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Her skin turns translucent, revealing a horrible clockwork of muscle and vein pulsing under her flesh. Sheets of white hair sprout from her arm, fanning out like wings. Her eyes are no longer cloudy but black and ravenous, and when she finally shows her teeth, they are serrated—and stained with blood.
She’s a suiyak!
Suiyaks are former witches. Mosquitoes from Hell, Ukar calls them, because they fly like they’re jumping, the way a mosquito moves, in quick bursts. They also feed on blood.
Her nails dig into my arm, and I resist the urge to kick her away. Angma must not have told her servants about me. My blood surfaces onto my skin, bubbling red and burning through her nails. With a shriek, the suiyak drops my arm.
Suiyaks never travel alone. As her shriek resonates across the sky, another one appears. This time I am ready. I sweep her away with my arm, using the bloodied side. My poison hisses upon contact, searing ashen flesh. While she flails, I yank an arrow from the railing and plunge it into her chest. A gurgled cry strains out of her throat. I throw her overboard, and she disappears into the fog.
The other suiyak is still here. She’s been watching me, observing. When I spin to face her again, she leaps into the air, simply hanging there. I brace myself, but she doesn’t charge. She smiles, mist hissing from her nostrils, then she melts into the fog like her sister.
I have a feeling I’ll see them again.
Hurry, Channari! Hokzuh shouts. I’m feeling unwelcome at this party.
Hurrying, I glance over my shoulder for one of the brass lanterns swinging from the rails. I bend over to unhook one.
From behind comes a yank on my hair, then the cold sting of metal on my neck.
Angma, holding the spear I threw at King Meguh. “Yield to me.”
Gone is the low flute of her voice. Her command is a rasp, and though magic glazes her eyes, I still notice that in the short time since I’ve last seen her, her hair has gone gray, bone-white stripes translucent on her neck and cheeks.
“Yield,” Angma demands.
“Never.” I swing the lantern at her head, and as she staggers, I clap the tip of the spear between my hands. The point bites into my skin, drawing blood, but I don’t need blood to end this. That’s just to make it hurt. I thrust my knee up, knocking the spear out her grasp. Then I thrust its blunt end into her heart.
Her skin goes instantly white, and her pupils turn red, bright as the blood streaming down her queenly robes.
“Save the queen!” guards cry. “Hurry!”
I drop my lantern, and its oil spills over the deck, trailing fire in all directions. Flames roar to life, traveling swiftly across the ship, and a wall rises, separating Angma and me from her soldiers.
I kneel beside her. This is the moment I’ve prepared for, the moment I’ve trained endlessly for. I will not fail.
I press my fingers to her lips, forcing the blood on my skin onto her tongue. I expect her eyes to lose luster, for my poison to take her life quickly. But instead, her flesh starts to peel away under my thumbs, her black hair, her nose and lips crumbling like dough. Within seconds, she is but brittle bone and ash. Then that too crumbles under my fingers, and I draw back in horror—as a white-haired tiger emerges.
The transformation is riveting. It begins with the fur, which coats her hands, traveling down her arms and her back as powerful muscles bulge from her limbs and her body swells. With a soft thud, she falls onto all fours. A tail winds out of her rear, and whiskers pierce her cheeks, taut and pearlescent against the ebony-black stripes twining across her back. Last come the shadows radiating from her fur. They are the night unfolding, a boundless and depthless abyss, and wherever they touch, the waters fall dark.
You will give me your strength, she purrs wordlessly.
The command spreads across the ship, and three of the archers shooting at Hokzuh whirl. Their faces go slack as they stride numbly toward Angma. One of them even catches fire on the way, but he doesn’t scream. He doesn’t even whimper.
“My strength is yours, my queen,” he murmurs before Angma grabs him. In a blink, all that is left of the man is the blood staining her ivory teeth and a scrap of purple sleeve.
Bile rises to my throat as she turns on another guard, repeating the gruesome sacrifice to renew her strength.
I have to stop this. I grip my spear, the blood still wet on my fingertips. Then I find my rhythm, my courage—and charge.
I’m one step, one breath, one strike from impaling her heart when Hokzuh cuts in from above and wrenches me into the sky.
“No!” I scream. “Let me go!”
Enough, Channi! It’s Ukar. He twists his head over Hokzuh’s shoulder. What did I tell you about being impulsive? She’s too strong.
I look down at the ship, but it’s already blurred into the fire.
My mouth tastes like smoke. “I almost had her.”
