Page 2 of The Sun God’s Prize (Child of Scale and Fire #3)

I won’t survive for long, I’m aware of that much, but it’s hard to muster anything past a vague sort of sadness.

At least the pain will be gone at last, the deep water, real this time, soothing on my hot skin, easing the pounding in my head.

I’m sinking, limbs immobile, feeling myself flip slowly over onto my back, muffled sound growing quiet, light flickering through that same wavering surface above while I fall away from the fire that dances past the ripples above.

Something grasps my wrist, hard and unrelenting, and I’m jerked upward, a rag-stuffed doll, my head impacting the edge of the wooden slats.

Heated wetness runs into my eyes, forcing them closed.

The shouting is crisp and clear again, the tingling returned, and the agony sears me so thoroughly that I know I whimper once more. I can’t stop it and don’t even try.

My body is tossed to the deck, face down, just a sliver of activity visible when I blink the thick wetness from my vision.

Mostly moving feet, reflected torchlight, chaos and madness that could simply be my muddled mind.

When a man hits the wood next to me, thudding hard enough to shake us both, his face turned toward mine, I recognize the terror dying in his wide-open eyes.

Not because I know him, but because I’ve seen death come for many, delivered it with my own hands.

He has only a moment left.

I watch him leave his body, can almost imagine a shimmering soul rising from the meat suit he leaves behind. A foot impacts his remains, sending him sliding out of sight, the boots planting in front of me.

She’s panting hard, and there’s blood running down her leg, pooling around that same foot that delivered the dead man to the deep.

Men rush her, forcing her away from me. Why are they fighting?

What has she done? My next blink clears my vision again, gaze finding another corpse.

A young woman is laid out on the deck, her eyes wide and staring at me, though she’s not there anymore to see me in return.

There’s an odd angle to her neck that tells the part of me still familiar with such things that it has to be broken, red hair glistening in the firelight.

I know her, I’m sure of it. I have a name on the tip of my tongue, saying a soft little farewell to Fethest as the big man who sneaks out from behind the attackers catches my eyes, his own fear written all over his face.

I know him, too. I don’t like him, I don’t think, though why is lost to me.

Portuk. Yes, Portuk. In a sudden surge of hate without purpose, I hope he dies, too.

How strange, that relentless and savage response.

He dives into the water and vanishes, the woman standing in front of me still bleeding, still fighting. But they are so many, her feet dancing a pattern I know, I understand, even if I can’t move myself, and she is one, alone.

Don’t leave me alone. That thought makes me weep.

She’s tiring, blood loss weakening her. I’m blinking tears now, thinning the thick sludge that no longer blinds me, the flow slowed.

There was a time she wouldn’t have been so easy to defeat.

What’s happened to her? To… Vivenne. Her name comes back, too.

They press her, a flurry of swords slicing at her.

She stumbles over me, just a half-step too far in retreat.

When her feet vanish, her presence gone, I hear a splash and then nothing else from her.

While the men crowd around me and stare down at me.

Let them take you , the voice says. This is how it has to be .

I have no other option , I tell her.

One of the men says something in a language I don’t understand, prodding me with his foot. The tall one next to him snaps at him. I might not know their words, but I do know the tone of command, and he just delivered one. Are they here to rescue me?

I’m carried, again over someone’s shoulder, away from the small boat, the dead Fethest. The little dock is set on fire, the small vessel, too, leaving Portuk and Vivenne no options, I suppose.

And then we’re climbing a ramp at a jog, my body jostled by the motion, and I’m on a ship I don’t recognize, being carried down a hatch. There’s no sound, no shouting, just quiet and creaking and the rattle of chains, and I’m thrown down onto something harsh and scratchy.

Left there, the scent of feces and urine in my nose, cheek pressed to it, in the dark. When the hatch closes, it’s pitch black and stuffy, but at least it’s not silent anymore.

A few soft, sad moans punctuate the heavy air. Not that I’m paying attention, though. The fire has started up again, the pain in my arms and legs, traveling to my torso and my gut. My head is burning, raging with agony, and I throw up twice, unable to move away from it, before oblivion takes me—

so hot

so fucking cold

insects eat me alive

from the inside

how, how are they inside

scream

there’s something in my mouth

a rag, a stinking rag

no I stink, I’m the rag

can’t breathe

where is the air

my head won’t explode but I need it to burst

please, just let me die

just let me die —

I blink. Groan. Roll sideways. Vomit, though there’s nothing to come up, I discover, stomach cramped with emptiness, squeezing around the nothing inside me.

And fall back into darkness.

It hurts. I’ve been in pain before, after battles, recovered from wounds, from torn muscles and beatings and endless hours of strenuous training that left me limp, wrung out, useless.

Nothing has ever hurt as much as this hurts, the flaying, tearing, itching, devouring feeling of endless agony that won’t stop.

Why won’t I die? Is there nothing I can do to make it stop?

There are touches of things outside me that I lash out at, screaming denial, shrieking revolt. Impacts shake me, that pain added to the old.

And then sleep, though there’s no rest. Not for me.

Not ever again.

Something hurts, but not like before. That pain has subsided at last, though I protest opening my eyes, battle against the forced surfacing this time. I tolerate this annoying and then irritating and then unbearable pain for as long as I can, but I can’t stand it.

I won’t .

I open my eyes. It takes some effort, the lids glued shut, lashes thick with goop and crust, but they peel apart at last while I groan over the pain.

New, sharp, invasive pain, localized. When I inhale for what feels like the first time in my entire life, I realize I can move.

My hand slides up the rough wood beneath me, bats at the poking bite that jabs my cheek, jars whatever it is loose.

No more pain.

It’s bliss.

I try to draw a sigh, to let it out, enjoy it, but my lungs ache too much, chest on fire, I end up choking. Coughing hurts, tears at my throat, raw and hot. I can’t sit up, not at first. The idea of it alone makes me want to weep from exhaustion. When did I become a quitter?

Mother, I call to her, though I know she’s dead and won’t answer, has forsaken me, and it’s my fault she won’t let me die, too. I’ve forgotten everything you taught me. I don’t deserve to be your daughter .

Please, let me die.

That’s not to be, I guess. A hand descends to my face, offers a cup. I see the sparkling liquid inside, and I’m suddenly thirsty, so very thirsty, weakly grasping for the vessel. Only to be slapped away, the cup forced to my lips, water poured down my throat.

I choke on it, spill much of it, but when it’s taken away, I beg for more, whining like a puppy for more. That can’t be all I get.

The cup is refilled and returned to my lips, only given sips, and when that small amount is also gone, I’m left to pant from the effort of drinking, to lap at the lost puddle on the filthy boards beneath me.

To sleep, at last. Real sleep.

And dreams.

Blood runs from her eye, from her throat, the bolts protruding from her ruined face, her torn neck, doing nothing to soften her fierce grin or her defiance. She’s falling, and I’m falling with her, trying to catch her, my hand reaching for hers, which remains just out of reach.

Is it finally time to join her? Has she forgiven me at last?

But I’ve come so far…

No, Mother. I was wrong. I’m not ready. I’m not done yet.

She falls away as I slow my own descent, disappearing from me into the black.

Sobbing, I turn from her, look up, and swim for the light —

I wake, more myself than I have been, I think, in far too long.

It takes some time for me to orient, to gather the strength I need to sit up.

I’m a splay-legged fawn freshly birthed, fighting for purchase with hands and feet, pushing up on elbows that give way more than once in the attempt, on muscles drained to the limit of any power.

But I make it, if only from sheer stubbornness.

No, Mother, I’m not done yet.

I think she’d approve.

That small task has defeated me, though, and it takes a long time before I can raise my head, look around me.

I’m not alone, I think I knew that. There are several people, dressed in rags, filthy and stinking—or is that me making that horrible smell?

—crouching against a wooden wall, as far from me as they can get.

I see the faint shine of their gazes, the terror there.

Just enough light reaches us in this dark, dank space that I catch the whites of their eyes glowing, like spooked horses ready to bolt.

Where am I? I think I try to speak that out loud, but only a faint croak emerges. I clear my throat, wishing I hadn’t, the rawness of it a blazing inferno when I try to swallow spit I don’t have.

“Where…?” I manage to growl that one word, but no one answers me. If anything, they whimper and retreat further.

But there’s nowhere to go.

Why are they so afraid of me?

I close my eyes to rest them, the crusty stickiness revolting suddenly, but I have no energy to clean them, or the means either.

I focus instead on my surroundings, on the feelings and smells and sounds.

I latch onto the soft rolling beneath me, the familiar sound of water lapping.

Is that a snapping sound? And then a deep thrumming that seems to vibrate beneath me.

Where do I know it from? It’s distant, my chin tipping upward. Yes, above me. I do know it.

That’s the sound of a sail in the wind.

The scents I’ve already processed, even if I wasn’t fully aware, unwashed bodies, shit and piss and puke and blood. It smells like a battlefield devoid of honor.

I don’t even want to think about what my world tastes like right now.

At least I seem to be intact, both arms and legs with me, all fingers and toes present and accounted for, though I’ve been stripped naked, draped in a rough cloth sack with a hole at the top and one on each side giving me cover but not much comfort.

Details, Remalla. Focus on details.

So, I’m on a ship of some kind, with strangers below and above.

A prisoner, more than likely, as are the filthy companions I share this space with.

I’ve been ill. That much is clear. Deathly ill.

But was I injured? Or did some disease befall me?

There are vague moments of recall that just start to piece together, memories of pain, of water and sinking—

When the past comes back, it’s a tidal wave of history that makes me sob out loud, and I stuff one fist against my mouth to hold it back. I am Remalla of Heald, daughter of Jhanette the War Queen, and I will not break.

I did not break.

Except I’m pretty sure I did.

“To the fire with it,” I whisper into the heavy, choking, airless dark. “I’ll put it back together, then.”

Just try and fucking stop me.

***