Page 75 of Of Blood and Banes (The Arterian #2)

BETWEEN DEATH AND SILENCE

S ethan orders us to stay in Everden until we’ve received a letter back from Nightfort confirming the translator for Queen Elara’s journal is still in the city.

Sethan’s convinced there’s more we need to know, and even though the darkest night isn’t for another three seasons, the looming deadline is enough to stir a swarm of anxiety underneath my skin.

Despite the heaviness still clouding my heart from Marge’s sacrifice, I know what I must do. After dinner, when everyone’s turned in for the night, and Darian seems to be fast asleep, I slip out to the forest.

I stand in the darkness, staring at the tips of the mountain range in the distance as tears slip down my cheeks. Thick flakes of snow fall from the sky, collecting until the earth is dusted in white.

Marge should be here.

As I wipe my face with my hand, the bracelet Melaina gave me all those weeks ago shifts on my wrist, and I pinch the metal and spin it around until the moonlight catches on the engraved words.

You can go through it, or grow through it.

Removing my black leather gloves, I take a deep breath and lower to the ground. Marge’s last words whisper to me in a silent wind.

You have never let me down, Katerina Blackwind.

I brush my fingers across the cold, wet earth and am immediately entangled in the power thrumming below. It’s right there…tempting me. I close my eyes and press both palms flat to the earth. And slip into The White.

“Marge?” I call out, swiveling in every direction and finding nothing. I try my damndest to not let my hope skyrocket, but I recall her conversation about there being a fifty-fifty shot of seeing someone in The White.

It just has to be wanted from both sides.

“Marge?” I call out again, sensing a pulse of warmth from one direction. I follow it, walking blindly into an endless sea of white and not knowing how far I’ve gone. Or if I’ve even gone anywhere at all.

I cup my hands on either side of my mouth and let out, “Marge?”

But the silence is deafening.

My hope seeps out of me, like blood from a wound, as I whisper, “Why don’t you want to see me?”

The same words she told me all those nights ago in the forest, echo inside of my head.

Magic like this is old, ancient, and dark. Many of the spirits are well aware of the temptation to revive an at-peace spirit. Especially when it’s someone you love. So rather than showing themselves, they avoid contact entirely.

I bite my lip, nodding as the realization washes over me. She won’t show herself to me. Not when she knows how tempted I’ll be to possibly bring her back. I swallow the tension building in my throat but hang on to that small kernel of peace.

She knows I love her.

When I slip back out of The White and return to my senses, I snap open my eyes. Even if I was so desperate to speak to her one last time and didn’t get that chance, I can already anticipate what she’d want me to do next.

I press my fingers down through the thin layer of snow to the earth while that hum rises around me, my hair billowing in a nonexistent breeze.

Come to me… I call out to it. Yield to me…

My vision blurs, and I lift my hand an inch off the ground, pulling small wisps of blue flames. The fog-like tendrils of blue waver, threatening to slip back into the ground. Gritting my teeth, I throw out my other hand to trap it, then raise both my arms to pull the flames higher.

Come to me…

I will not be shaken…

You will yield to me…

The flames shriek like a wild animal pinned in a cage.

I lift them, pulling them until I’m standing, and they’re shoulder high.

I sweep my hands left, dragging them with me, then slide my grip back to the right, breaking their hold on the ground.

We become a dance—swaying back and forth as I gain more and more control, like reeling in a rope, until they completely surrender to me.

It’s the most I’ve ever been able to pull.

With a strangled scream, I slam them back into the ground, my breath shaking my shoulders. A new surge of emotions crashes over me, and I laugh as tears line my eyes. It’s a victory she would have been proud of.

Throwing back my head to stare up at the sky, snowflakes land on my skin. Just as I begin to close my eyes, I swear one of the stars in the night sky above me winks.

By the time I return to my room, the moon is at its highest peak. Enough snow has collected on the streets that my footsteps leave a trail. Silently, I slide into my room and take off my snow-dusted boots while trying to contain my chattering teeth.

Darian lifts his head to glance at me over his shoulder from his side of the bed, his brown hair a chaotic mess. He looks me up and down, not a lick of amusement in his face. “What were you doing?”

“Nothing that concerns you,” I whisper, and unclasp my cloak at my throat.

Surprisingly, he has not a single thing to say back. I welcome the silence, and as I hang my cloak up and run my hands down the material, I brush a bump near the pocket.

The painting of the allium.

My heart skips a beat, a warmth rising to my cheeks as I retract my hand and stare at the cloak. Slowly, I remove the rest of my clothing and change into my nightwear before slipping into bed next to Darian. His back is turned to me, and I pull the sheets over my chest.

“That painting you made for me…” I whisper, staring up at the dark ceiling as if the shadows will consume me before I embarrass myself. “Thank you.”

Silence.

Painful, long silence.

To the point where I’m convinced he’s either somehow already sleeping or ignoring me.

And then, “You’re welcome.”

The next morning, Gavin takes Darian to the Everden bathhouse, and I dress and head toward the main dining hall. As I approach the massive building with a drawbridge for an entrance, I catch a familiar dirty-blond man walking my way.

Archie pushes past me, eyes on the street with moisture collecting at their corners.

I spin and try to grab for his shoulder pack. “Hey?—”

He dodges me wordlessly and pulls his pack on tighter as he continues.

I glance back at the direction he came from, and Melaina stands holding her arms at the elbows, head down. As I stride toward her, her head whips up, eyes narrowed with pain, before she turns and begins to walk away.

“Stop,” I command.

Reluctantly, she does. But she still won’t face me.

“What’s wrong with Archie?”

She shakes her head again, frozen at the spot but not wanting to look back at me. “It’s none of your business.”

I grab her shoulder and spin her toward me, her brown eyes regarding me with hesitant bitterness.

“It is my business when he looks like that. He’s my best friend. What happened?”

She bites her lip as if it’ll seal her mouth from answering me. With a sigh, she replies, “I told him we don’t work.”

“What do you mean you don’t work?”

“I mean, we don’t belong together. It was just a silly crush, a simple distraction?—”

“How can you say that?” I drop my hand from her shoulder, shaking my head. “He loves you?—”

“It’s complicated.”

“It is if you make it that way,” I bite. “What is it really, Melaina? I know you care for him. I see it in the way you look at him?—”

“It doesn’t matter!” she snaps. “We can’t. I’ll break him. And it’s better that I do it now, than if I do it later.”

“Will you break him, or will he break you ?” I challenge.

“We live in a world where we are ravaged by war. Either of us can die at any second.” Her voice trembles. “And I don’t want to be the one on the receiving end of losing him. It’s easier this way.”

My jaw relaxes in realization. “This…this isn’t you. This is Sethan, isn’t it?”

“Just leave it alone, Kat,” she warns, tearing her gaze away from me.

I grab her hand in mine, daring her to look at me.

“Your life is not Sethan’s. It is your own.

He may be your father, and he may be the commander of the Vitalans, but he does not rule your heart.

And if you let Archie go, you’re breaking him anyway.

You don’t get both—you have to choose. Your heart or his. ”

“Then…I choose neither,” she whispers.

With a grunt, I turn away from her and break into a run, chasing after Archie.

Scanning every building, every road and alley, my worry intensifying.

I catch a glimpse of his blond locks heading south and follow him through the swarm of pedestrians.

I lose him for a moment in a thick crowd bottlenecked near a side street.

I push through until I’m off into the forest.

Archie’s distant figure disappears into the treeline.

“Archie!” I pick up my speed. “Wait! Please!”

Trees flash by me in blurs of green and brown, the cold air sharp in my lungs. Finally, I catch up to him, breathless.

He whirls, eyes round in shock as he grips the bag on his shoulder. “What are you doing here? Why are you following me?”

I lean forward, bracing my hands on my knees as I fight to catch my breath, panting out each word, “Don’t…Don’t go.”

“I’m going home, Kat.” His voice trembles. “I have nothing left?—”

“You have me!” I straighten and slap a hand to my chest. “I know it hurts. I know you’re in pain. But you can’t leave—you can’t go. I need you here. With me.”

He scoffs. “You’ve never needed me. You’ve never needed anyone.”

I grab his shoulder, digging my fingers into his jacket in the event I can actually stop him if he decides to run. And if he does decide to, I’ll fight him. I’ll throw him down, wrestle him to the ground, and pin him until I can talk sense into him. I need him with me.

My words come out in an impossibly long string I’m hoping will pull him back to me.

“I have always needed you. I wouldn’t have survived the first time we were attacked back at the outpost. Just as I needed you to be the one who discovered Daeja back in Arterias.

You were the one who suggested I use a regular blade rather than a dragonblade to get us through the door in Vitalis.

You’ve guarded all my secrets. Whether you realize it or not, you have saved me more times than I can count—emotionally and physically.

You’re my best friend, and I love you. I don’t know how this is going to end or what’s going to happen, but all I do know is that I want to do it with you by my side. ”

He shakes his head, trying to turn out of my grasp.

I blurt, “Do you know why you’re my best friend?

It’s because of who you are. You’re naturally joyful.

It comes so easy to you. And for some, it may be aggravating because it’s so difficult for them to feel what comes so easy to you.

But you know what?” I grab his hand in mine, then drop my voice to a cracked whisper, “Even in the darkest of these nights, even when I feel low, scared, and incapable. When I’m around you, I find myself optimistic.

Even joyful, sometimes. Because I have you.

Because you’re such a light in my life, when all else feels dark. ”

His lip quivers, his voice growing strained, “You don’t…you don’t mean that.”

I smile with a firm nod. “I do. I mean it, every day. And I will work harder to remind you of it.”

We burst into an embrace, hugging the other as tight as if we held every piece of each other together.

I whisper into his sandy-blonde hair, “Remember what you told me back in Arterias? We both might suck, but at least we suck together. And we both might hurt—but at least we hurt together. This doesn’t work if you’re gone.”

His fingers grip my back, painfully sweet. I bury my head in the crook of his neck, squeezing my eyes shut.

A loud snap of wood rips us both out of each other’s arms. A group of dark shadows creep toward us, a glimmer of metal catching the dappled sunlight between the pine trees.

“Run,” Archie whispers and shoves me away.