Our enemies have grown too many.” He gestured with his knife toward the forest. It was protection-the ultimate guarantee that Riga could not kill her without killing himself, a shield for her and Ziya both.īut still she was so afraid. Keep your head down and obey, or Riga will find some way to get rid of you. “Do you think I’d ever let anything happen to you?”ĭaji struggled to keep her breathing even.ĭo what he says, she reminded herself. His hand massaged her back in slow circles. “Oh, Daji.” Riga tightened the last knot with a cruel yank, examined his handiwork for a moment, then moved to sit down beside her. “She said this would kill us,” Daji said.

She was just saying whatever the Sorqan Sira wanted us to hear.” Prophecy, my ass-don’t believe that babble. The deer’s mouth opened as if to scream, but the only sound it could make was a hoarse, eerie rasp. Riga, pinning the deer’s neck down with one knee, jerked twine around its front legs. She could tell some small part of him wished they’d never started down this path. “Who cares what she said?” Riga sounded brittle, defensive. The flames jumped higher the whispers intensified. Riga grasped its antlers with one hand and slammed its head to the ground. The deer arched its neck, straining to break free. “We’re far past the point of no return, don’t you think?” She’d been too scared-the glinting metal looked poisonous, resentful. He’d already arranged three serrated knives, all looted from the corpses of Ketreyid archers, in a perfect triangle around the fire. “Too late for second guesses now, sweetheart.” Across the fire, Riga was binding a struggling deer with his usual brutal, callous efficiency. Their whispers echoed in her mind, the same way they echoed every night in her dreams.įear squeezed her chest. She looked away.īut the dead were seared into the backs of her eyelids, their mouths still open in shock at her betrayal. Tendrils of flame reached out like grasping hands that transformed into flickering faces that, months later, still made Daji’s stomach twist with shame. The campfire burned an unnatural shade of purple, sparking and hissing reproachfully as if it could sense her guilt.

The burning god book