The Heirs of Death

22. The Fang of Laros

THE FANG OF LAROS

Ûzan dragged a limp and bleeding Saél over the ground by her neck, her long, sharp nails digging in her daughter's many bruises. The latter's legs were numb and unmoving as they trailed on the floor before her mother pushed her onto a small tabouret with a missing leg. Ûzan gagged her, tearing a piece of the younger one's nightdress covered with blood and dirt and sweat, and shoving it hard enough it almost choked her.

Despite the ache shooting in her veins, despite the dark spots swimming in her vision, despite the coldness devouring her bones, Saél still stared at the cauldron. At the remaining of her daughter: a pile of ash. Skeleton-like fingers grabbed her chin, vicious, green magic seeping from the fingertips and into her veins, coursing in every single blood vessel. Saél jerked, entire body quivering as more magic penetrated her system.

Her screeches and wails were muffled, falling back into her throat, squishing her heart. The rattle of skin against skin as Ûzan hit her daughter's face echoed in the dull, unlit room. Another followed, and another, and another, whipping Sael's face from side to side, crimson dropping from her nose and busted lips to her chest. Red, not green like all the other Souleaters. She was different from the very beginning, forged from another sort of magic and flesh. The sort we carried in our bodies, the sort the Five created.

There was no possible outcome that the dead babe would ever have been born a witch-not a dark one, at least.

Chains erupted from under the wood panels covering the floor, wrapping themselves around Sael's calves, wrists, and chest. A vibrant shade of green feebly illuminated them, warming the metal with magical heat. Saél screamed again, trashing in her seat and falling, back arching from the pain as she hit ground. Her skin burned beneath the chains, tears running down her face, the salty trails igniting an unholy agony as they seeped into her wounds.

A heavy scent of iron wafted in the air, blooming with each stifled cry and kick to the young one's ribs. The room spun, darkness licking the edges of the corner the three ghosts of our minds were standing in. The earth shook and the darkness grew stronger, harder, almost to the point it could be touched.

The memory broke.

The forest reappeared. The night sky peeked between the massive branches. The air was crisp in my lungs. I didn't move from my position against the direwolf and said nothing as I stared at the woman whose daughter was killed in front of her eyes.

She was younger than I was when she had her in her womb and watched the torture that took her infant from her arms. I couldn't imagine the pain, couldn't imagine the hollowness in her soul after all that happened. And what I saw in the eyes that stared back at me was so little of the real destruction left unspoken in her soul.

Yes, death would have been a mercy for her that night.

"I didn't even name her,'' breathed Saél, her voice breaking the silence building between us. "She died nameless because witches never name their offspring before they are born. I never saw her smile. And each night, when my head hits the pillow, I can't sleep because I still hear her cries. They are the only thing I heard from her; there was no laughs, no whimpers. Only gasps and small, heart-wrenching cries."