Page 104

THE END OF ALL THINGS KNOWN

WREN

I awaken slowly, dizziness a cushion around my brain, protecting it from processing what is happening.

My eyes won’t open more than a tiny slit, so the world is obscured through my lashes, cloudy and indistinct.

If I stay this way — dazed, unfocused — I will not think about the fact that Tahrik is hovering over me with wide, wild eyes, the whites flashing in the darkness of the night, catching the dying embers in their reflection.

I will not think about the fact that a musty, mudstained rag has been shoved into my mouth, choking me, nostrils flaring in panic.

I will not think about my hands tied behind my back, about my feet bound together, about his unintelligible mumblings in the night.

Because to think about that would put me on the edge of madness.

Instead, I try to calm my racing heart. Perhaps.

I force the word into my brain, a glimmer of hope.

Perhaps he is…did he find me like this? That makes more sense.

He is saving me. Tahrik. Tahrik. His name the call of the birds from outside the walls of the village.

A short, sharp chirp, a trill, a song on my lips and in my mouth.

Tah- REEK , Tah- REEK , an unexpected burst of music in a soundless world.

But the birds here are different; they’re dark and wild.

Hunters who scream in the skies, sharp, bone-breaking sounds that flood you with fear and uncertainty.

Has that always been the sound of his name? A shriek, not a song?

He is muttering, testing my bindings. “...Won’t hurt you.

I put wool under them…not too tight.” His face tightens, jaw clenched, as he stares down at my face, running a gentle hand along my cheek down to my throat.

“It’s necessary. She’ll wake them if she speaks…

.She’ll understand once we’re gone….Hair needs to be tied up or it will show in the sun… put mud on her skin…she’ll understand…”

Did something happen? Maybe, did Rannoch and Kaden…

? The question floats through my mind, then disappears, mist fading in full sun.

I can’t believe that either would…but I can’t believe that Tahrik would…

.something is wrong in the world. He’s close to me — his breath on my skin as he pulls up my hair, wrapping it and fastening a cloth over it so it is hidden.

Forcing my eyes to open, I meet his own, inches from my face.

He startles back, looking around him like a thief in the night, before shaking his head and leaning back over me.

“I’ll explain, Wren. I promise I’ll explain.

But we need to leave.” His words are calm, soothing, a whisper on the wind, but when I turn my head, Rannoch and Kaden are slumped at odd angles against their packs near the fire, and a muffled moan fills my throat.

“They’ll be fine. They’re fine.” His voice is unsure.

He’s trying to convince himself that the path his feet are treading is not one that leads to hell.

“I measured carefully. Just the smallest amount of Devil’s Teeth.

A drop. Not even a drop.” My heart seizes in my chest. Devil’s Teeth.

“You shouldn’t even be awake yet. It’s too soon.

Maybe I didn’t use enough.” He’s back to muttering, glancing nervously back at the unconscious men. “It’s time to go.”

Pulling me to my feet, he whispers quiet apologies as he slings me over the pack horse and binds me to it.

I’m weak as a newborn, limbs unresponsive, so I can’t fight against him as he maneuvers me like a doll on its back.

Hurriedly he tests my ropes one last time, then grabs the lead, and takes me from the safety of camp.

I must have passed out again, because I wake, sore and still tied to the saddle, when Tahrik stops the horse. My hands and feet are on fire, my back spasming in pain.

“I’m so sorry, Wrenling. I’m so sorry!” He’s hurried, frantically apologetic as he unties me and pulls me gently from the back of the animal.

I try to curl away from his hands, but he holds me firmly, like a swaddled babe, and carries me to the curve of a swift stream, where he has set up camp.

It’s twilight, the sky only just growing dark, so I must have slept an entire day at least. “I had to. You’ll understand.

I’m sure you’ll understand.” He props me carefully against a small, twisting tree, putting a rolled up blanket behind me to protect me from the rough wood, and grabs a waterskin from his pack.

Holding it up to my mouth, he moves as though to pour it in, but bumps my feet in the process and I make a muffled sound of pain.

“Oh!” Carefully, with soft hands, he pulls the rag from my mouth.

It’s been in so long that it feels like it is peeling away pieces of my mouth with it, the dryness painful, leaving the taste of iron and blood behind.

“Are you alright? Is it too bad?” The question is at such odds with his actions that I feel like I am in a shifted world, that I am asleep and having a nightmare.

And perhaps I am, because I cannot fathom Tahrik doing this to me.

He has been my safe space, my keeper of secrets, for so long, that this… this cannot be real.

He repeats his questions, but, seeing I can’t answer, dumps the stale water, and refills the skin up with cool, fresh water from the stream.

The small courtesy is a knife in my heart.

He’s careful when he tips it into my mouth, but the wet against the dry is too sudden; I choke violently, heaving coughs that wrack my body and leave me shaking.

Tahrik is patient, he is kind, wiping my face, tucking back my hair, and goes more slowly on the second try.

This time the smallest trickle of sweet water drips down my throat in soothing drops, easing me into what becomes feverish need.

I try to grab the waterskin from him, but remember at the last moment that my hands are bound.

A rough noise of protest forces its way from my mouth; even that small sound is agony, raw and scraping.

“Your bindings?” He frowns, brow furrowed, shoulders tight.

“I don’t know. I don’t know….” Sighing, he glances at the black forest around him and the stream in front of him, and comes to a decision.

“Fine. But just your hands. And just while I’m right here.

” He makes quick work of unbinding my hands, and I flex them, slowly, lightning bolts of pain running whitewater rapid through my veins, pricking my nerves.

I drink too much, too quickly, the liquid pooling in my stomach, nausea churning against my ribs. Clearing my throat painfully, I force myself to be calm. “What is happening, Tahrik?” Despite my efforts, there is too much hope in my voice, and he hears it with too much sorrow on his face.

“We shouldn’t have left, Wren.” His voice is pleading, a twisting sound half-way between anger and a whine.

It’s ice on my skin, a crawling, shivering coldness.

“This is all wrong. You’ve changed since we started this.

It’s not right for you.” He pours cool water on my hands, washing away the dirt, and dampens a cloth to wipe off my face, but it just spreads the dust to mud.

“This world isn’t right for you. We should have thought it through more.

You’re changing, away from the village, the mountains, the bones.

You…what will happen to all our people with you gone?

You’re fine sending all of them to Silence? ”

“I can’t go back, Tahrik. You know that, don’t you?” I am earnest, almost begging, and his face hardens.

“You are not meant for this world. They do not respect you as they should, don’t treat you as they should.

Asking you to help with the horses, with the fire, cooking food.

That isn’t for you.” He pauses, face tight, and swallows hard, his voice a whisper when he speaks again.

“The sky is too big here, Wren. Don’t you miss it there?

Any of it? The comfort of the mountain overhead, the smell of the dust underfoot?

” Longing fills him and he leans forward, pressing our foreheads together.

“We built so many dreams together. It seems like you’ve forgotten them all.

A hearth and home. Chickens and children.

” His face gentles, smooths at the thought.

“I’d be a good husband to you, Wren. Be at peace in the chaos of our little house, build it for you wherever you want.

Fill it with laughter and songs for you, everyday. ”

“Tahrik—” I don’t know what to say, how to respond.

Something has happened to him, twisted and broken in him over the last few weeks.

I’d seen him bending, fraying, but…guilt crashes through me, a landslide of sickening shame for missing how lost he had become, even as I’d been finding pieces of myself.

Every new discovery along our way that had filled up my emptiness had been emptying his fullness, and I hadn’t noticed how hollow he’d become in our new world. “I can’t go back.”

Tahrik’s fingers trail down my face, rest on the bones of my throat.

Lorcan is tense and anxious, but there is nothing he can do.

It has been too long since his last anointing; I was due to paint him the last morning before we left, and we are in a time where every hour makes a difference to him.

He doesn’t waste energy speaking unless he has to these days, even at the best of times.

And there is nothing he can say in the moment.

Just his weight is a comfort though; I won’t risk lifting my fingers to grasp him.

“Even here, where you think you have left your world and responsibilities behind, you can’t abandon your calling, Wren. You still keep bone by you. Don’t you worry what will happen to them away from the safety of our village?”