Page 14 of A Frozen Pyre
Four
Valor Mast, Tarkhany
The consistent crash of waves was a welcome relief.
The woman closed her eyes and let the sound wash over her like a lullaby against the cool, dark night. She sipped on the salt and dust in the air, appreciating each night away from the city. She pretended the ceaseless noises made by others were little more than specks of flotsam, whipped by the wind and obliterated by the cliffs. She pictured each sound shattering as it broke against the red rock and smiled.
She hadn’t known what to expect when she’d abandoned the capital and joined a caravan bound for the seaside. Life was harder here, as were its people. She was sick of eating fish. With nothing else to do, she’d run out of books far sooner than anticipated, which was fine. It encouraged her to return to her writing. She used the noise to make art, crafting stories from the lives that flowed in and out of her. Pages, scrolls, leather-bound books, and loose papers filled her modest home. She wasn’t content with her life, but it had nothing to do with the fish, the tiny village, or the lack of entertainment. Maybe it would have been enough of a life—at least, enough of what she could hope to expect, should she be forced to go on living—if there had been drinking water.She wasn’t religious enough to pray for rain, yet she regularly found herself begging the All Mother to send in fresh water when the days grew long and the village was thirsty.
Water wasn’t the only thing they craved.
Her arrival had been met with excitement akin to bloodlust. It was rare to meet travelers, let alone have a beautiful new fae move into one of the cliffside dwellings. A few women had remarked that she’d draw less attention if she dressed differently—if she took the gold cuffs from her arms or the piercings from her nose. She advised that she’d have a better chance at going undetected if she covered herself from head to toe and became one with the cliffside rocks.
She’d kept her gold, her bangles, her piercings. She wore what she pleased. Even with a scarf and every inch under wraps, they’d still have spotted the tattoo masking her jagged scar. There’d be no way to slip between the cracks of society unnoticed.
Some men had met her with kindness, advances, and courtship. She’d turned them all down, of course. Then there had been those with less pure intentions. Times like that, she didn’t mind the noise. It kept her safe. It kept her distant. It kept their greed, their entitlement, their fingers, their force as far from her as possible. Her noise was both gift and curse.
She heard something.
It was not her noise.
She tilted her head and listened to the strange sound as it grew louder. This wasn’t the familiar, goddess-awful noise. This was wind, and compression, and…something. A jolt of panic hit her the moment before the screech confirmed her fear. Her heart caught in her throat as chaos unfolded, ears ringing, cold sweat clinging to her brow as the noise flooded her.
A scream tore through the village.
She jumped from the bed and ran to the window just in time to see moonlight glinting off an enormous black shape as it shot over the cliff. With the inky shape came thesuffocating stench of sulfur, a mist of rot and decay in its wake choking out the scents of fish and sea. Her mouth dropped open in silent shock. She barely had time to react, barely had time to feel fear before the shape lunged for the cliff opposite her own. The moon lit the cliff with metallic clarity, showing her each unholy movement, each unbelievable sight, each nightmarish lunge. Her lips parted in a scream as sound and noise overlapped, both the sounds of screaming, of crunching of clawing and dragging, and the noise, the terrible, endless noise of the others. Half the cliff disappeared behind the flexing, flapping, membranous wings of a serpent the size of a mountain. It dug its talons into the windows and doors in the cliffside dwellings and struck its great head.
The first lunge was unsuccessful. The creature shook the impact from its reptilian head like a dog attempting to remove rain from its hide. Then, it slithered into the house with serpentine slowness, head and neck twisting and bending while its body remained lodged on the cliff. She heard the bloodcurdling cry and knew her neighbor was gone. She clutched her heart and stumbled backward from the window.
Her heart thundered. There was nowhere to run. Nowhere to flee.
She caught movement as a neighbor jumped from her house onto the little ledge at her doorstep. She knew this woman—she was the newest mother in the village. The wrappings secured against her body betrayed the tiny shape that clung to her, freeing her hands. The woman grabbed the ladder and began to ascend with spider-like speed.
The snake saw it, too.
The mother hadn’t stood a chance. In a single moment, it had woman and child in its teeth. It tore into her from the side, teeth crunching her torso as it ripped the woman from the ladder. Anguished wails of body and bone ripping filled every nook, every crevice, every hiding place within the village.
Taking her from the side had been a mistake. Unable tothrow her back in a single bite, and with nowhere to set its kill, the winged snake wasted its meal. It released her from its jaws, and her now-limp body tumbled from its teeth to crack against the salt-slick rocks at the base of the cliff.
She stumbled back from the window, hand flying to the muscle skittering arrhythmically in her chest as she begged it to calm. She would have time to grieve later. She wanted to vomit, but her sickness would not serve her survival. What would she do? Where could she go? She’d meet the same fate if she went for her ladder. Even if she made it to the top and ran from the cliffs and into the desert, she’d be exposed. If the winged monster didn’t consume her, the sand and the sun’s baking rays surely would.
She pressed her back to the far side of her small stone home, gaping at the tiny window to the carnage as villagers were devoured one home at a time. She sank slowly to the floor and brought her knees to her chest as cries, pain, blood, and the unholy wail of a demon consumed the night.
A choking, sulfuric wave rolled from the square window, vanquishing the scents of dust, salt, and blood until death and hell were all she smelled.
She closed her eyes against the horrors until she felt something.
A push of air filled her small home. A breeze ruffled her loose hair. A roll of carrion on a new wind forced her to open her eyes just in time to see a set of horrible wings keeping the creature aloft as it hovered just outside her window. The enormous black eyes of a nearly human face peered through the window as it looked directly into her soul.
Five
Midnah, Tarkhany
“He’s gone, Your Majesty,” the advisor promised. He looked around the marble room for effect. “We’ve secured every entrance and exit. No one is getting in or out without our permission.”
Zita waved a hand. “That’s not enough, Hassain.” She addressed the man directly. He’d served within the palace for decades for his strength, loyalty, and cunning. His ability to speak to stone—the man’s secondary gift—had never been of relevance to her before the incident. She examined him as she said, “We’ve thought Tempus was gone ten thousand times before. You’ve seen what he can do. The man can glide past you wearing my face. We need to be sure. Where is Suley these days?”
Hassain winced at the name. “You wish for me to fetch Suley? She went a long way to escape the city’s noise. She won’t be happy.”
