Page 13

SILIA

Since Daqet is half a day’s travel by carriage, it’ll take us at least a day and a half by foot. We’ve been walking for hours now, and it’s now almost nightfall. I made the right choice in wearing my boots and leathers, because from my knees down, I am covered in prickles and crushed leaf fragments.

About two hours into our walk, Rein hadn’t been paying attention and had gotten hit straight in the face with a tree branch, getting a dozen prickles stuck in his hair. It had taken about fifteen minutes for me to pluck them all out. Lars had only stared daggers at the back of Rein’s head as I pulled them out, one by one.

I’m watching the sun begin its descent as Lars guides us into a clearing he’s deemed worthy enough for us to set up camp for the night. Luckily, my only job is to carry the food and flint while Lars and Rein carry the tents and weapons. I only packed a few days’ worth of rations, so I pray this journey doesn’t take any surprise turns. My feet are aching beyond comprehension, and I’m already dreading the next day of travel to Daqet tomorrow.

“Here.” Lars takes the sword out of Rein’s sheath and pokes at the piles of leaves that have begun to appear, then tosses the weapon back to Rein.

“We will set up camp here. Silia, start gathering kindling and make a fire.” He pushes the leaves together in a pile with his foot and shoves them against the trunk of the nearest tree. I can use those leaves as kindling, as long as they’re not wet.

I set my pack down and begin gathering small sticks and branches in my arms as Rein and Lars set the tents. I use Lars’s trick and poke at piles of leaves with my foot, searching for any signs of movement. I don’t need a rabid animal jumping out at me for trying to rip up its home into chunks.

I’m maybe a thirty-second walk outside of our camp when I hear a loud crunch under my foot. It’s not a leaf, not a stick, but something…shiny? I drop the handful of sticks I’ve gathered and pick up the object. It’s a metal pin from a carriage wheel. What is this doing in the middle of the woods, far from the main road?

As I roll it up and down my palm, I spot a crest at the top of the pin, where carpenters would hammer it into the carriage hinge. It’s an eye, but missing its pupil. This is the symbol of Iana, the Goddess of Prophets. I pocket the pin and pick up my discarded pile of sticks.

Once my arms are full beyond their limits, I carry my collection back to the camp. The sun is just descending on the horizon, and everything is bathed in a warm orange glow. I’ve watched many sunsets from the palace, but seeing one out in nature with the elements, it looks straight out of a painting.

I drop my sticks in the center of the clearing and take a moment to admire the glow slowly beginning to fade into darkness. This time of day has always been my favorite. My mother used to tell me that when the sun says goodbye to its people, it takes the sins of the day with it, welcoming a fresh start the next morning.

I can almost feel her with me, brushing my hair as I gaze out of my room’s window. I close my eyes and take a deep breath. I can smell her honeysuckle scent blowing in the wind, and feel the light kisses on my forehead after she tucks me in.

No, wait…I can smell and feel that. I crack my eyes open to find Lars standing right in front of me. It is honeysuckles I smell, because he’s holding a bundle directly in front of me, but that wasn’t a kiss I felt. His fingers are pressing lightly against my forehead.

“Are you feeling alright?” Lars assesses me with the intent of a healer.

I smack his hand away and straighten my back before I answer him.

“Are you taking my temperature? Do you think I’m ill?”

“You’ve been standing here for the past ten minutes, staring directly into the sun. And no, I do not think you’re ill—just a bit mad.”

A slow grin spreads on his face, taking utter joy in teasing me. He does enjoy this back-and-forth banter, so why not play around a little?

“Mad? Where did you get that idea?” I take a step closer to him so that our chests are nearly touching and pluck two honeysuckle flowers from his bouquet. I take one in each hand and present them to Lars as if they’re a brand new species of flower that has yet to be discovered. I fake a look of surprise as I pin one on each side of my head so they stick straight up like antennas, then I fall into a low bow.

I watch his feet disappear and follow them with my eyes as he moves behind me. Before I can stand straight up, my hair is wrapped tightly around his fist, and my head is pulled up towards him with a tug.

Not a gentle one.

My spine is fully straight now and pressed hard against Lars’s chest. I smell his delicious mint and sugary breath as he leans down to whisper in my ear.

“It’d do you good to warn me before you bend over like that.”

He slowly kisses down my neck, and every tense muscle in my shoulders relaxes, melting into him. Suddenly, a memory of us in the library materializes in my vision—but not from my point of view, from his.

Sweat beads on my forehead as my eyebrows push together, and my mouth is slightly agape as his hand grips my face. My head falls to the side after a moment, and his gaze dips down to where he is touching me, his fingers moving at an increasing pace in and out of me. I hear myself moan, and his eyes quickly flick back up to me. He jerks my face to look at him, and I watch my own eyes look down to where his other hand is.

“Do you enjoy the sight of me touching you?”

The memory vanishes in an instant, and Lars is no longer behind me.

I whirl around to find the bundle of honeysuckles discarded by my feet, and Lars is casually setting up his tent like we hadn’t spoken just moments ago.

I try to regain my composure as I walk over to the tents, and I notice there are only two.

“Where’s my tent?”

Rein pokes his head out from his tent and gives me a look that says I’m sorry, I tried, before directing his gaze to Lars. I stroll over to where Lars is nailing the last stake into the ground, and I cross my arms. Tapping my foot, I clear my throat and wait for him to look at me.

“Yes, princess? I can sense your disdain from a mile away.”

I shift my stance to tap my other foot, more impatient than before as I ask my question again. “I said , where’s my tent?”

Lars stands and tosses the rock he was using to hammer the stake back into the dense forest.

“Well, did you bring one?”

“No.”

“Then there’s your answer.”

Lars walks past me to my stack of sticks and looks between them and me. “Where’s the fire?”

“I was getting to it. I was a little preoccupied.”

Lars smirks knowingly. “That you were.”

He walks over to the kindling I gathered and points to it. “Use your flame.”

“Well, if I knew you wanted me to do that, I wouldn’t have wasted the last thirty minutes of my life collecting sticks, or bothered bringing the flint,” I groan. I hold out my hand to the pile, creating a decent-size green fire.

“Make sure you put that out before going to bed.” Rein makes one last comment before he retreats into his tent and settles in for the night.

The flames of the fire dance with the cool fall breeze, and just when it looks like it’s about to go out, I make sure to replace it with another.

As we warm our hands by the fire, I remember the pin I found and try to fish it out of my pocket to ask Lars about it, but I come up empty. I pat all of my pockets and dagger slots, but there’s nothing. I must have dropped it when I bent over. I push aside the memory of the pin and turn my attention to Lars. It’s probably just a piece of scrap metal a merchant had dropped while heading out of the city.

“So…am I to sleep by the fire tonight?” I ask.

The green flame casts a glow on his face that brings out the flecks in his eyes even more than usual. He turns to me, and only seriousness can be seen in his expression.

“Of course not. You’ll be in my tent.”

I look away from him to Rein’s tent. “What if I preferred to shack up with Rein?”

I know this comment will only rile him up, and he needs payback from our earlier encounter.

His eyes darken, wholly black. “Is that what you want, Little Flame?”

His next sentence is spoken into my mind. “I am open to adding a third if that is what you mean. But you will not spend a night apart from me. You will rest your head next to me, always.”

I clench my jaw to the point of pain and smack him on the arm. “Of course that is not what I mean! You are absolutely depraved.”

His eyes shift to their natural state, and he looks me up and down, his usual charming smirk appearing once again. But I can sense there was no delight behind his eyes. He did not enjoy me making that statement.

Good .

“That I am, Little Flame. Could you blame me?” His hand reaches over to hold mine.

The connection leaves me breathless. There is nothing I want more than to sit in front of this fire with my hand in his until the end of time. His touch feels purposeful, like this is how it was always meant to be, as if fate truly had brought us together for a reason. But I can’t help the low humming of doubt still stinging in the back of my mind.

The passage of time can only be counted by the leaves that fall from the trees, and the evening birds that begin to sing.

I don’t know how long we sit here in silence; it could be minutes or hours. Our peaceful bliss is interrupted when my stomach lets out a loud growl. I haven’t eaten all day.

“Food?” I turn my head to Lars in question.

He only nods in response, then fixates his gaze on the fire. He must be deep in thought, because he didn’t even glance in my direction, just stared into the blazing fire.

I rise and walk over to our pile of backpacks, digging around mine to find the rations. When my hands don’t feel any apple or pear-shaped objects, I peer into the bag and realize it’s not mine, but Lars’s. My hand rubs against something leathery, and I pull it out. It’s a decrepit-looking journal with a small lock dangling from it.

A memory long since forgotten begins to poke at my subconscious, and my brand begins to heat. All my instincts tell me that I know this journal and I need to take it and run far away— but I have never seen this journal before.

I reach back into the bag and find a necklace with a small key attached to it. The moment I lay eyes on it, a name pops into my head…Vex. Vex gave me this necklace that night in the library. I remember going to ask her about my brand, and she’d told me the Goddess Hecate had blessed me.

Why do these memories feel foreign to me, like I'm recounting an event that had happened to someone else?

I take a quick peek over my shoulder to see Lars poking the fire with a long stick, otherwise oblivious. I focus my attention back on the journal and quickly unlock it. The lock falls, and the cover flies open on its own, then flips directly to the biography of Zothos. Zothos, the God of the constellation painted on Lars’s ceiling.

Big, bold letters appear under his name— “Scorned lover of Hecate.”

The urgency for me to take the journal doubles.

“ Remember ,” an eerie voice speaks in my mind.

A shiver runs down my spine and I lock the journal back up, then quickly tuck it under my arm. The journal glows a touch as I slip the lock back on, and I feel a prickling at my back, like someone is watching me.

“Look again ,” that same voice urges me.

I reach back into the bag, and when my hand touches a long, cold piece of metal, my body tenses. The pin. Lars took the pin from me. I pull the object out and sure enough, the pin I found in the woods is staring right back at me. Why would he take this? If he had asked me for it, I would have given it to him.

I toss the pin and lock back in his bag and seal it shut.

I finally find my own bag and pull out enough rations for both of us, then head to the fire. Questions swirl in my mind as I approach him, but for some reason, I feel afraid to ask any of them. If he’s hiding something, why leave these things out so freely for anyone to find?

The sight of him stoking the fire surges my dream of him to the forefront of my mind. Could his sudden secrecy and the journal be connected?

“Did you find enough?” Lars’s voice snaps me out of my daydream, and I find his eyes are focusing intently on me. No, not me, but the journal wedged under my arm.

“I did, yes. I thought your bag was mine, though, and I found this.” As I sit next to him, I hold the journal between us and show it to him. Well, if there was ever a time for honesty, it would be now. Although confronting him in the middle of the woods with Rein asleep in his tent may not be the safest idea, I’m willing to take my chances. “Lars, what is this?”

His gaze never leaves the journal as he answers me. “It’s the journal you were looking for, remember ?”

His hand brushes mine, and a memory of me asking about the journal the morning after our first night together begins to play behind my eyes. The vision fades into another memory of himself returning to the library in the afternoon and finding it tucked under the couch.

All the moments I seem to have forgotten come rushing back to me all at once. Vex gave me the journal, I read about Hecate and Zothos, the chapter had abruptly ended—and then Lars found me.

However, none of the memories showed me taking the necklace off or showed him keeping it.

“Yes, I remember now. But why is it in your backpack?”

His eyes slide up to mine and begin to glaze over as he grips my hand tighter. I look past his shoulder and see a faint glow in the darkness from the back of his neck. Our brands must be glowing in response to our touch.

“ I brought it so I could give it to you. I found it only yesterday.”

“Yes, of course you were.” Words that do not feel like mine begin to flow out as I feel his golden cloud simmer in the back of my subconscious.

But didn’t the memory show him finding it the same afternoon? Questioning him feels wrong, and all my previous accusations about him feel silly now that I think about it. He’d just told me he found it yesterday. I have no reason to question his answer.

“Why don’t we head to bed? I’ll put this in your bag.” Lars pushes off the ground and strides to the pile of bags, placing the journal in mine.

I poke my head into the tent to assess the sleeping arrangement. It’s by no means a small tent, but we would definitely be cozied up next to each other tonight.

A large part of me is glad Lars did not pack a third tent. But I would not give him the satisfaction of knowing that. He’s got a big head as it is, and there’s no need to inflate it any further.

“Oh, I am plenty satisfied. I am glad my two-tent trick worked.” Lars comes in behind me, and we have to stand on our knees to avoid hitting the ceiling of the tent with our heads.

Of course, he’s reading my thoughts. Why do I even act surprised anymore?

I remove my boots and set them outside the tent, and Lars follows suit. “Why can’t I read your mind, if you can read mine? That doesn’t seem very fair.”

Lars ties the exit flap of the tent shut and lays back on the large bedroll, one arm tucked behind his head. “You can, Silia. You just don’t know how.”

“Well, then teach me!” I lie on my side and stare at him.

I furrow my eyebrows in concentration and stare so hard that I may burn a hole in the side of his cheek. Heat flows through my veins, and my heartbeat picks up speed as that thought seems to manifest itself. A small green flame appears next to his head, burning our bedroll.

“Gods, Silia. Not like that!” He quickly sits up and pats the small flame out with his hand. I cringe at my flame outburst as I spot the small burn hole and charred fur that I had left in the flame’s wake.

“Sorry?” I offer an apology that comes out more like a question and giggle to myself. Lars settles back onto the ground and lays on his side next to me.

He lets out a frustrated breath and focuses his stare on me.

“Use your mind to concentrate, not your eyes. We are already connected. It shouldn’t be hard to find my soul in the eather.”

“The eather?” I’ve never heard this word before in my life.

“The place souls go to when they want to communicate with each other, dead or alive. Close your eyes and search for our connection.”

I roll over on my back and close my eyes. My black, ghostly hand instantly appears in the forefront of my mind.

“Find him ,” I say to it, and the hand takes off.

The eather is not a place nor a thing, it’s just a void. No light, no color, no sound. Not even the quietness has its usual hum in here. After a few seconds, I spot a gold cloud in the distance and my hand floats over to it. The cloud circles my hand, and I reach out to touch it.

“There you are.” His cloud shimmers as he speaks to me.

“ Can you hear me?”

“Loud and clear, Little Flame.”

Now that I know this thing works, I throw the memory of me finding my underwear in his shower right to him.

I hear a faint chuckle in the eather as Lars responds out loud. “Naughty girl. Sneaking through my room, touching my things.”

“You mean, my undergarment?”

“I don’t know if you recall, but I specifically remember tearing them off your body in a fair trade. They’re mine .”

I open my eyes to find him looking at me, his pupils widening to that dangerous size.

“Why do you keep them there? Doesn’t seem like safekeeping to me.” I already know the answer to this question. I just enjoy making him squirm.

Lars reaches over and cups my face in his hand, rubbing his thumb over my lower lip. “I think you know well enough why I keep them in there. Do you want to know what I do when I look at them?”

Lars has no shame; he doesn’t have the ability to squirm.

Images of us in positions I’ve never even dreamed of appear in my vision, and a loud gasp escapes my lips. My cheeks begin to heat to the point of burning as a low chuckle echoes through the tent.

“Go to sleep, Silia.” Lars retracts the images before he turns over, his back now facing me, and presumably, goes to sleep.

How in the Hel was I supposed to sleep after that? He doesn’t get to just do that and roll over like nothing happened. I’ll get my payback tomorrow, but for now, I need to push aside the ache between my legs and get some rest.

I remove my trousers and tunic, opening the bedroll and sliding in. I turn my back to Lars and move as far away from him as I can. I snuggle into the fur-lined bedroll and count the stitching in the tent to try and tire my mind.

It works.

Just as I fall asleep, a single image gently appears in my mind—Lars and I sleeping together in a large, plush bed. Green vines with golden tips wrap around every post of the bed frame, and a black velvet comforter lies atop us.

The image hones in on our hands, and my breath hitches. Lars is wearing a gold wedding band encrusted with numerous small, emerald gemstones, and on my finger is a black wedding band with small golden vines etched all the way around the band.

As the vision fades out, my ears begin to flood with beautiful melodies being played by a harp, and the faint laughter of a child echoes through the bedroom.