I HIT THE ground and roll down the stone steps, then come to my feet and sprint straight toward where Bo was standing. I turn down one of the narrow alleyways, but a puddle of blackness appears. It spills toward me and rises up off the ground, morphing into a sin-bear. As it rears on its hind legs, it growls, showing sharp black teeth. I jump out of the way as it slams its paws down, narrowly missing me. I lunge for it, slicing straight through the nape of its shadowy neck. Before it even fully evaporates, I’m off again. Sin-snakes coil and spring at me, and I slice and slice and swing my daga and spin, cutting a path straight through them.
A window crashes open in a home overhead, and a sin-wolf grips an aki in its claws as it crashes to the ground. Other aki run along rooftops, shouting to one another, teaming up on inisisa together. I look up again and see Omar darting from one balcony to another, swinging himself off of ledges and leaping over bannisters. He moves with a quickness and grace I never could have taught him. A sin-leopard chases him, nipping at his ankles. In one swift turn, he attacks, plunging his daga between the beast’s eyes, driving it all the way back into the nape of its neck. The inisisa explodes into a tendril of blackness.
Panicked Kosians dart in every direction, and I can barely keep on my feet. Something smacks me in the back of the head, and then I turn around to see a spear of black ink rush toward my mouth. The inisisa I killed—I can’t escape those sins. The bile from the snakes and the bear slides down my throat, and I choke, but a moment later, it’s all gone, and all that’s left is some dizziness. I rock back and forth but manage to still myself. Noises soften, and the world blurs, but I put my arm out in front of me, and sin-spots appear. Four sin-snakes wrapped around my left forearm. A bear running down my right. It hurts my heart to see them back, these sin-spots. The last time I’d been able to see the skin of my arms so unspotted, I was a child. And then, with Karima, to see again what it looked like to be a regular Forum-dweller, only now to have that taken away.
My face is wet with tears, but I can’t stop.
A sin-griffin swoops low overhead, and I chase after it. Kosians cower in corners, scurry down alleyways, barricade themselves in vendor stalls. Inisisa tackle the Kosians who couldn’t find shelter in time and devour the ones who can’t get away. I can’t save them.
I cut into a small alley and vault onto a rubbish pile, scrambling up to the roof of a home. The griffin flaps its wings in the distance and circles the teeming masses of Kosians trampling one another in a stampeding herd below. It dives down and reemerges with comatose bodies in its talons, then arcs through the street again.
My body aches, but I force myself to continue. I jump from rooftop to rooftop, just like when the guards were chasing me. Just as I did before any of this happened.
As I run through laundry hanging on clotheslines and around rooftop gardens, I angle myself toward the main thoroughfare and time my leap so that I hurl myself through the air just as the griffin is about to pass beneath me.
I fall on the griffin’s back, and we spiral down into the street, crashing hard onto the ground.
Already, the Eaten litter the streets while inisisa pick over them, then move on to other Kosians. Furniture lies on the ground in the Forum as the sin-beasts tear into homes, looking for their victims. Storefronts and stalls are toppled over with their wares scattered all around me.
Just as I turn, the griffin, now turned into bile, jets down my throat. This one dizzies me. I take a few steps forward, then stumble. I can feel inisisa circling me. They make no noise except for the sound of paws and feet crunching in the dry dirt. I come to my feet. My head is still swimming. They’ve cornered me. I hold up my daga and get into fighting stance, but I know it will be no use. The beasts come closer and closer. I close my eyes. I’m shaking, but if this is how I’m going to go, by the Unnamed, let me die fighting.
“Eh-eh!” I hear from above. When I open my eyes, Ifeoma, Tolu, Emeka, and Sade jump down from a balcony above. Just in time.
They each take one on, and I jump in. Together we fight them off, our dagas moving at lightning speed. We choke down the sins, and a moment later, it’s over.
“So,” Ifeoma says, strutting forward. “The city of Kos is needing us now? They better write songs about us.”
Sade laughs and loosens the strap for her daga, holding it out into the light and doing an elaborate bow. “You see, I am keeping track of all the inisisa I kill tonight. So that when I tell the Mages, they will call me diligent.” She is smiling when she says all of this, and her teeth glow pearly in the night.
Emeka comes forward and slides his arm out. “To you and yours, Taj.”
I smile. “To you and yours, Emeka.” I face the rest of the group. “Bo?”
“He didn’t find you?” Tolu asks.
“No,” I tell him. “He was looking for me?”
Sade puts her strap back in place. “Yes, he said it was urgent. Acted like fire ants had crawled into his pants.”
Then I remember seeing him surrounded by that pack of sin-wolves. “Bo.” I set off at a dash, having to hurdle over the broken remains of shop stalls and dodge crumbling balconies. The others follow close behind me. Each protecting a side, they bat back any inisisa that chase behind us.
The circle, when I see it, has grown smaller. There are fewer sin-wolves, but Bo is down on one knee. His chest heaves. His shoulders have slumped.
“Bo!” I call out, and the inisisa turn.
The wolves rush toward us, and Sade and the others scatter.
The first wolf leaps for me. Emeka tackles it, and the two roll. When they come to their feet, they lunge for each other, but Emeka stabs the beast through its torso. Sade has already attracted the attention of another, while Tolu steps in front of me to draw even more. Ifeoma and I rush to Bo. But just as we reach him, a lion leaps out of the shadows and barrels into Ifeoma. She cries out in pain. A scream catches in my throat. Fury builds in my chest. I stalk over to the inisisa she’s fending off, and my daga catches the light from overturned lamps. Ifeoma has her own daga in the lion’s chest, and I run up to it and bring my daga down swift, straight through its neck.
Blood is pumping through my veins, and I can’t catch my breath. I feel powerless. All around me, inisisa stalk. Bodies everywhere. Motionless. Glass-eyed. Eaten.
Aki still battle the remaining inisisa, but the sins they’ve Eaten slow their movements too much. Some are Crossing over. There’s not enough skin on my body to Eat them all. There’s not enough skin on all of our bodies to Eat them all. I fall to my knees next to Ifeoma, whose eyes have begun to glass over. Inky teeth marks show where on her shoulder the sin-lion has bitten her. She blinks at me, and for a second, her white-pupiled eyes return, and she fumbles for my wrist, and I give it to her.
Her legs shake, and I know she’s lost feeling in them. Her mouth is now frozen, and no words escape. She’s Crossing. Her arms go limp, and her hand falls out of mine.
The aki from the forest stand on rooftops or crowd windows, slashing at sin-falcons, climbing onto the backs of bears and stabbing at the napes of their necks. It’s war. And they’re dying. So many of them are dying.
Air fills my lungs. And I scream.
“STOP!”
It stops. The rampage, the carnage, it all stops. All of Kos is silent. My voice wasn’t my own when I said that word. It felt like someone, something, was speaking through me. Passing through my body and out of my mouth. Something Unnamed.
Every face in Kos turns my way.
I stand.
The inisisa, as one, bow their heads.