Page 107 of The Verdant Cage
“Let her go.” I glance at Marie. “And I’ll tell you.”
His hope is so naked that I’d pity the man if he hadn’t chosen greed and ugliness over his community.
“Tell me now,” he says, not releasing Marie. But neither does he raise his voice so any but us three can hear him. He must know I’m bluffing, but isn’t that the way of love? The brain kneels to the heart.
“I cannot,” I say. I’ll show the villagers the Verdant Beast, but I want to destroy the tablet while I’m at it, remove that tool from Jarek’s abuse of power. “It’s too personal. For your ears only.”
Jarek’s face is clenched so tightly it’s turning in on itself. Then suddenly, it relaxes. “Fine. Marie, go join my wife.”
He shoves her away and then smiles, his expression an altar to evil.
My tongue turns to cloth. It’s clear from his expression that he’s figured out I’m lying. But what can I do? I’ve talked myself into a corner. I begin to walk toward Eden’s Gate, my hand sliding into my medical kit. It takes a moment to find the syringe I seek, because my fingers are numb with terror. Will I be able to use the needle? It seems unlikely. In fact, I feel a terrible, cold certainty that Jarek is going to plunge a knife in my back, just as he did to Reatha. There are so many things I wish I’d said, so many truths. I try to line them up, looking for comfort in the order, at least, but they evade me. I hear a terrible groaning shush, followed by a bloodcurdling scream.
Forty feet to my left, the Verdant Beast has come to life without me, drawn to the pile of villagers’ corpses.
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Its gnarled tendrils twist and writhe in the dim light as it plucks the first body from the pile, Pierre of the Dentist House. It squeezes him tight before plunging needled vines into his soft belly. The greedy Beast doesn’t even finish with him before going back for another, and then a third. I can’t bear to watch as the bodies of people I knew and cared for—Meeman of the Fisher House, Augustus’s father Hephaestus—are consumed, don’t want to hear the wet, sucking sound of its feeding, don’t want to notice the pulsating purple veins growing engorged.
Those who watch are frozen in a mixture of disbelief and terror. “Everyone, get back!” Jarek yells, his face contorted. “It will leave us alone once it’s taken its fill.”
But somehow I doubt that’s true. The Verdant Beast, kept sated for over a century on our monthly bodies, has developed an appetite, reaching a maturity its creators couldn’t have envisioned. A scream pierces the air as Nero of the Farmer House is grabbed, then constricted. Leonidas leaps to his aid, but his sword barely nicks it.
The vines near Eden’s Gate are thicker, but they also look like they’re slower than the ones we encountered on the edge of the quarantine zone. Easier to dodge, but hard to cut through. I’m trying to decide what presents the most danger in the moment—the Beast behind me or Jarek in front of me—when he points at me.
“Take her,” he commands the nearest Guardians.
They surge forward, weapons glinting, but before they can reach me, a war cry splits the air, followed by Lozen vaulting over an overturned cart, her fists already bloodied. Augustus takes advantage of the distraction to throw Tomris to the ground. When Sal shoots out of the shadows of an alley, racing to free the prisoners with quick, precise movements, my heart soars.
Their presence, coupled with the Verdant Beast’s horror, finally jolts the village into action. While some scream and flee, many more grab nearby items to use as weapons—wood beams, torches, pitchforks—and advance on the Beast. The strong save the bodies of our fallen, pulling them from the monster’s hungry grasp. We are finally battling as one! I cheer on those who’ve joined the fight as I duck under a Guardian who tries to grab me. Beside me, Augustus takes down another with a sweep of his pipe. Even more villagers join the fray, now fighting the Guardians as well as the Verdant Beast, their desperate fury making up for their lack of training.
We might actually have a chance this time—
“Enough!” Jarek’s voice cracks like a whip above the pandemonium. He draws his sword, the blade catching the moonlight as he moves like lightning toward Augustus. Suddenly the Plumber is on the ground, blood streaming from a gash in his arm. Sal tries to intervene but takes a kick to the ribs that sends her sprawling. Even Lozen with all her training can barely hold her own against Jarek in full battle rage. His blade slices the air in clean, merciless arcs as he holds off several villagers at once.
Now that I see the true extent of his skill, it terrifies me.
I’m searching for a weapon when a new fighter stumbles onto the scene, his movements sluggish but determined.Gryphon. The drugs I gave him have left him disoriented, but his eyes burn with purpose as he barrels toward his father.
“Stand down, boy,” Jarek snarls. “You’re in no condition to fight.”
Gryphon answers with a wild swing that Jarek easily deflects, but it forces him to step back.
“You taught me to never stand down,” Gryphon says, slurring his words, pushing farther forward. “To never show weakness.” Another swing, this one better coordinated. The words that follow are a little clearer. “Guess the lesson stuck.”
I try to circle Jarek while he’s distracted, looking for something I can use as a bo staff, but one of his remaining Guardians blocks my path. Behind us, I can hear the chilling, leatheryshushof the Verdant Beast’s vines creeping closer.
“You disappoint me,” Jarek tells his son, parrying another attack as Gryphon drives him closer to Eden’s Gate. “I thought you were stronger than this. Thought you understood what needed to be done to survive.”
“Survival isn’t enough!” Gryphon shouts. His next strike draws blood, a thin line across Jarek’s cheek. “You taught me that, too. You taught me to conquer, to dominate. But you never taught me tolive.”
I think Gryphon might stand a chance if he had all his faculties, but he overplays his hand. His next swing goes wide, and Jarek raises his blade for the killing strike.
“No!” I scream.
A flash of movement catches my eye. Misia had been fighting off the Verdant Beast but she turns at her son’s need, a knife gleaming in her hand. She moves with the silent grace of someone who’s spent years making herself invisible, reaching Jarek’s side before he senses her presence. Her blade slides between his ribs, not deep enough to kill but enough to make him howl in fury.
“My wife,” he growls, whipping around to face her. “Finally showing your true colors.”
