Master of Souls

Book 3: Kingdom of Souls

by Rena Barron

Genres: Fantasy; YA Fantasy

Synopsis

Immortal magic, shocking twists, and star-crossed romance collide in the electrifying conclusion to Rena Barron’s epic YA fantasy trilogy, perfect for fans of Children of Blood and Bone, Raybearer, and Strange the Dreamer. 

A king with a score to settle. 

A demon sowing rebellion. 

A girl who holds the power of the gods. 

Arrah has sacrificed almost everything in her battle against the Demon King. Now, forced to give up the gift of magic she’d sought for so long, she must decipher the legacy of her past life as the orisha Dimma—and weave an uneasy alliance between her beloved Rudjek, the Demon King, and the remaining orishas, hoping to restore peace to all of their worlds. But as Arrah’s half-demon sister resumes her quest for destruction, peace may require the ultimate sacrifice.… 

Set in a richly imagined world inspired by whispered tales of voodoo and folk magic, this thrilling, high-stakes finale to the Kingdom of Souls trilogy will captivate readers who love Namina Forna and Sabaa Tahir. 

“I couldn’t get enough of Kingdom of Souls. Wonderfully written, and full of dark magic and danger, it was a story I couldn’t wait to escape into. Highly recommended!”—Kendare Blake, #1?New York Times bestselling author of the Three Dark Crowns series

Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.

Release date: April 11, 2023

Publisher: HarperCollins

Print pages: 448

Sample

PrologueDaho

Hate me if you like, but I will not apologize for exacting revenge against the gods. I will not make excuses. I alone carved a path of destruction through time and changed the course of my fate. I have changed your fate, too. I have broken the universe.

But if it is to burn, let it burn brightly.

Every story has a beginning and an end. Whether my story will end in ruin or victory—well, that chapter has yet to be written. You may think you already know how it begins, but there have been certain omissions. Now I will tell you the truth, and when I’m done, you will understand why the gods truly fear me.

In the beginning, there were two gods: Koré, the Divine Creator, and her brother, Re’Mec, the Almighty One. We called them the Twin Kings.

There were other gods, but they were not the gods of Ilora. They molded other lands and other people from the stuff of the universe. My wife was one of these celestial beings: eternal, beautiful, and terrifying. But Dimma could do the one thing her brethren could not: she bore a child of her own flesh, and the gods despised her for it.

Their fear and envy drove them to demand that she return to the Supreme Cataclysm—the inferno that birthed them—to be unmade. Of course she refused. A goddess named Eluua sought to punish my people in retaliation. First, she murdered our children to steal away our hope. Then, with help from our endoyan cousins, she set about terrorizing our cities.

Dimma put an end to Eluua’s tyranny and spun her soul into a dagger of immense power. To protect our people, Dimma offered immortality to all who had survived the attack. True, with her gift came her insatiable hunger, but we will get to that part soon enough.

My most vivid memories are of the gods’ vengeance. After Eluua slaughtered my people, Koré and Re’Mec arrived to finish what she had started. They stood on a tower, overlooking the havoc their sister had wreaked upon Jiiek.

Koré had pretended to grieve, her vessel utterly still save for her hair writhing in the breeze. Her proud features seemed carved of black marble, her eyes the deepest crimson. She’d chosen to wear mourning robes of pure white—the same kind I wore the day of my coronation to honor my parents’ legacy. The sword dangling from her left hand crackled with energy.

Re’Mec lingered at his sister’s side, appearing as a human—one of his creatures—with bronze skin, a head of disheveled curls, and irises the color of an autumn sunrise. He gazed at me across the leagues between us, above the soaring bones of half-burned skyscrapers and wreckage in the streets. His expression was petulant, like that of a child. I’d known even then that it was a mask—one of many. He was and still is drunk on the nectar of eternity, power incarnate, rage.

I will always remember Koré and Re’Mec perched on that tower, looking down in judgment. For this was the day they destroyed my soul.

I was standing on the edge of the palace grounds when Shezmu uttered a curse that dragged my attention from the Twin Kings. He gripped a curved, double-bladed sword that would undoubtedly be no match for the gods. His snow-white hair was pulled back into a knot, his skin pale, his cheeks hollow and sunken. He’d become a shell of the man he was a month ago before Eluua killed his daughter. “We’ll fight them to the end,” he vowed. “Death to the gods!”

Ten thousand souls, all that remained of my subjects, waited for the attack. We were the many shades of our race, scarred and wounded and exhausted by battle. Eluua had been unrelenting in her rage. She’d left a third of my people with splintered bones where once there had been beautiful wings. But we all shared one goal: a burning desire for revenge against the gods who had betrayed us.

Though we’d forged swords and armor from blueprints taken from history books about wars long forgotten, Dimma said we must fight her

brethren on their terms. It took me centuries to truly understand what she meant, but in the end, I became as ruthless as them.

Before Koré and the others arrived, Dimma had barricaded herself inside the innermost chamber of our palace, her magic shielding her so that no one, not even the gods, could enter. I’d convinced myself that I could protect her, but it was a lie.

A fog crept across the land, swallowing everything in its path and leaving behind smothering ash. The beasts and fowl of the forest surrounding the palace shrieked and howled their last breaths. The grass withered beneath our feet; the sky pulsed the colors of fresh bruises. The sun dimmed.

“They’re here.” I willed my words to carry across our ranks. They: the gods. I sensed hundreds of them, more than I could’ve ever imagined. “I will not fault anyone who wants to leave while there’s still time.”

“I will,” Yacara declared at my side. He bore a faint resemblance to our creator’s vessel, with smooth dark skin and black wings. “If you run away, I will haunt your dreams for all eternity.”

Yacara’s threat was empty, but no one fled. We had nowhere to go. This was our home and our fight. “We stand with you,” someone muttered among the ranks.

“Kill the gods,” hissed another, and soon more picked up the chant.

“Kill the gods, kill the gods, kill the gods.”

“Kill them, we shall!” Shezmu answered with a manic laugh.

He, Yacara, and I held the front line as the fog tumbled to a halt, hovering an arm’s length away. The gods’ voices whispered in chorus, low and brooding, their words indistinguishable. Shezmu tensed with his swords ready. I clutched the dagger made of Eluua’s soul.

When nothing happened, Yacara grimaced. “What are they waiting for?”

“What are they waiting for?” the gods mocked him in return.

For centuries, Dimma had reminded me that my body was only a vessel, but my muscles coiled in anticipation nonetheless. My heart raced and sweat dampened my brow. I knew what I had to do. Once I killed the Twin Kings, their brethren would falter.

The fog separated into distinct shapes as the gods revealed themselves. Some were tall and hideous; others, mere flames or wisps of wind. Several had blank canvases for faces, barbed tails, or elaborate horns of polished bone.

The attack came at once. They swarmed us, ripping and shredding flesh, severing heads and limbs, spilling blood that painted our lands. They cut down demon after demon, and my fury grew until it consumed me. I became one with my dagger, driving my blade through them with no thought but killing as many as I could. With

each god’s death, the dagger absorbed their soul with a hunger of its own. The blade began to glow and lengthened until I was holding a sword.

I fought my way to the top of the tower, where Koré stood waiting for me. Re’Mec wasn’t with her—he’d joined the battle on the palace grounds. The Divine Creator barely seemed to notice my arrival; she was too busy watching her brethren attempt to destroy what was left of my people. I’d wondered what she thought of Dimma’s gift of immortality as Shezmu, Yacara, and the others rose from their broken bodies to keep fighting.

“Is this what you want, child?” Koré finally tore her eyes away from the battle to face me. “Hasn’t this gone far enough?”

“How can you ask such a thing,” I spat, “after you let Eluua murder my people?”

Koré tilted her head to consider the dagger, now a sword of light to match her own. “I should have acted sooner to stop her,” she conceded.

“You did not act at all,” I reminded her. “Dimma did.”

She sniffs the air. “I will allow you to keep Eluua imprisoned. She deserves it. But you must let the others go.”

“I’ll only free them if you promise to leave Dimma alone,” I countered.

“You know I cannot.” Koré chided me almost gently. “She and your child are the beginning of the end. If they live, the Supreme Cataclysm will consume the universe and destroy us all.”

I’d hoped she would finally see reason. She and Re’Mec alone had the power to stop this. “So be it.”

I raised my sword high and brought it down upon the Divine Creator, but she struck first, severing my arm so cleanly that for a moment, I felt nothing. Then . . . pure, searing agony. She beckoned my sword to her with an imperious crook of her finger. The blade went willingly, but as soon as she gripped the hilt, a single shudder passed through her.

“This can’t be,” she whispered.

Flesh and bone materialized to replace my severed limb, but that was of no importance next to what was happening to Koré. Her skin withered and cracked. A buttery light oozed from inside her, escaping through the many fissures covering her body. So, it was true: Dimma said that only she or I could wield Eluua’s power, but I hadn’t guessed it would consume anyone else who touched it, especially a god.

I strolled forward and pried the sword from Koré’s unresisting hand. She was mere ashes shaped into some semblance of a vessel now. As I prepared to reap her soul, the echoes of my mother’s stories—of Koré’s kindness and love for our people—rang in my ears. All of them lies, for our god was selfish and cruel. “Goodbye, Divine Creator.”

Another sword blocked my killing blow, and Re’Mec appeared between his sister and me. He clucked his tongue. “Would you really strike down your divine creator?”

I gritted my teeth in frustration. Koré had already recovered—her skin smooth again, her white mourning robes pristine. Of course it wouldn’t be so easy. Still, I had held out hope. Behind her, shadows converged

 on the palace, and inevitability carved a place in my heart. Dimma’s magic was failing. I had to get back—but before I could take a step, Re’Mec pierced his sword through my belly. “You’re too late,” he grunted as he twisted the blade.

The impact hurtled me into the void between life and death, and my rage began to fade, replaced by the gentle beckoning of the Supreme Cataclysm. It called to my soul, enticing me to be unmade. It promised comfort. Rest. I will not lie. I was tempted.

But I wasn’t ready. I refused with everything left in me, fighting against its lure until I returned to my body. When I regained consciousness, I was still holding the sword. The Twin Kings were gone.

I staggered to the edge of the tower and let myself fall, already pumping my wings hard and fast when I caught the current. “Dimma!” I screamed. “Dimma!”

My desperate calls yielded no answer, and her silence was deafening, cold, final. A part of me died with her, and the insatiable hunger was all that remained.

Now you know why I despise the gods, and why I will not rest until I destroy every last one of them.

OneArrah

I dream of a different life. I dream of kissing Rudjek in our secret place by the Serpent River underneath a shade tree, magic alighting on my skin and glowing inside me. Grinding herbs at my father’s side in his shop while he tells me another story of his tribe. Watching my mother paint dancers on the wall outside my bedchamber. I dream of holding my sister’s hand as we traverse the crowds of haggling patrons and eager merchants in the East Market.

This Efiya is a little girl admiring all the trinkets with wide-eyed innocence. She’s not the monster who killed our parents and so many others—the monster who freed the Demon King. And my mother isn’t the woman who fed children’s souls to a demon in a bid to destroy the gods. My father is still alive. Sukar. Grandmother. All the others. But these dreams will never come true—they’re only wishful thinking to calm the ghosts that haunt my memories.

I’ve sacrificed so much already. I don’t doubt that I will sacrifice much more before the end.

I wish that I could bury my thoughts as easily as I push back the branches of saplings that cut across our path. We’re deep in a forest on the crossroads in search of what’s left of the five tribes of Heka. Sweat softens our grime-stiff clothes, and mosquitoes the size of horseflies buzz about our faces. Under different circumstances, I might close my eyes and listen to the birdsong or watch the lizards scurry across tree trunks or admire the wildflowers nestled in the underbrush. But all I can think about is Dimma.

I tell myself that I will be better than her. That I won’t make her mistakes. That I will turn away from the temptation that ruined her . . . but I am very good at pretending. I am good at killing, too, or I was before she stripped me of the chieftains’ magic to protect her ama. In a way, the Demon King was my ama, too, for she is a part of me. Twenty-gods, I was her. That much, I will concede. I was once a ruthless god who loved the Demon King. Let me clarify: Dimma still loves him despite the horrible things that he’s done. I sigh at the memories of his touch, his lips against hers, the calming timbre of his voice. I am not her, but I can’t deny the longing stirring inside me.

“Dare I ask what’s on your mind?” Rudjek says as the still morning air gives way to the lash of the hot sun. He’s keeping his distance as he walks alongside me.

I curse under my breath when we pass a familiar wizened tree stump. I can’t bring myself to meet his gaze, so I stare intently at the path. “I think we’ve been here before.”

“We should stop for a bit,” Rudjek suggests, though he sounds like he has enough energy to go on for days.

His craven guardians have shifted into hawks that circle the sky, their wings occasionally offering slivers of respite from the sun. Essnai clings to her ama’s arm and whispers something that draws a coy smile from Kira. I try not to think about the absence of Majka, Raëke, Sukar, but a hollow ache rises in my throat nonetheless. With it comes the bitter taste of shame. I killed Sukar while trying to protect him, and then the Demon King stole his body.

“I would rather keep moving,” I finally answer.

I think about the survivors we left in Tribe Zu. After we rescued them from Tyrek Sukkara, they’d settled at the head of the crossroads. They had agreed that they wouldn’t run anymore and would make their stand in the Zu mountains if the demons attacked again. I promised them I would find out what happened to the rest of the tribal people, but after a month on the crossroads, we’re no closer to an answer. Without the chieftains’ magic, it’s been nearly impossible.

Ahead of us, the path splits into forks that double back and cross over themselves in every direction. I sigh when I see a circle of white ash marking a tree. Kira drew it just this morning. She’s been tracking our path through the crossroads. Somewhere I’ve made another wrong turn.

“We knew this wouldn’t be easy,” Essnai offers, her voice a soft coo. “We expected detours, but we can’t give up hope. We’ll find the tribes.”

“It would help if I weren’t leading us in circles half the time,” I mutter, annoyed.

I have to believe the tribes made it to safety after Efiya and the demons attack

ed their lands, but my hope is beginning to dim. We’ve found no fresh footprints. No smoldering ashes of campfires, no bones from roasted meat, not so much as a branch crushed under a passing foot that wasn’t our own. I think of Dimma again and my plan. She’d used my borrowed magic to heal Rudjek; maybe it was possible to use her magic to stop the Demon King. There must be someone left in the tribes who could help me unlock it while keeping her asleep. I can’t stand by and let the Demon King hurt anyone else—not if I can do something to stop him.

I wish that I could trust Koré and Re’Mec, but I’ve seen firsthand through my own eyes and secondhand through Dimma’s that things only get worse when the gods are involved.

“We’ve been walking for hours,” Rudjek says suddenly; then he leans in close to me, knowing full well what will happen. “You look like you could use some rest.”

I brace myself for the effect of his anti-magic, and it comes at once. The faint lines of the trail suddenly disappear. I bite my lip, pushing back my frustration. I don’t regret making the deal with Dimma to give up the chieftains’ gift to save Rudjek’s life, but I hate that his anti-magic completely washes out my ability to see magic when he’s this close. “I’m fine,” I say, insisting on pushing ahead.

Rudjek squints and glances at me sideways. A look meant to bait me. “You’re not a very good liar.”

It works.

I press my hand to his cheek, tracing the bristle of the beard that has only recently cropped up. I suspect it will be as thick and curly as the hair on his head in a few years. Touching him, now that we can touch, always helps me not to feel so lost. Rudjek, Essnai, Kira, and even Fadyi and Jahla are my anchors. They are all I have left. I shiver when Rudjek kisses my palm—Dimma liked when Daho did that.

“You always get that dreamy look when . . . ,” Rudjek murmurs, his gaze searching. He lets his words trail off, but I know what he started to say. When you’re thinking about him. “At least when I kiss yo

u, I won’t puncture your lips.”

The joke is about Daho’s pointed teeth, of course. Teeth that spent countless hours delicately grazing Dimma’s wrists, her neck, the hollows of her collarbone. Other places that I try not to remember.

“Are you so insecure that you think I’d waste my time fantasizing about the Demon King?”

“Yes.” Rudjek looks down at me, rubbing the back of his neck. “He’s taller than me, I’ll give him that—and then there are those wings and glowing eyes. Oh, and that wicked blade for trapping souls.”

I frown. “Now that you mention it . . .”

Rudjek pretends to stagger back, clutching his heart. Then he bats his long dark lashes and poses. “I happen to be very pretty, too, you know.”

I raise an eyebrow, delighting in this playful banter. It reminds me of the way we were before things became so complicated. “I hadn’t noticed.”

But pretty is an understatement. Rudjek is also tall, with pale brown skin, eyes as black as a moonless night, lush dark eyebrows, and an irresistible smile. His curls have grown unruly while we’ve been on the road. I like it. He looks less like the Crown Prince and more like the boy I used to sneak away to meet by the river, the boy with a spark of adventure in his eyes, who couldn’t have cared less what his demanding father thought of him.

Essnai laughs. I glance over my shoulder and get the feeling that she and Kira are gossiping about us. Sometimes I think it’s a mistake to let my friends come with me, but I don’t know how to do this alone.

“See?” Rudjek scoffs. “Even Kira and Essnai think I’m pretty.”

“You wish,” Kira says, making a face.

“Must you always be so insufferable, Rudjek?” Essnai asks.

“You finally see how much work it was to serve as his attendant! And then again under his command.” Kira pretends to be exasperated. “He is so tiring.”

“Hey!” Rudjek protests.

Kira picks up a small stone and pitches it at him, and he dodges it with ease.

I’m grateful for these moments of levity, but they don’t last nearly long enough. “Now, if you don’t mind, I need to get back to tracking the crossroads,” I say, gesturing for Rudjek to give me more space.

He frowns, but he doesn’t object when Kira hooks her arm underneath his and pulls him away. “There’ll be plenty of time for frolicking later. Stop distracting her.”

“I am not distracting her,” he mumbles. “As usual, she’s being stubborn.”

Once the sting of his anti-magic fades, I seek out the lines of the crossroads again, my gaze searching over rocks and crooked tree roots and vines. I’m convinced that one day even this gift to see magic will be stripped away, leaving me with nothing. Since I was a child, it’s been my one true talent, and I can’t imagine losing it.

I stare so long I have to blink back tears gathering in the corners of my eyes. It helps the burning but not by much. My vision isn’t what it used to be—yet another not-so-subtle side effect of trading my years in exchange for magic. Another consequence I must live with to the end of my days. I let out a soft sigh when the lines of the crossroads finally shimmer underneath the sun. The tightness eases in my chest.

Rudjek’s guardians perch high in a tree, waiting for us. One is iridescent brown, the other snow white. Before I lost the chieftains’ gift, I cou

ld see the way the cravens worked to hold their physical shape—their skin always moving like water washing over the hull of a ship.

My friends don’t question our route as we pick up the trail again, though it loops, circles, and takes random turns through thorned bushes that sting our ankles. We cross into a thick part of the forest that offers relief from the sun. In the shadows, the magic is much more pronounced. It clings to the trees like silky moss and drifts lazily between the branches. It makes me ache for the nights when it came to me willingly.

After everything that’s happened, I should be repulsed by it, but I still feel a sense of wonder like when I was a child during Imebyé in Tribe Aatiri and tried to pluck it from the air. I swallow my bitterness. If I can’t tap into Dimma’s gifts, the only way I can possess magic again is to trade my years. That could lead to nothing good. If recent events have taught me anything, it’s that I want the chance to live my life on my own terms, for however much time I have left.

“There’s something strange about the magic here,” Rudjek says almost to himself. He stops in the middle of the path and slowly turns, frowning at a single sapling in a clearing bathed in the amber of the afternoon light.

I stop, too. I don’t sense anything amiss, but I trust his instincts. The sun orisha made cravens to hunt down magic, so his perception of it is much stronger than mine. I look ahead at a tangle of lines on the crossroads that intersect near a tree. They pulse and writhe, but that isn’t unusual. It’s by design: the entire crossroads is a maze meant to keep anyone from finding the tribal people.

“What is it?” Kira asks.

Rudjek rests his hands on his hips, near the hilts of his swords. “I don’t know. All I can say is that it feels strange.”

“Maybe it’s best if we keep going and not stay here.” I point to the lines as if my friends can see them. “I just need some time to study the intersection.”

“I think we’ll scout the area,” Rudjek says, but it’s an excuse to give me more distance from his anti-magic. His guardians, Fadyi and Jahla, land nearby, and their shapes stretch from feathers and wings into arms and legs. Their human forms look much like the hawks’: Fadyi with rich brown skin and dark hair; Jahla with paler skin, light eyes, her hair now silver instead of white.

Essnai thrusts a waterskin in my hand. “Drink this before you pass out from the heat.”

I take it from her, but I hesitate, my hand shaking. The supple leather reminds me of the night when she, Sukar, Tyrek, and I sat around a campfire, sharing a wineskin and playing the drum. That was before Tyrek revealed that he was a snake. Sukar had danced with Essnai, the two of them ethereal underneath the moonlight.

Only it wasn’t Sukar.

Essnai’s eyes meet mine as if she knows what I am thinking. Her touch is gentle as she guides the waterskin to my lips. “Drink.”

Always so bossy, Sukar used to tease her. And he was always cynical but warm and funny.

“Fine.” I sigh. After taking a sip, I turn back to the path. The magic of the crossroads is clever. Sometimes it pulses like a heartbeat; sometimes

it flows like water over smooth stone. I kneel and run my hand along the tangle of lines, feeling the throb of the magic.

It takes a moment, but one of the lines shimmers, suddenly standing out from the others, revealing the right path. I get to my feet. “I’ve found the next leg of our journey.”

“Time to go,” Essnai calls to the others.

Rudjek returns to the clearing with his guardians. They stay back while Kira and Essnai keep me company, chattering away. Now that we’re following the shimmering line, I see the strangeness that Rudjek sensed earlier. The magic is disjointed, as though it’s held together by a fraying rope.

As the sun sinks low in the sky and then finally slips below the horizon, I take a fork on the path and immediately know that something is wrong. I’m hit with a blast of rank air that twists my belly in knots. The stench is of death and decay, things that I have become intimately familiar with.

Shadows pass in front of the flickering lines of the crossroads. Familiars, I tell myself. Until recently, they’d been harmless—shapeless, wandering souls trapped between life and death by Dimma’s hand. But when Efiya released Daho, he commanded them to attack Rudjek. Another rush of rank air sweeps across my path, and I see staring, hollow eyes in the dark. Dozens of them, faintly glowing.

Familiars don’t have eyes.

I stumble back and collide with Rudjek, and he catches me in his arms. The crossroads blink out, blocked by his anti-magic. “I take it we took a wrong turn . . . ,” he says as he pulls away from me and draws his swords. His guardians flank him, searching the darkness unfolding in front of us. Essnai readies her staff.

“Demons?” Kira asks as she retrieves two of the many daggers strapped to her body.

“No,” Rudjek murmurs, and Fadyi nods in agreement.

Magic swells in the forest. Sparks fly from the trees to join with the shadows, swarming like wasps, until they illuminate the faces of decaying carcasses. Dread crawls across my skin at the realization: before us stand a dozen akkaye.

“So much for looking forward to a moment’s rest,” Rudjek says as he and the cravens move between the akkaye and me.

“Burning fires,” Kira curses. “What kind of perversion is this?”

I swallow down my horror as the akkaye shudder. Their long spindly arms quake, and their skeletal fingers stretch and flex as they fully awaken. Ghastly shrieks tear into the night as, one by one, the creatures lurch forward, each step smoother and faster than the last. The akkaye are almost inconceivably thin, with pocked, gray skin stretched tight over protruding ribs and clavicles. They heave in gulps of air, gasping before their hollow, unblinking eyes seem to find us all at once.

“We have to go.” I back away from Rudjek so his anti-magic doesn’t keep me from finding the path again. I frantically search. I should see something, a glimmer, a stray spark of magic, but the

crossroads have gone dark.

Too late I realize that I’ve led my friends into a trap meant for the demons. The akkaye have only one instinct: to kill. And we’ve been caught in their snare.

TwoArrah

If ndzumbis are the living dead, then the akkaye are the undying. They were legends from a time when the tribes fought each other in vicious wars. When magic was little more than a weapon to wield against your enemy—the way my mother had wielded it against the orishas and against me.

An impression of the Litho chieftain stirs in my mind, like an echo of a memory. From the remnant of white ash on the akkaye’s withered faces, I can tell they had come from his tribe. Töra Eké was talented with magic that could twist souls in unimaginable ways. He had done this before Efiya killed him and the other chieftains. He sacrificed his own people.

“Are those . . . corpses?” Kira remarks, interrupting my thoughts.

These had once been people with families and friends, and Töra Eké had turned them into abominations. How could he do something so vile? This was no better than the demons—maybe it was even worse. “They are corpses,” I say as the akkaye lurch forward another step. “They’re more dangerous than they look.”

“They look plenty dangerous to me,” Essnai mumbles.

“How do we kill them?” Rudjek asks, cutting to the point.

“According to the stories, the akkaye cease to exist by killing the witchdoctor who made them, but that witchdoctor is already dead,” I answer, rushing my words. “The only other way is to destroy their bodies, completely, so they can’t draw more magic to them.”

“That shouldn’t be so difficult.” Rudjek rotates his wrists, and moonlight shines off his curved blades. “I’m rather good at destroying things.”

This is my fault. We wouldn’t be facing the akkaye had I not made another mistake. Maybe if I retraced our last steps, I could find the path again. I scan the clearing, looking for any sign. We’d crossed it from north to south, then thrice circled the whispering tree—where the akkaye stand now—before doubling back. Where was the exact spot the magic had blinked out? I bite the inside of my cheek hard enough to taste blood, and an akkaye snaps its head in my direction. There’s awareness in its hollow eyes, a keen sense of foreboding as if it can smell death clinging to me.

“Here.” Kira hands me one of her knives. “In case one gets by us.”

The blade is slick against my sweaty palm, its weight unfamiliar and awkward, yet I had wielded the Demon King’s dagger with deadly precision. With that dagger, I had killed. Now the compulsion to reach out and snatch magic from the sky to destroy the akkaye overwhelms me. I can do it if I pay the price—if I offer up my years. I push that thought away. The dagger will have to be enough.

“Just what we need.” Jahla utters the first words I’ve heard her say in well over a month. Her voice is small and raw. “More monsters who refuse to die.”

Near the front of the advancing horde, an akkaye arches its back and brays at the sky. Spiny appendages with curved claws wiggle from between its shoulder blades, and oily black wings unfurl. More akkaye sprout wings as the terrible sound of splitting flesh fills the forest.

Rudjek quirks an eyebrow at me. “Well, that certainly makes things interesting.”

As the akkaye transform, I finally catch a glimpse of the crossroads behind them—a single spark of magic on the ground near the whispering tree. The akkaye watch us with sunken glowing eyes, standing between us and our path to safety.

“We have to go through them, ...