance. She still wore the scullery maid apron. They had not expected the intruder to be someone like her.

Taking advantage of their shock, Malka gathered close to the wall.

Her heart pounded hard against her ribcage as she began to shakily scrape the same word— nakhah —into the stone, dried blood already caked under what was left of her nails.

They’d grown weak, and a nail split off in her effort.

She grunted from the pain but continued on.

When she finished, she waited, expecting the shards to heed her command as they had before.

They did not come.

A sword sliced through the air, and she tumbled back, barely evading the blade.

It didn’t work. Her attempts to use Kefesh had never failed before, not since she had tried to heal Amnon and Nimrah had shouted at her to focus.

It was too late to try again. A knight hoisted her up by her hair and pressed a sword between her shoulders. It irritated the wound already carved down her back, and Malka stifled a scream.

“The Maharal is gone,” one of the guards alerted the rest.

The man who held her up like a rag doll sneered. “Who helped you, girl? Tell us now, and you might be spared.”

Malka, blessedly, remembered the dagger. She retrieved it from her waistband and stabbed the blade into the meat of the guard’s thigh. He howled but did not release his hold on Malka’s hair. He only yanked tighter, causing Malka’s eyes to water. She was a fool. Such a fool.

The golem now had what she wanted: the Maharal.

All Malka had was a promise. She had played all her cards.

Would she be imprisoned or killed? What would become of Imma?

How long until the Maharal could undo their rooting spell?

How long until Nimrah was not beholden to Malka at all? So many questions. Answers to none.

A second guard kicked the dagger from her hand, tearing her back to the present.

Pain erupted from her wrist. The knight raised his foot again, the sole as black as an eclipsing sun.

The blow to her head was so fierce, she saw stars, and could do nothing as the guards bound her arms and dragged her knees across the stone floor to her fate.