Page 4 of The Crow Games

“Stop dancing out there with the broom like a loon,” I called over my shoulder. “You’ll bring the whole store down!”

Lisbeth gave no response. Another thud and a cascade of breaking glass followed. The bell over the shop entrance chimed sharply.

I shot to my feet. “Lis?”

The silence that answered sent my heart up into my throat. I ran for the door, throwing it open with such force it slapped against the wall and rebounded. Heavy quiet greeted me. The scent of hot bricks hit my nostrils, the smell so thick it gagged me.

“Lisbeth!” I choked. “Lisbeth, say something!”

I rushed to the entrance, my pulse roaring in my ears. The door hung wide open, and the wind beat against the glass. I searched the store front for an intruder or signs of Lisbeth, but the street was empty.

I screamed for my sister. When she didn’t respond, I ran back inside. On the ceiling, a bright red sigil in the shape of a flame burned overhead amongst the tin tiles, the source of the strange heat. It was a garm-summoning symbol, a powerful one that radiated divine energy.

I sprinted around the next shelf, sliding in fallen herbs and spilled oil, and then I froze. My stomach plummeted to my boots.

Lisbeth lay broken on the floor directly beneath the sigil, right where a nightmare-born beast pulled straight from the Otherworld had done their worst. Her big brown eyes stared at nothing, unseeing. Crimson trickled out of her mouth. Her legs bent at the knees at an unnatural angle. One of her slippers was missing.

Her lips were parted, but she hadn’t even been given the chance to call for help, to speak at all.

“We can fix you,” I rasped, falling at her feet, my voice pitching high. “It’s all right, Lisbeth . . . We’ll fix you up . . .”

I scooped her into my arms, and her head lolled.

“Don’t be gone, don’t be gone, don’t be gone,” I chanted. My eyes burned.

Blood caked her hair, mixing with shredded roots and shattered bits of glass. The mess of it dripped between my fingers. I cupped the back of her head, and a sharp bit of bone pricked my palm. A pitiful sound squeaked out of me. I shook her gently, trying to rouse her, frightened down to the bottom of my soul I’d never wake her again. Her light, the brightest, most lovely light, was snuffed out.

My vision flooded.

“Lisbeth!” I shut my eyes, squeezing tears out in hot little streams. “Don’t leave me!”

But she couldn’t really be dead! Any minute now I’d wake up in my bed in a panicked sweat. Lis would be fast asleep, safe and sound. In the morning, I’d yell at her for her terrible dream behavior and for scaring me . . .

But I didn’t suddenly wake up. Lisbeth remained broken before me.

Lifeless. Gone.

A sob shook my shoulders. Clutching her body to me, my fingers caught in a delicate chain. I pulled the amulet she had hidden under her bodice free, and fresh misery streaked down my cheeks and squeezed my lungs. The amulet was an old thing I had given her years ago. Made of copper, an image of a blazing torch decorated its center. I hadn’t realized she still wore it.

Hands tremoring, I removed it from her neck and put it around mine, tucking the amulet beneath my chemise so I could wear it closest to my heart. My chest, right where the cool metal touched, ached. The words to beg Lisbeth to return to me tangled on my tongue, impossible to press out of quaking lips. My nose ran.

Where had the garm who’d hurt her gone? I hoped it came back so I could rip its damned head off.

I lost track of how long I sat there, holding my sister, rocking her lifeless body the same way I used to rock her to sleep after she had bad dreams as a girl. Overhead, the heat began to cool, the sigil fading, its power waning with it. Her body too—it cooled in my arms.

I reached up toward the symbol but not with my hands. Claws made of gray mist burst from my chest. I grabbed the summoning spell with my spirit, trapping it in an ethereal grip. The image vanished from the ceiling as though it had never been there. I reeled the lingering god power to me, hauling the fiery magic into my body, tucking it between my ribs to fuel me.

It hurt a little. It heated my blood and made my skin smoke, but it felt right there.

As careful as though my sister were made of fragile glass, I slid her shattered body off my lap, onto the floor. I crossed her broken arms over her chest. I closed her lifeless eyes. A knot in my throat formed as I kissed her cool forehead one last time, the same way I had all those nights I’d tucked her into the bed right next to mine when she was small. My lips trembled, but I did not cry.

I was finished with tears.

My fingers curled into fists of fury. If the fool god who’d sent a beast to crush my innocent sister thought her powers were threatening, I’d show them real power. If it had been jealousy that had guided their hand, I’d give them a reason to feel envy. Lisbeth had had only a portion of the forbidden energy I possessed. The guilty god would tremble on their knees before I’d finished with them.

I’d been so careful to conceal what I was from the world for years while I’d raised Lisbeth, but I let all of that fall away, every cautiously crafted barrier that kept my powers in check like a stall for a wild stallion. I shed each lock, knocked down every mental door, and my skin steamed in the autumn air. My blood heated. I fed the god-fire in my chest my wrath, and energy sang in my veins, lighting me up from the inside out. I adorned myself in that rage like armor. Here grief and fear couldn’t touch me.

My enemies’ pleas for mercy would be in vain.

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