"I . . . I'm sorry." Horror pulsed through Issari. "I didn't mean to stab you. I just . . ." Her heart thumped and she knelt by the witch. "I can heal you. I know some healing. I—"

She gasped when Shedah clutched her arm. The witch stared with her one good eye. Ooze dripped from where the second eye had once peered.

"I curse you, child." The witch spat. "I curse you with the pain of a thousand deaths in fire. I curse you to become a creature like your sister. I curse you with the heat of demons and the blood of reptiles. You will forever be unclean."

With a last spasm, Shedah retched, clawed ruts into the tiled floor, and lay still.

Issari stood, trembling, the bloody dagger still in her hand.

I killed.

She took a shuddering breath and her head spun.

I sinned. I promised to save lives. Now I've taken a life.

To be sure, she had taken a foul life. She had ended a creature that had tortured and betrayed and hurt many. But it was a life nonetheless. Issari had sinned. Murder was an abomination unto Taal, and when she touched her amulet, it felt so cold it hurt.

"I have to hide this."

She looked around the room. It was a mess of blood, ooze, and spilled leeches. Some of the worms were still attached to Issari, and she winced.

First I must take them off.

Knees shaking, she rummaged around for her tinderbox and lit a candle. Eyes narrowed, she held the flame to the bloodsuckers. With hisses, they burned and fell off her skin, bloated with her blood.

Next she stared down at the dead crone.

Do I burn her too?

If anyone discovered Shedah's corpse here, Raem would hear of it. Shedah had served the king, delivered Laira's location to him.

He will beat me bloody if he knows I slew her.

Issari did not know what to do. A princess, she had no friends to call upon, only guards and servants—men who would report to her father. Her only friend was her brother, and he languished in his cell. She bit her lip. She could not burn the body, not without raising a pillar of smoke for all to see. She considered dragging the corpse through the streets and out the city, but how? Even if Issari wrapped up the body, the city folk would smell it; Shedah had smelled bad enough when living, and her corpse already stank of rot and human waste.

The demons can get rid of her.

The thought chilled Issari. She remembered seeing the demon by the well chewing upon a dog. She remembered hearing Angel, the fiery queen of the creatures, begging her father for human flesh.