Page 106 of The Gilded Ones

“What happens to your old body?” I’ve seen alaki corpses rotting on the battlefield, all of them that awful blue colour from the final death. They just remain there, like every other corpse, but perhaps something happens later that I don’t know.

Katya shrugs. “It rots, I suppose. But the new one…it just sort of bursts out of that egg and then you’re swimming up, and all these bloodsisters are gathered around calming you, telling you you’re all right – only they’re all deathshrieks, and now you’re a deathshriek. Even worse, humans are now always so frightened of you.”

Her eyes slide away from mine. “That’s the worst thing, you know: human fear.”

“Why?” I ask.

“Because it makes us kill them,” she whispers miserably. “The moment the humans sense us nearby, they begin to be afraid. It’s like they can feel us, and the fear overwhelms them. Then the smell of it overwhelms us, and that’s what starts the mist and the shrieking.”

Now I understand.

The Gilded Ones made deathshrieks natural predators. That’s why they’re bigger and more terrifying, why they have the instinct to destroy their natural enemies. They were literally made to withstand humans.

Just as I was.

I understand now why I see so much more clearly in the dark than others, why I don’t need food or water to survive, and my tolerance for pain is so much higher than the usual alaki’s. The Gilded Ones gave me all the abilities I would need to survive in a world primed to kill me.

“I’m glad, though,” Katya adds abruptly.

“Why?”

She shrugs. “Because I’m not dead yet.”

“But what happens if you die again? As a deathshriek, I mean.”

I’ve killed enough deathshrieks to know that their bodies don’t disappear into the ether. They remain solidly on the ground, rotting…that is, until someone takes a trophy. Guilt churns through me at the reminder.

“The elders say there’s the Afterlands, just like for everyone else.” Katya shrugs. “Although I probably wouldn’t mind it… The Afterlands, that is…”

“Why?”

She turns to me and smiles a brave, sad smile. “Because then I don’t have to fight any more.” She looks down at her claws. “I told you before – all I ever wanted to do was to marry Rian. To have my children, a home…”

Poor Katya.

After all this time spent fighting, I’d almost forgotten about the girls like her – the ones who only ever wanted a family and a home.

They always died fastest at the Warthu Bera, either killed first on the raids, or in accidents during combat practice.

The battleplace is not kind to the gentle, innocent souls.

“I’ll never have that now,” she says, “but in the Afterlands, I’ll have peace. Everyone deserves peace, don’t you think?”

I nod. “Everyone deserves peace. Hopefully, once this is done, we’ll get it.”

“I hope so too,” Katya says with a smile.

Underneath us, the clouds are clearing and the Temple of the Gilded Ones is coming into view. It sits in the middle of a crater in the N’Oyo Mountains’ highest peak, a massive structure at least four times larger than any other I’ve ever seen, the steps leading up to it at least a mile long. A lake of pure white salt surrounds it, and the sun glints so harshly off the grains, I have to shade my eyes against the glare.

To my bewilderment, a group of zerizards, at least fifty of them, are perched on the temple’s steps when we land.

Dread stirs inside me the moment I glimpse their red saddles. Now I know why I didn’t see the emperor or his guards on the battlefield. It’s because he’s been up here all this time, waiting for me.

“The emperor – he’s already here!” I say, hurrying off Ixa.

“No matter, so are we,” a familiar voice replies.

I whirl, startled to find Adwapa standing at the shadowy entrance to the temple, a smirk on her face.

---