Page 65 of The Witch who Trades with Death

Chapter Sixty-Five

It was Neta’s endless hours of self-defense training that saved her.

After Yamueto left the room, and Haz approached her, Khana slammed down on one of the guard’s feet with all of her weight and might, breaking the arch. As he screamed, she inhaled his aji. The other witch tried to take it, but she pushed his companion into him. They clashed, dropped, and hauled Khana down with them.

She wiggled out of their grip just as Haz tackled her to the floor. The knife sliced through her arm, scraping against her bone and punching all the air out of her lungs. It stayed in her bicep, hilt-deep.

“Get her pinned,” one of the guards ordered. “You all right?”

“My foot is broken . How the fuck did she do that?”

“She’s stronger than she looks.”

Khana gritted her teeth, her arm on fire, Haz impassively staring down at her.

It’s not him. It’s just a husk.

She inhaled, sucking out all of Haz’s aji until he dropped on top of her. Not breathing.

Sorry, Haz.

She pushed away his corpse and pulled the knife out of her arm with a cry.

“Hey!”

The uninjured witch cursed and glowed, his friend weakly looking up as his life force was stolen.

“Wait–”

The uninjured witch punched his friend and inhaled the last of his aji. She couldn’t tell if the drain killed him or simply rendered him unconscious, but he didn’t move from the floor.

Khana’s arm had completely healed, absorbing Haz’s aji, leaving her with barely a glow. She’d have to be quick.

The remaining guard unsheathed his sword and charged.

Khana parried, pivoted, and sliced at his chest. Her knife shrieked against the metal armor. He turned and swung at her. She ducked, the force of his blow creating a hole in the wall and sending splinters into her hair and face.

She scrambled back, devising her next attack. His head and torso were fully armored, she wasn’t. And she wouldn’t be able to steal his aji until he was distracted or injured.

The armor doesn’t extend to the legs, she realized, just as he came at her again. She dropped to the floor and rolled, slicing at his calf as soon as she was behind him.

He roared in pain, then shoved his sword into her back. The tip came out of her chest. She gasped, every movement sending fire pulsing through her.

He hauled her up by her dress. “Listen to me. This’ll go a lot easier if you just do as you’re told. I’m not about to get turned into a night creature because you decided to be a bitch!”

Khana gritted her teeth, blood pooling in her mouth. Raising her arms took herculean effort, but she gripped her knife tightly and stabbed him in the neck.

He wheezed, stumbling to his knees. Khana clung on to him, pulling the knife out and stabbing him again as he healed. She stabbed once more immediately after, knowing how impossible it was to breathe with such a neck wound. And again, and again, until he stopped glowing, until he stopped moving. By the time she was done, they were both soaked in blood, and his entire neck and face were annihilated.

Sword still in her chest, Khana stumbled away from the corpse, dragging herself to the table with the pitcher, all but collapsing against it, her hands glowing. The pitcher wobbled and fell off, shattering on the floor. Khana angled herself so the tip of the sword was against the table and pressed forward, pushing the sword out slowly and painfully.

The sword’s tip disappeared within her ribs, then the weight of the handle and blade finally made it drop, leaving her body entirely with a clatter. Khana wheezed, spitting out blood as the aji she’d stolen knitted her wound back together. She stopped glowing after a few seconds.

She checked herself, grimacing when she saw a weeping wound still on her chest – and probably her back, too, not that she could reach it. Entry and exit. But they were shallow, nothing that a few stitches couldn’t fix. She huffed and went to Haz’s side, dropping to her knees next to him.

“Death, I wish to trade.”

Khana blinked, and she was no longer in the building.

Well, she was . She could see the wooden walls and the broken pitcher and even the shade of Haz. But it was dark and muted. As if all the light had been sucked out, including her own body. No matter how many times she came here, it was always bizarre.

“You, again.”

Death appeared in front of her, their robes a multi-colored swirl that Khana saw even when she closed her eyes.

Khana gritted her teeth, anger erasing desperation. “Why did you accept that trade with Yamueto? We almost had him!”

“He summoned me and offered a deal. I obliged.”

“But why ? All of this suffering, everything he’s done, it’s because you let him!”

“I do not discriminate,” Death said evenly. “I come for everyone, and thus, I trade with everyone. When they have something to trade.”

Khana glared.

“Is there a reason you called, or was it just to yell?”

She took a deep, steadying breath. “I need my friend back. Hasyamin. I’m next to him now.”

Death prowled around Khana, getting a closer look at their darkened bodies. They tipped their head at Haz. “This young man? Fiercely loyal? Hides his own suffering with poor humor?”

As Death talked, they changed their form again, until it was an exact copy of Haz crouching before her. “He called me a killjoy when I collected him,” they said.

Khana blinked back tears. “Yes. That’s him.”

“Great. What are you willing to give?”

Khana let out a shaky breath. “Would memories work?”

“Not for a soul,” Death said gently. “Not unless you have at least his lifetime’s worth of memories. You’re close enough in ages that I could make it work, but you would have complete amnesia.”

She shook her head. If they were safely back in Pahuuda, then she may have gone for it. But in their current situation, that was a recipe for disaster.

“What about your witchcraft?” they asked.

Oh, to give that away. She almost said yes immediately. Even if she failed tonight, if Yamueto lived for centuries more, he’d have no more use for Khana. He might even give her a clean death.

But…

She groaned. “I hate it. But I don’t have a chance of killing Yamueto without it. And if one of my friends gets hurt, I’ll need to be able to heal them.”

“Ah, the hazards of war,” Death mused. “That means we need to get a little more existential. We’ll need a significant piece of your soul.”

Khana ran through a mental inventory of herself, trying to figure out what she could give that wouldn’t render this moot. Or worse, turn her into the same type of monster she was trying to kill.

“You said Yamueto gave up all of his passions for the ability to create night creatures,” she said at length. “What about just one passion?”

Death grinned Haz’s gap-toothed smile. “It will have to be a significant passion. Something you truly love.”

Khana swallowed, mind going straight to one thing. She remembered the joy she felt at receiving her lute. Channeling her rage and grief to get through the Reguallian nights. Dancing and singing with Sava.

“Music,” she said quietly.

Death stepped forward and raised their hand to touch her. She jerked back.

Death waited.

Khana forced a breath – did she even have air and physical lungs in this strange place? – and let Death touch her forehead. After a few seconds, they nodded. “From you? That’ll work.”

No more dancing at festivals. No more singing songs in Heimili’s inn. No more playing for her unit.

She looked at Death’s face. Haz’s face.

It wasn’t an easy choice, but it was the one she knew in her bones was right.

Still… “It can’t be that easy.”

“No?” Death asked.

“Doesn’t reviving the dead run counter to your very being?”

They laughed. Haz’s voice, but a different rhythm and cadence. Not unpleasant. “Dear, I am death . This is just a loan. Everyone returns to me eventually.”

They sobered, face gentling. “You only get one life, and I hate taking spirits so young, almost as much as suicides. So why not give him a second chance? Maybe this one will have a happier ending.”

She smiled. “If I survive tonight, I’m going to make you wait a long time for that.”

“Good.” They held out their hand. “Last chance.”

Khana didn’t hesitate this time. She took it.