Page 5 of The Book that Broke the World

Hellet rolled slowly to face her, drawing sleepy grumbles from their neighbours. “It’s the angel of death.”

Celcha’s last fragile hope shattered. He’d come to watch them die. And Hellet had given him just what he wanted. She turned away, stifling a despairing sob.

“No. You don’t understand.” Hellet’s big hand covered her shoulder. “Starve’s here to show me how to kill them.”

“Kill Myles Carstar?” Celcha hissed, horrified.

“All of them.”

“The overseers as well?”

“All. Of. Them.”

Every loss of consequence creates within us a cavity in which that ache makes a home. An empty space full of sorrow. A void in which silent screams can echo, and unshed tears may pool. Some losses are so great they hollow us. We are cored. Nothing but skin wrapped around the hurt we’ve become.

Grasping the Tiara (Beauty Pageants for Children, Volume 6), by Anne Summer

CHAPTER 3

Evar

Evar hardly noticed the skeer in the doorway though he passed within five yards of it. The creature—whose presence prevented the door from re-forming—stood motionless and if it tracked him with all or any of its many bead-black eyes, there was no way to tell. Evar hurried after Clovis and Kerrol, entering, for the first time in the flesh, a library chamber other than the one he’d been born into.

“Find my girl?” Evar grabbed his brother’s shoulder, spinning him around. “What did you mean by that?” Kerrol’s departing words had been “I know where to find your girl.” Livira had been imprisoned in the Assistant for centuries, so the problem wasn’t one of “finding.” The Assistant was easy to find. Her shattered body lay not far from the Soldier’s, back among the corpses of the dozens of skeer that had died trying to destroy them. The skeer had succeeded, albeit at great cost, achieving what Evar had thought impossible.

There had been among those broken pieces no trace of the human Evar had fallen in love with. No sign that Livira had ever been trapped in that ivory statue. No sign of her companion Malar either amid the shattered remains of the Soldier. “Speak!”

Kerrol twisted free and raised his hands apologetically. None of his unparalleled skills at reading people were required to understand how close to the edge Evar stood. “I’m sorry for your loss, brother.”

“You said you could find her!” Evar snapped, unwilling to let go of the offered hope but also unwilling to believe it.

“I needed you to come with us.” Kerrol lowered his gaze. “Couldn’t leave you there for the next skeer that happened by.”

Evar wasn’t aware he’d swung for Kerrol until Clovis caught his wrist and pulled the blow aside. “Enough!” She pushed between them. Kerrol stepped back, unruffled, as if he’d anticipated both the attack and their sister coming to his aid.

“You don’t even know!” Evar shouted at both of them. “You don’t even know...” He jerked his arm free of Clovis’s grip. “Livira was the Assistant!” He tried to stop shouting, tried to steady his voice, but it kept breaking around surfacing emotion. “Her spirit. Her ghost. It entered the Assistant centuries ago. She was trapped in there ever since. The other one, Malar, was trapped in the Soldier. Until...”

Clovis stepped back, frowning, minute shakes of her head to express her disbelief. “No.”

“He certainly thinks it’s true,” Kerrol observed.

“IT IS TRUE!” With effort, Evar reeled in his anger. “It’s true. They raised us. Two humans trapped in assistants raised you, Clovis.”

Clovis shook her head more fiercely, but when she opened her mouth to deny it, no words came.

“I wasn’t lying.” Kerrol drew Evar’s attention to himself. “Misleading perhaps. I know your human’s in that book. Take it to the Mechanism and you’ll be together again, in a manner of speaking. It will help.”

“I don’t have the book,” Evar growled. He wasn’t even sure if there was a book anymore.

“So, what we need is an assistant to tell us where it is,” Kerrol said. “And whilst I don’t know where to find one of those with any great precision, I do know that it will be out here and not back in there.” He waved a hand at the corridor leading back to their chamber. “Plus, if that skeer decides to move, any of us still in there may well be trapped for another two hundred years.”

Evar’s shoulders slumped, his anger diffused. He couldn’t feel aggrieved against Kerrol, even though he was sure he’d been expertly manipulated.

Clovis shook her head a final time. “Come on.” She led off along the wall. “And quietly. This is skeer territory. There’ll be more of the bastards coming. Lots more.”

Evar refused to be led away. “Where’s Starval?” He looked back at the corridor. He wasn’t leaving Starval behind.

“With Mayland,” Kerrol said. “I saw them both go into a different pool.”

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