Page 235 of Fangs
“Your body has previously been claimed by another who defied the will of the cosmos and the God of Death. Your soul is stained with his defiance, and your flesh still bears his mark, but today, you shall be reforged.”
My body went cold all over.No. He couldn’t mean?—
A Voiceless stepped forward. He met my frightened gaze as he knelt in the dirt beside me and pressed his fist against his chest, head bowed. Then he straightened, grabbed the front of my T-shirt, and ripped it open to my navel.
Panic stole all the air from my lungs, and tears rolled down my face. Talmar approached, his eyes hard and unforgiving, and my eyes locked on what he held in his hand. It was a metal branding iron—a real one—and a sob escaped.
“May this symbol forever serve as a reminder that your mind, body, and soul belong to the God of Death. As this brand burns away the mark of the traitor, may it also burn away your pride and your resistance, may you be purified through fire, and may the God of Death look favorably upon your sacrifice.”
Talmar turned and held the brand out. A Voiceless stepped forward, lifted their metal arm, andflamesshot from their palm like a blow torch. I watched the metal slowly begin glowing orange, gasping in panicked breaths.You don’t break. You don’t break.
All too soon, Talmar turned back to me, holding the glowing brand aloft. I couldn’t make out the symbol from where I lay, but I knew it was something worse than Juck’s initial.
“Prepare yourself, Goddess, for the mark of reclamation.”
There was no hesitation, no guilt, no regret in Talmar’s expression—just a feverish light shining in his bloodshot eyes. I sobbed through my teeth as I clenched my jaw and tried to brace myself as Talmar slowly lowered the brand, but the second the burning metal pressed into my skin, a scream of agony ripped out of me. The horrifyingly familiar smell and sound of my flesh burning choked me as I tried to suck in a breath, but I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t?—
I jerked back to consciousness at the sensation of my pants being removed. I immediately started kicking, my bare foot smashing into the face of a Voiceless, but the pain in my chest hit me, and I almost passed out again. As I struggled to stay conscious, my ankles were seized and rebound.
Talmar appeared above me and smiled.
“Fuck…you,” I got out through my teeth.
He crouched beside me, still smiling, and I knew something worse was coming. “As I told you, it is forbidden for us to touch the Goddess of Life intimately,” he said softly, and bile surged up my throat. “So I shall offer my body to the God of Death. I shall be his vessel as he claims your body for his own.”
“No,” the hoarse word escaped despite my effort to keep my mouth shut.
He gently stroked the side of my cheek, and I jerked my head to the side. “I warned you, Goddess. I gave you so many chances to avoid this fate.” He grabbed my chin, forcing me to hold his gaze. “Wewillbreak you, Ember. Continue to defy us, and we will strip away every last shred of dignity until you understand the futility of your resistance.”
There was no point in holding back anymore. I shoved down all the horror and fear at what was about to happen and let unfettered rage take control. “The only thing you’re a vessel for is your tinydick,asshole!”
The red veins in his eyes seemed to protrude even further as rage filled his face, but the cruel excitement in his eyes scared me the most. He stood and turned to the surrounding Voiceless, raising his arms to the sky. “By the power vested in me as a prophet of the Voiceless, I call upon the God of Death to descend upon this humble vessel. Through me, the God of Death shall claim the flesh of the Goddess of Life and bind her soul to his eternal will.”
“You do not break. You bend.”
I squeezed my eyes shut. The panic was breaking through the rage now, building and burning in my chest worse than the pain from the brand. I felt him approach, and the tattered pieces of robe brushed across my bare legs.
“Let this be your final lesson in humility, Ember,” Talmar said low in my ear. “Or else I shall invoke the God of Death into every single prophet here, and we shall take turns until you are begging to submit.”
His metal hand grabbed my bare upper thigh, and panic exploded in my brain. Everything went white.
I woke up to the incessant buzzing of flies. The sun was high overhead, shining brightly on me. I went to sit up, but the pain in my chest made me halt with a gasp. I raised shaky fingers to touch my chest where the painscreamed,but then I remembered, my body stiffening at the memory of being restrained, the brand, and then?—
I squeezed my eyes shut and sucked desperate breaths in through my nose. When I was certain I wasn’t going to be sick, I braced myself and sat up, wincing in pain, and froze. My bare legs werecoveredin blood. Each breath I took sounded far too loud as I slowly lifted my eyes and stared in numb horror at the carnage surrounding me.
For a long moment, my eyes couldn’t process what I was seeing. I was no longer restrained, but there was bloodeverywhere,and the flies were thick. My gaze caught on a severed hand lying a short distance away, and it slowly dawned on me that I was looking atpiecesof bodies. Pieces. As though the Voiceless had exploded. Even the metal prosthetics hadn’t withstood whatever happened, chunks of torn metal and frayed steel tendons mixed in amongst the flesh. I got to my feet, shaking, and slowly turned.
Talmar’s eyes were bulging in what looked like fear as they stared up at me from his severed head. There was no sign of the rest of him.
I turned and retched, but there was nothing left in my stomach. A ringing sound filled my ears as I fought to catch my breath, and everything in my head went quiet. Some deep-seated animal instinct seized control, narrowing everything down to only crucial steps to survival.
I was alive.
I was barefoot and half-naked.
I needed clothes.
Slowly, I walked through the bloody gore, searching for my pants. Several coyotes lurked on the edges of the camp, watching me. A few of the braver ones seized chunks of remains and darted into the trees with them. Above me, in the sky, several hawks and other birds of prey circled. There would be more predators soon, lured by the smell of blood. I finally found my pants, partially buried under the remains of a Voiceless. I pulled them free and did my best to shake them off. New holes looked like they’d beenburnedthrough the denim. I glimpsed Sax’s jacket, lying on a discarded pack, and pulled it on. I found my boots next, my socks neatly tucked inside. I struggled to put them on as my hands violently shook.
