Page 11 of Mother of Death and Dawn

The dark-haired Fey uttered an unfamiliar word beneath her breath, one that sounded like a curse. “Thatis it,” she breathed. “Youdohave it.”

She was looking at my hand—at the strange gold now covering it.

Shit.

“That’s ridiculous—” I started, but the words barely made it out of my mouth.

“We aren’t here to play games, either, little slave,” Zorokov snarled, and I had no time to react before Melina’s throat was open, and her body was falling to the ground in a bloody heap.

And then another guard was on me. Two. Three.

“Take her hand,” someone shouted, and pain exploded at my wrist, so intense that for a moment everything else fell away.

I clawed my way back to consciousness. Clawed my way to my magic.

Do this, Tisaanah. You’ll die here if you don’t.

I summoned every scrap of magic in me, every remaining little fragment of it.Forcedit through my veins through sheer will.Gods, it hurt, like the magic was burning me from the inside out.

The guards holding me let out shouts of pain, pulling away rot-covered hands. My own right hand was useless—they had cut so deep that I glimpsed bone. When I grabbed my sword from the ground, I had to wield it left-handed.

Everything faded into a frantic smear of images. The guard falling, face black with rot. My sword plunging through another’s chest.

Something strange happened as I fought. Other images careened through me—not of my own desperate battle, but of other people that I knew were far away from here. As if, for split seconds, I was looking through someone else’s eyes.

First, I saw a copper-haired man with concerned green eyes, gazing at me. A beautiful room full of greenery and refracted sunlight. Utter, all-consuminghatred.

Gone. And then another image: a white room. Carvings on the ground, the same shapes over and over. Exhaustion. Fear. Looking down at hands that I knew very well by now, and the Stratagrams that inked the arms attached to them.

My heart stopped. I faltered. The image disappeared.

Max.

That was him. I saw him. I felt him. Iwashim.

This realization struck me so hard that I faltered, mid-movement. A guard struck me. My back hit the ground.

No. Go back. Go back.

I tried to reach back out to my magic, but it was out of reach. The magic surrounding my sword fell away, leaving only pitiful steel that one of the guards knocked from my grasp easily.

Iajqa stalked towards me, gaze fixed upon my hand. “Take it,” she commanded.

The guard raised his sword. I tried to dodge, tried to roll away, but another man gripped my shoulders and pressed my wrist to the ground.

But just as that blade was about to come down, a streak of gold hit the earth, knocking my captor away. I blinked, and before me I saw nothing but wings spread out beneath the blazing sunset light, shielding me.

I let out a breath of relief.

Ishqa glanced over his shoulder at me, looking annoyed. “This was not the plan.”

“Later,” I rasped, and scrambled to my feet. His arms were around me, ready to fly us away, when a voice shouted, “Ishqa!”

Ishqa’s head snapped towards the blond Fey, and he went still.

“Iajqa,” he said, sounding as if he didn’t know he was speaking aloud.

She approached, her brows drawn together. “Come back,” she said. “The king would take you back. Your son is not well, he—”

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