Page 6

Chapter

Six

Liv

I made a friend once when I was younger. We had a play battle with sticks, and I pushed her so hard that she fell. The look she gave me filled me with guilt. She never returned to play with me, and I was sure I had done something wrong.

I was too scared to tell my mother, afraid she would stop teaching me to fight. A week later, my mother pulled Rebeka and me out of the house and forced us into the woods. We weren’t to return until dark. The Keepers were doing rounds.

The girl I had pushed, along with her entire family, disappeared.

Rebeka was so angry as she pulled me into the woods away from our house.

I was sure I had been the reason they were gone.

When I gathered enough courage, I asked Rebeka why we were running, and she said Mother might not be home when we returned. I laughed, and that made Rebeka cry.

“Didn’t you see Mother making a fire?” she said. “The eldest son from that family was caught making bows and arrows. They punished every member, including your little friend. Mother was burning things when we left. We are going to die too.”

I had not understood then that Rebeka already hated Mother. After that day, she was adamant I follow the rules like her. Eyes down, don’t react, blend in.

I now understand that our mother’s choices shouldn’t have been put on us. Just as my choices now should not affect others.

But they do.

M ud stuck to my boots as Maev clung to my shoulders. I blinked through the rain as we stumbled toward the bushes, fear and adrenaline pushing me along.

Eventually, Maev could stand with my support. She had a slight frame, but her height made her heavy to brace. “Not much farther,” I told her.

The bushes were thick, with long, thin leaves drooping from the heavy rain. We were unlikely to be seen creeping along the river’s edge, hidden from the Aethar and those in the sky.

I let go of Maev, steadying her before we both edged behind the brush. I ducked down, crawling underneath, my hands sinking into the cold, wet ground. I was covered in mud. Maev was close behind, paler than before.

We needed to get a view of the ship. I aimed for a dark rock between two bushes where there was a gap facing toward the field.

But it wasn’t a rock. It moved.

A hand shot out, grabbing me by the neck and throwing me onto my back. A hard body pinned me to the ground, and within the next moment, a knife was held to my throat against the soft skin. “Don’t move,” came a low male voice.

The strength and the weight of the man were threatening. I blinked against the rain, looking up into the dark hood where blue-white hair flowed.

“Ollo!” Maev shoved the man off me, and the knife left my throat. “She’s with me.”

“Maev? Where have you been?”

The force of the wind flung his hood back.

I paused, hand cradling my neck. It was …

the beautiful blue man from Bellum. His skin was pale, marked with navy dashes and lines, like Maev’s.

The patterns were similar, but different enough to note.

The distrust lining his features disappeared at the sight of his sister.

Maev knelt beside me and placed a hand on her brother’s shoulder. I lay awkwardly between the two while he patted her hand, pulling back to look her over.

“What’s wrong? You look like you’re going to—Maev!”

She collapsed over me, and I grunted when her dead weight landed on my stomach.

“What did you do to her?” he snarled at me, noticing her burned arm.

“She needs magycris. She fainted from the pain.”

His nostrils flared as he reached into his pocket. Without moving Maev off me, he turned her over and tapped her cheek to wake her. “Stay awake long enough to drink. That’s it. It’s not enough to entirely heal you. It’s the last of my supply.”

“I can’t breathe,” I muttered, my words muffled under Maev’s hood.

Maev’s elbow dug into my ribcage as she pushed herself off me and sat on her knees, swaying as she regained strength.

“Thanks, Ol.” She gave him a tight-lipped smile.

“I told you not to follow the Southlanders to that burning field. I thought you’d been killed.”

They were so alike it was unnerving. Though both beautiful, Ollo was unmistakably male. His strong jaw set him apart, and his gaze was fiercer than Maev’s. He had wide-set shoulders, and his body had felt lean and muscular while lying below him.

He put the empty bottle away, struggling with his wet cloak.

His drenched hair stuck to his neck, his front covered in mud, like us.

When I last saw him in Bellum, he was listening to a gold monk speak of the gods and the histories of the legacies—the gods’ children.

I had yet to learn what legacy these two were.

“You won’t believe the story I have for you,” Maev whispered. “But right now, we need to focus on the issue at hand.”

Maev looked at her arm. It was no longer a seeping wound, but it was not well healed. The dashes that ran down the top of her arm were discoloured and deformed—mottled, like the other Aethar.

“Yes, our ship is compromised, as is our mission. It might be wise we call it a failure and return home.” Ollo’s voice was smooth and sure.

He spoke with confidence, reminding me of the way Stephen had carried himself back home.

“I have the Elder’s request tucked away, but what good will a summons do if we are dead before delivering it?

” His attention sharpened, taking in my face and neck.

I had dried blood caked under my jaw, which was Falizha’s doing. Maev’s brother had not broken the skin. I grunted, sitting up between the two, rubbing my throat.

“Our situation is a little worse than that.” Maev pointed to the sky where Falizha’s ship made its descent.

They were here. I could make out the shape of the glowing ship’s wings, the gold railing visible on the top deck.

The Aspis flew overhead, and I cowered as it continued searching for me. It didn’t yet land with the Guards.

“Who have you brought?” Maev’s brother sat back, inching farther away from me.

“Ollo, this is Olivia. Our Ikhor.”

He went still, save for his eyes, which darted to his sister as she nodded triumphantly, having delivered me.

“How?”

“My tracker. I told you it would work. I’ll explain everything later.” She settled on the ground, facing the field. “We need our ship. We need out of here. How did they swarm it?”

The scarred Aethar were all over Maev’s ship, which sat fifty feet away from us on a flat patch of land.

Their drab brown and grey clothing hung heavy from their scarred and deformed skin.

They were all different legacies, though they were so scarred you could no longer tell who their god was. The Ikhor was all they worshipped.

I swallowed, tasting bile.

The Aethar spotted Falizha’s airship now hovering on the ground beside them, and they scrambled, screaming about the Guards, unaware of the Aspis flying over their heads. Through the rain, I could faintly make out movement below her massive airship. Thunder crashed, and the rain came down harder.

The Guards were here. For the first time, I was scared instead of relieved.

“The Aethar happened upon our ship when I left in search of you. I only recently returned from the fields. They were razed to the ground.” Ollo’s eyes shifted to me, quickly looking away.

I didn’t bother explaining that Falizha had lit fires all over Veydes, saying it was me. “How’re we going to get out of here?” I asked. “We can’t take on the Aethar and the Guards all at once.”

“We can’t?” Ollo sought the answers from Maev.

“Olivia is new to her powers. They haven’t settled in yet.”

Ollo’s face fell as he glanced at the airship. His long hair fell in his face, dripping with rain, and he pushed it away. “My Elder is going to have my head, Mae. And that’s before the others hear I’ve lost our fastest ship.”

Mae? A nickname, perhaps.

“They’re going to kill us ,” she added.

“The Guards are going to kill us sooner if we don’t come up with a plan,” I reminded them.

“Keep low,” whispered Maev. “They’ve arrived.”

Ollo and I joined her on our stomachs, lying flat on the soaked ground. His elbow bumped mine, and he jerked away. The three of us wore dark cloaks—the Guards would be hard-pressed to find us in the shadows under the bushes.

The rain grew colder as a wave of fear crashed over me.

Four black-clad, deadly and heavily armed Guards approached Maev’s airship. Some of the Aethar fled into the storm as others hid on the ship. Only a daring few remained on the ground to face off with my old friends.

The Guards were fifty feet away, yet I could make out their faces. Blood streaked down Nuo’s handsome face as he approached the group, swords in hand. The rain washed away the blood matted in his brushed-back chestnut hair, cleaning the slate for his new kill.

I expected to see anger, pain, remorse and suffering, but there was nothing to indicate a soul lived inside that body. He was emotionless—an empty vessel.

He was the last person alive attached to my heart.

“Where are they?” Nuo yelled to the waiting Aethar.

His voice was unrecognizable—raw and broken, as if he had been screaming for hours.

“Who do you seek?” a disfigured man replied, sounding confused, perhaps wondering why the Guards hadn’t attacked.

“The Ikhor and its new pet,” Falizha demanded, walking next to Nuo. He didn’t even flinch at her proximity.

Falizha’s long, golden hair was tied high on her head and slicked down her back. She had almost been fatally injured on the burning field, yet she had cleaned and polished herself up prettily while the others were covered in grime and blood.

The Day-legs were all the same—made in the image of Rem. And the purebloods, like Falizha, had pure golden skin, hair and eyes.

She stood arrogantly next to Nuo, who looked like a ghost of himself—her priorities didn’t match the bloodied Guards she walked with. It made me sick to see them working together.