I aim the crossbow and fire, four times, as fast as my finger will pull the trigger. One of them grazes Malachite’s ear, lodging in the valkerax’s gums, but the second, third, and fourth all land squarely down its throat, disappearing into the salivating darkness.

Malachite’s ears prick at the fourth shot, and he collapses backward, his bite-pierced hand and both his feet bleeding through his steel boots and gauntlets. Evlorasin gives a gasp, its thrashing suddenly taking on a random, twitching quality, spasms running through its body as Yorl’s powerful concoctions make themselves known. I run to Malachite’s side, but he just ruffles my hair with his unbloody hand, laughing breathlessly.

“You did it. You actually did it, you little whelp!”

I grin back. It feels good coming from him, but it doesn’t last long—he catches himself, remembering who I am and where we are, and his laughter fades. The two of us watch warily as Evlorasin’s panting slows. I lost one of the vials, but thankfully, just four seems to be affecting it. Those five huge white eyes droop, rolling back into its skull and showing the black of its sclera. Finally, finally, its gargantuan body collapses to the ground, bleeding softly from its wounds, its velvet nose at Malachite’s feet.

The beneather, looking too exhausted to move, suddenly sits up with a perfect posture, knees beneath him, and makes a gesture with both his hands—reverent, careful, precise.

“Af-balfera, ansenme kei-inora,” he says.

We dig out the royal guards buried—a few legs broken but none of them dead, and I thank the gods with promises of excessive spiritual kisses—and bandage their injuries. Malachite won’t let me bandage his, instead doing the dressing himself. Eventually we help the injured make it down the tunnel, two celeon leaning on Malachite and one on me.

“What was that thing you said?” I ask between breaks. “In beneather?”

He shrugs lightly, his eyes no longer glowing red. “It’s something the culling leaders customarily say to the valkerax that get away—the valkerax they can’t kill.”

“What does it mean?”

He breathes in. “‘The next time we meet will be a happier reunion.’”

19

19

The Memory
of a Blade

Before we leave the unconscious Evlorasin in the tunnel for Yorl and his celeon to retrieve, I go to the valkerax’s foot and pull out Father’s sword.

It’s broken.