Page 101 of Heir

The creature hissed and Loli’s heart glowed red, then orange, then white hot before collapsing into gray ash.

She fell to the ground, dead, the feathers still ruffling in her hair.

Sirsha tried to scream. To move. But every nerve was gripped by terror.

The apparition hunched over Loli, and Sirsha heard a vile sound. An obscene, greedy moan, as if the creature was ecstatically enjoying the most delicious meal. Then silence—and a sudden feeling of a monstrous attention rising, shifting, fixing on Sirsha.

The killer’s stare felt as heavy as a harrow plowing furrows into the earth. Its consciousness seemed to scrape against Sirsha’s mind. Its form solidified into a human wearing a familiar robe, patterned with the purple and gold embroidery of a Jaduna Raani.

The figure lowered her hood and Sirsha found herself looking at her mother.

No—Sirsha caught the creature’s brown eyes and flinched—not her mother. Something wearing her mother’s face. Sirsha hadn’t seen the Raani of Kin Inashi in eight years—but she knew her mother’s magic, her cool scrutiny. Thisthingwas no Jaduna.

Beneath the murderer’s skin, a monstrosity seethed, its vastness something Sirsha could scarcely fathom. It wasn’t human, though it wore the guise of one. Perhaps that’s why the wind had called the killersheall those weeks ago.

Sirsha chanced a glance behind her. Quil, Arelia, and Sufiyan were unconscious.

“They are weak of mind, weak of body,” the killer said in a voice eerily identical to that of Sirsha’s mother. “Not you, though. As I suspected.”

“Don’t you look at them.” Sirsha stepped in front of her friends, daggers ready, though her hands shook so badly they’d be useless. “Why did you kill her?”

“A far better question,” the killer said, “is why didn’t you stop me?”

Sirsha’s mind whirred as her gaze darted over the creature. She watched Sirsha with her head tilted. She didn’t know Sirsha’s name or who she was. And yet, the killer took on the form and voice of Sirsha’s mother. The earth around her—the air—felt wrong. As if a gaping wound stood in front of Sirsha, manifesting in the form of a person.

The creature stank of the spirit world. But she didn’t feel Karkaun at all. Sirsha thought she might be a projection from a source nearby. But how could a projection do so much damage?

“Oh, it is fascinating to watch your mind work,” the killer breathed. “I’d like to get inside it.” She dropped her voice, and there was something vulgar about how she spoke. About how she used Sirsha’s mother’s face and form to look at Sirsha like she was something to be devoured.

“Not sure why,” Sirsha retorted. “Nothing in here but spite and lies.”

“Your magic is…special?” The killer tried out the word, as if it were unfamiliar. “Yes. Special. I’ve never seen its like.”

Sirsha didn’t bleeding care. But while the creature talked, Sirsha felt, through the earth, a thread of magic the creature was working hard to hide. A cord tied back to her source.

Somewhere, the killer had someone pulling her strings. She had a master.

“What are you?” Sirsha asked, hoping to lure the creature into talking about herself.

“An interesting question.” The creature smiled, an expression that looked somehow corrupted. “No one ever asks, you know. I have tried to talk to some of them before I eat them, but they are screaming, usually, and do not care what Iam…”

While nodding along to the killer’s prattling, Sirsha whispered to the earth.Follow the tether to the source. Who is the source?

Sirsha’s mind filled with images. She moved south through a verdant, forested mountain range that yellowed to grassland. Then the earth took her east, skipping across an azure river and toward a vast coastal encampment. Soldiers patrolled in the shadows, beyond the light cast by hundreds of small cooking fires. Flags flapped in a stiff breeze, a blazing gold half-sun against a blue sky.

In the camp, a tent. And in the tent, a tall figure with broad shoulders and dark hair leaning over a table, speaking to a young woman. Behind them stood a group of men and women in familiar blue-scale armor.

“Holy Tel Ilessi,” one of them said. “We cannot split the forces this way. If only you—”

The tent darkened. A human voice spoke.Return to me. Now.

Sirsha’s consciousness was wrenched back to the jungle clearing. The killer shrieked at her, enraged at what Sirsha had done, and the apparition burst from her human skin and disappeared—yanked away by her master.

“Sirsha.” She felt a hand on her shoulder, and turned to find Quil, stricken as he looked down at Loli Temba’s body. Behind him, Arelia struggled to her feet, stunned. Sufiyan stared at Loli in a daze.

“Skies,” Arelia gasped at the sight of Loli Temba’s ravaged chest. “What happened?”

“Sufiyan,” Quil said. “Don’t look.”

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