That was what the box contained. Hands.
Hundreds of them. Belonging to men, women, children. Infants.
And all bore the brand between the thumb and forefinger. The sigil of the Zorokov family.
These were slaves’ hands.
I dropped the hand back into the box as I doubled over, vomiting into the grass.
Max swore under his breath. He darted from the door, looking around for whoever had left this here. Distantly, I became aware of a strange sound in the air. I didn’t look up. If I had, I might have noticed it was wings. There were dozens and dozens of birds overhead, circling.
I could not think of anything but this. Slaves’ hands.
Hundreds of people. Here. In front of me.
Max’s footsteps halted suddenly.
“Tisaanah,” he whispered. “Get up.”
I rose. I wasn’t sure how — my legs felt as if they had no blood in them. Somehow I had the presence of mind to pick up Il’Sahaj. Max stood just within the open doorway, his staff bared. Fire shivered along its length, casting a bloody red glow through the living room.
“I suggest you tell me what, exactly, you’re doing in our house,” Max said, “and who we can thank for such unpleasant gifts.”
For a moment, I wasn’t sure who he was talking to.
And then I saw it: a figure standing in the center of our living room.
It was tall — so tall that its head nearly brushed the ceiling. And it was dark, as if made up of shadows, wearing a cloak of darkness that defied physical understanding. Yet, even through that shapelessness, I could tell that it had long, spindly limbs. Its fingers were so long that they just seemed to trail off into the air, like shadow dissolving into light, almost brushing the ground. Its legs were long, and footless, with knees that bent the wrong way.
No matter how long I looked at its face, I could not find its features. It was as if there was just a smear of nothing where the face should be.
And yet, I knew that it smiled.
The Zorokov family does not appreciate being lied to.
The voice was not a sound so much as it was a reverberation, expanding like a puff of smoke. This line came in Thereni, with the distinct accent of the Threllian ruling class — but it was hollow, like a mimicry.
Then another sound filled the room.
Screams. Screams of pain. First one, and then more and more, until it was a cacophony of voices pleading, begging, weeping.
I did not need to be told what I was listening to. I had been presented the hands of slaves. And now I was being given their death screams.
Something inside of me snapped. I didn’t think before raising Il’Sahaj — before I was lunging.
My slash made contact. I felt the satisfying bite of Il’Sahaj’s blade into flesh. Or— was it flesh? A spray hit me across the face, but it was not warm like blood, and seconds later, it began to burn.
The thing barely faltered. Its movements were choppy, as if it skipped through time, discarding half-seconds. Even up close, I could not see its face. But from within the strange shadow, I saw glimpses — glimpses of people screaming in pain and terror.
It went for my throat.
But Max lunged faster, staff alight with fire so bright that embers floated around him as he buried it deep within the creature’s body. The thing shuddered, as if moving in a hundred directions at once.
Max snarled as he unleashed a burst of flame, and I withdrew Il’Sahaj for another strike, and—
Suddenly we were alone.
The creature’s absence was so jarring that Max stumbled back. We found ourselves just blinking at each other, our weapons still raised.
Seconds of silence passed.
“What,” Max said, quietly, “in the name of the fucking Ascended was that?”
“It is still here, somewhere,” I whispered.
I didn’t know how I was so certain. But when Max inclined his chin, I knew he felt it, too. He lifted his fingers, and all of the lanterns in the house whispered to life, dim red light blooming over the walls.
Slowly, we paced around the perimeter of the room. And then, down the hallway. Max was ahead of me, the firelight reflecting a sheen on his bare back. With the tip of his staff’s blade, he nudged open the door to our bedroom, then lifted his fingers to bring fire to the lanterns. They illuminated nothing but the crumpled blankets on the empty bed and overflowing bookshelves.
It was utterly still. Utterly silent.
Max eyed the pile of sheets on the bed with suspicion, gingerly pulling them aside with his weapon. But I turned around, regarding the dark wooden cluttered bureau. Above it was a long mirror. Like many of Max’s belongings, it looked as if it had spent its better days in a much larger, much grander house, and now sat here in this messy cottage looking somewhat ridiculous.
I saw a reflection of the room and the flickering light, of Max’s back as he nudged aside a curtain. Of course, I saw myself.
Yet… something was strange.
I couldn’t figure out what, at first. Then I realized: my reflection was doused in shadow, like I was silhouetted against the light.
But the bedroom was lit.
“Max,” I murmured. My grip tightened around Il’Sahaj’s hilt.
In the reflection, I watched him turn and stand behind me. And then I watched myself step forward, fingers pressed to the mirror, face still blurred in shadow.
Except I didn’t. I didn’t move.
“It’s—” I started.
It lunged.
The next thing I knew, I was on the ground. The creature was on top of me, intangible and yet so heavy I could not breathe. The face that stared back at me was nothingness, and then it was my own. I felt as if my mind was being rifled through, my memories picked apart
