Page 11 of Siege of Shadows

“Take a picture of it.” Belle began pulling up the dead body. “Take a picture of everything. Use the function in the visors. And Lake—Lake, getup.”

With a whimper, Lake wiped her face and turned around with red eyes.

“Search the room. We’ll do a quick sweep before leaving.” She stood, hoisting the corpse over her shoulder as if it were half its weight. The young man’s helmet dangled from the fingers of her free hand. “We don’t have much time. Work quickly.”

With a crisp, derisive chuckle, Chae Rin pulled her goggles down over her eyes. “Okeydoke,” she said, giving a humorless smirk. “Let’s make this quick.”

•••

Maia...

Maia...

Are you listening...?

Not for the first time, I heard her voice, softly, dangerously whispering in the recesses of my head. It’d been happening like this for weeks. It was how I knew I’d fallen asleep. It was how I knew I had to wake up.

The slow, deliberate notes of a secret melody drifted out from the dark. Humming. I couldn’t see her—I couldn’t see anything—but if I calmed my breath, I could hear her calling.

Maia...?

Then I saw it emerge from the dark—the image of an arm going limp over a couch, of a glass cup slipping from the grasp of Natalya’s long fingers.

No, not again. I tried to tear my gaze away, but it was as if I’d been petrified. That’s when I saw him slipping out of the shadows, his hands shaking as the woman tumbled out of her living room chair, his head lowered as he stared at the body on the floor.

“I’m so sorry.” Tears stung Rhys’s eyes as he whispered it.

Maia. Don’t be afraid, Natalya told me.Come to me....

“No!”

My eyes snapped open as a stream of short, violent breath escaped from my lips, erratic, uneven. Bending over in my car seat, I placed my head in my hands.

Don’t think about him. Don’t think about him. Don’t think about any of it.I repeated it until the image of his sweet face, his strong jaw, and his soft lips disappeared completely from my mind’s eye. Once it did, I could breathe again.

“Hey! You okay?” said Lake from the seat next to me, shaking me by the shoulder. “Breathe, girl,breathe.”

“Yeah.” My mouth was dried-up and tasted bitter. I swallowed whatever saliva was there and gave her a reassuring nod. “Just a nightmare.” One I’d been having far too often lately. One I wanted to never have again. “It’s okay. I’m good.”

“Had me scared for a second there.” Lake tilted her head before leaning in to inspect my face. “Um, you’ve got a little...”

After she pointed to the corners of my mouth, I wiped the drool off and sighed.

The clay walls of the Sect facility shimmered orange and red under the sun. The gentle breeze in Marrakesh, Morocco, was a nice change from the desert torrents we’d faced hours ago, but the heat was just as relentless. Our Sect van was parked outside the premises, the dulled black automatic gates locked behind us. But the air-conditioning was broken, which meant that to keep ourselves from cooking, we had to keep the car doors open. A couple of flies buzzed in with the heat, one flitting annoyingly close to my ear. Waving it away, I lay back against my seat, wincing from the sun’s onslaught.

Her voice lingered somewhere deep in me.Maia... Maia...steady like a drumbeat, each strike an assault on my nerves. My fingers twitched as I brought them up to my forehead and shut my eyes, trying to block her out.

Effigies fought and died, and each death opened up the door for another girl to inherit the power of the last. No, not just the power—the legacy, the memories, and the consciousness, even if just in pieces. Natalya Filipova was the last in my line. That meant parts of her lived on inside me. The Russian-born legendary fire Effigy who had lived as a hero.

But she hadn’t died as one.

And she would never let me forget it.

It took me a moment to realize my hand was shaking against my forehead. Quickly, I brought it down and stared at it. The soft, sandy skin tone was mine. The dark lines stretching across the red of my palm. The white nails, cut short. This was my hand. Mine.

Even though I could remember how it felt to have Natalya move it through her will alone.

Mine.I clamped my hand shut as if the sharp pain of my nails digging into my skin sealed my desperate thoughts as truth.

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