I feel blindly, Evlorasin guiding me with the occasional push of an undulating whisker to my back. I grope for the throat skin—much thinner and slicker than its scales.

“Evlorasin will need to eat a lot more often,” I announce to the darkness, to Yorl. “And if it loses control completely—”

“We have failsafes in place,” Yorl cuts me off. Failsafes. He means ways to kill it if everything goes wrong.

“We will control the song,” Evlorasin insists, as if reassuring me. I’m quiet, my thoughts loud enough for the both of us.

Evlorasin isn’t ready. I’m not ready. But we have to be.

I place one hand on the valkerax’s breast, holding the blade there. Once I do this, Evlorasin might Weep, and it might give the Bone Tree to Varia. She will hold command over all the valkerax in the Dark Below. The book Lucien gave me—its pictures flash through my eyes, thousands of skeletons, charred to ash. There’ll be no going back. Am I just sending Ev to a new, horrible master?

Am I just sending Varia to the death she seems to want so badly?

“The Starving Wolf is sad,” Evlorasin rumbles. “Do not mourn. Flesh will always meet bone.” When I don’t say anything, it hisses, “When we are Weeping, taste of our living blood.”

This gets me out of my own head, and I blink up at it. “Why?”

“You have given us a ‘nicking-name.’ We will give you the blood promise. We will not give it to the Laughing Daughter. She is not the rain to our drought. But you, Starving Wolf, have tasted of our drought, our darkness. In you, the blood promise will remain true.”

Varia talked about a “blood promise,” and it was the point of contention in their argument earlier, but I still don’t know what it is or what it means. It sounds important.

“You should give it to Varia,” I insist. “She’s the one who—”

Evlorasin’s fangs clack against one another. “It is the Starving Wolf or nothing.”

I inhale, sharp. I can’t have nothing. How bad can it be? It’s just a little blood—it won’t kill me. Nothing can kill me. I give a slow, uneasy nod, and Evlorasin seems to relax, the clacking fading.

“Commence, Zera,” I hear Yorl say. “We are ready.”

22

22

The Song’s End

I brace myself against the valkerax and press, white blade first, into Evlorasin’s skin. I feel the thinner, more flexible scales peel apart beneath the sword as it moves. The valkerax doesn’t so much as let out a whine, standing strong as the metal slices its flesh. Something so small must be like a fly’s bite to something this big. Warmth oozes down my wrist, and when I pull away, Evlorasin’s voice rumbles.