The Core

‘Nothing to worry over,’ Renna said. ‘Know what I’m doing. Still be pretty when I’m done.’

‘The scars of alagai’sharak are an honour to carry,’ Shanvah said.

‘Then what’s got you tenser than a pig at the chopping block?’ Renna asked.

Shanvah’s eyes flicked to the stairs. ‘They’ve gone quiet.’

Renna paused in her work, realizing for the first time that the shouting from above had stopped. In her concentration she hadn’t noticed.

‘I thought nothing could be worse than the sound of my uncle and the Par’chin shouting,’ Shanvah said.

‘But ’least we knew they wern’t choking each other,’ Renna agreed. ‘Gotta hold faith they were gonna do that, they’da done it months ago.’

‘Our faith is tested daily, with Sharak Ka approaching.’ Shanvah relaxed, aura cooling with acceptance.

‘There,’ Renna said, making the last cut. She looked at the ward this way and that, paring away a last bit of flesh before she set the knife aside.

‘How does it—’ Shanvah began, but her words were cut off with a gasp, her eyes widening. Renna turned to see Arlen and Jardir descending the stairs.

‘What are you doing?’ Jardir demanded.

Shanvah scissored her legs for momentum, rolling off her back into a kneeling position facing Jardir. She put her hands on the floor and pressed her face between them, the scabs on her forehead touching the wood. ‘Mercy, Deliverer! The daughter of Harl wards me at my request.’

Jardir reached down, putting a finger under the girl’s chin to tilt her face upward. ‘Your mother used to brag of your beauty, and the ease with which she could find you a husband.’

‘No doubt a husband for the Deliverer’s niece would be easy enough to find, beauty or no,’ Shanvah said. ‘But there will be no husbands in the abyss. No beauty. There will only be alagai, and sharak.’

Jardir nodded. ‘You are as wise as you are brave, niece. Your honour is boundless.’

Shanvah gave no outward sign, but her aura lit with pride at the words. ‘May I ward my father next?’

Jardir shook his head. ‘I fear we will need him again. We have more questions for the Prince of Lies.’

The pure gold that had been Shanvah’s aura again became a swirling mix of colours – anger, frustration, humiliation. They all saw it, but she kept her composure, flicking her gaze back down.

‘Speak,’ Jardir commanded. ‘I can see the question in your heart, and we cannot afford to let it fester.’

‘Is my father’s shame not great enough,’ Shanvah asked, ‘left trapped in a body without will? Must we permit Alagai Ka to violate him further? My father’s honour was boundless. I beg you, if he cannot be healed, let me send him on the lonely path.’

‘Not all warriors get the fortune of a quick death on alagai talons, niece,’ Jardir said. ‘Heroes beyond count, great men like Drillmaster Qeran, who trained your father, have lived on with injuries they believed would forever put them from alagai’sharak. We must honour these men no less for their service to Everam than those that walk the lonely path.’

Shanvah shifted. ‘By your own words, Deliverer, those crippled in battle are put from alagai’sharak. You send my crippled father back into battle.’

‘It is not without precedent,’ Jardir said. ‘Countless crippled warriors have volunteered as Baiters in the Maze, dying in glory as they led the demons to their doom.’

‘Of course your words are true, Deliverer,’ Shanvah pressed, ‘but my father has no will to volunteer. I cannot believe he would have wanted this … abomination.’

Renna saw growing frustration in Jardir’s aura. He was not used to being questioned by any of his people, especially one who had barely seen eighteen summers. But he breathed, and his aura cleansed again. Arlen had tried to teach Renna the trick, but it never worked for her.

‘You do your family honour, Shanvah vah Shanjat,’ Jardir said. ‘But I knew your father better than you. We fought in the nie’Sharum food lines and bled together in the Maze. Such was his honour and loyalty that I gave him my own sister, your honoured mother, as his First Wife.’

He gestured with the Spear of Kaji, always in his hand, and the weight of it washed over Shanvah’s aura. ‘I tell you here with Everam my witness, if I told Shanjat asu Cavel am’Damaj am’Kaji that to win Sharak Ka I needed him to be the voice of evil, he would not refuse me.’

Shanvah put her face back to the floor, weeping openly. ‘Of course the Shar’Dama Ka is correct. My father’s honour was boundless, and I shame him with my doubts. I will not question you again, Deliverer, and should you require any sacrifice of me, know that my spirit will always be willing to serve you in Sharak Ka.’

‘I never doubted it, niece,’ Jardir said.

‘It may be that Alagai Ka sends my father against you, as he did last night,’ Shanvah said. ‘I beg your permission to stand guard when the Prince of Waning touches him. If my father must be put down, it should be I who does it.’

She looked up, surprised to see Jardir bow in return. ‘Of course. I have never met a warrior, Shanvah vah Shanjat am’Damaj am’Kaji, who carried greater honour than you. Your father’s spirit sings with pride. When he is at last untethered and walks the lonely path, his steps will be lighter knowing he has left a worthy successor to carry on his blood.’

The words cleansed Shanvah’s aura once more, washing away the swirling colours with a pure white light.

Shanjat’s hands and feet were manacled. A short chain between them would allow him to sit but not to stand. The Par’chin warded the bindings himself, and Jardir could see the power in them.

If the kai’Sharum felt any discomfort at being so bound, he gave no sign as Jardir carried him like a child up the steps to Alagai Ka’s prison. But for his breathing Shanjat might have been dead, eyes staring blankly.

The demon looked up as they entered, tilting its head as Jardir crossed the wards, Shanvah covering his every step with her spear. He laid Shanjat in the centre of the room, then retreated outside the circles that held the demon prisoner.

But the demon did not move toward Shanjat, simply watching them with huge, inhuman eyes. Jardir could see the endless dark of Nie in those black pools, thoughts unknowable.

The Par’chin and his jiwah pulled open the heavy curtains. Night had fallen, but it was not the dark of Waning. Moonlight streamed through the windows and Alagai Ka hissed, scrambling to the centre of the room.

Jardir felt his skin crawl as the demon wrapped itself around Shanjat. Shanvah tightened her grip on her spear, aura like a taut bowstring. She ached to strike, killing demon and sire both, but she was one of Everam’s spear sisters, sprung of Jardir’s own Sharum blood. She embraced the pain and mastered it.

Shanjat looked up, eyes bright and alive once more. He turned to Shanvah, lip curling. ‘Everam curse me, to have sired such a pathetic excuse for a daughter. It would have been better for all if your Tikka had married you off before you could be sent to the Dama’ting Palace. Better if I had crushed your head when I saw you were only a girl.’

Shanvah kept her spear steady, but Jardir could see how the words tore across her aura.

‘Your brother would have saved me,’ Shanjat said. ‘Or at least done the honour of killing me.’

Shanvah’s tears glistened in the moonlight, but she held steady.

‘Do not listen to these poisonous words, niece,’ Jardir said. ‘It is not your father speaking.’

‘Oh, but it is,’ Shanjat said, laughing. It was so much like his friend’s great bellow that Jardir’s heart ached. ‘That is what makes it so delicious! This drone boasted to his brethren of the strong son growing in his mate. His first thought at the sight of you was disgust. He imagined killing you to save face.’

‘Stop it.’ The Par’chin’s jiwah stepped forward. ‘Need you alive, but that don’t mean we can’t cut a few bits off now that you can’t grow ’em back.’

The demon tilted its head, studying her. ‘What will your egg be?’ Shanjat asked. ‘Will your consort allow you to walk the path before us, once he learns you carry it?’

‘What’s he talkin’ about, Ren?’ the Par’chin asked.

‘Core if I know,’ Renna said.

‘Humans are so inefficient in their mating.’ Shanjat clicked his tongue. ‘Ten cycles of vulnerability for a single egg. But do not fear. We will keep you alive until the birth. The mind of a child is a delicious morsel – like the bird eggs you consume.’

Renna snarled, drawing her knife.