Send Me Their Souls (Bring Me Their Hearts #3) - Sara Wolf Page 0,137
“What are you taking, heart? Something flashy, I’d imagine.”
“Nonsense.” I smile up at him. “I’ve got Father’s sword and my own teeth. Anything else would just slow me down.”
“Not even this?” Fione dangles a bracelet of stunning amethysts.
“Oooh!” I coo, hurrying over and grabbing it appreciatively. “You know me so well, Your Grace!”
“Doesn’t look like a weapon,” Lucien muses, taking it gently from my hands and fastening it around my wrist for me.
“S’not,” Malachite agrees brusquely. “It’s an offering.”
“For what?” I blink.
“A grave.”
“Amethysts for the dead,” Yorl agrees softly. “Always.”
A quiet descends. Lucien starts to take it off me, but I stop his hand.
“Everyone who’s died: Vetris, Helkyris. Y’shennria’s family. Mine. Yours. Everyone who died because of these Trees. I’ll keep it. I’ll fight with it. For them.”
Lucien squeezes my hand tight. Yorl nods, satisfied, and Malachite seems proud of me somehow—a thin grin on his pale lips. Fione catches my eye, and then looks somberly away. I stare down at the gleaming purple stones as we leave, Malachite directing us to the River Gate.
This bracelet will be my offering, too.
It’s a pity we don’t have time to sample the wonders of Pala Amna, because it is wondrous. Malachite leads us through only half of it, the great stone widow’swalks we march on looming high over the city of stone and gems. It’s nestled on the bottom of a fearsomely huge cavern, something Yorl calls a “lava tube,’” the buildings stacked and mashed into one another like huddled stone children. Protecting it are seven stone gates, all of them accented with fierce lines of weapons similar to the one I saw in the ceiling of Evlorasin’s arena—a spear mechanism wound tight inside a hole, ready to spring forth and huge enough to pierce even the largest valkerax. Smaller weapons adorn the belts of every guard, and unlike Vetris, every civilian is armed to the teeth with broadswords, axes, and curved blades—the glint of metal bright in the thronging streets below.
An entire city, devoted to the spiral and ready to fight at a moment’s notice.
Like a grim reminder of a fang, a spire sits in the very center of Pala Amna—a huge stalactite of limestone jutting up out of the earth. Intensely incandescent brightmoss curls around it, creating a luminously golden spiral glowing over the city and providing what seems to be the majority of the light to the citizens.
“An artificial sun,” Fione marvels. “I’d heard of it, but to see it is something else entirely.”
“Yeah,” Malachite agrees wistfully, ruby eyes reflecting its brilliance.
“Is that brightmoss?” I squint at it.
Yorl shakes his head. “A distant relative that grows only on limestone. Much rarer. It requires near-constant supervision—the beneather lightsmiths tend to it.”
“Lots of shamed ancestor councilmen flung themselves off the peak,” Malachite snorts. “Or got pushed off by an angry mob.”
Lucien looks mildly impressed. “Certainly one way to do politics.”
“We’re almost there.” Malachite points ahead to a spear-lined gate. It’s nearly three times the size of Vetris’s main gates, the stone so old it makes my immortal arse feel as young as spring grass.
“I’m surprised things aren’t mustier down here,” I say as we descend the widow’s walk via a curlicue flight of stairs.
“Brightmoss creates ample fresh air,” Yorl offers. “Though, yes—the air itself doesn’t move. The flow has to be maintained by heavy duct usage and a few polymath machines powered by white mercury.”
“Must’ve been awful before the invention of those,” I muse.
“Not all bad,” Malachite insists dryly. “As kids we used to draw stick figures in the dust.”
“And come down with the occasional fatal respiratory disease.” Another voice joins ours—Lysulli, their long, pale hair swinging as they walk up to us. They’ve changed out their heavy armor for something lighter, the bone thinner but no less protective.
Malachite practically squawks. “What are you doing here?”
“What else? I’m heading your little mission,” they snort.
“Why you of all adjudicators?” He groans. He was so happy to see Lysulli at first, but now he’s sullen, and I know him well enough to know why. He didn’t want them at the final battle—not when there’s such a good chance we could all die. But Lysulli ignores him and the subtext completely, pushing him out of the way a little, and I start to like them even more. They might be brushing Malachite off lightly, but the double daggers sheathed in a cross over their tailbone look deadly serious.
They study me with piercing bloodstone eyes. “The council entrusted me to watch you. You better not