On This Unworthy Scaffold, Heidi Heilig [best books to read for success .txt] 📗

Chapter Eight

Mei mei—little sister. I can tell by the look in the monk’s blue eyes that she does not mean it as an honorific. This is no normal revenant, but one of Le Trépas’s children—killed at birth, their souls twisted to his service. They survive by slipping from body to rotting body, killing new victims when the flesh begins to fail. I was almost one of them.

Now I back away slowly, keeping my eyes not on the gun in her hand, but on the monk’s wizened face. Of course I don’t recognize it; she was wearing a different one when I saw her last. “The well outside Hell’s Court,” I say as the memory floods back—the stinking corpse had dragged me into the mud. “You were there as a dead man.”

“Alas,” she says, still stepping slowly toward me. “I was there as a dog.”

I shudder—the dead dog had stalked us through the tunnels, herding us toward the corpse. . . . Is she doing the same thing now? When the monk takes another step closer, I freeze. On the back of my neck, the hair stands on end.

In one quick motion, I whip the little knife from my belt, drawing it across my palm as I turn. Behind me in the tunnel, the dead man looms. Not the same corpse as back in the well, but the same soul. This body wears armée clothes, crusted with old blood. He lunges for me, but I raise my hand like a threat, and he falls back. Then I turn my head so I can see the monk too. The gun is still in her hand, but her face is uncertain.

At the sight, boldness pushes my fear aside. I tuck my knife back into my belt, and dip my other fingers in my own blood. With one bloody hand facing the dead soldier and the other stretched toward the monk, I take a step closer to her. “If you’re going to shoot me, you better do it fast.”

“Le Trépas doesn’t want you dead,” she says quickly, and now she’s the one retreating.

“He could have fooled me,” I reply as I take another step. Behind me, the dead soldier follows at a wary distance. “I got his message, by the way. The grenade was a nice touch.”

“The message was meant for the Tiger,” the monk says. “The moment he offered a truce to the Aquitans was the moment he became our enemy. But to you, Jetta, our father offers an agreement.”

“An agreement?” I smirk, taking another step closer. “Let me guess. Wealth? Power?”

“Knowledge,” she replies, still retreating. “There’s so much he could teach you.”

I laugh then, bitter. Le Trépas had offered to teach me once before. He had given me his own blood, and told me to make the symbol of death on a feather to call the soul of a bird. When the soul appeared, blue and vengeful, he’d revealed that I’d ripped it from its new life. “I’ve already learned my lesson from him.”

“Have you learned your history? He remembers the way things were before the Aquitans came and took it all away,” the monk says, and now I hesitate. “And he knows how to get it all back.”

“To restore what was lost?” The words slip out—I can’t help it—and in the tunnels behind me, the wind sighs a distant song.

“Yes.” The monk’s blue eyes glitter. “You can’t imagine the wealth they have—the wealth they have stolen. Even he could hardly believe what he saw in Aquitan. With your help, he can bring it all back to Chakrana.”

“I thought he wanted the Aquitans gone,” I say.

“That’s the start of it,” the monk says. “Join him, and he’ll even let you keep your moitié.”

Leo’s face swims behind my eyes. I hate the slur she uses, and the way she speaks, as though he is a pet. But something else caught my attention, and I frown as I take another step down the tunnel. The dead man behind me follows suit. “Le Trépas has been to Aquitan?”

“Do you think his hatred comes from ignorance?” The monk scoffs. “He has seen their selfishness. Their greed. He knows his enemy. You should too.”

“I do,” I say softly. Then I take a deep breath. “Theodora!”

At my sudden shout, another gout of flame bursts from the crack in the earth, engulfing the dead man behind me; I have led the soldier back to where Theodora is hiding. Flesh burns; hair shrivels. The stench is overwhelming and I gag, but the revenant doesn’t so much as scream as he falls, leaving behind the bright blue flame of a n’akela.

The monk is still standing too. I leap at her, bloody hands outstretched, and she tosses the gun aside to grab my wrists with gnarled fingers.

Grappling, we fall to the floor of the tunnel. “You’ll come to him sooner or later,” the monk says through her teeth. Her arms shake as I push my own hands inexorably closer to her skin. “Death is inescapable for everyone but him.”

She grits her teeth as I make the mark on her wrinkled skin, but when her soul springs free, it is bright gold. I scramble to my feet as the spirit follows its sibling down the hall, but I stumble when I try to follow. My ribs are throbbing, and blood is seeping through the bodice of my borrowed gown.

“Are they gone?” Theodora’s voice comes from the crack in the earth.

“Yes.”

She peeks out, frowning when she sees me. “Are you okay?”

“Mostly.” With a sigh, I sit back down beside the monk’s still body. Other souls drift closer, drawn to the blood. In the distant tunnels, the windsong rises and falls: the sound of souls sharing secrets with the Keeper. Has my sister’s soul joined them? What secrets would she share?

“Are you sure?” Theodora comes to my side, concern on her face, but I wave her off. Then I grimace at my bloody hands.

“It’s worse than it looks,” I say. “I’ll