“You’ll have to cut it,” I said.
Eve opened her bag and took out a pair of scissors.
Conlan cooed, looking like the most adorable child, all innocence and light. The kind of child who would never turn into a monster and eat raw mice in the woods with his father. My son was a con man.
Eve cut my right sleeve. It fell apart. I sent a pulse of magic through the fabric, and black powder rained from it onto the floor. The last thing I wanted was my clotting blood everywhere.
Rowena gasped.
The cut on my bicep was pretty deep. It had turned an odd color of green, too. I’d thought something didn’t feel right. The bitch had poisoned me.
“Keep going,” I told Eve.
The scissors slid up my arm. My shirt fell away, leaving me in a sports bra. A dozen shallow cuts, blooming with green, covered my arms. My shoulder blade burned where the dagger had embedded itself.
Rowena put her hand over her mouth.
“Why didn’t you say something?” Ghastek demanded.
“The medic was on the way.”
“You look like you’ve been through a tornado of knives,” Rowena said.
“She had two daggers. I had no weapons, because Biohazard makes me surrender them before I go into their lab. I couldn’t use power words because Luther was at risk. I bludgeoned her to death with my bare hands and a microscope.”
The two Masters of the Dead stared at me.
“She wasn’t going to touch my son,” I told them.
Ghastek turned to the medmage. “How bad is it?”
“The cut on the right arm is deep. Slow healing is best in this case. It will take three sessions over the next twenty-four hours if the magic wave holds.”
“That won’t work for me,” I told her. “Fix the arm as much as you can. That’s all I need.”
She met my gaze. “If I do this all at once, it will be very painful.”
“That’s fine.”
“I’ll need to cleanse the wounds. They already closed. The poison is trapped inside.”
I pulled on my cuts with my magic, calling on my blood. Red slid from the gashes. Eve shied back as if struck with a live wire.
“Is that enough?” I asked.
She swallowed and held up her hands. “Yes. Please stop.”
I stopped the bleeding. A spark of magic and the blood streaking my skin turned to dust.
I held my arm out to her. Eve sat down next to me, touched my arm, her fingers cold on my skin, and began to chant. The burn in my wound exploded into ice, stabbing my muscles with a dozen sharp needles. She was a burst medic. Most medmages poured their magic into the body in a steady current, amplifying the natural regeneration. Burst medmages, who were much rarer, drove their magic into their patients, mending them like they were inanimate objects. They were excellent in emergencies, because they healed even the worst wounds fast, but the pain was excruciating.
Some terrible beast with icicle teeth bit my wound and began gnawing on it.
I unclenched my teeth before I did any damage to my jaw. “I need to speak to my father. The sahanu who attacked us isn’t the only one. Razer is in the city, so there will be more.”
A muscle jerked in Ghastek’s face. “How do you know Razer is in Atlanta?”
“The Pack snapped a candid photo of him prancing on a roof near Sandy Springs some days ago.”
The pain was almost unbearable now. I checked to see if my arm was still attached. It was.
Ghastek pushed a key on his phone.
“Yes, sir?” a male voice said.
“Prior to today, were you aware of any sahanu in the city?”
“No, sir.”
“Razer was seen near Sandy Springs two days ago by the Pack. Is it our custom now to rely on the Pack for our intelligence?”
“No, sir.”
“What’s our mission?” Ghastek’s voice was almost mild.
“To defend In-Shinar and the heir,” the man responded, his voice clipped.
My arm was actually being torn off now. I wished I had something to bite on.
“Can we accomplish this mission without proper intelligence?”
“No, sir.”
“Can you tell me why the Pack knows about the sahanu and we do not?”
Silence.
“I’m waiting,” Ghastek said, his voice iced over.
“Uh-oh,” Conlan assessed the situation.
“Uh-oh!” Rowena smiled at him. “Such a smart boy.”
Oh no. Now she was encouraging him.
“Uh-oh!” my son told her.
“Uh-oh!” Rowena said.
“Uh-oh!”
Ghastek gave her a look. She turned away, walking a few steps toward the glass window. “Look there. Look at all the vampires.”
The phone still offered only tortured silence.
“Can anyone there tell me why this is the case?” Ghastek ground out.
Silence.
“This is your chance to help me understand why I’m now facing an injured In-Shinar and having to explain our failure. Demonstrate to me that someone in the intelligence division has even the smallest modicum of intellect, or I’ll replace the lot of you.”
“The sahanu must’ve identified a pattern to our patrols,” said a different voice.
“Who is this?” Ghastek asked.
“Journeyman Wickert, sir.”
“Wickert, find the pattern and bring me your results.”
Ghastek hung up.
The pain released me. I took a nice, deep breath and checked my arm. I couldn’t even see the scar. Eve was a miracle worker.
The ice stabbed into the gouge on my left shoulder. I gritted my teeth. Here we go again.
Ghastek knelt next to me, his sharp face serious. “It’s my fault. I take full responsibility for this failure. I’m sorry.”
He bowed his head. I wished to be anywhere but here. What do I do now?
I waved Eve off and she stepped away. “Stop, Ghastek. We agreed. No kneeling, no bowing. I can’t do it.”
He stayed where he was. “Protecting you and your son is what we do. We exist to fulfill this purpose. We didn’t know that girl was here. We didn’t know Razer was here. It’s a failure of leadership. If my people are incompetent, I didn’t realize it. You have given me free rein over my subordinates. I restructured the People, I oversaw personnel assignments, I approved patrols. The ultimate responsibility for this is on me.”
I finally understood. Ghastek prized competence above all else. He was deeply ashamed. He didn’t want Kate, his friend, right now. Convincing him that he’d done nothing wrong wouldn’t work. He needed absolution or punishment. He wanted the In-Shinar.
Something in me died a little. First Raphael, then Teddy Jo, now Ghastek. I would never again be just Kate. You are the Princess of Shinar, the beacon of your people’s hope, and if you succumb, that hope will perish with you.
Sooner or later, in every relationship I had, I would end up becoming In-Shinar, and once I did, if only for a few moments, it altered that relationship forever. Mercs in the Guild remembered my voice shaking the building when I had spoken in the old tongue to the projection of my father. Shapeshifters who fought in the battle against Roland remembered In-Shinar’s rage.
Once I showed my true face, people never forgot it.
I’d fought it so hard for these last three years, but in the end, it didn’t matter. I had claimed Atlanta and everyone in it. I accepted responsibility for their safety. I was Sharratum na Shar. The queen who didn’t rule, but a queen still the same.
I dropped my cloak and pulled the magic from the depths of my soul. It bubbled up to the surface like a geyser. If it’d had a voice, it would’ve whispered, I’m awake. I’m alive.
Eve knelt by my side.
“Mama!” Conlan said, the same way he’d tried to tell me that the shiny walls of Biohazard were pretty.