Reckless Cruel Heirs

by Olivia Wildenstein

  Giya’s hand clapped mine, wrenched me back. “Amara, run!”

  I couldn’t move.

  Screeching something, she hauled me back, pulling so hard she almost dislocated my shoulder. My feet slid, and I flailed backward, just as the tiger hit the patch of sand I’d been standing on with an enraged whine, before crumpling like a tissue, silent and inert, the machete sticking out from between its eyes.

  As Remo freed his weapon, he yelled something, but I couldn’t make out a single word over the buzzing in my ears. Grasping I was out of commission, he trotted to where my spear lay on the ground, grabbed it, then raced back to us. I watched him scan the jungle, chest heaving. Was another tigri coming? Or was he looking for Kingston? Where had my cowardly uncle disappeared to?

  Remo tilted his head in the direction of the caves. Giya’s grip tightened on my hand as she followed Remo through the dense brush. In increments, my hearing began to return. I picked up the sound of shouts over the chorus of thunderous growls and snarls.

  Had they managed to tempt the six other beasts with the butchered bodies of their brethren?

  A branch snapped.

  We halted. Even our labored panting quieted.

  Remo pressed the spear back into my still shaking hand. “Can you make another net?”

  Nodding erratically, I waited for the predator to show itself, not wanting to flay my palm and fingers on the prickly metal mesh. When two hulking beasts materialized in our line of sight at the very same time, my heart damn near exploded.

  “Shit,” Remo hissed.

  “I don’t think . . . I don’t think my net can snag both.”

  “Just focus on the one coming up on your right side; I’ll get the other.” He widened his stance and raised his elbow, viscous crimson droplets of blood dribbling from the machete’s blade.

  As though a cannon had detonated, both mammoth cats sprang at us, their golden stripes glittering over their bloated muscles and their tails flogging the air.

  “NOW!” Remo yelled.

  I squeezed the spear, fashioning my barbed wire net, and hurled it over the cat. The animal howled as its front paws got tangled, which brought its huge body down right at Giya’s feet. Squeaking, she hopped back. Unlike yesterdays’ tigri, this one chewed through the wire, ripping it with its fangs. Muzzle and front legs wet with blood, it squirmed backward, managing to disentangle itself, licked its muzzle, then narrowed its gleaming eyes on us.

  Crap. Crap. Crap. I needed to recall my dust and transform it into a weapon before it could chomp on one of us. “Giya, get behind me.”

  “Why? What are you thinking?”

  “Just get back, please,” I begged her.

  She took a measly step back. I touched the part of the barbed wire net farthest from the tiger and liquefied it, molding it into a new weapon—a five-headed spear. Five, because accuracy wasn’t my forte.

  The second the net vanished, the tigri’s tail flicked up, its spine arched, and its haunches lowered. I lunged before it could become airborne, shoving my spear between its peaked ears. All five of my blades went in, and blood sloshed out in wet streams that spiraled over the handle of my spear, streaming down over my hand and wrist. When the hot, tinny scent hit my nose, I gagged.

  “Amara!” Giya yelled, gesturing to Remo.

  I gasped. The back of his T-shirt was shredded and red—four parallel grooves flapped while the rest of the fabric was glued to his skin.

  The tigri limped back before growling and rearing onto its hind paws. I scaled the beast I’d killed and flung myself, spear first, at Remo’s foe. I shut my eyes right before impact, but felt the blades sink into hide, heard the squelch of taut flesh, tasted the spray of hot blood on my face. Hands clamped around my ankles and dragged me back so fast the grains of sand rug-burned my chin. Since I was still gripping my weapon, the spear slipped wetly out of the beast’s belly right before disintegrating and ribboning back into my palm. I tucked my arms in just as the ginormous feline collapsed, a hairsbreadth away from my head.

  Heart rattling, I thought: Three down, three down, three down.

  When I rolled onto my back, Remo crawled up my body, his palms cupping my cheeks. “Trifecta, are you okay?” His voice was as shrill with nerves as his gaze, which whipped over me, seeking wounds.

  I inhaled deeply and nodded. Remo gently grabbed my hands and tugged me into a sitting position. A streak of blood on his temple reminded me of his lacerated back. “Turn. Let me see your back.”

  “My back’s fine.”

  “It didn’t look fine.”

  Inhuman yelps followed by human shouts had both our attention snapping to a spot beyond Remo’s shoulder. When the ground shook, I inferred that another beast had fallen.

  Remo stood, heaving me up. And then he hugged me to him, and for a brief moment, the gore and jungle faded away. “Fuck, you saved my life.”

  Not really. I’d saved him from another mud-bath.

  I nestled my face against his collarbone, feeling his heart kick against my cheek. It matched the tempo of the one presently lodged inside my throat.

  Suddenly, I pressed away and my neck gyrated every which way. “Giya? Where did she go?”

  He looked around, too. “I-I don’t know. I was watching you.” He rammed his hand through his wild red locks. “I’m sorry; I should’ve kept an eye on her.”

  “We have to find her. I have to find her.”

  He nodded just as an aloe thicket shivered.

  “Giya?” I yelled.

  Please let it not be another tigri. I’m not ready for another one.

  Remo parted the leathery fronds.

  What lay beyond made me wish it had been another furred behemoth.

  39

  Bite

  “You fucking psychopath, let the girl go!” Remo growled.

  Kingston had my cousin pinned to his front, one arm banded around her chest and both biceps, and the other hooked around her neck. The crimson apple gleamed like a mined heart inside his white-knuckled fist.

  He pressed the fruit against Giya’s lips, which were thankfully wedged so firmly they formed a line on her wan face. She shook her head from side to side and writhed. She even stomped down on Kingston’s foot. He hurled curse words at her and lifted her a little higher, so that she was off balance, then whispered something in her ear that made her body still and her eyes brighten with fear.

  “It’s me you want!” My skin felt as though it had shrunk and stiffened, compressing my muscles like my discarded jumpsuit. “Let her go and take me.”

  “Show me your hands.”

  I raised both in the air. Indubitably, Kingston had seen my tattoo, but since he didn’t fear it, I surmised he thought I couldn’t access the confiscated dust.

  “Turn.” His slitted brown eyes followed my slow twirl.

  “I have no weapon.”

  “You want Giya; you come to me.”

  Remo gripped my arm as I inched toward my uncle.

  “You come alone, or I shove this apple down your cousin’s lovely throat.” When he nosed her neck, my fury turned into a raging ball of fire. Had I been able to access my kalini, all that would’ve been left of him would be cinders.

  “Let me go, Remo,” I murmured.

  His fingers tightened on me. “Trifecta, no.”

  I glanced at him over my shoulder. “I can do this . . .”

  His breathing had turned shallow and fast, fluttering his birthmark. Reluctantly, he freed me, and I walked toward them.

  Kingston jutted his chin toward Remo. “Back up, Little Dog.”

  Remo vibrated with such rage that the leaves of the panem over his head frisked with it. He stood his ground, so Kingston backed up while keeping my cousin in a chokehold. I strode along with them, keeping my gaze on Giya’s, trying to soothe her panic.

  When we reached the beach, he said, “Closer, Amara.”

  I was trying to understand his strategy, which seemed hasty and ill-thought-out. To grab me, he’d h
ave to release her, and the moment he let her go, he’d lose his advantage. Still, I approached. When I was within arm’s length of them, I said, “I’m right where you want me.”

  His crazy eyes tipped at the corners, turning wildly mirthful. “You certainly are, prinsisa.”

  Giya’s eyes widened. And then she started to shake her head. Kingston shoved the apple against her clasped lips with such violence he was going to bruise her face or the apple. As long as no juice leaked out . . .

  What had Cruz told us? Could its juice kill us?

  Her eyes widened and darted to a space over my shoulder. What was she trying to tell me? Was a tigri—

  “Remo, behind you!” I screamed.

  He spun just as Quinn ran at him with a spear. Remo released a snarl worthy of a tigri as he hopped to the side. The blade still nicked his waist, slicing right through his mangled shirt, reddening the cream fabric some more. Without missing a beat, he swung his machete into Quinn’s neck, severing the man’s bald, bearded head from the rest of his body.

  Giya yelped and then retched, while Kingston grumbled a series of loud fucks.

  The Daneelie disintegrated, darkening the sand. But that wasn’t the only thing he left behind. A liana wrapped around a skinned piece of meat fell like a snake in the puddle of Quinn’s blood. Confusion made the acid burning the lining of my throat recede. When gold and purple glinted in the shadows, I understood why Quinn had attached a piece of meat around his waist—to bait one of the monsters.

  “Get Giya!” Remo grabbed the liana and hooked it around his wrist, and then he sprinted away from us, his wound making him falter over and over.

  A crazed chuckle leaped out of my uncle’s mouth. “How convenient, these little tigri. Maybe I’ll bring one back with me as my pet. It’ll become the new Wood crest.”

  Nails biting into my palms, I spun toward him and my cousin. “You are delusional.”

  Giya shook her head anew.

  “Stop squirming, bitch!” he hissed, attempting to squash the apple against her mouth, but the remnants of vomit and spit on her cheek made the apple skid from side to side.

  Using his distraction, I pressed my palms together behind my back to fashion a weapon when I heard a dull crack. My cousin went limp in his arms but didn’t disintegrate. Had he broken her neck? Wouldn’t she have disintegrated if he had? His smile became a grotesque, gleeful thing. He thumbed her chin down, and her jaw went slack.

  When he ground the apple against her teeth, my heart all but leaped out of my ribcage, and my dust funneled back inside my palm. I couldn’t risk flinging a handful of wita at Kingston when Giya’s mouth was wide open, so I rammed into them, sending both hurtling to the ground. The apple slid out of Kingston’s grip, rolling and picking up grains of sand. I rushed toward it, but so did my uncle. As I bent to grab it, he smashed his foot into my jaw. I fell over, stars exploding in front of my eyes. Among those stars, I saw a headful of unkempt brown hair and vicious brown eyes. And then a heavy weight dropped onto my abdomen, knocking the wind from my lungs.

  The edges of Kingston’s body blurred and brightened as though he were wrapped in a string of lights. I blinked and blinked, until the lines of his body sharpened. I turned my eyes, looking for Giya, found her crumpled on the sand. Unmoving. She wasn’t dead, but I almost wished she were. I wanted her out of the psychopath’s reach.

  Although my brain felt scrambled and sluggish, some primal survival instinct was screaming at me to get up. I writhed, trying to throw him off. He swore, and then he raised his arm and punched my mouth with the damn fruit. A trickle of warmth slid over my tongue—thick and coppery. I was guessing blood. Still I didn’t swallow it. As he reeled his arm back, I spit into his face, speckling it with red droplets. He blinked. Hopefully, it was burning his eyes. How I wished it was as lethal as Remo had touted . . .

  I squeezed my mouth shut just as Kingston roared, and his fist smashed down. This time, I managed to twist my face, and he caught my cheek. My brain swam and the little starlight edging Kingston’s face became full-on lustriums. I heard my name tumbling on the breeze—raspy and deep. Was Remo coming back for me, or was I conjuring up his voice, wishing someone would save me?

  Dust. I needed my dust.

  I wriggled my fingers, desperately trying to coax it out one-handedly, but like every time before, the ribbons snapped right off my fingertips and cowered into their tracks. Without breaking eye contact with my irascible uncle, I raised my arms, dragging them over my head. When my palms met, his eyebrows jolted. He caught the wrist of my tattooed hand and ripped it off the other, severing the threads of magic.

  He gasped. “Quinn was right. You can use your seized dust . . .”

  I fought his grip, but his fingers felt made of solid bone. At least, he’d stopped smacking me with the damn apple. He shoved my tattooed palm under his knee, and then he punched me with the stupid apple again.

  Anger rippled over my skin.

  He thought my other hand useless. Well, he was about to learn that I hadn’t only been taught to use my faerie powers in fights. Funneling all of my adrenaline into my fingers, I clawed his face, my nails coming away with strips of skin. He sneered as blood beaded over his cheeks and nose, shifting his weight off my trapped palm. I yanked it out from under his knee, and then, calling upon the Neverrian Skies and the Gottwas’ Great Spirit and every Earthly god, I fisted my fingers. Karsyn’s wita skittered and pulsed.

  Please, please, please don’t break.

  Honeyed threads shimmered between my fingers and palm like harp strings. Fighting his hold on my other hand to keep him distracted, I lifted the sparkling dust and clapped it over his nose and mouth. He froze when he caught a whiff of magic and then lurched off of me, gagging.

  Before my next heartbeat, I pressed my palms together and shaped the strands into a bat. I rolled myself up and swung it into his ribs, flipping him onto his back. And then I straddled him and shoved the fat stick into his mouth.

  Tears leaked from the corners of his stunned eyes. I ground the bat deeper into his throat until his skin blued. And then I plugged his nose and liquefied the bat so all of it would slide down his throat and poison his lungs.

  He tried to fight me, but he weakened fast. His hands flopped like dead fish on the side of his body. Before it could asphyxiate him, I recalled Karsyn’s wita. Perhaps it could kill Kingston, but what if it simply sent him back into the field of mud? I wanted to be done with this fight.

  While he was passed out, I reached over to grab the apple, but someone beat me to it. I raised my gaze, meeting Remo’s brilliant green one.

  “Looking for this?”

  I wanted to throw my arms around his neck and never let go. Instead, I said, “Can you cut me a piece?”

  Using the reddened blade of his machete, he sliced into the fruit, chopping off a bite-sized chunk. “Amara, let me do this. Killing someone, even someone who deserves—”

  “No. I can do it.”

  “I have no doubt you can, Trifecta. I just—”

  “I need to do it, Remo. For Iba. And for me.” I got up. “Can you hold him? I’ll be right back.”

  My legs felt made of wires and steel instead of cells and bone, moving of their own accord toward the glittery pool. Once I reached the water, I pressed my fingertips against my palm and crafted a watering can, then filled it to the brim.

  Robotically, I returned to Remo and straddled my uncle, locking his arms under my shins. “Can you lift his head?”

  Remo grabbed the back of Kingston’s head, drove his blood-coated thumbs into my uncle’s mandible, then chucked the piece of apple inside his mouth. I jammed the spout between the hateful fae’s teeth, then Remo clapped Kingston’s chin shut and shoved his head farther up.

  Kingston’s eyes, which had closed when he’d passed out, bulged open. I poured and poured, and although water dribbled down the sides of his mouth, his Adam’s apple bobbed, which told me he was swallowing. But was it only water going down, or had t
he apple breached his throat?

  His chest spasmed, but he stayed solid beneath me.

  I kept pouring, draining the can, waiting, tears running down my cheeks, replacing the sight of Kingston’s terrified eyes with flashes of Iba’s body, limp, sinking through the lavender sky. With the smoke billowing out of the guards who’d survived the assault and the hill of ashes from the ones who’d given their lives so my father could rule another day.

  I saw my mother, treading the Pink Sea beside me, the shine draining from her copper scales.

  I saw my cousins laying down the oars of their canoe, faces turned heavenward, staring.

  That day was the first time I understood that magic did not make us immortal.

  For the past four years, I’d tried to keep the memories at bay, pushing them away as soon as one poked to the surface, but as I upended the can, I allowed them in.

  I welcomed them in.

  40

  Goodbyes

  A stillness settled over me as I set the empty watering can down beside my bent knee. Cool sweat beaded down my spine, but I didn’t shiver. Remo’s mouth spilled words, but none reached me.

  Kingston was still alive, but he wouldn’t stay alive. If the water failed its purpose, I’d find another way to execute the executioner. I was driven by a single thought: vengeance. It had steadied my arms and honed my focus.

  His lashes fluttered and then his chest gave a violent shudder. He stared at me. I searched for repentance inside his eyes but found only terror.

  I hated what he’d turned me into, but I hated him more.

  So when his flesh finally turned as leaden as the cliffs choking the valley, I didn’t gasp.

  And when he exploded, I didn’t flinch.

  I sank through his dissolved body and into the ashen sand, completely and utterly numb.

  I didn’t feel Remo’s hands cradling my face, skimming down my neck, going around me. I didn’t hear what he was saying, just saw the edges of his words on his lips. He kneeled before me, crushing Kingston’s remains under his legs, and pressed me into his chest.