If only she knew how to summon flame wisps on command.
“But maybe it’s for the better,” she told herself, basking in the freedom of giving breath to her thoughts without fear of being judged. “He’d find me if I used fire.”
She sped farther into the thicket, even if all that welcomed her was darkness. Distance from Javier was what mattered. She would deal with the issue of direction after dawn.
Eva stumbled on roots and stubbed her feet on protruding rocks yet didn’t slow. The darkness smelled damp and sweet, like she was passing bushes or trees blooming with flowers. Branches scratched her limbs and tugged at the hems of her skirt. Thorns pricked her arms. Moist leaves caressed her face. A gnarled root impeded her path, and she tripped and landed painfully on a bent ankle. She cursed, curling on the ground to nurse her joint.
There was a certain crispness to her breathing as she waited for the throb to soothe. Her nose got cold. Then the hairs along her arms and legs prickled from a chill. Eva touched her forehead. Were these the cold sweats of a fever? A sweltering, humid heat had kept most of the afternoon company. She thought of Javier—of how his proximity had suffocated her. So why was it cold all of a sudden?
She stood up, watching the blackness of the jungle and listening. The cacophony had ceased, as if every critter had fallen into a deep sleep. She suddenly hated the idea of being alone. Not even the wind breathed in and out of the trees anymore. Eva slapped at the prickle of a mosquito bite on her arm.
That’s when she realized: She wasn’t alone in this jungle.
The rustle of a faraway bush caught her attention, the movement loud in her expectant silence.
Eva’s heart jumped. She couldn’t see anything, but she trusted her intuition. There was something lurking behind the trees. Her instincts again begged her to run.
This time she listened.
Eva sprang back to where she’d come from, tripping over the same root a second time. She shoved the pain to the confines of her mind and ran.
A creature jolted out behind her. It snarled, as if in satisfaction, stomping over the underbrush with feet that sounded like hoofs. Like the terrible stomps of a bull.
Leaves slapped her across the face. Dim starlight filtered through the jungle’s canopy, showering its density in shadows. She could barely see where she was going.
Behind her, the footsteps grew louder, manic and determined. She could hear it behind her, its snarls laced with laughter. In a fleeting moment, Eva glanced back and saw the terrible black silhouette of a creature at least a head taller than her, with a torso covered in ragged fur, like a wolf’s, and the curled horns of a bull. The starlight reflected wide eyes.
It was catching up to her, and it was going to shred her to ribbons.
She stubbed her foot on a large boulder. She flew forward, crashing hard against a tree. A coppery wetness filled her mouth as her teeth split her lip from the impact.
She didn’t give herself the luxury of acknowledging the pain. She crawled around and pressed her hands together in a litio incantation. The protection came out sharp and determined.
The creature’s slash crashed against a sparkling barrier of gold. The blow was a terrible sound, like nails against crystal. The demon faltered for an instant, surprised, then resumed with one relentless strike after another.
Every slash chipped away a bit of the litio. The barrier cracked with sparks of gold that lighted the velvety black face of a bovine, a scarred muzzle with salivating fangs, and the clawed hands of an eagle. As a large fissure streaked the length of the barrier, the beast grinned down at her with a hundred pointed teeth.
She created a different incantation a second before her barrier shattered—a wall. It reconstructed in a bright flash, blinding them. She seized the reprieve to run away from the creature.
Behind her, the wall held for a second longer before bursting.
The creature tore through the jungle as if growing bigger from her panic.
Finally the thicket opened to a clearing of tall grass. The sounds of her pursuer multiplied, like there were more than one. She heard a second pair of hoofs, then a third.
Eva’s lungs burned. She leapt over rocks and air roots until her knees gave from the abuse. She glanced back again, foolishly, and saw three creatures possessed by slithering black smoke. Like Javier’s corruption.
The nearest one lunged. It caught Eva on the side with a single slash, drawing hot blood. Eva screamed in agony. The monster attempted to grab her, and in the struggle she was hurled far. She rolled onto her back and pressed her trembling hands together, willing a barrier into existence.
The creature’s second slash was stopped by glittering magic, which materialized as a dome of golden threads.
The other two joined the onslaught. They snarled and laughed all at the same time, like superimposed sounds. Like those of something half beast, half person.
Fire and acid ate at her open wound. Eva curled up in a ball and cried, the relentless slashing on the barrier a shrill torture to her ears. Bit by bit, she could see the flakes of protection coming undone. The fissures multiplying like branching rivers.
Rivulets of tears blurred her sight. Her trembling hands were drenched, pressed against her gash that wouldn’t stop bleeding.
Blinded by pain, Eva let go of the wound to recast the protection, imagining an even thicker wall—of steel or obsidian. It didn’t happen. The rings Javier had gifted her had run out of litio potion.
With a vicious snarl, one of the creatures punched through, its leathery skin tearing as the hand broke in. This one had the hands of a decayed human corpse and reeked like one.
Eva scooted to the other side of the dome, only to hear the slashing behind her. A fourth had joined the assault.
The creature pulled its hand back, then fervently tugged on the breach. Tug by tug, the barrier gave. It stretched it out until it was deformed enough to allow for a wide cavity. They yanked her out by the foot.
The world was black and red and searing like fire as the creatures pulled her between each other. They bit and slashed and ripped. Blood bloomed in her mouth. Their putrid stench blocked her nostrils. Then they pinned her against the ground and raised their amalgamated hands to the air, intent on striking her chest.
A whirlwind stopped them midway. They screeched, and Eva had the briefest relief from the agony. She was a bloody rag. Every inch of her body burned in never-ending pain. She didn’t care to open her eyes. All she wanted was for it to end.
In a way, her wish was granted. While the creatures fought and screeched around her, Eva allowed the darkness to numb her.
The black was like a blanket, cold and without kindness.
Mercilessly, it claimed her.
26
The Galio Healer
For two years Reina had lived with the whispers of the iridio ore as the only reminder of her abnormality. Thanks to the transplant and its iridio, she had thrived on the stability of this good health, her nozariel strength swelling with the sparring lessons and her grandmother’s coaching in the arts of geomancia. So used to these comforts, she didn’t understand why the air emptied her lungs as a great ache shook her shoulders. She hadn’t imagined it would feel this way to be starved for nourishment, to have her emptying iridio reserves feel like a punch to the gut, leaving her writhing like a dying earthworm.
It was hard for Reina to recall exactly how it happened. One moment she marveled at the magic of the iridio table, wondering why Celeste chose to go to La Cochinilla, and the next the cold flagstones were pressing against her cheeks, sucking out her heat like the slick damp of her palms. The pain was like a splitting of slabs, sudden and thunderous, but she recognized it after having lived through it once. Reina gulped for air and cried until soft hands cradled her shoulders. Maior. Reina’s name was called several times, she recalled that. And the concern in the human’s voice was enough to spur Reina into lifting herself off the ground. Somehow, Maior herded her up the stairs and toward the first bedroom they could find, where Reina collapsed on a hard bed packed with hay.