Page 47 of These Godly Lies
Her vision doesn’t have time to settle before Khiran jerks back—a blade a hairsbreadth away from her face.
Marcia laughs, deep and rolling as thunder, pale blonde hair framing her angular face like a storm.
Anna fears the strike of lightning that’s sure to follow.
She thumbs the blade of her dagger, her flinty eyes alight with the thrill of the hunt. For every cautious step they take back, she saunters forward with a feline grace. There’s a promise in the way her mouth curves, sharp and wicked, that she’s here for more than their death. She’s here for theirpain. “That’s more like it.”
Khiran says nothing, but his arm tightens around her as if he’s a moment away from fleeing. The line of his jaw is rigid, his stare cool and calculating in ways that contrast the heart beating wildly beneath Anna’s palm.
Marcia’s eyes roam over him, tongue rolling over her teeth. “I admit, I thought that was rather clever of you—giving up your magic. It took me a few years to figure it out. I thought I might be losing my touch. So did The First, for that matter. You know how I hate disappointing him. I’ll be making sure you pay for the embarrassment you caused.”
Her gaze slides to Anna, the edge of her smile growing feral. “Tell me, do you really think this human girl will be worth it?”
Khiran shoves her further behind him, his chest rising and falling and his lip curling in a sneer. “She has nothing to do with this.”
A lie, but he still manages to make it sound like the truth. Even if The First doesn’t realize it yet, Anna knows she haseverythingto do with it. In her coat pocket, her hand curls against cold iron—ready to free the blade from its sheath.
Only, the longer Marcia stares at her, the more her serrated smile dims and her eyes narrow. Anna can practically see her mind turning—cataloguing her lack of injuries and tallying up the years and trying to make them match the youth still lining Anna’s face. It’s only been six years since she first saw her face; six years since Eira’s heart and home burned to ash in front of their eyes. It shouldn’t be long enough to suspect the absence of crow’s feet and laugh lines… but it hasn’t beenjustsix years. It was six years of running—of living a life that should have turned her skin leathery and her hands rough.
Anna sees the exact moment Marcia comes to the same conclusion.
She bristles, lips pulling back into a snarl.“No.”
It’s the only warning Anna gets before Marcia rushes toward them, her blade drawn and her eyes lit with fury. Khiran grabs Anna by the waist, blinking them out of Marcia’s warpath only for her to follow the thread of magic faster than Anna can get her bearings. She doesn’t know what’s happening—can only make out the flash of her blade and bits of earth and sky before Khiran flits away again.
And again.
Again.
Again, until Marcia screams. “You filthycoward! It’s been you all along! You’ve ruined everything!” Her blade comes down, the tip aimed at Anna’s throat before Khiran physically shoves her back.
The blade nicks his raised forearm before he tackles Marcia to the ground, grappling with the knife in her hands as he shouts over his shoulder. “Run!”
Anna staggers back, still dizzy from his magic, and her heel catches on something—sending her to the ground. She yelps, her shoulder crashing painfully against a strip of steel. It takes another moment for her vision to clear enough to realize where she’s landed.
Train tracks.
Staggering, she gets back on her feet, searching both sides of the track until she spots the train station in the distance—smoke curling lazily from the smoke box as it boards. Anna thinks about how many times Khiran blinked away from Marcia’s strikes, despite knowing how easy it is for her to follow his magic and knows it can’t be a coincidence.
Run, he’d said.
He wants her to run for the train.
Dust kicks up like a whirlwind, a storm of sand and grit that stings her flesh and robs her of her vision. One of Khiran’s illusions, cast with so much magic it feels real. A smokescreen to shield her while she flees.
He should know better.
Nearly a decade ago she had stood in front of him, the barrel of a shotgun pressed to her chest and Jiro’s finger trembling on the trigger. Nearly a decade since he asked her to never put herself in harm’s way for him again.
Nearly a decade since she told him that she can’t (that she won’t) make such a promise.
Anna can barely make out the shape of them on the ground—can only tell Marcia is on top of him because of her halo of hair whipping around her face. As Anna stumbles closer, she can hear the other woman’s voice over the roar of sand.
“I told him! I told him he should cull you from the beginning! You’ve never been anything but a filthy liar and a thief!” she snarls. Her hand is around Khiran’s neck pinning him to the ground effortlessly as he writhes beneath her. His arms tremble, fighting against the blade pressing dangerously close to his chest.
Over his heart.
Fear is a fire in her chest, striking her with molten heat and crackling beneath Anna’s skin. Khiran’s head snaps in her direction, pulled by the emotion lancing her heart. His eyes are wide with a horror that matches her own. He doesn’t speak—can’t with the hand around his throat—but Anna doesn’t need words to interpret the look he gives her.
