Page 47 of The Maiden and Her Monster

Cupping Malka’s face between his hands, Amnon examined the gash on her cheek.

His thumb traced lightly on Malka’s eyelid, and her skin cried in pain.

Sévren must have also scratched his fingernail there while he held her eyes open.

Thinking of the guard’s skinless body made her heave, but there was nothing left inside her to purge.

“Curse your bravery, Malka,” he said tightly.

Malka opened her eyes. Amnon’s jaw was clenched, eyebrows firmly creased.

“What happened back there?” Nimrah demanded, anger glazing her eyes. But Malka knew by now it was not anger with Malka, but herself. “You killed a man minutes before we left. I shouldn’t have… I should have stayed. It was naive of me to leave you.”

A similarity between Amnon and Nimrah she had never noticed before, this self-inflicted hate when they failed to protect.

Chaia returned with her medicinal bag then, dropping into the chair across from her. Amnon shuffled to the side so Chaia could begin her work.

“You didn’t know I’d lose my ability to perform Kefesh,” Malka countered.

On their way back, Malka had crowded into an empty alley and tried to command a small plant from the earth as she had done with the sprig of black perphona outside of Chaia’s house, but to no avail.

The tingling power no longer spread through her hands.

Hours ago, she had killed a man with Kefesh.

She had become so powerful, only to become powerless again.

She didn’t understand, for she did no motion differently.

She drew the word into the ground and guided her mind to the same place of silent prayer.

At least, so she had thought.

“We’ll take the Maharal’s counsel once he’s recovered.” Nimrah began to pace, glancing back and forth, from the door to the bedroom to Malka and back again. “I… I need to check on him, are you alright?”

Malka stared at her. She wasn’t sure if Nimrah was actually concerned, or if the pounding of her concussed head conjured up the tenderness in her voice.

“I’m fine,” Malka promised. “Go.”

Nimrah nodded and disappeared into the hall.

“The plan wasn’t well-thought-out,” Amnon said, shaking his head. “We should’ve… done more. I should’ve done more.”

It was Chaia who scoffed. “Amnon, please. You know nothing about the palace. If anyone should take the blame, it is me.”

“No one is to blame but Sévren and his guards,” Malka said.

“I wanted to go with her to save you, Malka, but Nimrah threatened Vilém to hold me back if I tried to come.”

Malka stared at Vilém’s wiry frame from across the room. “What a threat.”

Chaia cracked a smile. “The Maharal, he… needed immediate care. Though I am not as talented of a healer as you, I have done my best to clean his wounds and revive him.”

“I’ll take a look at him, as well,” Malka agreed.

“Yes, but first, your wounds. Tell us everything we should know.”

As Chaia began to clean the blood from her face, Malka recounted all that had happened.

“God, Malka.” Chaia ran her hand through her hair. It jostled her soft waves. “Sévren is even more vile than I imagined he could be.”

Chaia dipped a cloth into the pot of water and pressed it to Malka’s inflamed skin.

Malka winced. “When Nimrah came, she brought a letter from the Maharal. Was that your idea?”

Chaia’s lips upturned. “It was Amnon’s, actually.”

Malka raised her eyebrow in Amnon’s direction. “And you said you didn’t do enough when your idea saved me?”

“I’m just glad it worked,” he said, cheeks flushed. “We wanted to give the archbishop as little breathing room as possible.”

“It couldn’t have worked better that he had already drawn a crowd,” Chaia added.

Malka thought of her easy escape. “I think he may have something worse up his sleeve, and that scares me.”

The admission hung between the three of them, as if it were a fawn and any slight movement would send it scurrying.

“All that matters right now is that you’re safe,” Amnon said finally.

After Chaia applied a salve to her wounds, Malka began a poultice for the Maharal’s infection. She set a pot to boil on the stove before throwing a handful of thyme sprigs in to soften.

Kefesh had aided her healing abilities, but she wasn’t nothing without the magic.

She was a healer’s daughter and would knead herbs into ointments and suture wounds the way she had been taught—without magic.

But Malka would be lying to herself if she didn’t admit how much she missed the buzz of Kefesh on her fingertips, how it cleared her head and filled her heart with its power.

She collected the dampened thyme sprigs in a bowl and a cloth for the wrapping and walked toward Chaia’s room, where the Maharal rested. Through the door, so rickety it didn’t close completely, Nimrah spoke in fierce whispers.

The Maharal’s low grumble, voice strained from disuse, responded. His words already more coherent than they had been in the dungeon.

“You shouldn’t have come back, Nimrah.”

Through the door, Nimrah placed her head in her hands. “I could not live knowing they kept you like that, Rav.”

He ran his shaky arms across Nimrah’s hands, nudging them away from her face. “And I am grateful, but it is not safe for you here.” There was such tenderness in his voice, it made Malka ache for the father she had once loved, not feared.

She stared between them—father and daughter—and understood why the Maharal had spared Nimrah when the Valonians wanted her dead.

“It will be safer now that you are free, that I am the one who helped free you. I will right my wrongs with the people of Valón,” said Nimrah.

“You misunderstand, Nimrah—”

“I know you are disappointed in me.” Her voice was tinged with sorrow. “You made me for one purpose, and I have failed in that. But I will not fail again. I promise you, Rav.”

The Maharal slit his eyes. “What have you done, Nimrah?”

“I’ve made a promise, one I must keep no matter the consequences.”

Malka rapped her knuckle against the door, garnering their attention. “I’ve brought a poultice. If you wish to apply it to him yourself, you can.”

She had intended to be the one to apply the poultice, but the Maharal looked at Nimrah with so much love in his eyes that Nimrah could not see—did not wish to see. Malka was taking Nimrah from him forever and guilt stung her chest.

For Imma, she reminded herself. For Hadar and Danya and the life they deserve.

Nimrah clutched the bowl. “Thank you.”

She said it so sincerely, Malka almost didn’t believe the words were Nimrah’s.

“You’re welcome,” Malka replied gingerly, and closed the door behind her.

In all the stories Malka had been told of Kefesh souring, none were of someone who lost their ability to perform the magic.

It had always been shalkat rearranging the letters of a prayer, or rogue golems turning against their people.

Weeks ago, she would’ve said it was for the best—that it was better the mysticism was taken from her before it could swallow her whole.

She wished she believed it still. It would make the loss satisfying, rather than bitter. Rather than feeling the strike of power at her helm and losing it when she needed it most.

She had been helpless as Sévren peeled open her eyes and forced her to watch the vile punishment; when his nails dug into her shoulder and she had to bite down her scream.

“Trouble sleeping again?” Nimrah appeared in the doorway of the kitchen, where Malka sat with a blanket wrapped around her and her knees drawn to her chest.

Malka nodded but didn’t turn her stare away from the dim glow of the oven.

The chair creaked as Nimrah joined her at the table.

They sat in silence for a while, until Malka admitted, “I fear I won’t ever forget the sight of that guard being flayed alive. It will be another horror that haunts me.”

“I’m sorry you had to see it,” Nimrah responded, and Malka finally turned to her.

It was once again strange to see the golem without her doublet and cloak.

She wore one of Vilém’s white linen tunics, which fit her snug around the shoulders.

The front was untied, revealing Nimrah’s prominent collarbones—one stone, the other flesh.

Malka hated how human it made her look. How normal, like she was not a monster.

Monster. Murderer. Monster. Murderer.

Yet even the chant had grown weak in her mind, like a flickering flame clutching to the last sip of oil.

She had seen true monstrosity. It was the ease in which Sévren had a man tortured by a Revac. The condition in which he had kept the Maharal. The lines he had carved into her skin as a threat.

And now she, too, was a murderer. She had killed that guard in the dungeon.

Had caused another’s torture and death. It was her deceit which had led to his punishment.

Malka recalled what Chaia had said—how all actions are unpredictable, not just those made by Kefesh.

In both ways, immense guilt consumed her.

“How do you live with it?” Malka asked, chin dipped low.

“With what?”

“The guilt. Of the Yahadi boy. Of all the victims Mavetéh has claimed because of your magic.”

Nimrah straightened. “By making things right.”

“Can you? Make things right?”

“I have to believe that I can,” she responded, casting her eyes to a divot in the table. “Even if it means giving up what is most precious to me. Especially if it means that.”

Her life. Traded to save Imma. To save the Maharal.

“Your last punishment.”

Nimrah hummed. “May I tell you another story, Malka?”

When Malka looked up, Nimrah’s eyes were on her bandaged shoulder. “What kind of story?”

“Mine. One you may have heard a version of. I prefer this one.”

Malka nodded, picking at the dry flakes of skin around her fingers.

Nimrah steepled her hands. “Before I do, you must remember this: I was not made to be without the Maharal.”

She began her story, the same way she had told the Maharal’s in the dark.