Page 19 of The Darkening (The Darkening)

The sky is as dark as the Storm when I return to Amma’s. It takes everything I have to face the burnt-out shell of my home. A small fragile hope had lived in my heart, that perhaps my memory exaggerated, and something or someone might’ve been spared. With one look, that hope dies, but there’s still something I need.

The first thing I do is bend over and throw up. There isn’t anything in me, but my stomach threatens to unfold itself out my throat all the same. I knuckle the spit from my lips and forge forward.

Wood and other things crunch under my feet as I make my way to where the kitchen once stood. The trapdoor to Pa’s room is burned open, and scraps of charred paper eddy in the wind. I let myself down and scrounge around. Almost everything is gone.

Wedged into a crack in the floor is a folded scrap of paper. On the front is my family ikon, the same one that’s on Ma’s locket. When I trace it with my thumb, the paper unfolds. It’s a game Pa and I used to play. The words inside seem like gibberish, until I recall the code. Pa taught me it when I was eight. I’d thought it was the first lesson of many, I’d thought he’d go on to teach me ikonomancy. But it was just a way to keep me occupied. I look for little marks that tell me in which order the words should be read. Decoded, it readsThere’s a bag of flour and sugar under Jem’s pillow. Bring it to Amma and she’ll make you sweets.

It crumples in my fist and I let it fall.

I haul myself up out of Pa’s room and go to the loose floorboardwhere Amma hid valuables. I half expect that scavengers have beat me to it, but when I lift the floorboard up, in a bed of ash, is Prince Dalca’s gold coin. Thank the great mancers of the past for ikon-protected currency.

I pick it up and thumb the soot from the Regia’s face. Sharp cheekbones, a strong nose. She has a bold face, an unyielding face, so much like her son’s.

I slip it into my pocket, and then I kneel. I mean to pray for their souls to find peace in the next world, but it’s been less than a day since I prayed to the Great King to protect them all. He doesn’t seem to be in the mood to help.

Instead, I make them a promise. I won’t join them until I’ve fought for them, until I’ve used every last drop of willpower in me.

My eyes are still closed when I hear the distant squelch of footsteps on moss. I jump to my feet and wedge myself behind the rubble, back pressed against the house next door.

A flutter of black feathers. A head of dark curls.

Prince Dalca. A boiling rage rises in me at the sight of his face, heating me from my toes to my ears. I understand what the Ma of my dreams meant. The fury drives the sorrow away, makes it small and defeatable. I hold on to it with everything I have, and I focus my rage on Dalca.

He kneels, touching the ash with the tips of his fingers.

Dalca is behind it all. If I want to save Pa, Dalca is the key. If I want vengeance for Amma and the stormtouched, Dalca’s the one to pay.

I want him to hurt, like he’s hurt me.

He folds his hands in prayer. It’s a mockery. What does he ask, for the Great King to bless his next monstrous act? To thank the Great King for all the blood that’s been spilled in his favor?

I scoot back. Dalca snaps to attention, eyes on the corner where I crouch in shadow.

I freeze, holding my breath. After a moment, Dalca touches a dial on his wrist and his cloak billows out behind him, ash and dust rising. He shoots into the air, and is gone.