Page 36 of The Lustrous Dark
“Deebi.” Kabeer finishes affixing a wide bandage to Shay's neck, pointedly ignoring her. “Would you go find our guest some clean blankets and a pillow?”
“And see what you can muster for her to eat,” Aidi adds. Shay has pegged him as the elder, and she wonders if it is his habit to assert his authority.
“I don't think any of that will be necessary,” Shay says, though she can't deny her need for sustenance. It is, after all, what drew her from the forest in the first place. The last substantial thing she ate was Ghita's loubia, and by her estimation, a full day has passed since. What she wouldn't do for a heaping bowl of the midwife's spicy beans right now. Why, she'd climb the Umm Chanala mountains barefoot for a spoonful.
The brothers all stare at her, dismay cast across their distorted faces.
Aidi leans forward on the cane propped between his legs. He sighs. “You can't seriously be thinking of going anywhere in your condition.”
“Do you intend to keep me prisoner, Sidi?”
“You have lost a significant amount of blood, Lalla.” His voice, for all its gruffness, sounds sincere. “But we are not like our neighbor. We will not impede upon your free will.”
“Well, then, I do thank you for your assistance.” Shay nods gratefully at Kabeer, busy arranging his supplies back in the basket, and to the rest of the bone-eaters. “All of you. But it would be improper for me to stay.”
In truth, Shay is thinking less about propriety and more about the tenuous nature of her safety. The lump in her throat has sharp edges, and the knots in her stomach have teeth. She's unable to say with any certainty whether the greater danger lurks within the cottage or without it. Therefore, despite the immense effort standing unassisted requires, she forces herself to walk across the room. She opens the door and peers out upon the thick landscape of dawn.
“You really should wait until morning proper,” the bone-eater with downward curving horns advises.Deebi.Unless Shay is misreading it, the look on Deebi's face suggests he is applying a wealth of restraint by not jumping from the couch and shutting the door himself. Shay would not have imagined a bone-eater's expression couldbeso … well, expressive. “You need to rest. And once the sun comes up, it will be safer for you to cross back through the forest to your home.”
Home.The word pokes between Shay's ribs. Beyond the door, twilit shadows hover like a floating wall of invisible ink. Diaphanous mist coats the domed towers and darkened windows next door like a skin of algae on a pond. A breeze rustles the tall grass before sweeping over her like a spray of frost.
You tasted delicious.
“Not safer by much,” one brother scoffs.
Shay turns back around, considering. It's obviously dangerous for her to wander alone around Ard Al-Ghul in search of Hind. Memories—of her mother's promises, their future plans, the warm, familiar scent of peach blossom—strike like stray arrows. She shoves them from her mind. Whatever Shay felt on her side, Hind was only biding her time for the chance to discard Shay like spoiled milk.
With this realization, she feels the last bit of strength go out of her, as surely as if the bloodsucker had drained her dry. “Are you sure it will not be an inconvenience?”
Before Aidi answers, a bone-eater with crescent-shaped horns on his forehead—the scoffer—yawns loudly. “Since it appears the human girl will live,I'm going off to bed.” He ambles from the room, initiating a chain reaction from the other brothers, until only Aidi and Deebi remain.
“Deebi will get you settled,” the elder says, offering Shay a shallow bow.
“Thank you, Sidi,” Shay says, not wishing to question too deeply whether the scoffer sounded relieved at her favorable prognosis, or disappointed.
“I'm Deebi.” The remaining bone-eater tips his horned head low. “And who do I have the pleasure of hosting?”
“I …” Shay swallows. She perches on the seddari, brushing distractedly at the nearest stain. “I'm Shay.”
“Shay. It's nice to meet you.”
“Deebi.” She says the bone-eater's name, still finding it odd that they all have such normal-sounding ones. Shay squeezes herself and realizes she's shivering. The cottage was chilly to begin with, and she's made it worse by letting in the colder air from outside. “I hate to be a bother, but would you mind starting a fire?”
“A fire?” Deebi stares at the empty hearth as if noticing its existence for the first time. He smacks his wide forehead. “Right. Humans get cold easily. Not to worry. I'll fetch coals from the kitchen stove.”
The bone-eater darts off. He returns quickly, armed with a metal bucket of hot coals and an armful of blankets, the latter of which he piles on top of Shay. The fabric is coarse. Its rough fibers scratch through her djellaba. But their bulk is blessedly warm. She huddles beneath them, dozing as Deebi fans the coals with a blowing tool. Once he gets the fire started, he scurries away again, chattering on about food as he goes.
Hungry as Shay is, her tiredness prevails. Before the bone-eater returns, she's already drifted into a deep, if troubled, sleep.
Shay dreams of the bloodsucker. A dream in which he disguises himself as her mother to lure her within his iron gates. There, he tells her all the things she'd want her mother to say. That she's proud of her. She loves her. And she'llnever abandon her again. Words so sweet, Shay can almost pretend the scent of peaches she's come to associate with Hind hasn't been replaced by the reek of blood, lingering on her skin and clothes. Her breath.
He carries her into that awful house. Serves her bitter tea that coats her tongue with the taste of copper. It makes the room spin around her like she's a Marabout performing a sacred dance.
But this feels the opposite of sacred.
It feels like being peeled open, her every emotion, every thought exposed like the pulp of a fruit. Her nerve endings are on fire. And Tarik hangs over her, smiling down with her mother's lips, her Snow-ravaged teeth bathed red with Shay's blood.
She jolts awake, choking on a scream.
