Page 616 of Shadowblood Souls
Maybe I can never make up for the horrors I’ve committed. Maybe my soul is forfeit. But I need to live if I’m going to write a new story for myself, make a different mark on the world than how I started the tale.
I’m never going to be a hero, but when I meet my end,Iwant to be sure I was more than a villain. No matter what anyone else will see when that noose tightens around my neck.
The soldier’s voice rings out, arrogant and bored. “No one here’s giving you any trouble I hope, good merchant?”
I bite back a snort. The only person making trouble is the man he’s talking to, which he could no doubt figure out if he gave a roach’s ass.
“I’ve received an excellent welcome,” the merchant replies smoothly.
The boots turn. The soldier ambles off, and I gradually let out my breath.
The conman goes on plying his wares. Heismaking good business, cajoling yet another customer into handing over their sparse earnings for a glimmer of opportunity.
His success makes him confident—and careless. While he deals with a lonely spinster and then a struggling shopkeeper, I massage more coins out of his pouch. Taking the silver a few coins at a time ensures he doesn’t register the lightening of the weight at his back.
The crowd thins. I slip a final bunch of silver into one of my pockets before feeding a few handfuls of pebbles into the merchant’s pouch to replace what I’ve stolen. If he gives the bag a pat, it’ll feel suitably full.
May it take him until nightfall to realize that he’s lost nearly all of his stash.
With another grim smile, I pull back. I have to slink well clear of the wagon before the merchant sets off.
I’m just drawing my body around when something spooks the horse.
At the gelding’s squeal, my head jerks around. He rears, and a brief twinkle of light darts beneath his flailing forelegs.
It could be a trick of the eye—or it could be a daimon making mischief, as they so enjoy doing.
I don’t have time to contemplate the possibilities, because as the horse’s hooves hit the ground, he springs forward, dragging the wagon.
My stomach lurches. In a second, I’ll be exposed.
An urge punches me from the inside out, as if an impatient hand has wrenched through me from gut to sternum. It thrusts toward the world outside, determined to fling forth thesupernatural power coiled within my body and latch on to the fastest way to save my skin.
No!
I slam down on the impulse with all the self-control I’ve spent years honing and whip myself around. My back jars against the hard-packed dirt with a pang of my scars, but I’m already heaving upward.
My fingers and the toes of my boots snag on the nooks in the underside of the wagon. Every muscle strains as I cling to the shaky handholds I’ve caught.
My right forefinger that’s cut off at the first knuckle wavers in the air. I’ve never missed that fraction of a digit more.
The wagon jolts with the gelding’s next yank. He hurtles forward with a frantic whinny, leaving the charms clattering on their shelves and the merchant cursing. Someone shouts advice from the crowd while a child bursts out laughing.
An ache spreads through my limbs with the effort to hold myself off the ground—and a sharper pain lances through my chest. I clamp my lips against a gasp of agony.
Gods, no, not again…
The pain ignores my silent plea. It sears up to my shoulders and down to my pelvis, lashing this way and that like a bonfire in the wind.
Fuck, this is even worse than the last time.
I squeeze my eyes shut against the burn of unbidden tears and clutch at the wagon with every ounce of my will. If I can tolerate the agony for a few seconds… a few seconds more…
The wagon careens onward. The magic I refused to use rails at my body, punishing me for my defiance.
One of my feet slips and bounces off the dirt with a fresh burst of pain through my heel. I fling it back upward?—
And the wheels on either side of me grind to a halt.
