we are better off alone, the hunger echoes me in a whisper. The mass of writhing flesh below me suddenly slows its thrashing, its panting harsh. I swallow dust and blood, my broken ears ringing.

“As long as the voice is with us,” I heave with my breath, “nowhere is home.”

The valkerax gives the wall another beat with its enormous tail, but this one is halfhearted. No-hearted. The ground barely shakes.

“We can’t remember who we were,” I start. “We’re always hurting. Always hungry. That isn’t home. This—” I hold my hand to my chest. “This isn’t a home. This is a prison.”

The valkerax’s panting peters off into something like a deep, pained whine. My arm and leg finish growing back, and I let go of its thick whisker, dropping to the ground.

“I can’t give you your freedom,” I say, my teeth retreating, all my senses dulling to a human’s once more. “But I can help you remember what it was like to hold it.”

8

8

The Man
Without Mercy is
Made to Bow

I never get to hear the valkerax’s answer, because in the next few seconds, I die. And when I wake up again, only one word is on my lips.

“Yorl? Yorl?” I sit up on the mat, the green mosslight glowing down on me as I scrabble past the other faintly lit celeon guards sitting against the wall. “Yorl!”

“Stop shouting for me, Heartless.” His voice echoes as he appears out of the darkness, his yellow ears flat to his head. “It’s unsightly.”

He looks dusty but otherwise whole, and relief floods me. “You’re all right!”

“With mild thanks to you.” He huffs, pulling out another parchment to scribble on. “The valkerax is sedated. I wrote down everything you said, and pieced the altercation together while you were indisposed.” He looks up. “It thought you lied to it, right? According to Grenval Chidon’s analytical texts, valkerax hate being lied to.”

“I would’ve loved to see those texts beforehand,” I chime.

“It’s a fragment of parchment so brittle and old, one touch would dissolve it to dust.”

“I would’ve only folded the page to keep my spot a little,” I egg on. “I’ve Wept just once, and I told it that. The valkerax thought that meant I couldn’t teach it. But I can. I think. I have to try, at least.”

“Maybe instead of saying I’ve done it just once,” Yorl says with a frown, “consider trying, I’ve done it before. It gives off a better air of confidence.”

I chuckle, the vibrations hurting my throbbing head. “And you’d know all about that. No wonder you’re Varia’s smartman.”

“I prefer the term ‘Crown Princess’s polymath.’”

“Are you?” I quirk a brow and stand on testy legs. “A polymath?”