Arran had always imagined his death to come swiftly, an axe's clean cut as the executioner let it fall on his neck. Or perhaps, if he'd been lucky, he would have slipped away in the dead quiet of the night, old and content in his bed, surrounded by his stolen riches. Never had he expected it to grind his bones and rattle his teeth, to melt his organs and skin the raw flesh of his throat as he coughed up the bloody mess. He hadn't pictured Zohra at his side while she dabbed his face and sweat-soaked chest with a wet cloth. He certainly hadn't counted on a snake holding his hand during his final hours.

At the peak of his fever, he dreamed about a god.

Onshra's blurred silhouette beckoned him closer with a hand made of shadows, his eyes burning with the crimson fires of the underworld. "You do not deserve peace, Arran Dir Akhta," he said as he ripped Arran's soul apart. Arran tried to scream, but blood clogged up his throat and glued his lips together. "Traitors do not belong in my glorious kingdom. Their eternity is one of suffering."

No amount of begging would convince the god. With every piece of his soul hollowed out, Arran sensed the monsters in the darkness creep closer, ravenous and with foaming maws.

When he jerked awake, he still saw them in the corners of Zohra's house, licking their jagged teeth. Only when Zohra propped his head up to make him drink, water or potion, did the monsters retreat and sleep sink its greedy claws into him once more.

His fever broke at last at noon, though he feared it would return for him soon. Zohra sat on a chair next to the sofa, her face weary and gray. Her left arm leaned heavily on her cane. When she noticed he was conscious, she forced a wan smile. "Hello there, monkey."

"Zohra." His voice cracked. With every word he spoke, small razor blades scratched the inside of his throat. "Where's Inna?"

"She left this morning, remember? She hasn't returned yet."

Dimly, he recalled a long-fingered hand stroking his damp hair. A kiss like the fluttering beat of a bird's feather on his lips.

"And my mother and sister?"

Zohra said nothing, but tapped her cane twice on the floor, loud enough to send Merriam hurtling out of the kitchen. Tears brimmed in his mother's eyes whilst she squatted by his side and kissed his cheek once, twice.

"Oh, Arran," she cried, her skin pulled taut around her fists. "I thought you'd never wake up again."

Weak as he was, he found himself longing for her warm embrace. In his childhood, she used to tell him that a hug and a kiss would make the pain go away. "I'm still here, maia."

"Adira went to seyine Falita's shop to make up some excuse about your mother's absence from work," Zohra explained, slowly pushing herself to her feet. "Now stop worrying that big brother's heart of yours, or all my efforts will have been for naught."

Too tired to argue, he closed his eyes. Zazi's tail brushed his wrist.

Maybe it hadn't been such a great idea to make love to Inna after all. The strain it had put on his already withering health might have proven fatal if it hadn't been for Zohra's sheer stubbornness in keeping him alive.

Still, not a bone in his body regretted it.

Two sharp knocks shook the front door in its hinges. Everyone in the room stiffened. Arran bolted upright in a dizzying motion, but Merriam ushered him back into the cushions with a trembling finger pressed to her lips. She traded an anxious glance with Zohra, who nodded once and limped to the door to answer.

"Who's there?"

"Open the door, ma'am. We have received an anonymous tip-off that this house harbors two fugitives." The guard's commanding voice raised the hair on Arran's arms.

So many people had seen Inna and him at the market the other day. Any one of them could have betrayed them.

"Come, quickly," Merriam whispered as she shoved her arms under his to help him up. Her wheezing gasps reminded him of a mouse caught in a hawk's hungry beak.

Clenching his teeth, Arran willed his legs to move and trusted his mother to carry the weight he could not. Gravity rushed in in an attempt to drag him back down, but he resisted with all his might until the world stopped reeling. Together, he and Merriam shuffled toward the storeroom, where the tunnels would grant them refuge. Zazi slithered after them, tracking his stumbling steps.

Zohra cast a desperate glance their way. Hurry up, she mouthed.

Arran's chest rose and fell with quickened breaths, frustrated at their slow progress. Behind their backs, he heard Zohra tell the guards that they were mistaken, that they should leave. It was bad for business to have the city watch pounding on your door.

A bang resonated throughout the house as the guard put his boot against the door. Zohra stumbled backward, clutching her cane like a weapon in her hands. Every squeak of the hinges injected adrenaline into Arran's feet to push them forward. He leaned his back against the wall for support, careful not to bump his head against one of the racks, while Merriam grunted and puffed to lift the stone slab that formed the entrance to the tunnels. It rose a few inches, but slipped out of her clammy fingers with a muffled thump. She cursed under her breath.

The wooden front door cracked and caved. Zohra shouted some indignant threats to sue the guard for destroying private property, yet her protests soon died down. Furniture scraped across the ground as heavy footfalls paced around the living room, followed by a lighter swooshing that stirred up frightening memories in Arran's mind.

The Cult.

Merriam's body went rigid, her eyes too large and round in her sunken face. A strangled noise escaped her lips. Drawing strength out of his growing panic, he rushed to her and cupped her face in his hands.

"Maia? Maia, can you hear me?"

The beads in the curtain rattled. A tall man dressed in the uniform of a city guard stepped through the doorway. As soon as he laid eyes on him, Arran knew this man was no actual guard, though. His rough brown skin had been hardened by a life in the desert and a scar ran along the left side of his face, cutting through his pale gray eye. His grin was hardly more than a baring of yellow teeth.

"There you are," the man said, his eyes gleaming in triumph. His smirk didn't falter as he turned toward Merriam. She quivered like a leaf beneath his gaze, caught in the mind warpers' grip. "But you are not the princess. Ah well."

Arran called for his magic. It spluttered, rendered useless by the curse. Each time he tried to reach it, needles stabbed his brain. He scrambled away, but the guard caught hold of the collar of Arran's shirt and yanked him closer to snatch the monkey talisman off his neck. The man's fingers steered clear of the Amulet, though, careful not to provoke the magic within.

The moment the talisman's chain snapped, cold, hostile magic anchored itself into Arran's brain. Fear ricocheted through his lifeless puppet's limbs and tortured his frenzied, helpless mind. With his eyes, he tried to communicate to his mother that everything would be all right, yet the lie tasted sour on his speechless tongue.

He wished Inna were here. He was glad that she wasn't.

Three cloaked figures greeted them in eerie silence when they emerged back into the living room. Zohra knelt between them, her posture defeated but her eyes bright with fury. Her cane lay several feet away, broken in two. Arran held her unflinching gaze even as the guard forced both him and Merriam down on their knees as well.

Despite his own precarious situation, he felt a spark of relief for Adira's absence. His little sister's kind eyes and sweet smiles were no match for these scoundrels. Guilt coiled around his heart when one of the sorcerers clasped Merriam's shoulder, as if to remind him that he still had another family member to lose. Two, in fact. This was all his fault. He had gotten them into this. If any harm came to them, he'd never forgive himself.

When the sorcerer spoke, their voice was the same distorted sound it had been the previous times, the timbre warped to mask their identity. "Still not ready to give up the Amulet, Dir Akhta?"

He was surprised to find his tongue loosened just the slightest bit. "No. You'll have to pry it from my dead hands," he spat through gritted teeth.

The sorcerer loosed a weary sigh. His pale hand flexed around Merriam's shoulder, causing her misty eyes to bulge. A raging, blood-thirsty monster clawed at the inside of Arran's skull, drawing blaring red marks across his vision.

Before he had the time to process what was happening, the guard's fist had groped a handful of Arran's hair and landed several tactically aimed blows on his stomach and rib cage. Unable to defend himself, Arran had no choice but to endure the violence, eyes rolling every which way. He tasted copper in his mouth; he had bitten his tongue.

"Leave him alone!" Zohra shrieked. She stumbled forward on hands and knees, meaning to crawl toward him, but the cultist behind her yanked her back with a harsh tug at her qamisa.

The first sorcerer cocked their hooded head. "Why isn't she susceptible to your magic?" they asked their comrade next to them, who had stood motionless like a statue until that moment.

The mind warper hesitated for a split second, shoulders stiff beneath their dark cloak. "She has strong mental defenses, like Princess Serafina. It's one of her natural talents as a blue aura."

Arran swore he detected a female timbre in the wavering vowels of their voice. The shape of an idea formed at the back of his head, but like a slippery eel, it scurried away from his greedy grasp. Agony split his brain in two when the sorceress fortified her mental hold on him.

"Let's stop wasting time and take him to the palace," she continued. "We'll use him as bait to lure the princess to us as well."

"How can you be so sure she'll go after him?" the guard asked. The threat of his fists loomed over Arran's head.

Though shadows veiled her face, the guard cringed when she stared him down. "Believe me, she will."

No, Arran thought in a frantic rush. Why do you want her so badly?

The guard hauled him to his feet. A new surge of panic jabbed his heart. He racked his brain for a way to stall them, to buy time. Sick or not, he loathed the idea of having this brute carry him out the door without putting up a good fight first.

But what could he possibly do while he was trapped inside a paralyzed body?

A deafening howl made his ears ring. The guard had loosened his grip, just enough to have offered Arran a chance at escape if his muscles had worked. Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted a green snake, her fangs buried deep into the guard's ankle.

That was all the distraction Zohra needed. He marveled at the agility with which she jumped to her feet and snapped her fingers at the sorcerer who stood closest to her. They dropped to the ground in a rustling bundle of black fabric. She spun on her feet to confront the woman, who took a few swinging steps away from the fortune teller.

Arran's fingertips prickled as his control over his body returned. He didn't wait for the two remaining cultists to realize their mistake; with a grunt, he threw himself at the one who had hurt his mother. They rolled over the floor, exchanging punches. His legs tangled in the sorcerer's cloak, but he used it to secure his position on top of his opponent so that he could slam their head against the ground. The cultist went limp; they didn't move again.

Arran wiped the blood from his nose and mouth and dragged himself toward Merriam, whose disoriented gaze couldn't seem to focus on the chaotic scene in front of her. "Maia," he panted, cradling her skull. "Snap out of it! We have to go."

Her eyes rolled up. He groaned with pain when her full weight landed in his arms. Expecting the worst, he craned his neck and stared up at the sorceress. She stood next to Zohra, watching the woman impassively as she clutched her head and squeezed her eyes shut. She had finally broken through the fortune teller's defenses. "I'm sorry it had to come to this, Arran," she said softly.

He opened his mouth to stammer a response, but Zohra beat him to it. "How could you?" she hissed. She weeped bloody tears. "What did that prince promise you to justify a betrayal like this?"

Betrayal?

The sorceress bowed her head. "You should've stayed out of this, Zohra. You shouldn't have forced my hand. But so long as you live, Arran will never listen to me."

A sickly sense of foreboding scratched its icy fingers down Arran's spine. He leapt to his feet, his mind blank but for the sudden understanding that he had to prevent the sorceress from flexing her mind, from lashing out with her magic. Electrical blue flashes lit up the darkness of her hidden aura like bolts of lightning. He reached out a hand, fingers spread wide.

Zohra gave no sound, not even a low moan, as her spine straightened and her pupils constricted. Blood seeped from her nose, her eyes, her ears. Her red-stained lips parted, as though in surprise. Her fragile body convulsed, hands trembling in her lap, until she crumpled to a tiny ball.

Arran felt his heart crack in his chest. A wail that slashed through air and bones rose up in his throat. Sinking to his knees, he rocked Zohra in his arms. "No, please," he begged, hot, salty tears choking him. "Don't leave, Zohra. Stay with me."

She gurgled up more blood, her gaze unfocused. "I love you, monkey."

"I love you too, Zohra. Hold on."

A long sigh rattled her chest. Her glassy eyes only reflected his own despair, the light within snuffed out.

This was the woman who had caught him stealing bread one winter morning and who had paid for it to calm down the scarlet-faced baker. Who had taken him under her wing when he confessed that his family had lived on stale bread and dates for weeks because his mother had no coin to pay for more. Who had gathered information about which merchant or noble was out of town and had left their villa wide open for burglars. She had patched him up and helped him out of trouble countless times. He'd never had the chance to pay her back, and now he never would.

His fault. It was his fault she was dead.

A tender hand stroked his hair. He was too exhausted, too broken by grief, to slap it away. Warm breath tickled his ear as the sorceress put her arms around him in a twisted imitation of an embrace. "Hush now, big brother," she whispered. "Everything will be all right."

He almost welcomed the darkness that swallowed him.