Page 54 of Starside

Zane is standing there, blood coating his ax, panting. Kira is just behind him, looking like she’s going to retch again.

“You—you didn’t run,” I say, looking between them.

The corner of his mouth lifts. “We made a pact. Remember?”

I remember. Kira rushes forward, pulling a scarf from her bag and using it to wipe the blood from my face. “There’s a lot. Hold still.” I do. I do, even as my heart races, energy coursing through my veins.

Without Zane and his ax … I would be dead.

My sword makes me a target—even here. I can’t forget that.

Once the blood is wiped away, we collect the two immortals’ heads. We go back to the road, and Zane cuts the woman’s off too. We each hold one, by the hair, and continue down the path, through the rising dusk.

When the trees rustle again further down, Zane merely holds up one of the masked heads and says, “Consider the price paid.”

It’s nearly dusk when we reach the village of Westwere. A wall sits around it, with a moat, and a narrow bridge that’s already being pulled up.

We race forward, heads still in hand, and jump. The bridge stops.

A foot above us, a window in the wall slides open. “Get off,” an immortal man barks. “It’s almost sunset.”

So the danger of night is real.

“We need a place to stay. Please.” I take the coin out of my pocket and hold it over my head, hoping it’s actually worth something here.

He eyes it, and us, warily. Then he notices the heads.

For a moment, I wonder if keeping them with us was a mistake. We don’t know how immortals work. Maybe they all serve the same god.

The window slams closed. Panic floods my chest.

Just when I think we’re about to be locked out, it opens again, this time, as a full door. And I see the man wasn’t standing on a platform. He’s seven feet tall, at least.

“In, quickly,” he says. “You’re playing with fate, being outside this close to sundown.” He shakes his head before pulling the thick chains again, raising the bridge completely in just a few tugs.

Immortals are powerful. So why are they so afraid of night?

What could be so bad that even this immortal fears it?

He runs his large hand down his face, before sighing with his entire body. “That time of the century then, is it?” he says, seemingly to himself. He frowns down at us. “Come with me.”

We all look over at each other, surprised. I really thought he would leave us outside the gates. Our encounters with all immortals so far haven’t exactly been pleasant.

The village is modest. All the structures seem to slope, one way or another. He leads us down a mostly empty street. We pass by countless doors and hear lock after lock turning.

He stops in front of a quaint house with four stories that is noticeably tilting to the side, held upright by an equally precarious-looking tower.

He knocks three times. A moment passes. Another.

Then a tall, beautiful immortal with violet eyes and blond hair tied into a single braid that starts at the top of her scalp opens the door. She looks up at the man and smiles.

Then she sees us.

Her face pales. She shakes her head. “No. I told you after the last time, no—”

He’s leaning casually against the threshold. “They killed three Masks.”

She blinks. Her eyes slide down to the heads we still hold.