Page 96 of The Half King
They ran for the stairs to take the blade back to the group.
As if anticipating what they meant to do, the temple raised a new wall to seal them in. The barrier grew from the floor like a stone hedge, rising so quickly they couldn’t stop in time. Shoes skidding, they slammed sideways into the wall with a thump. The impact loosened Cerise’s grip on the blade, but instead of falling to the floor, the hilt stayed put. She splayed her fingers and shook her hand. The weapon clung to her palm.
“It’s stuck,” she shouted, trying to pry it loose.
“Then use it.” Nero pointed at the first corpse, sniffing its way toward them. “Pierce his heart. That’s how the blade was designed to kill.”
“But he’s already dead.”
“Who cares?” Nero yelled while circling the man to grab him from behind. “Just stab the thing!” He locked the corpse’s elbows behind its back. “Do it now!”
Cerise rushed forward and instantly recoiled as the man lunged at her with snapping teeth. The rot from his mouth was suffocating. She cringed, aiming the blade over his heart, but the man moved as he shifted within Nero’s grasp.
“Hold him still,” she shouted over the man’s guttural snarls.
Nero strained, his face reddening. “He’s stronger than he…” Trailing off, he glanced behind them, where the second corpse had climbed over the dais and now dragged his feet toward them. “Hurry!”
She closed her eyes and thrust the blade as hard as she could into the man’s chest. His ribs splintered, but then the blade wedged there, and her arm jerked as the man thrashed back and forth. She tugged backward, pulling the corpse as well and making Nero stumble.
“Not through the chest!” Nero called while darting glances behind him. “You never stab a man through the chest! His bones will lock your knife.”
“Now you tell me!”
“Do it here,” he said, keeping one arm around the corpse while using the other to point at its upper stomach. “Go under his rib cage and thrust upward. Pierce the heart from below.”
That brief moment was all it took for the corpse to free one hand, which it tangled in Cerise’s hair, pulling her face toward his snapping mouth. She held her breath and yanked the blade free. Then, without thinking, she drove it up beneath his ribs so hard that her fist embedded inside his cold, wet, half-rotten body.
The man went limp.
His fingers released her hair. Pulling the blade from his chest was no more enjoyable than putting it there, but with the second corpse advancing, there wasn’t time to dwell. She yanked free and tried not to look at the putrid blood that streaked her arm.
Nero circled around behind the other man to restrain him. The second kill was easier now that she knew what to do. Moments later, she was pulling her arm from another chest cavity and resisting the urge to study the men for clues to who they had once been. She didn’t want to know.
Suddenly, her arm flung out, and the blade left her palm to float above the dais again, where it shone flawlessly as though she had never used it. She glanced behind her and found the wall still blocking the stairs.
It seemed the temple wasn’t finished with them yet.
A voice boomed, “Prove yourself deserving.”
Cerise turned to Nero just in time to see his body drift up from the floor. He wheeled his arms and legs as some unknown force carried him to the dais and then slammed him down on his back. Four leather straps appeared and snaked around his wrists and ankles. In the time it took for her to run to him, he was fastened so tightly to the altar that his hands began to redden and swell.
She tugged uselessly on the straps, scanning the dais for some sign of what to do. The answer came when the stone hummed to life beneath Nero’s body and illuminated a network of carved channels, roughly a fingertip in width. Like miniature canals, the channels began at his bound wrists and extended down the sides of the dais. The rust-colored stains inside the grooves made it clear what had once flowed there.
She knew what the temple wanted.
Nero’s throat shifted. He knew it, too. “Blood. That’s why both of us had to enter. So one of us could serve as a…”
Sacrifice.
The unspoken word rang between them.
Cerise glanced over her shoulder at the fallen bodies. The dead men had been sacrificed. Someone had killed them in order to borrow the blade for some important purpose or other. She wondered if the survivors had considered the slaughter worthwhile, if the blade had saved enough lives to justify the murder of innocent men.
The blade emitted a buzzing sound, as if to redirect her attention. Somehow she understood that it wanted to feel her touch again, so she stood on tiptoe and pulled it from the air. This time she was free to move the grip from hand to hand, so she set the blade down next to Nero’s shoulder.
Nero glanced at the blade, then to her.
“I’m not going to kill you,” she told him, a little insulted that he’d doubted her. “If I wasn’t willing to sacrifice my pup for the blade, what makes you think I’m capable of killing you in cold blood?”
