Page 122 of Heir

“Ilar, help!”

Not Ruh. Not like this.Mother Div was consumed by bloodlust. Gobbling hearts, tearing that Durani apart. She was locked away too long. Corrupted, somehow.

Aiz dragged herself toward his voice, frantic to reach him. “No, no—” Aiz babbled, incoherent. “Run, Ruh—”

Div was faster. A clatter of bones. A shriek. Mother Div held something small and incandescent. Aiz knew then that sweet Ruh, who only knew villainy from his stories, was gone.

Because of Aiz. Because Aiz had involved him in the hunt for Mother Div’s story, her spirit. Because Aiz hadn’t had the strength to turn him away. Because Aiz was a damned fool.

The Kegari girl screamed. And screamed. She wanted to die herself.She wanted to be consumed, to not feel this grief, this horror at her own actions. She’d sought out Mother Div. And she’d released her, not understanding that Mother Div was no longer a cleric, but something else entirely.

She crawled through Tregan’s remains to Ruh, still whole and perfect but for his heart, shriveled and smoking in his chest.

“Oh—oh no—” Aiz clasped the body to her, voice rising in a shriek. “Ruh—”

Mother Div’s voice surrounded Aiz. “Thank you, daughter of Kegar. For freeing me.”

Aiz sobbed as she held Ruh’s small body. “This isn’t freedom,” she screamed. “This is murder! You killed him. You—”

“I told you this would not be easy, child. I told you there would be sacrifices.”

“But not Ruh,” Aiz said. “You never said it would be him! And—and Tregan—”

“All things have a cost, Aiz bet-Dafra.” Mother Div’s voice hardened. “You agreed to pay it. My imprisonment was the work of the First Durani, a vicious, vengeful woman who used ill sorcery to trap me. She made it a condition of my freedom that to live, to survive in a body, to work magic, I require aid.”

“Aid…?” Aiz felt bile clawing up her throat again as she thought of Tregan and Ruh. “The—the hearts.”

“It is a foul and ancient magic,” Mother Div said, her voice dripping in malice. “But those I take are at peace. They are one with me in the moment that I take them. This child—he did not die in vain. He died that you might succeed.”

“You will need more,” Aiz said. “More hearts. What of—of animals, could you—”

“Animals are not enough,” Mother Div said. “For power—true power—the sacrifices must be human, and pure of heart. You and I arelinked. Chained to each other, as surely as Loha links you to a Sail when you fly. I have some freedom, but I am largely bound to your will. I cannot feed unless you allow me to.”

Now, finally, Aiz understood what Div meant bysacrificeand her heart quailed at the horror of it. Everything about this was antithetical to what Div stood for. Yet it made a twisted sort of sense that this was what a Durani would do to Div’s spirit.

“You ask me to trade lives.”

“I ask you to think of the many instead of the few. Let me show you what you will receive in return. Perhaps you do not understand.”

Mother Div knelt, and when Aiz cringed back, terrified, the cleric sighed and forced her hands to Aiz’s face. Aiz was four again, helpless as her mother was dragged away by soldiers, somehow knowing she’d never see her again; she was six and freezing, the very idea of warmth forgotten; she was seven, and her stomach seemed to devour itself with hunger; she was eight, and Dafra cloister burned, and Tiral laughed, and all was aflame, and then—

—rain. Sun. Light illuminating the graves of Tiral and the Triarchs. A cloister rebuilt with pale yellow stone. The orphans unrecognizable with clean clothes and plump cheeks, like the children of the Tribal Lands. Fields of wheat and corn and rows of trees stretching to a horizon of blue hills. A distant waterfall feeding into a wide green river that wound through a breathtaking city. Aiz, beloved of her people, walking toward a glowing triangle of light—the Fount.

“Your homeland,” Mother Div said. “Your future. If you choose it.”

“I—I—” Aiz looked down at the body in her arms. She’d thought Ruh might one day meet Hani or Cero. She had thought her people and Ruh’s could be allies.

“What future do you choose for your people, Aiz? Death? Or life?”

For a moment, Aiz’s vision flashed black and yellow. She heard the gnash of teeth and the groan of beasts, a surging sea that hungered. Butit was gone so quickly that she questioned whether she’d seen it at all.

She looked down at poor, broken Ruh.This isn’t fair, she thought.Why did he have to die? Why not Elias or Laia, or one of the useless others?

But then Aiz heard Cero’s hard voice in her head.You were born knowing the world isn’t fair. You work around it like always.

With Mother Div’s question echoing in her ears, Aiz laid Ruh down. She wiped her tears away. For months, she had plotted and planned for this moment. She’d known there would be sacrifices.To step into the abyss and know Mother Div will catch you—this is faith.Sister Noa had spoken those words months ago, quoting the Seventh Sacred Tale.

Aiz didn’t have the luxury of mourning Ruh or wailing about the obliteration of her humanity. As before, this was a test. Aiz must plan and plot again. Kill Tiral and the Triarchs. Take over rulership of her people. Send emissaries to the Empress of the Martials and trade for Loha.

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