Uruku jerked in the sand, thrashing, hands wild and frantic around the blade. My body quivering, I crawled closer to the man who had caused me so much pain. He and Gudanna had murdered my father. Lugal Marus. Had killed so many others in their quest for power, but now he lay lurching in the filthy Pit, dying miserably.

Do no harm.

I reached for my satchel, my brain barely even registering what I was doing, as he opened and closed his mouth like a fish, searching for air that would not come. Rattling through my tinctures quickly, I found what I wanted: the nerium.

It would ease him into death so he did not suffer. The powder I’d put on Dagan’s blade had likely all wiped off at this point, so Uruku would need the dose that I had left. My hands shook as I held the little red bottle in my palm.

Does a murderer like him deserve mercy?

My abum would say yes. He’d give the tonic and say vengeance was for Alani, not for us humans. We forgive and we move forward. We offer mercy to the evil and the good.

But what did I want? His slimy lips on my mouth. Hands on my body. The thought that he’d bashed the teeth from that woman so many moons ago, and murdered innocent people, filled me up with sorrow. With rage.

Tears sprang to my eyes, and I pressed a hand to my mouth, processing it all. He deserved no kindness, especially from anyone he’d hurt—but that had very little to do with me. I was a healer. I kept my feelings out of it. The Boatman had pressed this tincture into my hand time and time again, and I would show mercy because it was right and it was whole and it was the only thing separating me from this evil man.

My hand trembling, I reached toward his mouth, which was desperately sucking in his last breaths, and sprinkled some of the tincture on his tongue to ease him into his death. As his eyelids began to droop, he slid Dagan’s dagger free from his throat, sealing his fate with the move. The blade had at least been blocking some of the flow, but now he’d bleed out within seconds. The Boatman would come. And quickly.

Kneeling at his head, my knees covered in the gore of this dying man, I looked into his brown eyes, hoping for something.

An apology. Remorse.

But there was nothing but a sort of bewilderment as if, in all his years, he’d never imagined anything like this could happen to someone like him.

He held a bloodied hand out to me, grasping the front of my tunic. I put my hand over his.

“My abum was a good, kind man,” I whispered. “And I miss him every day. But you know what?” I leaned close so he could hear the last words anyone would ever say to him: “No one will mourn you once you’re dead. Not your wife. Not your child. Not this city. No one.”