The Mayaware's reign must end.
In a world of demonic beings with a hunger for human flesh and thirst for blood, Hesi Renen knows it well. When her siblings are taken to the harvesting farms, she must do everything she can to get them out, even if it...
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Hesi waited. And waited.
Two brides didn't return.
No amount of waiting could change that.
She didn't budge from her spot, her uninjured shoulder growing stiff from pressing against the warm and rough rock wall for so long. Rehema and Semret. They must show up.
"Hesi, we need to go." Barteset's voice bled into her ears. Tagara and Isueri tried to no avail. Even Petra, with her usual bubbly attitude able to diffuse any negative feelings in all of them, gave up. The woman resigned to the corner Rehema once occupied.
Hesi shrugged the older woman's hand off her shoulder. The arm hanging from its socket throbbed when she whirled towards Barteset. "You go on ahead. I'll wait some more."
A click of the tongue, and Asrate was on Hesi's face. Her cheek flared with pain, and Asrate's hand stayed in the air for a few seconds before falling to her side. Did she just—
"Wake up, Hesi," Asrate chided, her tone stern and unkind. "They are not coming back."
Anger boiled inside Hesi's gut. She raised her burning gaze from her bare feet—her sandals snapped free hours ago—and met Asrate's eyes. They stared back at her, empty, dark, and helpless. Hesi hated it. Because they reflected on her own whenever she saw herself in a mirror.
She promised she would get them out. They believed she would keep her word. They trusted her to do her part, and they did theirs. She failed them. Like Mensa and the countless women who found themselves in this fanfare's clutches.
"Let's go, Hesi." Uzare's gentle voice was laced with a thickness Hesi knew was because of tears. "Rehema and Semret. They are in a better place now. Topt will take care of them in Her Fields."
Hesi closed her eyes and yanked her hand away from the bride's grip. Her chest heaved, amplified by the nerves that remained from the fight. She wanted to punch something, to make something explode, to squeeze the life out of something and watch their blood water the stones. She wanted ink to wash over the sand baked by the midday sun.
Rehema talked about going back to her herds, to which she sang and cared. Semret, a sweet girl barely older than Pai—she has a whole life ahead of her if she didn't get tangled in this mess. She and Pai would have been friends, the best of them. Or they would hate each other up to no end and pull each other's hair.
And now, none of them would get to see any of those futures. It was because of Hesi. If she didn't introduce a sense of safety and camaraderie among them, they would still see this as a competition. They would do their best to win. They would never succumb to defeat. It was her fault. She saved them from one death but shoved them into another.
But someone else had been there, someone who had the power to stop the battle on behalf of the High King. Someone who had her heart in his clawed grip.
Before she knew it, she pushed the door to Kharta's basement, finding him brewing yet another batch of his slimy potions. "Why didn't you stop their matches?" she demanded, shutting the door behind her with a loud bang. "Why didn't you?!"
