“What is your name?”
The girl blinked, her wide blue eyes glassy with unshed tears.
“Trissa,” she whispered.
Quinn approached, watching as the girl’s eyes dropped to her naked form and widened further. “Do you have any family, Trissa?”
Her eyes darted over to the man who even if Quinn tried, there would be no piecing back together again. Then she shook her head.
“What about friends?”
The girl seemed to think, and then nodded tentatively.
“Do your friends have family?”
She shook her head again.
Quinn sighed. She had few boundaries she wouldn’t cross. Killing children was one of them. The N’skari might have brought this down on themselves, as had Triene—but this girl—she didn’t choose this.
Quinn wouldn’t punish those who didn’t know better.
“I want you to gather your friends that have no family and bring them here. Can you do that?” Quinn would not compel her to do this. She wouldn’t use fear or magic.
She gave her a choice, one that if the child chose right, would likely mean the difference between surviving and not.
“Will you hurt them, like you hurt the other men?”
Quinn tilted her head. “Will they try to hurt me?”
Trissa squinted. Her eyebrows drew together in confusion. “N-no,” she whispered, shaking her head.
“Then I won’t hurt them,” Quinn said.
The girl seemed to think, and then she nodded.
Quinn stepped back, letting her come out of her hiding spot. She climbed to her feet and then started for the door. Her eyes drifted to Isiah’s form, but instead of watering more, they dried, and her lips tensed. She continued on and the door swung shut behind her. Quinn wasn’t sure if she would come back or not. That was up to the girl.
In the meantime, while Quinn waited for the soldiers to return, she climbed the decrepit stairs in search of parchment and a quill. The house was small, but the basics were there. Beds, dressers, a desk with the things she needed.
Quinn took a seat and picked up the quill, but paused when she brought the tip to the paper.
N’skara had turned on them.
The king needed to know, but she couldn’t be the one to tell him.
Lazarus might have sent her to the dark realm once, but it wasn’t of his own volition. If he learned that she found a way back and didn’t return to him immediately . . .
Quinn shook her head because she was doing what she always did.
She was doing what needed to be done. Quinn made a deal with a god, and if she wanted to stay, she had to keep it. Lazarus had to go to war. He couldn’t be concerned with finding her. He couldn’t be distracted.
With that in mind, she began to write.
Chapter 8
Dark Cravings
“Strength and power are two sides of the same coin.”
— Mariska “Risk” Darkova, beast tamer, Mazzulah’s heir
Her chest heaved. The air was entering and leaving her lungs at such a fast rate, it burned. The exertion of breathing seemed to tire her more. But she knew she couldn’t stop.
Risk lifted her boot and put it down on the step above her. Her muscles protested, shaking violently as if with rage. She was beyond rage, though. So far gone in exhaustion that all she had was a singular purpose.
To climb.
The days had blurred together. She wasn’t sure if it were weeks or months or even years that had passed. She was starving, and yet her body hadn’t given out. Risk hadn’t fallen prey to hunger, nor had she withered to bones as she once was. Her muscles were simultaneously stronger and weaker than ever.
It wasn’t natural how she could go so long without food or water . . . and yet she did.
Somehow.
Risk climbed higher and higher and higher until she could no longer use her feet. Instead, she climbed with her hands and knees.
It was on all four limbs that she finally reached the top and could climb no more.
A lovely voice rang out; the first she’d heard in what felt like ages. Time was lost to her.
“Is it done?” Mazzulah asked her.
“It is,” she whispered back between cracked lips. She tasted blood on her tongue, and she wasn’t sure if it were her mouth or her lungs bleeding. Perhaps both.
She’d climbed the stairway to the dark realm twice now.
The first time for Quinn.
The second for Mazzulah, who said that if she wished to release Quinn from this realm, she had to carry her back. Risk did just that.
She carried her sister in her arms for endless days, back to the realm of the living. She left her outside the door and walked away, but Risk knew that Quinn would be okay. If there were ever a creature that was meant to not just survive this harsh world but own it—it was her sister.
“Good,” Mazzulah said, drawing Risk’s attention once more. She lifted her head from the stone slab where she’d rested it. To another, it might look as if she were bowing down or praying.
In truth, she didn’t have it in her to stand up.
“Wh-what do you want from me?” Risk found herself asking.
Mazzulah’s feminine lips curled in amusement and sick delight. Her golden eyes glowed with power mortals could not even begin to comprehend. On her shoulder, Alpis perched.
Traitor, Risk thought the word in his direction.
“It is not his fault that he must do as I command. He is your hope. I had to see if you could make it without that.”
Risk narrowed her eyes at the god. The blood moon shining down on them made Mazzulah’s dark gray skin appear a dark red. The gold insignia on her forehead shined brighter, and those onyx horns that Risk also possessed, seemed both maleficent and powerful.
“What do you want from me?” Risk repeated, her voice stronger this time. Steadier. She lifted her shoulders off the ground, and they protested greatly, but she refused to just lay there in the presence of this god.
She had to try.
“I told you already. I am training you to your ascension,” Mazzulah said, tilting her head in a way that sent a pang through Risk’s heart.
“But I don’t know what that means,” Risk said, pausing only to push herself up further—so that she sat back with her knees and shins pressed to the floor. She was still below the god, kneeling, but it was something. “How are you going to train me?”
Mazzulah didn’t answer at first. Instead, she stared.
She stared for so long that Risk began to fidget. While she wasn’t in her male form, the inscrutable gaze of a god was not to be taken lightly.
Just when Risk began to think the god would not answer, Mazzulah said, “Quinn has done a good job with you. She took you from being a meek little mouse and taught you what it meant to have teeth and claws. She helped you heal from the horrors of your childhood. Without what she did, my training would mean nothing. It would do nothing, because without her, I would break you.” Mazzulah stood, and Risk’s heart began to gallop. Her shoulders shook, and she knew with great certainty that it was because of fear. “I won’t lie to you, little bird. I will break you either way. It is only once you’ve been broken and rebuilt that you can be what I need you to be. Quinn taught you how to fight. She taught you how to be strong. She had a beast tamer teach you how to control your magic. That is good—because I won’t teach you that.”