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CHAPTER TWELVE

ZéLIE

R AIN.

Falling rain. It’s the first thing that finds me in the dark. Its steady patter rings through my ears. It drags my mind out of the abyss.

Sharp light breaks into my eyes, filling my vision with red. My muscles shake against the cold marble floor. I struggle to lift my hands.

Something warm glows above my heart. It burns every time I breathe in. I reach up and my fingers scrape gold.

Baldyr’s medallion is welded into my skin.

No.

My breath shrivels. I can’t believe what I feel.

The triple arrowhead carved into the gold medallion pulses with light, synced to my heart like a breathing organ.

My fingers shake as I pull them back. The sight makes my head spin.

Something sharp pulses through my being, but it’s not the magic I know.

“ Finally. ” My ears ring as Baldyr approaches me, a zealous fervor alight in his eyes. His hands hover over my frame. In mere moments, I’ve become too valuable to touch.

But Baldyr speaks in his tongue. Why can I recognize the words? The foreign tongue keeps building in my head.

It’s as if the medallion changes me from within.

“ Awaken .” Baldyr whispers the command. He smears the blood from his cheek across the medallion. In an instant, the captain’s quarters fade away. My eyes flash red as Baldyr’s memories hold me hostage, trapping me back in time.…

The land of Baldeírik comes alive. I run through its barren plains; I look up to its darkened skies. Navy flags whip through the air, each patterned with a seal of one of the land’s six tribes.

I see the round-faced child Baldyr once was. The turf-lined walls and thatched hut that formed his home. I hear his screams as warriors rip him from his mother’s shaking arms. I stare up at the maskless tribe leader who takes him in, counting the scars that fill the man’s freckled skin.

My arms strain under the boulders and tree trunks Baldyr lifts. My instincts sharpen with every captive boy he fights. My knuckles bruise as his fists fly.

Baldyr doesn’t stop until another boy dies.

The ground shakes under the mighty paws of the armor-plated bears he and his fellow tribesmen ride into battle. Timber-lined fortresses fall before him in flames. Hammer strikes against hammer. Blade cuts against blade. Brutal raid follows raid.

But as the six tribes of Baldeírik battle, their nation falls to waste. Corpses line the muddy streets. Torches light fields of barley ablaze. The people don’t eat for days.

In the chaos, I hear the promise—the constant whisper that fills Baldyr’s ears. The claim that he can bring his splintered people together, that they can build a nation no other kingdom could eclipse.

The voice guides Baldyr to climb the rocky mountains that arc around the heart-shaped land.

Heat licks Baldyr’s face as he stands before the well of molten metal oozing from the mountain’s core.

Baldyr takes a bone knife across his hand.

When his blood drips into the well, the sacred metal turns red.

The crimson bloodmetal is born.…

“ Ugh! ” I wheeze as Baldyr steps back. My mind spins with the memories of his life—the bloodmetal he created, the first warriors he rallied, the invention of the Skulls’ very masks.

“ Blackbird. ” Baldyr shakes his head, and I see the man who united the six tribes of his land. “ I have been searching for you for years. ”

The growl in Baldyr’s voice takes on a new form. The small smirk he held before is gone. Blood still drips down his cheek from my attack. When it falls onto my face, Baldyr moves to the table, wiping it with a rag.

Behind Baldyr, the Silver Skull shakes. He no longer meets my gaze. It’s as if he’s afraid to misstep. To do something that will bring an end to his fate.

“ I have to depart. ” Baldyr rises.

He returns to the heavy chest. Now only two medallions are left. Baldyr locks up the chest with care and hangs the golden key around his neck. A new purpose charges his gait.

“ Where will you sail? ” the Silver Skull asks.

“To find the other. The Blood Moon is near.”

The Blood Moon? I think back to the yellow moon that shone above the deck. I’ve never heard of such an event. But the way Baldyr speaks, it’s as if he’s been waiting for this moon all of his life.

“What should I do with the girl?”

“ Keep her in here ,” he orders. “ The medallion is still transforming her blood. When her new power is ready for the harvest, I want her brought to the fortress in Iarlaith. ”

“ And the others? ” the Silver Skull asks.

“Drop them at the trading port.”

King Baldyr dons his golden mask. The pressure makes more blood drip from his face. He takes the wolf’s pelt from the captain’s bed and looks to me. I turn away as he lays the white fur over my back.

“I will see you again,” he speaks in Or?shan.

The Silver Skull takes a knee as Baldyr prepares to leave. A hardness enters Baldyr’s hazel eyes when he looks down at his captain.

“Return her to me.”