Page 87 of The Merciless Ones

“All right,” I say, nodding. “Let’s—”

I stop when a strange crackling sounds in the air. A door.

When I turn towards it, a small, wiry Forsworn deathshriek is suddenly standing behind Keita, his skin a strange bluish purple, unlike all the others I’ve seen. More doors open around us and our other uruni – Acalan, Li, Lamin and Kweku – tumble out as well. Jatu stand at their backs, along with the Forsworn deathshrieks. They’re all emerging from the doors now forming around us. The dozens and dozens of doors. Even worse, Keita and the others seem frozen, unable to move, unable to speak.

“Morning greetings, Nuru,” the deathshriek behind Keita says. I know, even without asking, that he is Elder Kadiri.

There’s that look in his eyes – the same one he had on that platform when he was about to sacrifice those girls to the Idugu. His claws reach for Keita’s back and my entire body goes cold.

“Keita—”

“When the Idugu came to resurrect me,” the elder says, “they told me you would likely never listen to reason, so I had to show you. I had to show you the truth so you can see it for yourself. Remember,” he says, unholy fanaticism in his eyes, “all of it is for you. I dedicate this sacrifice to you, Deka, angoro of the gods. May it nourish you, bringer of death to all that is divine.”

And then he slits Keita’s throat.

Keita’s blood is bright red. I don’t know what colour I thought it would be, but I’m frozen by the sight of it gurgling from his throat. It pours and pours, so much of it welling out from the pink underneath. The pink that looks so unreal under the beautiful brown of his skin.

Am I dreaming? This has to be a dream – it can’t be real, what I’m seeing. The room is spinning. Lights, movement, colour – screams. So many, many screams.

Somewhere nearby, Britta is crying. “Li…he’s…” She turns to me, tears in her eyes. Li’s lying in her arms. That horrible red is pouring out of his throat too. “They’re killing…hi—”

I don’t understand what she’s saying. It’s like I’m walking underwater. Everything feels so heavy. I can barely move. All I see is Keita lying there, that horrible red pouring and pouring, and I don’t know what to do and why can’t I do anything and why oh why is there red pouring from Keita’s throat?

“Keita?” I try to walk to him, but my legs give out, so I have to crawl to his side, have to summon every last bit of strength I have to pull him into my lap. “Keita, please, just talk to me, just—”

He tries, but blood burbles up at the side of his mouth and he coughs, splattering my robes with red. No, no, no… My hands shake as I press my fingers over his throat.

I try to stop the blood from flowing, try to squeeze the wound together so it’ll heal, but it’s no use, so I enter the combat state to see if there’s anything internal I can change. If I could heal Britta just months ago, if I could pull her back from the dead, surely I can heal Keita too. But when I look, Keita’s soul is human, so frustratingly, unrelentingly human. So I wrench myself out of the combat state back to the red, which just keeps pouring. Pouring and pouring.

The light is almost out of Keita’s eyes now, and his breath is rattling, so I plead with him. “Keita, no, please, please, please, we were supposed to be indolo, remember?” I wail the words as if I’m a wounded animal. “You and me, two in one. No, please, Keita no…”

Nothing I do matters, because Keita’s breath continues rattling, the sound so horrible, I want to rip my ears out of my skull. “Keita, please…” I keep pleading, desperately tearing what cloth I can from the undergarments beneath my armour. I stuff it around his throat, but that red just keeps bleeding through.

“Remain here with me,” I whisper, frantically kissing his lips. “Stay with me.”

A small, frail movement makes me look up. “Deka…” Blood spurts from Keita’s neck as he whispers this painfully spoken word. His voice is broken glass now – a serrated edge, slicing me raw. He tries to lift his hand to my face, but it falls, so I grab it, place it on my cheek.

“I’m here, Keita. Stay with me,” I say, tears running down my cheeks as he attempts to smile at me, only he can’t quite curve his lips upwards. “Here,” I say, hurriedly tugging their corners.

If I can help him smile, then perhaps all this will go away, and Keita will be whole again, and this won’t be real, and this won’t be happening. But no matter what I do, his lips won’t bend, and now, they’re growing cold under my touch, their texture waxy and lifeless like the linen in a scroll. It’s the same thing with his eyes when I glance up. The light is dimming from them. A grey pallor is creeping over his skin.

And even worse, the rattles are now slowing in his chest. As I watch, helpless, his breath rattles once, twice, and just like that, it’s over. Keita’s gone. And I sit there. Unable to move. Unable to do anything.

I just sit there.

Ixa paces in front of me, his massive body a barrier between me and the jatu now circling around, but I barely notice. Britta wails in the distance, her pain so similar to my own, but I don’t even stir. All I know is that Keita was here, and he was beautiful and he was mine, and now he’s gone. My dearest friend. My battle companion. One of the few people I could cry to who didn’t think I was broken or hateful or unworthy. The most amazing boy I’ve ever met – a beautiful, shimmering soul, and now he’s gone, oh, mothers, he’s gone and I’ll never see him again, because alaki don’t go to the same place the humans do and I’m not even alaki and I’ll never die and I’ll always be alone now, always alone.

I look down at Keita’s lifeless body, so still there on my lap, and suddenly, I’m filled with enough rage to tear down the skies. “You said you’d never leave me!” I scream. “You promised – you and I, we were supposed to be together!”

I shake him, shake that hateful, obscene corpse. “You said we would be together for ever!”

A sob wrenches from my body, and I bury my face in my hands, only to recoil when I feel the wetness on them. They’re red – covered in Keita’s blood. The blood that was spilled because of me. Because I never deserved him, because I’ve killed so many people, been responsible for so many deaths, and that’s why they took him. Oh, mothers, they took him.

I scrub at the blood, trying to peel it from my hands, but nothing works. No matter how hard I rub my hands against my armour, the red stain lingers, the gold lingers. It’s there, shimmering on my fingers, that hateful, hateful gold.

Wait.

Every muscle in my body ropes tight as I glance down, body stilling. There’s gold on my fingers, gold gleaming inside Keita’s blood. The same blood that’s now creeping over him, mingling with the heat rising from his body. Keita is hot, blistering hot. Boiling. And so is the room around us.