finishes forcing Chesrie to drink, nothing does. I glance back over at Anwir, whose eyes are full of anger.
“Tsk, tsk, Anwir,” she says to him like a parent lecturing a child. “If only your father could learn to accept when something doesn’t belong to him, then maybe you’d still have your voice.”
“What did you make us drink?” Chesrie shrieks.
“Oh, just tea, dear. You and your sister will be fine. But as for Anwir, he might never speak again.”
“Why would you—” I start, Kindra’s mother interrupting me.
“Because the poison was for you, not him. I’ll explain as much as I can, but we have little time. You have to trust me if you want to get out of here alive. Kindra told you about Maltehom coming and what that means, yes?”
I nod as best as I can.
“I was never supposed to be the tribute. Anwir’s father, the leader of this little island, promised that none of us would ever have to be tribute again, sending his son out to find a tribute instead. No one asks when a thief goes missing.”
My eyes shoot left toward Anwir, but he does not look back. His head is bowed, at least as much as the restraints allow. He seems drained and sorrowful. He has no reason not to be if what she said about the poison is true.
“Why is he in here with us, then?”
“Verification,” she says slyly. “Years ago, his father was widowed and wanted to take me to wife, but I could never bear being wed to such a serpent, especially since I was in love with someone else. This made Anwir’s father jealous, so I tried to keep the identity of my lover a secret. One day, however, he met a mysterious end, but not before he and I created another secret, Kindra, whom I have kept hidden for a long time.
“You two brought that secret to light, forcing me to plead with Anwir’s father for her. A life for a life. I’ve agreed to be his for the rest of my days. In exchange, he’s agreed to not kill Kindra. But just to make sure that I wasn’t holding anything back from him, he placed me here with Anwir to ask you what my daughter said, as well as to watch me.”
“How is what you’ve done supposed to help Kindra?” I ask.
“It doesn’t,” she breathes deeply. “I find myself in an impossible situation. Do I send two helpless girls to their deaths just to save my daughter, my one reminder of what it feels like to be loved, or do I risk her life to save them?”
Someone knocks on the door, causing her to speak faster.
“They will expect you to not have voices, so don’t make a noise, not until Maltehom is before you,” she continues as she hurriedly unties me from my chair. “The recipe for the poison came from him because he does not care for the screaming of those he is about to take back beneath the seas. You’ll need to tell him that you are outsiders. The pact he made long ago with our ancestors was supposed to apply only to their descendants. Maltehom will therefore be angry from your revelation, though I don’t know what he will do after that.
“I fear the worst, that maybe he’ll decide to take everyone. That I’m condemning us all for the sins of just a few selfish men, but bringing you here was not right. All who stood idly by are just as guilty for not speaking up. I am, too, because I saw your coming only as a chance to get away. Little good it did since they’d already chosen me as your backup in case Anwir failed.”
Once she unties my legs, I spring up to run over to Chesrie and hug her. Once she is freed and on her feet, she glares at Anwir. He is so calm that it seems like he could be sleeping, though his eyes are still open.
“The poison also makes you very weak-willed,” Kindra’s mother explains. “No one knows if the effects wear off, but it will at least keep everyone from worrying about you. You’ll need to act as lifeless as he is. I will prompt you the way to walk. If I cannot get away, please find Kindra. She is locked in the inn. The trail behind this building will lead you there.”
I gaze into her eyes as she finishes. Even though she has acted so impressively calm, I can see fear and doubt behind them. It’s like she doesn’t believe that her impromptu plan will work, which drives me to make sure that it will.
“Thank you,” I say, hugging her. “We’ll find her.”
She smiles back, but only briefly, a grim look then returning to her face. She steps behind me and grabs my shoulder, pushing me forward next to Chesrie. I try to slump the way that Anwir is slumping as Kindra’s mother opens the door in front of us.
We step out into the open and are immediately surrounded by people. I feel their eyes on me, though I don’t look up to see. Instead, I stare at the ground in front of me as Kindra’s mother prods me from behind to keep moving. The stone under my feet becomes wood as I step onto the pier. After a moment, the cloud of people around me dissipates, and Chesrie and I are walking alone toward the man I presume to be Anwir’s father. He stands next to a column of stone, the beacon Kindra pointed out earlier. Kindra’s mother pushes Chesrie and me down next to the man and then walks around to stand a pace behind him.
“You’ll see,” he tells her in a raspy voice, one that makes him seem even older than he already appears. “Life will be so much better for you and Kindra once this is all over with.”
“Yes, it will,” she says confidently.
His left hand, which holds a torch, lifts up toward the top of the beacon, lighting it. The color that the beacon produces strangely green. Small sparks periodically fly off of it in different colors, reminding me of a time when I watched an alchemist mix together metal dust and chemicals.
Still, I try to keep my head down to not arouse suspicion, but I can no longer bring myself to when a mysterious, dark cloud forms just above the water a ways off from the shore. My head and eyes lift up slowly as it rapidly accelerates toward us.
An even darker silhouette then appears at its front, one that is shaped almost like a man. It must be Maltehom. The closer he gets, the more humanlike his form becomes. Yet, aspects of him remain hazy, almost otherworldly. A thin veil of smoke that is separate from the cloud surrounds him, obscuring some of his strange, disfigured features. His legs move as though he is walking on the air below him, but the gradual pace at which he steps does not match the swiftness with which the cloud carries him our way, at least not until he reaches the end of the long pier, where his movement slows to match his steps.
My heart tells me to scream, but I try to quell the impulse. Doing so only makes me feel like my heart will leap right out of my chest. Maltehom’s presence is dark, and I can feel it deep within me. At first, my body responds with panic, but as he stops only a few steps from us, his presence numbs and paralyzes me.
I look down again, terrified that he will perceive that I am fully aware of him and not under the influence of the strange elixir that was instead given to Anwir, but that shouldn’t scare me. He’s supposed to find that out. I’m supposed to speak right now and tell him, but I can’t bring myself to. Neither can Chesrie. We’ve become completely petrified.
Not looking at Maltehom hardly removes the horror of being so close to him. A disturbing noise resonates from him almost like breathing, but there is something dramatically different about it that I struggle to put words to. It’s not coming from above where his head is. Rather, it seems to come from his entire being. It is as though every part of him is breathing, or moving quietly in some way like the slithering scales of a snake.
“Do you think you can deceive me?” his deep, almost growling voice both yells and whispers, as though it is being quietly said and yet bellowing from within my mind.
I look up, and Maltehom’s eyes are not on me or my sister, but on Anwir’s father.
“What—” he tries to say before Maltehom reaches out and grabs his neck, almost crushing it instantly.
“If all I wanted were souls, I would have taken your fathers instead of leaving them here, but you bring me these strangers instead of your own children as though you are not already mine. As though this island does not already belong to me.”
With just that, he turns around, violent
ly dragging Anwir’s father behind him, still gripping his neck. The force he pulls him with is so great that I would be certain that Anwir’s father was dead were it not for his desperately flailing arms, which struggle unsuccessfully to remove Maltehom’s hold.
“I will return in five years,” Maltehom calls back without looking, loudly and powerfully like he’s still standing among us though he now glides once more across the waters. “And if there is no one here to light the beacon, I will search for you and find you whither you have fled.”
After those words, he disappears completely, as do the dark clouds that had encompassed him. I turn to Chesrie and hug her once more. My head tilts up to Kindra’s mother, who stares out at the sea in shock, almost disappointment. Her reaction surprises me since this has to have been the best possible outcome for her, but it matches the reaction of the rest of the people, all of whom seeming unsure of what to think or do.
“Let’s go,” I say to Chesrie, pulling her up with me and down the pier toward shore.
The people we pass don’t really pay attention to us, but I can understand why. They are no longer our enemies. Just people condemned by some terrible curse brought upon them by their forefathers. But that curse does not apply to us. We need to get out of here as fast as we can, though not before making sure that Kindra is safe.
We follow the