where it hung-“it’s not much, but-what?”
Sithe stared blankly at the dress.
“You think it won’t fit? We’re of a size, you and I-mostly.” The genasi was a bit broader than Myrin, but not by much. Amazing, how so much warrior fit into so little body.
“I-” Sithe said. “I cannot wear that.”
“Why not?” Myrin asked. “The color doesn’t flatter your inner darkness?”
From the way Sithe stared at her, she’d not taken the jest.
“Very well-I’ll get the blanket. Sorry about it being blasted in half.”
Myrin fumbled for the covering, which she wrapped around Sithe’s frail body. The genasi seemed so thin and weak. She had not brought her axe to Myrin’s room. Before she had been a force of death, but in that moment, Sithe seemed suddenly a woman. They sat on the floor together.
“Why, um,” Myrin said. “Why are you here? Don’t misunderstand-I don’t mind. But I never got the sense you even noticed me, much less-”
“I attempted to defeat you and was defeated,” Sithe said. “My life is yours.”
“Oh. That makes sense,” Myrin said. “It really isn’t necessary, you know. I appreciate your honor, but I’d much rather your life be your own. Mine’s complicated enough as it is.”
Sithe offered her a studious look with no reaction one way or the other. “You make war against yourself,” the genasi said, gesturing around the room. “You wish to forget?”
Myrin shook her head. “The opposite, in fact,” she said. “My whole life, I–I cannot remember the slightest moment of it. Only bits and pieces I take from other minds when I touch them. I take their memories for my own.”
“When you touch them,” Sithe said. “As you did with me.”
Myrin remembered then-the night Toytere had betrayed them, Sithe had gone mad. She’d only stopped when Myrin stole her powers. What had happened to the genasi in that moment?
“Yes,” Myrin said finally. “When I touch them.”
The genasi extended one torn and swollen hand-an offer.
“No, it-Sithe, it only works if you’ve met me before,” she said.
The hand withdrew and the genasi looked haunted.
“I’m sorry,” Myrin said. “Here I want to remember … and you want to forget.”
“No fear.” Sithe shook her head. “Only the weak fear to remember what is past. Only the guilty are ashamed of it. I am neither.”
“It is not weakness to run from a memory that is painful,” Myrin said. “And it is not shame to let yourself hurt.”
“So you say,” Sithe said.
Determined, Myrin reached out and took the genasi’s hands. Sithe flinched away, but Myrin held them securely. She needed no magic to feel the woman’s pain.
“You don’t have to be empty to be strong,” Myrin said.
The genasi, her black eyes wide and staring, nodded slowly. The lines of power along her skin grew darker-their blackness deepening in intensity-almost like a human might flush. As Myrin watched, the darkness blurred in her eyes, swelling around the bottom, then it abruptly leaked down her cheeks. Tears.
“It’s well.” Myrin scooted forward and put her arms around Sithe, pressing her head into the woman’s shoulder. “It’s all well. You’re safe now.”
The genasi at first sat rigidly, then returned the embrace fully. Her silent tears became sobs and she let Myrin hold her as her body shook.
“I heard their voices,” Sithe said. “I heard them, in the darkness, as they chewed my flesh-as they drank of my soul. They said ‘come with us, Sister-
“That’s not right,” Myrin said. “You are not like them.”
“Am I not?” Sithe glared into Myrin’s face. “My father was a demon who raped my mother and left her for dead. I was born with darkness in my soul. How can you say I am not one of them?” She clasped her hands to her stomach. “Every one of them was a little bit of me-every one bore the same inner void, the same awful hunger.” She shivered. “I can feel them now, in my head. Their hunger is inside of me. Their rage.”
“You are not like them,” Myrin repeated.
“Look!” Sithe threw off the blanket and tore free the tatters of her bodice. “See!”
Myrin’s eyes widened. Bites rose on Sithe’s chest, angry and red. And-Myrin saw with dawning horror-they bore traces of crimson crystal.
“The Fury,” Myrin said. “You carry it.”
The genasi nodded. She looked past Myrin at the red dress that lay on the broken bed. Myrin thought she saw longing in that look.
“You will keep my secret?” Sithe stood.
“If you wish,” Myrin said.
“When the time comes”-the genasi tightened the blanket around her body-“I will ask Kalen Shadowbane to kill me.”
Myrin opened her mouth to protest, then nodded solemnly. “Why him?” Myrin asked. “Why did you spend all that time teaching him?”
Sithe met her gaze levelly. “Because he can be better than he is.”
“Are you”-Myrin clenched her hands very tight-“are you in love with him?”
Sithe looked past her, at the red dress, and her gaze seemed nostalgic and a little sad. It was, Myrin thought, as though the genasi mourned-in that moment-for a life she had never had. Sithe shook her head.
“That is why you love him, is it not?” Sithe asked. “Because he can be better?”
Myrin wanted to deny that-both parts of it-but the words wouldn’t come. She nodded slightly, her eyes damp.
“He is who and what he is,” Sithe said. “But he is a better man than you think.”
“No,” Myrin said. “No, that-that isn’t possible.”
Sithe nodded in silent understanding.
Myrin sniffed, wiped her nose, and stood. “Shall we see if the menfolk have decided anything?” She paused. “Well, after we get you some clothes.”
“Scour.” The image that flashed into Kalen’s mind was of dust borne upon a wind. Dust that whipped so hard it tore the flesh from bones, turning it to red mist. “It fits.”
“Indeed,” Lilten replied. “Scour is the consciousness that drives the hordes of Luskan, but it is no black wizard or mortal villain. Scour is a demon-a source of evil so powerful I, for one, have rarely seen its match.”
“Is that impressive?” Kalen asked. “Do you know evil well?”
Lilten smirked. “I do not believe Scour thinks the way you might understand thoughts, but it causes chaos the way you or I might breathe. It follows no set pattern, killing by instinct where it will cause terror. This goes on, folk disappear, tempers grow, violence flourishes, and the demon gets what it wants. Or”-Lilten waved his glass-“it infects its victims with the Fury and forces them to fight in their madness.”
“So where does it come from?” Kalen asked.
Lilten shrugged. “That knowledge would go no small way to defeating it, but alas, I do not know,” he said. “I had hoped you would find more on the derelict, but now it rests in burnt cinders at the bottom of the bay.”
“It was you,” Kalen said. “You were the man without his own face, who sent Myrin and Rhett to the ghost ship.”
“Without his own face-I rather like that.” Lilten raised his glass. “All I know of Scour encompasses what it is and the fact that it is very powerful. Oh”-he waved his finger to indicate a point-“and I have some sense of where it lairs.”
“Where it lairs,” Kalen said. “You could take me there?”
“I suppose,” Lilten said. “Not that I have any suggestions about what to do once you find it. You’re the hero here.” He drained the last of his wine.
“We fight it,” Kalen said.
“Well,
