Page 48 of These Godly Lies
You were supposed to run.
But sheisrunning. Has been from the moment she saw how close she is to losing him. The blade in her pocket burns like a lifeline—hislifeline—the edge of unpolished iron biting hungrily against her palm as she grasps it. Ready to unsheathe it. Ready touseit.
Khiran’s expression twists, desperation fueled fury momentarily eclipsing the fear. A blink and he’s gone, Marcia’s blade stabbing through empty air and into the earth.
Anna’s steps falter, waiting for the inevitable moment Marcia follows his trail to wherever he’s gone. It’s not until the fair-haired woman screams, hands tearing at her eyes, that she sees the cobra coiled and spitting venom beneath her. Scales ripple back into flesh, Khiran’s hand grasping the blade Marcia abandoned.
He drives the steel between the cage of her arms and into her stomach. Marcia’s savage howl is equal parts pain and outrage. Khiran blinks away a split second before she strikes, the force of it making the ground tremble and leaving a crater in the shape of her fist. He reappears at Anna’s side, grasping her hand with an unspoken command.
Run.
Marcia screams at their backs. “You sniveling coward!Face me!”
Anna can hear the train. Hear the wheels on the track and the clunking heartbeat of pistons before she sees it. The beat is steadily increasing, the slow buildup of momentum before it goes barreling full speed down the track. The last car is in sight, a beacon of hope if only they can reach it.
The stitch in her side protests angrily, but she only pushes herself to go faster. They’re almost there. The pain she feels is only temporary. A lie when the threat behind them is terrifyingly real.
Khiran reaches it first, hoisting her up onto the platform. Anna grips the railing, turning to offer him her hand and pulling him up. She looks up, sees Marcia staggering after them and then the flash of a blade, bloody metal winking like death in the sunlight, a moment before Khiran cries out and falls at her feet. There is a knife lodged between his ribs, its polished handle gleaming in the sun and blood blossoming, wet and hot and crimson, over his kurta.
Anna shouts his name, dropping to her knees.
He answers by pulling the knife out himself, biting back a curse and eyes flashing. Pressing his hand over the wound, blood seeps around his fingers and paints his pale knuckles red as he throws the blade from them as if it burns. Above them, the metallic chink of metal on metal cries out a warning. The train is putting distance between them and the threat, but they aren’t out of range. Not yet.
Shelter. They need shelter before another blade finds its mark.
Frantically, her hands scramble for the door latch as she winds her arm beneath Khiran’s shoulder. She ignores the way his lips twist in agony. Ignores the way his blood drips from him like rain. Another flash of metal, a stinging pain at her calf where the point sharpened edge kissed her skin. Anna ignores that, too. There’s onlya few feet and a door between them and safety, and she’s determined to meet it.
Khiran’s shaky in her arms, but he helps her drag his body through the threshold. Anna takes one last look, meeting Marcia’s rage filled stare just as her knees hit the dirt. Anna tips her chin up, hopes the other woman can see the victory in her eyes despite the distance between them, and closes the door.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Nothing could have prepared him for the emptiness. He searches for a trace of her, reaching out in the hollow of his chest, desperate to feel the echo of her soul respond. He’s met with only the heavy, lonely beating of his own heart.
INDIANRAILWAYS, INDIA
FEBRUARY1964
The train car is occupied.
A horse paws at the ground, ears pinned to its skull and snorting at the scent of blood. Its salt and pepper coat shines in the low light from the open slots as it pivots anxiously, tail high. It’s only the lead rope tied to the opposite end of the car that prevents it from moving any closer.
Carefully, Anna guides Khiran onto a stretch of straw far enough away from the hooves beating against the wooden subfloorand coaxes his hands away from his wound. The blade had nestled itself neatly between his ribs. Heart in her throat, she tears his kurta open, sees the bubbles in his blood, and her fears are confirmed.
His lung. It’s pierced his lung.
“Khiran?” His name escapes her like a question. A prayer for guidance and assurances.
There’s so much red.
The same color as any of the thousands of patients she has treated over the centuries. Anna knows that wound, without the extensive treatment only a hospital can provide, would be a death sentence to anyone else. She puts her hands over his own, adding more pressure. Sweat beads down her neck, rolling down her collar. She can taste the salt of it on her lips. “Khiran, I don’t—”
“It will heal,” he assures her, but he sounds winded. Out of breath. When he coughs, the sound of it rattles in the cage of his chest. “Slowly, but it will heal the same as everything else. Don’t worry, I’ve suffered worse.”
She wants to believe him. Wants his reassurances to be spun more of truth than thinly veiled comfort. She looks down at her hands, at the blood—his blood—smearing over her skin. Darkening the etchings on her ring.
Her ring.
Blood and bone.
