“Choice,” Diya said. At my quizzical frown, she crossed her arms over her chest. “The ability to choose is what tips the scales. Monsters have no choice in their evil, but humans choose it deliberately. My parents chose to sell my younger sister to the khawaga. They convinced themselves they had no choice; how could they leave their prosperous town for a village overrun by vagrants? They traded my gentle sister for a taller roof and nicer walls. The khawaga returned my sister in pieces. I punished my mother and father for each part of her I buried.”
“Forty-three stab wounds each,” I remembered. “I hope they lived long enough to feel every single one.”
Diya smiled faintly. “I can make choices, too.”
The carriage rumbled to a stop. “Orban Champion, descend!”
Diya paused at the door. “Do try not to die. I would hate to listen to Mehti yammer on a third time.”
I fluttered my lashes. “Why, Diya. Is this your formal offer of friendship?”
She considered the distance between herself and the ground. “Die, then.” She leapt.
I shook with laughter. I ignored the driver’s grumbling and stuck my head out the window as the carriage forged on. “But I accept!”
The driver snapped the reins, and Diya disappeared between the trees. I tipped my chin up, searching for the sun in the cloudy skies. I’d missed the feel of it in the tunnels more than I realized.
“Nizahl Champion, descend!”
Taking a deep breath, I jumped from the carriage. The driver did not spare me a glance, urging the horses in the opposite direction of Dar al Mansi. A layer of dew covered the weapons left at the bottom of the tree. Omalian winters were not an ideal setting for a trial that depended on the acuity of sight and sound.
A pale fog hovered around us. Thin shafts of sunlight peeked from the gray sky. I listened for movement and encountered silence too complete to be natural.
I evaluated the weapons. Arin’s instructions were clear. Two weapons I could tuck into my clothing and one I would carry. I chose a rounded dagger with its scabbard, tucking it between my breasts. I had wrapped a tight undergarment around my breasts and ribs for this precise purpose. Poor Wes turned the color of a plum during training when I refused to tuck the dagger into my waist and reached into my tunic instead. I slid the second, shorter blade into my boot.
I chewed my bottom lip, deliberating between the axe and the spear. I practiced almost exclusively with the spear. Its weight would be familiar, and it was Arin’s weapon of choice.
I ran my nail along the sharp line of the axe. Too much comfort in battle was its own danger.
A piercing shriek rang from above me. I threw myself to the ground, curling below the nearest tree. Through the blanket of skeletal branches, I watched with breathless awe as Al Anqa’a was released over Dar al Mansi. Wings the size of a carriage unfurled. The limited light reflected off glass feathers fading into the colors of a sunset, a gradient of magnificent oranges and pinks blending along its wings, ending with gray-tipped feathers. Talons long as a man and sharper than any sword curved forward.
Al Anqa’a was the only creature they did not kill at the conclusion of the trial. They had clipped its wings to ensure it could fly only in a low loop, and its beady eyes scanned the village below for movement. I exhaled when it flapped its wings, circling to the left. I darted between the trees, leery of any open space. Once Al Anqa’a fixed on its prey, there was no escaping its clutches.
Rounding a cluster of thistles, I came upon Dar al Mansi in all its eerie glory. Thick green vines covered the earth like bulging veins, creeping up the sides of crumbling shops and over the rubble. Fully grown trees sprouted from low buildings, their bases pulverizing the outer walls. Human life reclaimed by the savage wood.
The space between trees lengthened from here, which meant I would need to keep pressed to the walls to stay hidden from Al Anqa’a.
I dashed from the tree to an overturned carriage in the middle of the road. My nausea grew with each step into Dar al Mansi. I could not tell whether my cuffs were reacting to the residue of magic left here, or if my stomach simply couldn’t handle the suffocating smell of decay.
Crouching behind the carriage’s wheel, I assessed the distance I would need to cover to reach the nearest shop. Al Anqa’a circled over the square. I curled into a tight ball.
A guttural smacking sound erupted from my left. Limping from what might have been an apothecary, the unmistakable shape of a nisnas emerged. I’d heard tales of the ghoulish creatures, yet they paled in comparison to the reality. A nisnas was what might have become of Timur if I had left him lying on Ayume’s forest floor, vulnerable to the forest’s sinister magic. One arm dragged behind the nisnas, longer than the rest of its misshapen body. Where the other arm should have been hung a translucent sack of blood, swishing with its slow crawl toward me. Half a leg bulged from the center of its torso, and the single yellow eye in its bulbous head blinked at me. Stubby fingers formed a spiked collar around its throat. Yellow skin grew over its mouth, leaving it incapable of anything beyond a stifled gurgling.