Page 128 of Heir

“Ma doesn’t know, or you wouldn’t still be Raan-Ruku.” Sirsha ignored the twinge of guilt she felt at the helplessness washing over R’z’s face. “So, here’s how it works from now on. I’ll tell you what to do. You’ll do it. And after we kill this murderer,sister, you’ll never hunt me again. Understood?”

R’zwana gnashed her teeth, a deeply unpleasant sound. But then, thankfully, she nodded. J’yan sighed quietly, as relieved as Sirsha.

“I know you can’t track,” Sirsha said. “Can you bind?”

“It’s only the tracking magic that’s faded,” R’zwana muttered. “I’m not— I’m still not as strong a binder as you.”

“You’re stronger together,” J’yan said. “You always have been, much as that might annoy you.” He turned to Sirsha. “What’s the plan?”

They waited until full night to approach the camp from the west. As of yet, no alarm sounded—Quil hadn’t reached the Tel Ilessi.

The narrow lanes were poorly lit, which made infiltration easier. But not easy, by any stretch. Soldiers patrolled, ate, cooked, trained, chatted, argued. They were everywhere, with scores of wind-wielding pilots among them. While Sirsha didn’t doubt she could bind them easily, the camp was crowded enough that they’d have been discovered a dozen times over without J’yan hiding their passing.

As they penetrated deeper, Sirshafeltthe killer. But her presence was subdued. Quiet. Sirsha saw a distortion in the earth ahead of her.She awaits you, the earth spoke.Beware.Sirsha kept moving east, the disparate strands of the trail coalescing, thick and viscous like an ooze in her mind, leading to the far side of the camp.

Behind her, R’zwana gasped.

Ahead, in the shadows of a low hill and past a row of supply wagons, a lone canvas tent hunched. No bigger than the rest. Yet it was set apart. Sirsha crouched amid a stack of crates, watching. There were no guards. No one entering or leaving. The Kegari passing the tent avoided even looking at it, giving it a wide berth.

Death. Pain. Unnatural. It churns, it eats, it is never satisfied.The earth whispered the words, as if frightened. A spike of terror lanced through Sirsha’s body at the way the earth was damaged here, twisted. The natural magic that lay like a thin web over all things sagged brokenly, as if shredded by a rabid animal.

R’zwana stared at the tent like it was poison. “I can feel it.”

“It’s a trap,” J’yan warned, and even he was affected, the freckles standing out starkly on his pale skin. “Remember that, and we can figure our way out of it.”

Sirsha nodded. “Wait for my signal.”

As she flitted through the camp, mud squelching beneath her boots, she touched Elias’s oath coin and spoke to the elements.Be with me.They hummed back in response, a tremor only her bones could feel. Before her instinct told her to run as far and fast as possible from the tent, she walked through its flaps.

Within, it was bright and cheery, weirdly at odds with the oppressive feel of the place. There was a thin bedroll on a raised wooden cot. A finely carved Thafwan chair and table in one corner, and thick rugs on the floor instead of cold dirt. The brazier in the center of the tent crackled, the coals within blasting heat into the space. There was even a mirror in one corner.

For all its comforts, the tent was empty. Yet Sirsha could feel something oily and slick. Something watchful.

The tinkle of coins alerted her to the killer’s presence, but Sirsha didn’t turn, only looked up into the mirror to see her lurking. Sirsha’s skin broke out in goose bumps. The creature had again taken the form of her mother, proud-faced and strong, fully coined. Every inch the Raani. Except for that hungry, too-wide gaze that did not belong on the face of any human.

Sirsha felt repulsed, like she needed to crawl out of her own skin. She wanted to murder the monster at that moment. Wrap magic around her so tight that she choked on it and died, as Loli Temba had died.

“S’rsha Inashi-fa.” The killer bowed low. “I longed to look upon you again.”

Hearing her full name in her mother’s voice almost made Sirsha forget why she was here.

Bind her. She is a horror.

The elements brought her back to herself, and Sirsha turned to face the killer, not bothering to hide her disgust. “You knew I’d be comingand you didn’t make me any tea? You’ve clearly never met my mother.”

She plopped down on one of the seats and gestured to the other. “Join me?”

The monster cocked her head—something Sirsha’s mother had never done in her life, and Sirsha wondered where she had learned that trick. From another human perhaps.

“Tell me your name,” Sirsha said. “I’m sick of calling youthat infernal murderer. It’s tedious.”

“You may call me Mother Div, Holy Cleric and Vessel of the Fount.”

“I see that we have philosophical differences about the meaning of the wordholy, so I’ll call you Div. Or maybe Detestable Div, if I’m annoyed. Why are you stuck in here, then?” Sirsha leaned back, drawing on years of practiced nonchalance, even as she tried to get a read on the creature, to figure out how she would bind her. “I mean, it could be worse. I’ve been sleeping on rocks and twigs for the past two months because of you. But a creature of your…range should have better accommodations, no?”

“My range has been limited these past two weeks.”

Skies, what a trick. Div really did sound exactly like the Raani. Gently, so gently that the creature couldn’t possibly notice, Sirsha probed the earth.

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