Page 80 of The Merciless Ones
Both the jatu leader and I ignore her. “Of course, you can,” he rumbles with an elegant shrug. For all his fearsome size, he has very elegant manners. I’m only just now realizing that. “You simply never listened before. Or perhaps you did try but your so-called mothers” – he says this last part with a sneer – “prevented you from hearing me. I notice you’re no longer wearing your flowery little necklace, the one that stinks of their ichor.”
I reflexively touch my now-bared neck, then force myself to put my hands down as I rebut: “And I notice you’re still wearing your kaduth.” I nod my chin at his breastplate. “Clever gambit, using it to evade the n’goma. Thankfully, we now know your secrets. And we’re going to use them to escape Hemaira.”
As I glance back at my friends, who have already assumed battle stances, despite the fact that we’re woefully outmatched by the Forsworn, the jatu-leader deathshriek bursts out in loud, robust guffaws. “The n’goma?” He laughs, wiping away a tear with a knife-sharp claw. “You think an ancient arcane object is what prevented you from entering Hemaira? This city has always been open to you, has always welcomed you, in fact. Idugu seeks you with open arms, you know this. It is your mothers who do not want you here, who do not want you knowing…”
“Knowing what?”
Beside me, Melanis is swiftly becoming agitated. “Stop talking to him and fight, Nuru. We must escape.”
But I’m done with her interruptions. “Escape how?” I ask, gesturing around.
The Forsworn deathshrieks may be smaller in number, but even one of them is equal to at least three or four of us. It would be different if it was just my group, and we were fighting with only escape in mind, but the entire Warthu Bera is with us now, and most of the alaki are so weakened, they’d just be bodies for the slaughter. We’re well and truly trapped.
I glance at the karmokos, trying to see if they have any sort of plan concocted, but they’re still whispering to each other, taking advantage of the fact that the leader deathshriek’s attention is on me.
He steps forwards once more, that awful smirk curling his lips. He doesn’t even glance Melanis’s way as he continues, “Ask yourself, Nuru, why would they create the ruse of the n’goma? And why would they bind you with so much stinking ichor, you couldn’t even hear the sound of your own brothers’ voices, much less use the abilities you were born with? Why would they seek to make you less than you are?”
His words slither through my mind, a reflection of all my fears, all my suspicions: the mothers are lying to me, using me for some end I don’t truly understand.
The mothers don’t love me.
I shake my head. “No,” I cry out, “you’re just trying to confuse me.” I can see it now, the smugness in his grin, the cunning in his eyes. There may be some truth to his words – a lot of it, even – but it’s muddied by some sort of hidden motive, some sort of scheme. “What do you want?” I ask, clenching my fists tighter over my atikas.
Beside me, Melanis is virtually frothing at the mouth now. “Kill him, Nuru,” she hisses. “Or I will.”
The deathshriek turns to her. “And after, what will you do, Melanis, Light of the Alaki – fly back to your precious mothers?” he mocks, knowing fully well she can’t understand his words. “Tell me, how will you manage to do that without your wings?”
As I tense, about to alert her, Melanis abruptly launches into the air.
It’s too late. I hear a swift whooshing sound, and then a massive spear appears out of nowhere to ram through her wings, sending her crashing down.
“You dare?” she shrieks as she lands in a crumpled heap, her wings flapping uselessly. The leaper deathshriek who threw the spear smirks as he scuttles back up the walls, disappearing into the darkness. “You dare cause injury to my person, unwanted one?” she growls at the jatu-leader deathshriek.
Belcalis and the others run to her, trying to drag her to safety, but I remain where I am, my thoughts whirling. Something has just occurred to me: Melanis moved before the spear was thrown. Before I even tensed up after the leader deathshrieks’s threat. She didn’t have to read my body language or his to defend herself; she already knew what was going to happen. No, she heard what was going to happen, because the leader deathshriek said so, which means she understood what he was saying – has likely understood this entire while.
I whirl to her, shock and betrayal warring inside me. “Melanis?” I ask. “Do you understand him?”
The Firstborn only stares at me mutinously, her teeth gritted as she rips the spear out of her wings.
When she rises, shaking them out, I take a step back, betrayal growing. “Have you always understood them?” I whisper.
“Of course, she has.” Behind me, the leader deathshriek is amused. “She’s the Light of the Alaki, the favourite of your mothers. Why else would we go to such lengths to keep her? Why else would they go to such lengths to free her?”
I’m reeling now, overwhelmed by all the emotions churning inside me. Melanis can understand the Forsworn deathshrieks, can hear them when they speak. Has heard them all this while, even though I could not. I thought I was the only one who could understand all the languages of the mothers. I thought that was what being Nuru meant, that no one else could do what I could.
And yet Melanis has been able to communicate with the Forsworn all along. But she never once said a word. “Why?” I ask, hurt. “Why didn’t you ever let me know? Why didn’t you ever let anyone know?”
Melanis remains silent, as always, so the jatu-leader deathshriek answers for her. “The answer is simple, Nuru,” he says. “The mothers didn’t want her to tell anyone. They didn’t even want their precious daughters to know we existed. You see, to them, we are unwanted spawn, less than animals.” There’s a tone in his voice. A barely hidden tremor I know he wouldn’t want me noticing. Suddenly, now, I remember that man in Melanis’s memory, the pain in his eyes as he stared up at the mothers. Another jatu, asking the Gilded Ones to love him, to no avail.
I turn back to the deathshriek, tired. So very, very tired now. “What do you want?” I ask, weary.
“You,” he says. “You are the only one Idugu requires. The rest of them can burn.” He turns to his followers, raises his spear. “Leave not a single person standing. Except her.”
With a roar, the deathshrieks rush towards us. But as I raise my atikas, preparing to defend myself, a spine-tingling shriek echoes across the courtyard. I glance up, as does everyone else, to see Sayuri standing on the battlements, gesturing with a golden spear.
“Bloodsisters!” she roars. “Defend your kin!”
That’s all the warning I get before the courtyard is suddenly awash with massive bodies, mist rising as the Warthu Bera’s once-caged deathshrieks plough into even larger purple ones, an entire flood of them to wipe the others away. The air quickly splinters into ear-shattering roars as the deathshrieks use teeth, claws and even weapons to fall upon their counterparts.