Page 9 of The Crow Games
Ruchel squeezed her torch amulet in her palm. “You lack loyalty, Blue. It was Fria who made you a witch, and I will always honor her sacrifice.” The passion in her words stirred me. “If her symbol upsets the gods, so be it. It’s Fria’s tears that fuel your abilities, not the hungry sea deity you insist on serving even as he abandons you here. What has Unger ever done for you? What haveanyof them ever done for us?”
“At least Unger comforts me,” the blue witch huffed. “He may one day decide to save me from this place. A dead goddess can do nothing for no one. Keep talking like that and you’ll win the favor of none of them.”
“I hope this symbol angers all of them.” In solidarity, I pulled free my amulet and let it fall against my chest. Lisbeth’s blood had dried upon it. “The gods already hate us. That’s why we’re here. They can all go suck an egg, I say.”
Ruchel beamed at me. Nola’s laugh was low and sounded more like she was clearing a stuffy nose than expressing mirth, but I took it as a promising sign.
The clock on the wall struck the 13thhour and a bell chimed. The melodious peal seemed to come from everywhere all at once.
“What was that?” I asked.
“Time to go,” Ruchel said as the bell sounded again. “Are you traveling with us or not, Blue?”
The witch shook her head with enough vigor her scarf slipped, revealing more lovely silver-streaked hair. She left the lounge, headed for a door into the crowded car one over.
“Stubborn woman,” Ruchel bit out. “Come on. Get in line.”
Taking the lead, she guided me toward an exit at the bottom of a small set of bone stairs. The bell chimed a third time, and the train began to slow. More prisoners gathered at various doors, falling into queues.
“Trial number three isn’t so terrible. It’s not the best, but it’s a decent one to get started in,” Ruchel said. Her reassurance did nothing to calm my nerves. I felt thrown to the wolves, with more questions than answers. So many questions, in fact, that they all tangled on my tongue before I could voice any of them.
Ruchel called over her shoulder, “Hurry up, Winola!”
The soldier climbed slowly to her feet, broad-shouldered and impressive at her full height. “I still haven’t agreed to let the new witch travel with us.”
“Stop being a little shit and get over here,” Ruchel rumbled.
“All right, all right.” Nola trotted up behind me. “We’ll see how she does at least.”
Being boxed in by the two of them settled me a little, quelling some of the worry and chaos trying to take root in my chest.
“I’m surprised you let anyone boss you around,” I said to Nola, masking the anxious tremor in my voice with a playful tone. Perhaps if I acted unafraid, the rest of me would follow suit. “If I was a soldier, maybe I’d grow accustomed to following someone’s orders, too.”
Nola’s mouth tugged up at the corner into a handsome grin. “I served in the Sebrak Republic army, but that’s not why I follow her orders. I’ve always had a tender spot for pushy women.”
The sniffles of the fair-haired girl drew my notice across the cabin. She was Lisbeth’s age, a young twenty-something. Leaning around Nola, I watched her curl into herself. She lifted her chin to wipe her nose, and a scaled tail whipped out from behind her, a sign of garm heritage. The pain radiating from her mirrored my own loss, and for a moment the hollowness inside me cleared just enough that I ached with her. I tapped Ruchel’s arm and pointed at the beast-born.
“I already tried. She’s not coming,” Ruchel said quietly. “She lost her whole coven last trial. They’d gotten large enough to attract the attention of one of the more established covens. That’s why it’s best to travel in smaller groups. It was brutal. She’s giving up.”
My stomach dropped. “Maybe we could—”
“Not you too,” Nola said sourly, pressing me closer to the door as brakes squealed and the bone train came to a hard stop. The grainy scent of the alcohol on her breath mingled with the smell of kerosene from the lanterns. “I already have to deal with one irrationally soft-hearted witch. Let that girl be.”
“But what will happen to her if she stays aboard?” I demanded.
Just then, one of the attendants pushed a cart through the lounge, another faceless creature that turned my stomach.
“That’s a Schatten revenant,” Nola said, in answer to the unspoken question that had my blood roaring in my ears. “And that’s what happens to you if you stay aboard. Soulless servitude to the dead and damned. She’s chosen that fate. Now get off or join her.”
Chapter 3
“Before there were humans, the gods made the garm. They fashioned them from lost nightmare spirits called shades and the bones of the great beasts of old.” –Esther Weil, Renowned Folklorist
We exited onto a platform made of ebonized wood. A signpost that hung below a dull burning gaslight numbered it trial three of seven. Dark boards lined up before a foreboding set of cast iron gates. Shaped in the metal to form jagged letters were the wordsCrow Games.
Despite the heat, a full-body shiver started at the back of my neck and cascaded down my spine, pebbling my skin.
Behind me, Death’s ghostly pale train stretched as far as my eyes could see in each direction, but the platform was only wide enough to hold the few hundred prisoners who exited the cars around us. Soon it was so crowded, I could barely see over the press of bodies.
