Page 130 of Heir

J’yan’s gasp was swallowed by Div’s hungry snarls. His body went limp and crumpled to the ground as Div hunched over him, his beating heart throbbing beneath her lips.

Sirsha opened her mouth to scream, but she couldn’t even take in a breath. As J’yan’s heart grayed to ash, a wretched cry tore from her chest.

R’zwana stared in horror. “No—you should have taken her,” she said. “Why didn’t you take her?”

As Div fed, R’zwana whirled on Sirsha, and the hatred in her gaze could have peeled the bark off a tree. Sirsha considered leaving her sister in the tent to die. But J’yan wouldn’t want it, and she’d do this last thing for him. Her survival instinct took full hold, and she grabbed R’zwana’s elbow in a vise grip and dragged her out of the tent.

“Get off me— Get—”

“Shut it!” Sirsha hissed. “You’re going to get us bleeding killed!”

R’zwana looked around at the busy camp beyond the tent, dazed. Perhaps finally understanding the precariousness of their position, she fell quiet, following Sirsha as she ducked behind a hay wagon and then led them through the camp pell-mell, desperate to get away from that creature and its endless hunger. They avoided notice through sheer luck.

Sirsha stopped near the camp’s perimeter, her hands on her thighs as she tried to catch her breath.

R’zwana finally spoke. “What—what was that thing?”

“I don’t bleeding know!” Sirsha shoved her sister, her anger and griefat J’yan’s death taking over. “Itoldyou it was too strong! You didn’t listen, youawful, pig-headed—”

“If you’d bound it when I said, J’yan would still—”

Sirsha reared back and punched her sister square in the face before she could finish her sentence. R’zwana staggered, dazed, and then collapsed. Sirsha resisted the urge to kick her, instead dragging her sister beneath a weapons cart and out of sight. She’d wake up soon enough and figure her own way out of the camp. Whether she survived or not—

Well, that was her problem. Sirsha looked back once toward Div’s tent. “I’m sorry, J’yan,” she sobbed. “I’m so sorry.”

Then she ran.

36

Aiz

It was the sound Aiz hated the most. The savage snapping of a human body, followed by growls of Div’s gluttonous feasting.

They’d left the cavern of horrors, Div holding Aiz like one would a sleeping child, flying as if she had a Sail. But there was no canvas above, no seat below, no Loha.

“How is this possible?” Aiz had gasped at the bite of wind in her face, shuddering so badly she feared Div would drop her.

“I am the spirit of Holy Div reborn, child. The greatest windsmither to live. I do not need a Sail to fly. Neither do you.”

The Tribal Desert stretched beneath them, the brown earth gleaming like the furred back of an animal, the Jack trees glowing gold and pink as the sun rose.

“What do you mean,” Aiz asked, “that I don’t need a Sail?”

“You have my power at your disposal.” Mother Div’s dark hair streamed behind her like a flag. She offered Aiz a beatific smile.

Then she dropped her.

Aiz screamed as she fell, scrambling for the wind. She was going to die, and as Ruh’s terrified face flashed through her memory, she realized shedeservedto die—

A burst of power surged through her, like sunlight flushing her veins. She gasped, arresting her fall with such ease that she shot into the air a few feet before leveling. Mother Div drifted down beside her with the grace of a falling petal.

“That is just a taste,” she said.

Over the next week, Mother Div healed her broken leg and taught her how to harness the wind, not just to fly, but to use as a weapon. Withindays, Aiz’s rudimentary control was magnified. She leveled trees. Tore a roof off a barn. Cracked the neck of a steer. She’d left everything in the cavern—her book, her pack, even her aaj. She needed none of it.

They moved quickly across the countryside at night, finding shelter during the day. The few times they ran into other travelers, Aiz interacted with them while Mother Div watched.

“My curse is not only that I must feed on the young and innocent,” Div explained. “I am also unseen to all but you.”

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