Page 35 of The Lustrous Dark
Her gaze swings from the forest, with its creatures so ruined, they shouldn't even be alive, and back to the monsters of Ard Al-Ghul. A silver flash winks from the ground, a stone's throw from the ongoing fight—if you call seven-on-one a fight.The ring!It must have fallen from her satchel when she dug through it for the knife.
As much as Shay wishes she never laid eyes on the talisman, she perceives that it is an item of great power. Power that can be misused in the wrong hands. Power she may find herself in need of. Ignoring everything Ghita taught her about survival, Shay follows her instinct and runs right back to the fire she should be escaping.
She sneaks up to the fray and darts in to retrieve the ring. But, as she bends down, the mist from Tarik's yard comes rushing back. It settles around her shoulders, dimming the world.
“Look,” one of the bone-eaters shouts, pointing at her crouched form. “I think the human girl has fallen.”
All at once, the seven of them are crowding around her. Her throat dries up. She frantically paws the ground until her fist closes around the ring. She stands. Or tries to. Her legs sway beneath her like stalks of grass.
“Are you well?” the shortest bone-eater asks, appearing at her side.
“I should go now,” Shay mumbles, but her feet defy her command. She looks down to see what's wrong with them, and then the clay road comes rushing toward her.
“Whoa, easy now.” Someone catches her. Someone who smells, most atrociously, like unwashed bodies and flatulence. Still, it was nice of them tocatch her. They hand her a wad of moss, and she presses it against her bleeding wound.
“Thank you.”
“Come inside with us,” the caped bone-eater says. “Allow me to clean your neck and properly bandage it.”
Shay nods, equally horrified and amazed that she's talking to an actual bone-eater. She never imagined they might be intelligent. Or live inhomesand haveneighbors.Did someone mention medical supplies?
They lead her past the bloodsucker, lying limp and spread-eagle on the ground. His lips—the same ones guilty of slurping down her blood—are split and bruised. His face, in contrast, looks less pale than she remembers. More supple and, despite some swelling, more … human.
“Lalla?” Tarik groans, his body shaking suddenly, as though racked with silent sobs.
Shay gasps. His wretched state evokes in her the smallest bit of sympathy, if not outright concern. “Sidi?”
A smile flickers on his mangled lips. “You tasted delicious.”
Not crying, she realizes. No, the bloodsucker is convulsing with laughter.
12
If you would not consume the flesh of your neighbor, neither let yourself speak of them unkindly. For those who partake in gossip and relish rumor have no more decency than ghouls. If you could see their souls in the spiritual plane, their faces would be dripped in red from that which they gorge upon.
—Meditations from the Marabouts,Volume 7
The bone-eater's salon is messy by the standards Shay was raised with. Sure, some measure of uncleanliness can be expected with seven males living under one roof, but how much effort does it take to clear the floor of dirty socks, ale bottles, and—wait, is that a pile of bones? Shay shudders.
A sage-green seddari frames the room in a U shape. When one of the bone-eaters offers her a seat, she's careful to choose a spot free of the dirt stains she assures herself are not from someone's grave. A lantern sits on a low round table in the room's center. Its thin glow flickers over walls the yellowed color of phlegm.
The caped bone-eater, who identifies himself as Kabeer, retrieves a basket containing small surgical tools and various herbs typically used for making poultices. He kneels beside her. Though he removes the moss as gently as hepossibly can, Shay hisses when drying blood rips from her tender skin. With a closer glance, she identifies the moss as sourshade, known for its antiseptic properties.
“Do you have medical training?” Shay inquires, watching the creature dab something that smells strongly of alcohol from a vial onto a clover bean leaf.
The other brothers, now positioned in various stages of recline around the room—at least one is already snoring—snicker.
Kabeer silences them with a bruising look. “You could say that.”
Shay stops his gnarled hand as he reaches for her neck. His skin feels tough as tree bark beneath her fingers. “Or?”
Kabeer runs his free hand down his scabrous face. “Oryou could say I am a devourer of knowledge.” He gives his brothers a warning glare before they can make a sound and proceeds to clean Shay's wound.
“Do you mean you read?” Shay asks a beat later.
“Icanread,” the bone-eater gruffly asserts.
“I wasn't suggesting—”
