Labyrinth of Stars(17)

All the fight had burned out. She stayed sitting as I slogged close, her head tilted down. Long fingers kept trembling, and that tiniest movement made the silver chains dangling from her ears, across her chest, chime. I knelt in the snow in front of her, while Raw and Aaz draped themselves against my arms and chest to keep me warm. It didn’t work. The chill settled through my legs, up into my stomach.

Zee crouched close, quiet and ready. I wished he’d tell me what to do. I’d made this speech before, when two other Mahati had broken my rules and gone hunting for humans—but this time was different, somehow worse.

“They are not cattle,” I said, though the words sounded hollow, like I was some right-wing fundamentalist preaching fire, brimstone. “The humans are not meat.”

The Mahati’s gaze flicked toward mine, then down to her scarred thighs.

“I was meat,” she murmured, each word delicate as floating ash.

I closed my eyes. Zee brushed his claws over my hand. I hated myself in that moment. I hated the Mahati, too—for not being alien enough that I could pretend this one was a parasite, something beneath me, that lacked humanity, or even a soul. A year ago it would have been easier. Five years ago, I wouldn’t have hesitated.

Except too much had changed.

We are all meat, I thought. And in my heart, a shadow moved: a twisting rope of power, gathering itself with hunger.

Hunter, it whispered. Will you kill one of your own for following her nature? When you yourself hunger for death?

I shook my head, shook it like I was trying to knock away a cloud of flies. “Tell me about the six humans you killed on my land.”

The Mahati flinched. I said, “Those humans weren’t with the young ones you murdered.”

She trembled, maybe with the cold. “No, my Queen.”

“Where did you find them?

“We . . . did not.” Her gaze flicked to mine, then away. “They were waiting for us when we returned from the hunt.”

“Waiting.” I drew that word out, staring at her. “On my land.”

Her trembling grew more violent. “Like tribute. As it used to be, for the armies of the demon lords and Kings. That is what the others said.”

“And did these . . . tributes . . . say anything to you?”

She shook her head, shivering. “They knelt and bared their throats, and did not cry out as we killed them.”

I sat back in the snow, feeling every grind of ice in my bones. Dek and Mal slithered across my shoulders, resting their heads on Raw and Aaz, who had gone very still. It was so quiet in this place, the thud of my heartbeat the only drum in the world, throbbing, pulsing in my chest, and ears. My pulse, too quick. My pulse, aching with fear.

“Zee,” I said, and my voice was strained, barely louder than a whisper.

He raked his claws across his arms, creating a trail of sparks. “Flesh, free and given. Old ritual. Dead ritual. Meant to appease. Stall our hungers.”

And it was familiar. Someone had known and used it to lure in the Mahati, those to whom the rules were still the same, no matter how many thousands of years had passed.

Zee swayed into the Mahati’s face, and she went very still, like a rabbit trying to become invisible. He grabbed her chin, claws digging into her gaunt cheeks.

“I was born inside the prison,” she rasped, as if he’d asked a question I couldn’t hear. “I had never eaten human flesh. The older warriors said I must, I must, before I was fit to fight.”

“Fight we had,” he rasped. “Tonight. Your Queen, attacked, and you did not come. Too busy eating unfit meat.”

Tears rolled down her cheeks. “Yes, my King.”

“Open,” he commanded, and she opened her mouth wide. Zee leaned in, nostrils flaring. I couldn’t ask him why he smelled her breath, but the spikes of his hair jerked once, twice, and muscles rippled across his back. I watched, imagining this demon—this trembling, ashamed demon—dying at my command. And it hurt, made me feel ashamed. I wasn’t sure I had the stomach to kill her. There had to be mercy, sometimes. Second chances, every now and then. The world wouldn’t fall apart, would it?

Just one mercy.

“Zee,” I said, ready to call him away from the demon. He glanced back at me, just as the Mahati made a strange sound: a cough, a gag.

He jerked away as she vomited.

Raw and Aaz hauled me back. I let them drag me, stunned. It wasn’t the vomit, but the violence, as though someone was stabbing the demon from the inside.

What poured from her mouth was dark as blood, the scent the same as rotting meat and shit. She covered her mouth with such desperation, she gouged her face, blood streaming down her cheeks. Her chest heaved, her entire body rising from the snow as she tried to stop.