Page 26

Hestole the bones.Hetaunted the kaligorven.I was protecting our household. I did everything right.

But the Shrouded do not show mercy. I believe in them now.

I throw myself into the task until my spine feels like it will snap in two. I need this pain. I need it to distract me from my guilt—a physical ache to displace the emotional anguish. But my mind will not be stilled.

I hate myself, my obsession with doing everything right.

What a morvus you are.

In the moment he needed me the most, duty became more important than my own brother. How could I have been so fixated on making sure our house didn’t break the command of darkness that I didn’t care what happened outside of it? A miserable sound—not quite a laugh, not quite a groan—escapes my throat. The early morning mists press against the noise, making it sound like I’m sealed in a tomb.

If they took me in the same way, right now, I would welcome them.

But that is a selfish thought. I deserve to live with these consequences. And maybe my father does, too, for how he failed me and failed Rhun. But my mother does not. One more loss will shatter her.

I lob the shovel out of the grave and climb out after it. The dirt mingles with my sweat when I try to brush it off my hands and arms, smearing my skin with dark streaks. I stare at them, barely illuminated in the dying sola light. I imagine the cords of darkness have been burned into my skin. The darknessisme. I sink to the ground, clutching my left wrist in my right hand and resting my forearms on my knees. My head stoops below my shoulders.

I don’t care anymore. Let them have me.

The woods watch, but they are hidden from sight. A hundred feet above my head, trees sway and creak. Whatever wind shakes them does not touch me. I am nothing but a tiny pebble in the midst of this wild immensity. I know nothing of it. This is the farthest I have ever ventured into them alone, and it isn’t far.

Coward.

My entire life has been spent within the confines of Utsanek. This moment makes me feel pathetic in a way I have never known before. Logically, I can justify it. Immense trees with trunks as thick as small houses hem in the valley on three edges. They gradually disperse into the Askonnet Mountains, leaving the stony precipices to guard us. To the southwest, the vast Loch Skythe forms an impassable barrier between us and the Southlands. Beyond that, who knows? In this never-ending darkness, people want to stay where it’s open and where light, no matter how feeble, can be found.

The pile of bones to my left represents nearly all of it—the glowing trinkets we ripped from the fingers of the frailest grandmothers.

I can still see the fragments Rhun brought home a week ago when I close my eyes. I never dreamed sola brossa could be so bright. A hundred piles of these old bones could not equal them. No wonder Sola Vinari is such a sacred rite.

Time drifts by, but I don’t care. My kneecaps press themselves into my arms, like I press myself into the darkness. Like it presses into me. I wish it would swallow me. My eyes strain for any variation in the shadows, but there’s nothing. Always nothing. The ténesomni has reduced the bolétis to greasy smears that streak off into the distance. It reaches in determinedly at the sola brossa, still powerless to snuff them out, weak though they are. The black fingers claim me, painting me with their bold strokes. I am powerless to resist it.

A crack of thunder propels me to the present, making my heart lurch to catch up. I go from stone cold to flushed and sweaty with the sudden injection of adrenaline. My head snaps back and forth, but no shadowy monster has found me. I close my eyes and wait for my pulse to relax. When I am able to stand, I am conscious of how vulnerable my aching back and numb appendages render me.

Good.

I glance around one last time, daring—hoping for?—the kaligorven to face me. But nothing does. I kick the bones and they scatter, hitting the earth with soft thuds. How have I sat beside a hundred sola bones for at least an hour, yet I go unnoticed? Rhun was out there—what, five minutes? They wasted no time hunting him down.

My anger burns itself out within moments, and a kind of bewildered desperation fills the gap. It’s been so long since the Vale has been visited by the Shrouded. Why now? I was content with the shadows. I thought I knew them. But now I know I don’t know anything. Like why I get to live while my brother dies.

I do not understand this present darkness at all.

The yawning mouth in the earth waits patiently to receive the bones, but not me.

Fingers tightening around the handle of the shovel, I finish the job.

“Belwyn.”

I pinch my eyelids shut and stifle a sigh. How in Elyon’s name did Ketra find me? I can’t even register my surroundings. Except for the small circle of cobblestones my lantern manages to illuminate, I wouldn’t know I was in Utsanek at all. I navigate the city from memory, not sight. Ketra’s footfalls echo dully behind me. If I wasn’t so bone-weary, I’d make sure she couldn’t catch up.

“Belwyn, wait.”

Ketra’s hand finds my forearm and tugs me to a halt. I sigh and turn around reluctantly, holding my lantern up to keep space between us. She’s the last person I want to see right now. When I am facing her, she slides both hands up my arms until her palms rest on my collar bones. Her touch is like a thing not living. Dim though it is, I can see the hunger in her eyes when she leans in. I can smell the alcohol on her breath.

“Why haven’t you come to find me?” she asks, her cool fingertips pulling at the neck of my shirt. Her chin tilts up, but there is no longer that characteristic playfulness in her expression. I break her gaze and focus past the top of her head. I can’t do this.

“I haven’t been able to leave my room in days,” she says, her hands tightening into fists.

When I refuse to look at her, she sobs and rests her forehead on my chest. The lantern does not yield between us.