handling of a god’s seed or menses. As such, they were instructed in the private ways of men and women. It was no great mystery.
But it was a mystery forbidden to them. To serve a god, a handmaiden must be pure, untouched. Once bedded, all hope of such honor was gone. Just last year, a secret tryst between a young man and woman, both fifthfloorers, had been discovered. They had been whipped, then banished from the Conclave.
“Not a word,” he growled again, fingers at her throat. His other hand reached down between her legs, under the tied edges of her skirt. Fingers tore at her undergarments, ripping and pulling.
Tears ran down Dart’s face, burning with shame and horror. She couldn’t breathe. She stared over the master’s head as he panted and pawed. A hundred pairs of eyes stared down at her from the rafters. Silent witnesses.
And there was one other.
Pupp ran in circles at her feet, passing through her flesh, biting at her attacker, but his razored teeth found no purchase. The bit of energy he had used to scratch Laurelle must have wasted his reserves.
Dart felt just as helpless.
Below, fingers found what they had been searching for, cupping against her skin. She had been touched like this in the past only by healers testing her virginity. But now it was rougher, horrific. A scream built behind her ribs.
Then the hand moved away.
“Now for your lesson,” he groaned at her. “To show you how to please a god.”
She was forced to the floor, on her back. He straddled atop her, pulling up his robe. He wore nothing underneath.
He kneed her legs apart and shoved her skirts above her hips.
She fought against him, but this only seemed to make him grunt harder and his eyes glint more feral. She sobbed and choked and even tried to bite at him. She would lose more than her virginity here on this floor. She would lose all her hopes for herself, for her future, for the only home she knew.
But there was no stopping him. He was huge, outweighed her by ten stone. All she could do was cry and sob. Terror had taken all her strength away.
She turned her face. Pupp lay near her head. His eyes glowed with fury. Though forever silent, Dart imagined him whining, sharing her pain and terror.
Then she felt Willet shove inside her, ripping her, breaking her. Blood flowed. The scream burst from her lips, but he was ready even for this. A fistful of her own skirt was shoved into her mouth, gagging her.
“I am your god!” he moaned.
Pupp was again on his feet, diving through her body, his touch cold. He shoved down between her legs, his frigid wake ebbing some of the pain. When he reached her belly, ice flared. The momentary agony vanished, washed away. She felt nothing below her waist.
Still, Willet continued to rut into her, pounding and pushing, grunting and panting.
Dart squeezed her eyes closed, wishing herself away. But there was no escape. She could smell him, hear him, feel his lips on her neck.
Then the monster arched back from her, gasping out through clenched teeth. Dart cringed, but Master Willet’s cry of pleasure suddenly transfigured into a scream of pain. He fell back from the cradle of her thighs.
Dart opened her eyes in time to see an arc of blood spout from the man’s groin, fountaining up like a stream of piss.
But the man no longer had anything with which to piss.
Nothing lay between the man’s legs.
The same was not true of Dart. Still numb, unable to move her legs, she watched Pupp crawl out of her belly, rising up between her thighs, covered in her own blood. The small creature spat out a limp chunk of flesh: the man’s prick and sack. Pupp had bitten it all off from inside.
“Pupp…” she moaned. Feeling returned to her, agony flaring, as her friend climbed free of her.
Only then did she notice Willet’s eyes grow wide with horror. He was staring at Pupp, seeing her monstrous friend for the first time.
It was the last thing he ever saw.
Pupp leaped at the cowering man, becoming a blur of blade, spike, and razored teeth. He drove into the man’s belly, burrowing straight through. But Pupp was no longer a ghost. Flesh sizzled and burned with the touch of his molten skin. Curved spikes tore through flesh and bone.
A horrible howl accompanied the slaughter.
On hands and knees, Dart fled to the far side of the room. She had worked in the kitchens. She had seen meat ground into sausages, metal churning organ to pulp.
This was the same.
In moments, butchered to scrap, nothing remained of the man.
Pupp crawled free of the pile, shaking blood and bits of gore from his spiked mane, coughing up gouts of scorched meat. With a final shudder, his body blazed into brightness, a burning ember blown to life.
In that moment, Pupp shone with a terrible and fierce beauty. An intelligence beyond her friend stared into this world as a keening wail filled the chamber.
Shadows thickened and billowed outward from his form, sweeping through the room. Ravens, silent sentinels until this moment, shattered from their perches in a panic of wings and feathers. As a flock, they dove out the windows and were gone.
Alone now, Dart cowered, trapped between horror and panic.
But no further harm came to her.
The shadows fell under their weight, sinking to the floor and vanishing away. The piercing wail vanished with them.
Pupp remained in the center of the room, his blaze doused to its usual ruddy hue. He was now clean, unsoiled-as was the rest of the rookery.
Numb, Dart watched Pupp cross the spotless floor, trotting to her side as he had done all her life. He sat at her feet and groomed himself with a flaming tongue.
Dart reached a trembling hand out to her friend. But her fingers passed through him. He had gone ghostly again. How?
She took a step away, suddenly fearful. But as she moved, her legs shuddered, her knees jellied. An ache throbbed throughout her belly. She felt a fresh trickle of blood flow down her thighs. Sobbing, she fell to her hands. The room spun. She vomited boiled cabbage all over the floor.
Pupp was there, nosing her, concerned.
It was all too much. She fell on her side and curled herself on the floor, crying, sobbing, and shaking. She stared across the chamber. There was no sign of Master Willet, not even a stain of blood. All had vanished into the darkness.
Had it happened? Had it all happened?
A fist lay curled between her thighs, holding back the ache. She tugged her hand free. Her fingers were covered with blood.
Pupp belly crawled to her bosom. She reached to him again. Her bloody hand found warm flesh to touch. Pupp pushed into her, rubbing into her stained palm. She could feel him! He was hard and warm, like an agate stone of a fire god, freshly blessed in blood.
The answer was clear.
“Blood,” she whispered.
The effect was brief. As the heat dried the dampness from her palm, her fingers fell through Pupp’s form. He was gone again.
Allowing the mystery to distract her, she sat on the floor and pulled her knees up to her chin. With her arms wrapped around her shins, she shivered and shuddered, rocking slightly. Occasional sobs broke through, but she focused on merely breathing. In and out. The Litany of Nine Graces echoed in her mind: blood to open the way, seed or menses to bless, sweat to imbue, tears to swell, saliva to ebb..
But she kept coming back to the first.
“Blood to open the way…” She stared at Pupp, now curled at her side, and wondered the meaning of it
