Chapter 36

They broke for an early lunch near the bottom of the stairs.

It felt morbid to Angharad, having a meal looking down at what might become a grave for some of those eating, but she supposed it would have been even worse to stop halfway through the Toll Road and dine overthe grave. They split into small groups for their meals of hard bread, cold pork and whatever tepid water they had left in their skins. Talk was quiet, as if the spirits below might be roused by too loud a conversation, and to the noblewoman it all felt like the breath before the storm.

Only a different storm came calling.

That Song would sit by her side for the meal was half-expected by now – but only half, it would have been arrogance to go further than that – but it had not been Isabel’s habit to do so unless the meal was communal. When the infanzona elegantly sat herself a step lower than them, it came as a surprise. Angharad made herself refrain from noticing how Isabel had unbuttoned her doublet and so her respective heights allowed her a … plunging view.

Twice Song looked at Angharad. For a fever dream moment she thought that the other woman was trying to catch her looking, but the mounting incredulousness on the Tianxi’s face finally told her otherwise. Isabel’s idle talk about Izcalli fashions was interrupted by Song’s sharp voice.

“Ruesta, it would be best for you to eat elsewhere.”

“Are you so ardently in favor of asymmetrical skirts?” Isabel replied, cocking an eyebrow. “I had thought better of you.”

Song looked Angharad’s way, as if prompting her to speak, and something of the gesture irked her. She was not a trained parrot, to speak when spurred so that courtiers could laugh. And she had told Isabel, for better or worse, that their slate was clean.

“It is only a meal, Song,” Angharad said.

“It is a mistake,” Song flatly replied. “One you ought to know better than to commit.”

And there the Pereduri was able to muster some steel at last. It was the most foundational of rights of a noble to decide who was allowed to sit at their table. Song was Republican, would not know better, but an unintentional insult was still that.

“I can decide,” Angharad evenly said, “who I eat with.”

And without a vote first, she almost added, but bit down on it. It was unworthy of her and the forbearance that Song had shown her on this isle. The Tianxi’s eyes narrowed nonetheless. Isabel, ever the peacemaker, attempted to cool the flames.

“I know we have not been on the best of terms, Song,” she said. “But I would make amends. I-”

“You are,” the Tianxi rudely interrupted, “every bedside story for Tianxi children made flesh. A useless, grasping thing that draws breath only by taking from those with skill, will or decency. Yiwu in the truest, most fundamental sense of the word.”

“That,” Angharad said, “was uncalled for.”

Song turned her silver gaze on her and what the noblewoman saw there gave her pause. She had never seen the Tianxi disappointedbefore, and it felt like a knife in the belly. Guilt was swift. Rudeness was not to be tolerated, but it was true that this was not Llanw Hall’s table. Had she not been forcing a guest on Song, herself breaching manners?

“I can also choose who I eat with, Angharad,” Song said, popping the last of her bread in her mouth.

She swallowed, then rose to her feet.

“And did.”

Song took up her pack and walked away. Angharad froze, her first instinct to follow but her mind arguing otherwise. Isabel’s eyes found hers and for a searing moment she wondered if this had all been some scheme. If the infanzona’s contract had moved them both somehow, made them-

“You should go,” the infanzona advised. “I did not mean to come between you two, Angharad.”

She then faintly grimaced, looking discreetly around them.

“And people are already noticing,” Isabel said. “It needs to be passed off as trivial.”

It had not even occurred to Angharad that eyes would be on them, but now that it did she felt a flush of humiliation. It felt not unlike being slapped in public, though it might well be her own palm responsible for the sting on her cheek. She nodded, rising to her feet. Song had hardly gone far, only a few steps away as she checked her munitions and belted her sword properly. The Tianxi did not acknowledge her standing there, so Angharad waited awkwardly for a time before finally clearing her throat.

“You should finish your meal,” Song said. “There will not be another opportunity for hours.”

Angharad could not apologize, for she had not done anything wrong. It would have been slighting her own honor to make apologies for nothing.

“I did not properly grasp,” she finally said, “the depths of your dislike for Lady Isabel. That is my failing.”

Father had taught her that. If you cannot apologize, instead acknowledge a mistake of your making. It will carry much the same meaning and represent a concession besides. She could almost hear his voice, the sound of their boots on the gravel as they strolled around the gardens, and Angharad ached with the loss of it. She would never hear his voice again. Any of their voices.

“My dislike,” Song bit out. “Circle and Gods.”

The Tianxi glared up, but she pitched her voice low.

“You heard the same thing I did, Angharad,” Song said. “How her contract works. Why would ever allow her in your presence again, to dig her hooks into your mind?”

“She has admitted her wrongdoings and apologized,” Angharad replied. “I cut ties over it, calling our score even.”

“So now she’s making a new score,” Song sighed. “Since you have a blank slate.”

The noblewoman shuffled uncomfortably.

“How do you know she is not using her contract on you?” Song asked.

“I do not,” Angharad said. “But the same is true of everyone I have had dealings with. She has demonstrated her contract to me, and though I cannot swear I would be able to tell were it used on me it can only achieve so much.”

“The filter is not the most dangerous part,” Song said.

She paused at Angharad’s open confusion.

“That is what her contract is,” Song said. “A perception filter that lets you see the good and dims the bad.”

The Pereduri frowned.

“And how would you know that?”

The slightest pause.

“Because I’ve almost entirely deciphered her contract,” Song Ren evenly replied.

For a moment Angharad thought she had misheard, for what she had just been told was absurd. Decipher another’s contract? Only a god and their contractor could ever know such terms, and it was not as if the pact was some scroll in a library that… Yet Song’s face remained deadly serious, and so Angharad swallowed. She could either call the Tianxi a liar or take her at her word, and Song had never once lied to her.

“They would kill you for that,” she hoarsely said.

She did not put a name to ‘they’, for there were too many to count.

“It is not as rare or potent an ability as you think,” Song told her. “There was a contractor at the Old Fort who could do something similar – though by sniffing out the gods.”

“The High Queen’s court employs such bloodhounds by the dozen,” Angharad dismissed. “But you speak of deciphering terms, Song.”

Of being able to read some of the most precious, dangerous secrets in all of Vesper simply by being in the same room.

“And I told you that my pact is not as potent as you think,” Song replied. “Deciphering is not an exaggeration – why do you think I learned so many languages?”

Oh, Angharad thought, and then suddenly it occurred to her that Song might be able to see her own contract. No, she told me she cannot read Gwynt, the Pereduri remembered. And surely her contract with the Fisher must be written in the old tongue? She swallowed, knowing that she would only get an answer if she asked.

“Can you- did you…”

“I have the loosest sense of what your contract can achieve,” Song said. “But it is very difficult to look at, as if I were reading with my eyes open underwater.”

A heartbeat of hesitation.

“I have been advised not to look too closely,” the Tianxi admitted. “That your gods is… temperamental.”

The Fisher was not, at least in the way the other woman must have meant it. The Fisher was not a thing given to fits of rage, to passing tantrums. The rage in him was old and deep, carved into the bone and unchanging.

“I have known kinder storms,” Angharad quietly said, for she would not say more.

She sighed, resisting the urge to fiddle with her braids. Mother had always slapped her hands when she did, called it an unfortunate habit.

“I would ask that you keep your knowledge of my contract secret,” she stiffly asked.

It was walking very close to the lines of honor to request such a thing, but it must be done if she was to ever return to the Kingdom of Malan.

“I am not a gossip,” Song said. “Principles aside, to run my mouth in such a way would likely get me killed. Though as I will not speak of your pact, I would ask you extend me the same courtesy.”

Angharad shallowly nodded, suspecting she had not quite hid her relief from the silver gaze.

“Given what I have told you,” Song continued, “I would repeat what I said earlier: the most dangerous part of Ruesta’s contract is not the filter. That is the habit it induces.”

She paused, looking for words.

“Once you grow used to seeing the good in someone, your mind follows down that road habitually,” the Tianxi said. “She does need to use her contract constantly, because she has taught everyone around her to assume the best of her actions. Her blank slate is favorable.”

Angharad frowned.

“What you describe,” she said, “sounds not unlike trust.”

Keeping faith and doing good deeds resulting in a worthy reputation was not sinister, it was the very nature of civilization. Song looked irritated.

“Not earned trust,” she said. “Fostered.”

Then it was simply giving the benefit of the doubt which Angharad saw nothing all that sinister in either, but she could see saying as much would only further trouble Song. That a contract had been involved complicated things, but to use one’s reputation was not an evil act. The act of using the contract on another without their knowledge was where the breach of honor lay, and that part Isabel had addressed.

“I hear your concerns,” Angharad said. “And I would not be comfortable serving as shield to one intending to use their contract on others.”

“But,” Song said.

“She has sworn not do so, save by accident,” the Pereduri said. “And then to reveal her contract publicly once sanctuary is reached.”

Song looked at her for a very long time, silver eyes hooded. What went on behind them she could only guess at, for the other woman’s face was calm as a pond on a windless day.

“If you hear my concerns, then act on them,” Song finally said. “Do not speak to Isabel Ruesta alone.”

It chafed, for someone to try to dictate to her like this, but Angharad swallowed her dislike. It was a request not made high-handed but out of concern for her safety. She could bend her neck that much, so the dark-skinned noble nodded in concession.

“And once we reach the next sanctuary, please cut ties properly,” Song said. “She will have no need of your protection, having that of the blackcloaks, and should face the consequences of her actions without an intercessor.”

Angharad grimaced. A steeper term but not, she thought, one unreasonable to ask. I have no intention of staying long in sanctuary anyhow, she reminded herself. And tempting as the thought was to let Isabel make a private apology now that she knew the contract had little to do with her attraction – a filter could not make something out of nothing – she could not in good conscience linger at sanctuary for that purpose alone. It would be highly frivolous.

“We will part ways at the sanctuary,” she conceded. “And I had no intention of intervening when she is to recover her honor, but should you want me to take an oath I-”

“No need for that,” Song said, shaking her head. “Your word is enough.”

How easily that answer came was almost enough to make Angharad feel guilty for what she had done. Namely, cutting out the mention of time from the promise. It was cracking a door slightly open, nothing more. So she told herself. There was still some stiffness between them after that, not every wrinkle smoothed, but Song stood by her side when everyone gathered to take the last steps down together. It would be different now, Angharad thought.

Thing always were when you realized you could lose something you had taken for granted.

—

The stone marker stood tall as a man and about as broad.

It was bare of carvings and adornment, nothing more than a roughly hewn slab of granite standing sentinel as the entrance of the bridge. Angharad could hear the roiling current of the river below, see white foam and sharp rocks bathed in golden light from above. Ferranda had told them that to fail a test was for a tenth of the bridge to fall below and Angharad saw only death in those waters. If we lose twice in a row, we are finished. It would be too broad a gap to cross, even with ropes.

As the survivors – all fourteen of them – stood before the marker, there was a heartbeat of hesitation. Who was to be the first of those not yet crowned victors? Song had removed herself from that list, and quite boldly, so the eyes went to those that remained: Lan, Brun, Yaretzi, Cozme Aflor and Lady Ferranda. Angharad hid her surprise at who took the initiative.

“I shall take the vanguard, then,” Cozme Aflor said, rolling his shoulders. “Wish me luck.”

Courage, Angharad thought, from one she had not expected to have such a virtue. Yet he must be a coward at heart, for why else would he have returned to Augusto Cerdan’s side? If the mangled infanzon was worried at the notion of losing his protector, it did not show. Augusto’s face was a study of nonchalance.

“Try not to die,” Tupoc casually replied. “It would be inconvenient to have to pull out all the stops as early as the second test.”

“You’re all heart, Xical,” the man snorted, stroking his moustache.

He stepped forward onto the bridge, and the air shivered. They could see all that followed clearly, for though all had put away their lanterns – the few real ones, but also the iron things the Watch had gifted them – the golden light of the machine above made it look like a strange summer day.

The stone cracked, a creature ripping itself free of the cracks. It was a centipede, a filthy horror all crawling legs and large as a man’s torso. The legs got larger as they went up and ended in a head of twisted curved mandibles – it looked like a skull atop a ribcage, though all of it carapaced sordidness.

Cozme, to his honor, did not flinch.

“God of the land, I greet you,” the older man said.

“Pick a weapon,” the spirit said, its voice like plunging your hand in a pit of maggots. “Wield and face it: slay my puppet to win passage.”

The older man remained silent for a time, then sighed.

“Knife,” he said.

Not a respectable weapon, but then Cozme had proved to be anything but.

“Agreed,” the spirit laughed.

Cozme Aflor loosened his sword belt, dropping it on the stone floor, then his pistol and powder followed. It was the long knife strapped to his side he drew, the shine of fine Someshwari steel catching the golden light from above. Yet Angharad’s eye was on the spirit instead, who was shaking and twisting as it vomited a river of filth. Bile and mucus full of squirming, foul things shaped themselves into a man inch by inch. Cozme’s height and build were matched, the spirit at last spewing out something like chitin that the puppet took in hand. Threading fingers through the filth, the silhouette shaped the material into a mirror of Cozme’s own knife as if it were clay to be molded.

The older man spat to the side.

“I’ve seen worse in the Murk,” Cozme said. “Try harder.”

“Begin,” the spirit hissed.

Both struck.

Before the second pass had ended, Angharad knew why Cozme had chosen the knife. She had seen him shoot a pistol and in passing use a sword, but he was nowhere as deft a hand with them as he was the sharp length in his hand. It was a brutal bout, more like the tangle of back-alley cats than an honor duel: Cozme struck with his fists as well as his knife, gouged eyes and on the third pass ended up rolling on the floor with the horror trying to choke it out. Even as cuts opened the skin of both, bile and blood spilling in a foul puddle, the mustachioed soldier did not flinch even when the puppet’s features turned into a nest of screeching centipedes.

He cut and gouged and choked, until they were on their feet again and swinging.

The cut that ended the fight was the costliest. Cozme slid under the monster’s guard, striking its chin with his palm and rocking it back as it swung past him – then he closed in, ramming his knife into the puppet’s throat and ripping it open, but the creature pressed against him and stabbed into his back. It struck again and again, wailing away the flesh until Cozme’s knife was all the way through its throat and the head came tumbling down.

It collapsed back into the vileness the spirit had spewed out, drenching the soldier who roared out a curse, but the puppet was done. Cozme ripped out the chitin knife yet stuck in him and threw it over the edge of the bridge.

“Told you,” he panted out.

“Shame how bile got in the wounds,” Tupoc idly noted. “If Tredegar had not gotten our friend Tristan killed, he might have seen to that.”

Angharad ignored the insult and the bickering that followed it, eyes staying on Cozme. He had been stabbed five times, but with his coat she could not tell how deep it had gone. He still seemed able to move his arm, at least. Yet blood loss alone would ensure he was far from at his best. That was a loss, for the purpose of crossing the bridge.

It was a gain for when the time would come for Augusto Cerdan’s end to find him.

The spirit whose blunt test they had beaten did not deign to humor them with a confirmation, instead slithering back into the crack it had emerged from. Yet the bridge did not collapse when they gingerly began to walk, as plain a crowning as they would get. Cozme hung back, Augusto helping him dress his wounds, and Angharad avoided both. In time she would face them both, but until then it was beneath her to loom like some sort of scavenger and pick at the their wounds. She joined the gathering before the second stone marker instead.

“I will take the second,” Brun told everyone.

Some murmurs of approval.

“Good luck,” Lan sweetly said, smiling very wide.

It was heartening, Angharad thought, to see some fine comradery between Sacromontans after all the backbiting of their infanzones. The pair must have been friends.

This time the spirit was not so unpleasant to behold: when the stone cracked, what emerged was almost human. It looked like a smooth, genderless child whose face was wrinkled with old age. It spoke in a voice sweet as the flowing of water, offering its test.

“I will run around my part of the bridge, screaming,” the spirit said. “You must touch me with a hand to win. You have nine hundred breaths to do so.”

Brun carefully ensured that the spirit would be tangible, then haggled the terms. The strange spirit refused to remove the time limit but conceded that in exchange it would not seize Brun’s soul should he lose, only if he died during the test. It seemed well-bargained to Angharad, but of course it was not so simple as that: within a heartbeat of the test beginning, the spirit turned invisible. It took Brun by surprise, the fair-haired man having clapped his hands over his ears – perhaps in a anticipation of the spirit’s screaming being harmful.

It had been her guess as well.

Angharad was not the one taking the test, so it might be different for her, but as far as she could tell the only harmful thing about the screams was that they were so exaggerated it sounded like the spirit was making sport of them

Still, though the creature was invisible it made noise and the touch of its feet on the floor could barely be made out. Brun had his contract as well, though by the way the Sacromontan began blindly reaching into thin air Angharad suspected his power could not detect the spirit at all. Yet for all the difficulties the man was clever and quick – only he seemed inexplicably clumsy today, as if his limbs had slowed. It was a small thing, but always he seemed to miss the screaming and giggling spirit by inches. Was the creature using some sort of power to slow him?

It was near the end of the time that the test turned dangerous. The spirit began to hide near the edge of the bridge, and it baited Brun near the edge again and again – twice it tried to kick him down into the waters, the second time almost succeeding.

By the time the nine hundredth breath had passed, the spirit had not been caught.

“Missed me,” it laughed, coming back into sight for a moment long enough to grin.

A tenth of the bridge collapsed under it, falling chunk by chunk. Angharad ran to the edge even as Brun did the same, the fair-haired man leaping as his footing disappeared under him – she caught his arm, grunting as she dragged him forward. His knees still hit the edge of the bridge, no doubt bruising them, but Angharad got him back on the bridge. They both collapsed on the floor and Brun rolled away, revealing a face that still seemed calm even having come so very close to dying.

It was, she thought, impressive nerve on the man’s part.

“Congratulations, rat,” Augusto Cerdan drawled. “You are our first failure of the day.”

Angharad turned a cool gaze on him.

“Worry not, Lord Augusto,” she said. “You will always be such in my eyes, no matter the date.”

“Ha!” Zenzele chortled, and he was not alone.

Augusto was not beloved. Eyes turned to the newly formed gap, after that, and though some – Tupoc and Lan – suggested the leap could be made without help others prevailed on a hook and rope being used. It took a quarter hour to fix two hooks against the stone on the other side of the bridge, but after that the crossing on two parallel ropes was not all that difficult. The cautious crossed on all fours, the rest trusted their footing.

All were aware that a second defeat in a row might well kill them all, so there was no talk of anyone taking up the test before its nature was revealed.

The stone cracked and two wriggling shapes shot out, unfolding like paper cranes. Angharad winced at the sight of them, for the pair of spirits she beheld wore the shape of the dead. With bulging eyes, skin gone grey and their too-long ghastly tongues hanging loose the spirits looked like hanging victims. Both held onto the stone marker with sharp fingernails, swaying as they considered their supplicants.

“Play with us,” the spirit to the left said.

It choked on its tongue as it spoke, and the sound would have been comical if not for the ugly rasp to the words. Like rope coiling tight, like gulping at air that would not come.

“Two come to play,” the spirit to the right said. “Xiao Xiantiao. A strike to the face for every missed clap, and no one can step in.”

Unease spread like malignant air as Angharad shot a glance at Song, hoping for a translation. The Tianxi frowned.

“It means ‘little lines’,” she said. “But I do not know the meaning.”

“It’s a children’s clapping game in the Republics.”

Gazes swiveled to the speaker: Yaretzi, who looked uncomfortable at the weight of the attention she was receiving. She toyed with one of her turquoise earrings.

“I am surprised you never heard of the game,” Yaretzi continued, cocking an eyebrow at Song. “I was taught of it because how staggeringly common it is over all of Tianxia.”

“I had a strict upbringing,” Song admitted.

That felt like a very long story forced into a very short sentence, Angharad thought. Eyes moved to Lan, who laughed.

“Hey, don’t you fine folk glare at me,” the blue-lipped woman said. “I’ve got the Tianxi look, but I was born in Sacromonte. We played slap-a-liar like all the other kids.”

Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

What a horrifying name. Yaretzi cleared her throat.

“I believe the game is also called the ‘lamp song’ around the Trebian Sea,” she said. “The words are different in Antigua, but not the rhythm and movements.”

That found purchase.

“I know that one,” Acanthe Phos called out. “Used to play it with my brothers.”

“It will have to be the two of us, then,” Yaretzi said. “Unless we are to teach the game to others?”

“I am not sure that would be wise,” Song said. “Clapping games are rote repetition, no?”

Meaning even someone with finer reflexes might not do as well as someone who simply knew the order of movements down to not needing thought.

“I take it the game is more complex than simply clapping left and right?” Angharad asked.

“There’s two sequences with up, down and a finger snap,” Yaretzi replied. “Then for the second part you do them the opposite way.”

“It sounds risky for someone new to learn them, then,” Angharad opined.

There was some argument – Lord Zenzele suggested that Shalini and her unnaturally quick hands might be a sure bet, until she asserted that her contract might instead make her the single less suited person present – but eventually it was agreed that Yaretzi and Lady Acanthe would be their champions. After that it was only a matter of being cautious. They asked that the spirits demonstrate the game with each other, to make sure it was the same they knew, and then settled the stakes.

So long as one finished the game and forfeit without dying, the spirits agreed, the test would be considered as passed. Only in exchange for that they demanded should either Yaretzi or Acanthe miss five claps in a row, their lantern would be forfeit. Understandably, neither was pleased by this.

“It is the best deal we are likely to get,” Lady Ferranda said.

“Easy to say, when your soul is not on the line,” Acanthe bit back.

“You would do well,” Zenzele Duma mildly said, “not to confuse patience with forgiveness, Lady Acanthe. You will have none of that from me after the Trial of Lines – or from most standing here, I think.”

The acne-scarred lady glared at them all, then grit her teeth.

“Fine,” she said. “I’ll do it. But I am already a victor and now risking myself a second time – in exchange, I must not be called upon for another test until we reach the end of the maze.”

Some tried to argue against, but it was half-hearted work. Angharad though it a reasonable demand and so she bent her neck along the others. The pair stepped forward to face the spirits, who crawled all the way out of their marker to sit down on the ground. Their loose, wide-sleeved grey coats pooled on the floor as they tucked in their long-nailed teeth underneath the fold of blue robes ending at their ankles. Settling face-to-face, the pairs stilled and began to play.

The trick used by the spirits should have been obvious, but Angharad had not thought of it: though their hands moved unerringly both began singing a different song.

Neither was the right song.

Acanthe, taken aback, missed two claps in a row before catching up. It was Yaretzi that helped her, loudly singing the true tune as she kept going. The diplomat, Angharad was impressed to see, had not missed a beat. After that the spirits began to pull every trick they could. They slowed or quickened their hands, presented the grim sight of their heads turning all the way around, threw mockery and insults. Twice more Acanthe missed claps, and Yaretzi finally missed as well.

The rest of them hung on to every gesture, knowing there was nothing at all they could do. The most prudent among them retreated close to the gap, perhaps intending on attempting a leap back if the test was failed. Angharad doubted it would amount to anything. Besides, for all that now and then a beat was missed neither seemed anywhere near the five in a row that would lose their soul. They need only until-

The first sign something went wrong was when Acanthe winced after a particularly hard clap. The spirit facing her leaned in, leering, and struck even harder – it got a yelp of pain out of the noble girl. Angharad could only gawk at the sight. It had been a hard clap, but surely not enough to hurt Acanthe. Had her hand already been wounded? Only it was both hands that had her moaning as the spirit began putting its back into the slaps, until with a sickening sound Acanthe Phos’ left wrist snapped.

Cleanly broken. Her contract’s price, Angharad thought. Has to be. No one alive had bones so weak.

“Keep going,” Yaretzi hissed. “They only need five to-”

One clap missed, two, three, four – and Acanthe dragged up her broken hand, screaming as the clap rippled down her arm. She barely managed another clap after that, weeping and gibbering, and missed three more after. Again her bad hand went up, a scream ripping itself clear of her throat as the spirit slammed its palm against hers, but while she began missing claps again Yaretzi finished a discordantly cheerful rhyme in Cathayan and the game ended. Angharad breathed out.

Never five in a row. Acanthe Phos would keep her soul.

“Good, good,” the spirit to the left said. “Lovely game. The forfeits now, yes?”

The one to the right struck without warning, its knuckle catching Acanthe in the chin. She fell back, screaming more in surprise than pain. Yaretzi took her own blow more carefully, rolling with it. The difference in training showed. Acanthe was struck again while on the ground, right in the eye – it was certain to blacken – and then Yaretzi got her turn again. It was, however, the last blow the Izcalli diplomat would get. She had only missed two claps.

Acanthe Phos had missed many more than that.

It would have been too much of a compliment to call what followed an execution. It was a murder, nothing more than that, brutal and drawn out and gleefully done. They all watched in anguished silence as the spirits toyed with their victim, changing who held her down and who struck. After five blows, Acanthe’s face was a bloody mess.

By the eight it was beyond bruised flesh, her nose broken and cartilage peeking out.

On the ninth her cheekbone broke.

On the tenth she lost her eye and began choking on her own blood.

The spirits waited after that, Acanthe’s head in one’s lap as she gurgled and died.

“Finish your last blow, you foul things,” Angharad snarled. “Eleven is all you won.”

Laughter.

“We never said how long between blows,” a spirit said. “Wait and see.”

It wasn’t the blood that killed Acanthe, at least not the bloodshe was choking on. She began convulsing, something in her skull broken from a blow, and died with a plaintive wheeze. And as the last breath left her, the spirit to the right gently flicked her cheek with a sharp nail.

“Eleven,” it said. “One survived. You may pass, now.”

They went back into their stone, bellies full, and silence reigned in their wake.

Angharad closed Acanthe’s eyes and Song helped her throw the body into the river after so that carrion would not pick at it.

It was little, but all they had to give.