This Savage Song (30 page)

The first thing Kate saw was the body.

The second Malchai was slumped across from the open door, black gore dripping down its front where its chest had been torn open, the shield of its ribs shattered. Kate crouched and picked up a shard of bone, slick but sharp in her fingers. It wasn't a knife, but it would have to do.

She straightened, looked around: In one direction, beyond the warehouse's open doors, the night waited, an empty dirt lot giving way to fields. In the other direction, slumped in a pool of light, knelt August. August, bruised and bleeding, smoke trailing from him like a dying fire. Someone was standing over him, and at first she thought it must be Sloan, but as she drew closer, she saw the Malchai's body crumpled on the ground. And then she registered the new figure's height, the breadth of his shoulders, the glint of light on fair hair, and realized it was
Leo
.

Relief flooded through her at the sight of August alive, and Sloan dead, but then Leo hauled his brother to his feet, and she saw the pain written on August's bloody face, heard it threading through his broken voice as he pleaded with his brother, and tried to pull away.

Kate took a step back, and it must have been the blood-shined surface of the bone in her hand, or her movement against a still backdrop, but August's eyes found hers in the dark, and even from the distance she could see them widen, not with relief, but
fear
.

An instant later, Leo's head swiveled, too, his black eyes narrowing.

There was no kindness in that look. No mercy.

Kate stumbled backward and nearly fell over the body of the other Malchai as Leo let go of August and drew something from his coat. At first she thought it was a gun, the metal glinting in the pool of light, but then she saw.

It was an instrument. A flute, no bigger than his hands.

He raised it to his lips, and Kate drew in a breath, waiting for the music before she realized it was meant for her.

“Run!” shouted August, throwing himself at his brother.

The two went down on the concrete as Kate turned and sprinted out toward the night.

August was no match for Leo. He was too young, too hungry, handcuffed and broken, and the older Sunai threw him off and stormed out of the circle of light into the corridor. August struggled to his feet and surged after his brother with the last of his strength.

“Stop!”
he called as Leo stepped out into the night. August stumbled after him, one knee buckling as he reached the doors. He dragged himself back up, but fell again as Leo lifted the flute to his lips, and played the first note.

A soft, sweet sound that whistled through the air like wind.

“No!” screamed August, trying to break the melody, but it was no use.

Kate was running, her hands up against her ears, but as soon as the music started, her steps faltered, slowed, stopped. Her hands slipped from her head, drifting calmly back to her sides.

“No.” August tried to stand again, but couldn't. He knelt there, watching the red light drift to the surface of Kate's skin as she turned back toward them, Leo's music unmooring her soul and August's mind at the same time. When Ilsa had hummed, he felt peace. But when
Leo played, he felt like he was breaking apart, dissolving into darkness.

Which he was.

Somewhere beneath the heat and pain, he felt the scratch of a new mark, another day, four hundred and twenty-four, and none of it mattered because he was burning. Falling.

Kate's lips moved, and as she drifted closer, he could hear the words. Her confession.

“. . . thought he was going to hurt me. I didn't have to shoot him, but it seemed like the easiest thing to do . . . He could have been lying. I've forgotten what the truth looks like. I don't know who to trust anymore. . . .”

“Let her go, Leo,” begged August. “Please.”

The Sunai stopped playing, and Kate stood there, a few paces away, her features lost beneath the blaze of light.

“Take her.”

“No.”

“Her soul is red.”

“No.”

“You, too, have sinned, little brother,” said Leo. “Sinned against your nature and against our cause.” His words forced their way into August's fracturing mind. “You have such potential. Together, we will do great things. But first, you must atone. Now stand up.”

August rose, shaking, to his feet. Darkness curled around his body and drifted like steam from his limbs. The tally marks across his skin were fading one by one.

I am not a monster
.

“Enough, little brother.”

I am not
. . . his heart lurched in his chest.

“Give in to it.”

I am
. . . he could feel himself crumbling.

“Embrace your true form,” ordered Leo, and his words rolled through August, sweeping away the last of his strength.

August knew that he was right, knew what he had to do.

He stopped fighting.

And as soon as he did, the pain dissolved, and the fire went out, and he fell down, down, down, into darkness.

Kate stood alone in the night, and felt . . . nothing.

No panic. No fear. Even when the music stopped, it kept playing in her head, twining with the light . . . the red light. . . . Did everyone have the same amount, like blood? There was so much of it. . . .

She heard herself speaking, but couldn't focus on the words, couldn't focus on anything but the man in front of her, and the boy behind him.

The boy knelt there on the ground, wrists bound, looking so hurt, so scared, and she wished she could give him her calm. The boy . . . who was he . . . not a boy, but a monster . . . not a monster, but a boy . . . and then the music finally began to fade, withdrawing from her head, and Kate's thoughts seeped together into a name.

August
.

Why was August on the ground? And who was the man? Kate fought against the haze. Everything was
far away, but her mind was shifting and sorting, finding order. It was Leo, standing before her, and August behind him. Only he wasn't on his knees anymore. He was getting to his feet, darkness wicking off his shoulders like steam.

And then, between one moment and the next, he
changed
.

His face went smooth, and all the tension vanished from his mouth and eyes, the weight falling from his shoulders. His head tipped forward, the black curls swallowing his face as shadows rolled across his skin. They spread out from his chest, spilled down his limbs, blanketed flesh and bone, and for a moment, he was nothing but a plume of smoke. And then the smoke drew in like a breath, began to shift and tighten, carving out the lines of a body, its edges traced with firelight.

Where there had been a boy, now there was a monster.

Tall, and graceful, and terrifying. The chains crumbled from its wrists, blew away like ash, and when it lifted its head, its black eyes gazed wide and empty, lightless, shineless, matte as the sky on a moonless night. Smoke trailed up over the creature's head into horns and billowed behind its back into wings that shed curls of fire like burning paper. And there, in the center of its body, cracking through the darkness like a smoldering coal, its heart pulsed with fiery, inconstant light.

Kate's eyes watered as she stared at the creature. She couldn't look away. The fire crackled and burned in the cavity of its chest, and its edges—limbs, wings, horns—wavered against the dark, and it was mesmerizing, the way the blaze had been in the chapel that night. A thing made, and then set free. That fire had started with the flick of a match, and this, this had started with a boy.

Leo stepped out of the way, and the creature craned its head toward Kate.

“August,” she said.

But it wasn't him.

There was no August in its face, only shadow.

No August in its eyes, only ember and ash.

Kate tried to retreat, but under the monster's gaze, she couldn't. She was frozen, not from fear, but from something else, something deeper. Her body was no longer listening, not to her. The red light still danced across her skin, and she marveled at the way a whole life could be distilled into something so simple. The way a death could be folded into a touch.

The Sunai took a step toward her. It didn't move like other monsters, didn't twitch and shudder like the Corsai, or slither and strike like the Malchai. No, it moved like smoke, dancing forward on a breeze she couldn't feel. A song she couldn't hear.

Its hand floated up, fingertips burning. The heat
brushed the air before her, and the fear finally caught up. She tried so hard to pull away, to fight the hold of the red light wrapped around her skin. Tears streamed down her cheeks, but she didn't close her eyes.

“I'm not afraid of death,” she whispered, meeting the creature's gaze as it reached for her. She didn't know if August was still inside, if he could hear her, if he would care. “I'm not afraid,” she said, bracing herself for the Sunai's touch.

But it never came.

The Sunai took another step, but its hand swept toward Leo, its shadow fingers closing around his throat. Leo gasped in surprise, but couldn't pull away. He fought, clawing at the monster's grip, but its hold was unbreakable, its strength absolute.

“What are you d—?”
demanded Leo, but then the creature's grip tightened, cutting him off. It leaned in, and whispered something in Leo's ear, and Leo's face went from shocked and angry to blank. Not still, or calm, just . . . empty.

Something
began to rise to the surface of Leo's skin, not black like the Malchai's life or red, like a sinner's. What came to the surface of the Sunai's skin, Kate couldn't process. It was light and darkness, glow and shadow, starlight and midnight, and something else entirely. It was an explosion in slow motion, tragedy and
monstrosity and resolve, and it swept over Leo's skin, and wove through the monster's smoke, tracing the outlines of a boy-like shape inside the shadow like lightning in a storm.

And then, like lightning, it was gone.

Leo's legs folded, and the Sunai sank with him, its hand still wrapped around its brother's throat. The Sunai knelt over the body as it turned to stone, and then ash, and then nothing. Kate stood, the red glow of her soul still hovering above her bruised and bloody skin, but its light was fading as it began to retreat back into the safety of her self.

The Sunai straightened, the last of Leo's body crumbling away in its hands. A single beat of burning wings, and the ash was gone, and the Sunai lifted its horned head and turned its gaze again on Kate.

It came toward her, crossing the space in two elegant strides. It raised its hand, and Kate closed her eyes at last, and felt the heat of the creature's fingers, not on her skin, but on the cuffs around her wrists. She blinked and saw the metal blacken and crumble under the creature's touch.

The Sunai looked down at her, its hand hovering in the air between them, edges wavering like smoke. And then, it shuddered. A single, animalistic shiver that rolled from horns to wing and down, through its body and
into its feet, the darkness retreating like a tide, revealing black hair, and smooth skin, and gray eyes.

August stood there, barefoot and shirtless, chest rising and falling. His wounds and bruises were gone. So were the black tallies that had counted out days, months, years across his skin. And for a long second, his face remained empty, his features too smooth, his expression as blank as his brother's. He looked at her as if they'd never met. As if they hadn't fled together, hadn't fought together, hadn't nearly
died
together.

Then a small crease appeared between his eyes. The faintest edge of a frown.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

His voice was still distant, but there was something in it. A sliver of concern. Kate let out a ragged breath. She looked down at herself, her torn sweater and bloodied hands. “I'm alive.”

A tired smile flickered across his face. “Well,” he said, “that's a start.”