a long day. Frankly, I am not sure you are worth the trouble it would take to bring you along.’ He snapped his fingers, sending a blue electric glow crackling at the tips. ‘Your arm will have to suffice. You can keep the other parts.’
Asper looked up as he levelled the finger at her, watching the sphere of lightning grow. It was not with apathy that she stared, but weariness, relief that came with the grim knowledge that there was only one way to ensure there would never be a fourth time.
The male muttered a word of power. The electricity burst forth with a loud cracking sound. Asper stared at it through eyes with no more tears to shed. The male’s own stare went alight with energy. One more word, she knew, and it would all be over.
That, too, was not such a bad thing.
‘BURN, HERETIC!’
A wall of flame erupted between the two of them. The electric blue faded as the male recoiled, snarling angrily. He turned, more annoyed than anything else, to regard the boy standing at the end of the hissing fire.
Dreadaeleon looked ready to keel over at any moment. His coat hung loosely, tattered in some places, bloodied in others, from a body that appeared shrunken and withered. The veins creeping up from his jawline and the violent quaking that seized his body suggested that whatever damage had been done to him was by his own hand, his magic having eaten at him deeper than any blade.
Asper could muster no excitement at his appearance, nor concern for his frailty. She felt a twinge of scorn, diluted by pity. All this meant was that someone else had to die before her curse could finally be lifted.
‘Ah.’ The male longface smiled at the newcomer with the familiarity of two old friends meeting. ‘I was wondering who that was.’ He glanced at the wall of flame and, with a word and a wave, reduced it to a sizzling black line upon the floor. ‘Decent enough work, really. I was beginning to wonder if any of your breed could use nethra at all.’
Dreadaeleon tilted his head to the side. The male grinned and held up a hand.
‘Apologies. “Magic” is your word for it, I believe.’
‘We have laws for it, too,’ the boy said sharply. ‘There are rules to practice by.’
‘Law . . . rule . . .’ The longface shrugged. ‘I have not learned those words yet. They sound like weakness to me, though.’ He smiled. ‘I suppose I should not be too surprised, though, since all your language seems to convey varying degrees of that. From my home, we—’
‘Clever,’ Dreadaeleon interrupted, taking a step forwards. ‘I’m less interested in where you came from and more in how you’re still standing.’
‘Ah, after this, you mean?’ He gestured over the burning sacs, the seas of ash. ‘Duty, I suppose someone of your breed might call it. The underscum are in our way. Sheraptus desires them dead and . . . well, look. The price one pays for nethra would be a further detriment. Thusly . . .’ He snapped his fingers, smiled. ‘We removed it.’
‘Impossible.’
‘We do not know that word, either.’
‘How many of you are there?’ the boy demanded. ‘How many heretics remain?’
‘Perhaps you refer to males, the only ones capable of nethra.’ The longface shrugged. ‘Not so many, but if power were not a rare quality, any thick-of-skull female could do it.’ He glanced sidelong at Asper. ‘Speaking of which, I have business with this one. If you had claims on her arm, you must live with that disappointment.’
‘Arm?’
In any other moment, Asper’s pulse would have risen, mind gone racing for excuses. Now, what did it matter what Dreadaeleon knew? He would be dead. She would follow. Nothing remained to be spoken, nothing remained to resist as the longface took a step forwards.
‘As well as whatever else I can salvage,’ he said, chuckling. ‘An arm is not such an important thing to one who carries no weapons, is it?’ His eyes ran up and down her body hungrily. ‘Particularly when the rest of her can be put to a much more proper use.’
His purple hand extended with the vaguest hint of an excited tremble coursing down his digits. His tongue flicked out, a tiny line of pink sliding across long, white teeth.
‘GET AWAY FROM HER!’ Dreadaeleon’s roar was followed by a racking cough, a shudder in his stance. The longface, if his quirked brow was any indication, seemed less than impressed.
‘This