The Broken Kingdoms

Something rattled nearby.

I gasped, my heart leaping in my chest. Frustration forgotten, I pushed myself to my knees and listened hard. It had come from my right, somewhere above me, a quick metal sound. Water falling on exposed pipe, maybe. Or someone searching for us, reacting to the sound of my voice.

On my hands and knees, I quickly felt around me. A few feet to my left I found wood, old and splintery. A barrel, its binding rings rusty, one side staved in. Above it another, and then something that felt like a wide, flat piece of roof-shingle planking, leaning against the barrels. Jammed against it, a rotted-out crate.

I was in a junkyard. The only junkyard anywhere near the Tree was Shustocks, in Wesha, where all the area’s smiths and carters dumped their useless materials and carriageworks.

The roof planking formed a kind of lean-to against the barrels, with a narrow space underneath. As carefully as I could, I pushed the planking farther back, praying there was nothing balanced against it that would fall and give us away—or crush us. Nothing happened, so I felt around more, finally crawling under the planking to inspect the space.

Just enough room.

I backed out and got to my feet, and nearly fell again as another retching spasm took me. The pain in my head was truly awful, worse than it had ever been. I must’ve hit my head in the fall—not enough to break it, but certainly enough to rattle things around inside.

Another sound from the same direction, something thumping against wood. Then silence.

Panting my way through the pain, I stumbled back to Shiny’s body. Hooking my good hand into his pants, I leaned back with my hips and pushed with my legs and whimpered through my teeth as I dragged him back, inch by inch. It took everything I had to get him into the little hiding space, and he did not fit well. His feet stuck out. I crawled in beside him, panting, and listened, hoping the rain would wash away Shiny’s blood quickly.

Shiny groaned suddenly and I jumped, glaring at him in consternation. The dragging must have injured him even further. No choice now; if I didn’t kill him, he would give us away.

Swallowing hard, I did as he had done to me in the House of the Risen Sun. I pressed my hand over his mouth, pinching his nose shut with my fingers.

For five breaths—I counted my own—it seemed to work. His chest rose, fell. Stilled. And then he bucked upward, fighting me. I tried to hold on, but he was too strong, even damaged as he was, jostling me loose. As soon as I let go, he sucked in air again, louder than before. Demons, he’s going to get us both killed!

Demons. I flexed my hand, remembering.

There was plenty of blood to use as paint, at least. I reached under his neck and got a generous handful. My hand shook as I put it on his chest, gingerly. Before, I had imagined that I was painting, and then I had believed the painting real. Slowly I moved my hand, smoothing the blood in a wide circle on his skin. I would make another hole, like the one I had used to kill Shiny before, like the one that had pierced Dateh’s Empty. Not a circle drawn with blood-paint. A hole.

His chest rose and fell beneath my hand, belying this. I scowled and lifted my hand so that I couldn’t feel him breathe.

A hole. Through flesh and bone, like a grave dug in soft earth, edges neatly cut by an unseen shovel blade. Perfectly circular.

A hole.

My hand appeared. I saw it hovering in the darkness, fingers splayed, trembling with effort.

A hole.

Compared to the sickening throb already in my head, what arced through my eyes was almost pleasant. Either I was getting used to it or I was already in so much pain that it didn’t matter. But I noticed when Shiny stopped breathing.

My heart pounding, I lowered my hand to where his chest should have been. I felt nothing at first; then my hand drifted a little to the side. Meat and bone, cut neatly as if with a knife. I snatched my hand back, my gorge rising again all on its own.

“How peculiar!” cried a bright voice, right behind me.

I nearly screamed. Would have done it if my chest hadn’t hurt. I did whirl and jump and scramble back, jarring my arm something fierce.

The creature that crouched at Shiny’s feet was not human. It had a human structure, more or less, but it was impossibly squat, nearly as wide as it was tall—and it wasn’t very tall. Maybe the size of a child, if that child had broad, yokelike shoulders and long arms rippling with muscle. The creature’s face was not that of a child, either, though it was cheeky, with huge round eyes. It had a receding hairline, and its gaze was both ancient and half feral.

But I could see it, and that meant it was a godling—the ugliest one I had yet seen.

“H-hello,” I said when my heart had stopped jumping around. “I’m sorry. You startled me.”