The Curse of the Gift

Part 11

I stumbled backward until I bumped into someone else's back. Allan's strong arms wrapped around my shoulders, probably to keep me from fainting. I breathed too deeply and too often, and it made me dizzy.

"How..." The words stuck in my throat, and my mouth was dry, making it even harder to speak, "How is that possible?"

I turn my head toward Marian, but she is silent. Her face reads the same shock that I'm sure my face does. Out of the corner of my eye, I notice her hands shaking. It took her about five minutes to come to her senses. The woman carefully approaches the man, who from our side looks like a living man, tired of sitting and waiting for the fish to bite. But judging by the color of his skin, and the slight stench coming from him, he's been sitting like this for a couple of days. And considering how much the sun was burning, it's a wonder he was in such good condition. And the whole time he was already dead. And no one noticed.

Marian carefully examines his face and the rest of his body, as well as the hole where his heart used to beat. I could have made a joke about being heartless, but it wasn't the right situation. The woman beckoned me with her hand, and I immediately found myself standing beside her.

But instead of saying something, she nodded at the dead man.

"What do you think?" Her voice sounds very low, and she speaks almost in a whisper.

I turn my gaze to the wound, and examine it carefully, suppressing my gag reflex. The wound is lacerated. It doesn't look like someone used a dagger or any other sharp weapon. It looks more like..." I shift my gaze to Marian in horror, and she just nods.

"Are you saying that..." I lower my voice to a whisper, so that no one else can hear what I'm about to say, "that it was ripped out?"

"It looks like it."

"But how? How could an ordinary person..." I still find it hard to say it out loud-"tear out a heart?

"An ordinary man couldn't." Marian finally turns away from the man and looks at me.

"Maybe wild beasts?" I begin to spell out my options, pretending I don't understand what Marian is getting at. I don't want to understand it.

Eyra only shakes her head silently, keeping her dark eyes on the dead body.

But no matter how hard I tried to think of another logical explanation for what I saw, I was increasingly convinced that she was right. Delas is too crowded and noisy for an animal to crawl out of the woods. And I doubt that an animal would fumble around and put on such a show. Only humans are capable of such atrocities. The only ones strong enough, the only ones with enough medical knowledge to know exactly where to find the heart are the Eyres.

A chill ran down my spine. Aren't Eyres supposed to help people? Even if they don't, why tear out a heart?!

I watched Marian's face carefully-I'd never seen her so shocked and frightened. And somehow I get the feeling she knows a lot more than that. The woman rises sharply to her feet and turns to Allan.

"Get him off the bridge and cover him with a sheet so no one sees the body." She pauses for a moment and looks regretfully at the heartless, in the truest sense of the word, man. "Take it to the palace, to the coolest place you can find. Apparently our departure will have to be cancelled."

She said the last sentence as if to herself, and as soon as Allan gave the order to his men, Marian was on her way. I glanced quickly at Allan and hurried after the woman.

Unfortunately, the coolest place in the palace was the dungeon. It's under the palace, and it looks disgusting-moldy concrete walls, and sometimes there are dead rats underfoot, and countless twists and turns that seem to have no end. How big is it?