The Silent(47)

“I don’t hear her,” Kyra said. “I thought I did, but now there are too many voices and I can’t tell.”

Leo knew she must be getting overwhelmed. He grabbed her hand.

She shook her head. “It’s not helping. Not anymore.”

“Let’s get them out of here,” Leo said.

He looked in the last room on the right side. It was empty, but there was a long stringed instrument in the corner. “Kyra?”

“Yes?” Kyra was trying to pick up two children who were tugging on her legs.

“Did Prija play an instrument?”

“Yes. It was stringed. Kind of… a teardrop shape. It had a blue jewel on the face.”

He turned to the human woman next to him, the one from the room across the hall. This woman also looked half-dead and was nursing a baby. A boy from the looks of her pallor.

“The woman they kept in here,” he asked the mother. “Was she like you?”

“No.” The woman pointed to the Grigori children. “She was like them. But darker. Evil like the men.”

“What happened to her?”

“They took her away,” the woman said. “I don’t know where.”

Leo nodded and ushered the women and children down the hall, jumping ahead to scout the area outside.

The fight had turned from silent to muffled struggle. He could hear scrambling in the forest around him and quick feet in the night, but he could see little. Even with his vision turned up to its most acute with magic, the night was moonless and pitch-black.

“Leo, we need to get them away.”

He nodded. “Will they stay in the van, do you think?”

“They might panic if we leave them.”

Leo heard someone crashing through the bushes. He braced himself to fight, but at the last minute, Sura broke through the trees.

He scanned the group quickly. “No Prija?”

“They moved her.”

“Find her!” Sura said. “I’ll take care of them.” He switched to Burmese and a soothing voice. “My sisters, I will guide you and your little ones away from here.” Leo could see the women and children drawn to Sura and his calm, centered spirit. “Pick up the little ones if you can. It will make the walk easier. Stay together.” He looked back at Leo. “Find Prija. Find her. Rith and Niran are in the temple, but they’re going to need Prija.”

“I’ll find her,” Kyra said. “You take care of the children.” She grabbed Leo’s hand. “Let’s go.”

He followed her without a word.





Chapter Twenty-Three





Kyra could hear Prija. At first the kareshta’s voice was a low murmur. But as the violence erupted around them, Prija’s voice became clearer and clearer. It was a hissing, angry tone that pressed at Kyra’s temples, but instead of running away, Kyra ran toward the pain, clutching Leo’s hand the whole time. As long as she maintained contact, she could sort through the voices. The heavy, violent hum of the Fallen. The panicked souls of the Grigori.

And Prija.

“She’s this way,” Kyra said. “They moved her farther away from the temple.”

A whooshing sound came overhead, like the beat of a giant bird’s wings.

“What is that?” Leo said.

The dark music grew stronger. Fell back. Pulsed and beat like… wings.

“Arindam can fly.”

“Angels don’t actually have wings!” Leo said. “That’s human mythology.”

“This one does.” Kyra ran toward the trees. “Don’t let him see us.”

Leo was looking up instead of looking forward.

“Leo!”

“Cover.” He snapped his attention back to her. “Got it. Where is she?”

“This way.”

Keeping to the edge of the forest, they ran past skirmishes of one against six or seven. Some of the young men were fighting, but not very well. Kyra’s heart broke to see their fresh round faces snuffed out over and over again. They were hardly more than babies. Her anger fueled her, and she kept running.

Prija felt her coming. The kareshta began to jab at Kyra’s mind, sending sharp, painful spikes into it the closer they got.

We came for you, Prija.

Nothing but angry scratching at her mind.

Your brothers came for you. I came for you. Leo came for you.

More anger. This time it pierced her temple and Kyra nearly doubled over in pain.

“Damn her!” Leo shouted, still watching the sky. “Doesn’t she know—”

“She doesn’t know anything at this point,” Kyra said. “Nothing makes sense. Everything is darkness.”

She stood up, swallowed the bile in the back of her throat, and kept running toward Prija. There was a building at the edge of the forest, the farthest building from the temple. Two guards stood in front of it, both carrying guns, both bent over, clutching their temples in pain. Without slowing her run, Kyra drew out her knives and spread her arms, jabbing both Grigori in the back of the neck as she ran past.

Thank you, sister.

Kyra’s burst of violence fed something in Prija, and the mental jabs softened.

Leo tried kicking in the door, but not even his massive strength could move it.

“It opens out,” he said. “We need to find another way.”

“Keys?” Kyra bent down and felt through the dissolving bodies of the Grigori she’d stabbed, trying not to gag on the dust and gore. “I can’t find any—”

“Window!” Leo wrapped an arm with the shirt of one of the dead Grigori and punched through a window. It was security glass and took several punches before it began to shatter.

He broke through the window just as Kyra smelled the first hint of smoke. Looking over her shoulder, she saw a dark form sweeping over the compound, fire dropping on the dry bushes and trees.

“Kyra!” Leo was in the building, waving at her. “Come.”

She ran over, and he lifted her carefully through the shattered window. They were in a small kitchen, and the smells of rice and fish filled the room.

“The stove is still on.” She turned it off and looked around. “The guards must have been interrupted at dinner.” She walked past the table—a rice-filled bowl sat in the middle of it—and down a narrow hallway lit by a single bulb. She could feel Prija now.

The kareshta was in a room on the far end of the hall.

Let me in, Kyra thought at her.

No words, just a strangled, angry cry.

Let me in, sister.

Less anger. More pain.

Kyra paused. I am your sister. I want to help you. Let me in.

Nothing. No anger. No pain. The mental jabs stopped.

“Leo, open the door at the end of the hall.”

“Are you sure?”

She nodded. The door was padlocked, but Leo broke a metal leg off a chair, slid it behind the lock, and popped if off with one quick snap. The door swung open, and there was only darkness inside.





Prija VI





The moonfaced one was here. She was followed by the sunshine male, but the male was wiser than the others thought. He stayed back. The black fog thinned around Prija, but she didn’t open her eyes.

Prija, I’m here.

The moonfaced girl was clever. She didn’t try to speak to Prija’s body; she spoke to her mind. She spoke in English, but Prija could understand that language even if she didn’t like to speak it. Prija didn’t speak anything.

I have a gift for you.

That was what Arindam’s sons had said before she killed them. Prija snarled.

It’s a gift from Intira.

A trick. Why would they carry a gift from a little girl so many miles from her home? She was so far from home. Prija’s heart cried. She wanted the peace of her forest. The soothing rush of the water over her head. The simple laughter of the village children. Why had they taken those from her?

A weapon…

…killed her own father.

What kind of female can kill one of the Fallen?

Mind crushed from the inside.

This is why they are killed.

This is why they are feared.

“You should fear me,” Prija whispered in her mother’s tongue.

The sunshine male walked in. “Why should we fear you?”

Prija opened her eyes. She opened her mouth, but no sound came out. It had been too long.

The sunshine man intrigued her. His eyes were like water they were so blue. Who had water eyes? If she touched them, would her finger go through them like liquid? The mental picture nearly made her laugh.

“Why should we fear you?” he asked again, crouching down.

She wanted to speak, but the pounding wings of the Fallen exhausted her. He didn’t have wings. Not really. But enough of his sycophants thought him a god that he’d created them with his mind. Her own father had been the same. Tenasserim could manifest things with his mind.

Just like Prija could twist the shadow.

But she didn’t have a voice anymore. Using it was too exhausting. Killing her father had locked it inside. Because while she’d hated him with every part of her, she’d loved him in the same way. Killing him had been killing part of herself. That was what Sura and Niran never understood.

She’d also died that day. She’d died with Kanok.

A small gasp from the moonfaced girl.

“He was your twin,” she said. “The brother who died. Kanok was your twin.”

Prija closed her eyes again, but this time she couldn’t block out the woman.

I know you understand me, she said. I have a brother too.