Chapter twelve

O ne downside of craggy hills and plunging valleys was a brutal, unforgiving wind that dipped through fewer trees, soared, and threatened to literally blow me away. More than once, I stumbled.

But the wind’s attempt to steal my joy, albeit ferocious, was no match for the joy I felt simply existing in the Wymaran highlands.

While a few of my travel companions—namely Gemma and Gavin—threw worried glances in my direction every time I shivered, I remained enamored by the magnificent valley to the south, disrupted by veins of rivers going every which way.

The same wind that bit into my cheeks flowed over the rich topography below, creating the illusion that the earth itself was breathing.

Around midday, we came across a mountainous range of black, ashy rock, quite different from the tamer verdant hills speckled with gray and brown we’d so far seen.

It was far away, but I could see from where I stood how dominating the blackened terrain was, claiming no desire to share space with anything living .

“You see those rocks?” Caz rested a hand on my shoulder and pointed east, toward the range. “They’re formed from volcanoes.”

“Volcanoes?”

“There are cracks deep beneath Nyrida,” he explained. “And below that, the core of our world is on fire. Melted earth seeps back up through those cracks and hardens up top, creating ridges like that.”

“Won’t the fire… burn through?” I cringed, well aware how idiotic I sounded. I would have to “thank” my mother for failing to teach me basic geography.

“Give it another four hundred years, and maybe it will,” Gavin muttered grumpily, and while brushing past us, tossed a nasty scowl at Caz.

Caz shook his head and snorted, watching our grumpy leader hike forward.

“I don’t know that he likes you very much,” I muttered so only Caz could hear.

At least, Gavin didn’t like whatever friendship was developing between Caz and me.

If I ever had an older brother, I thought he might be like Caz, and I was simply giddy at the thought of meeting Marin.

I already adored her based on what they’d told me.

Caz laughed, free and lighthearted. “I think he doesn’t like himself very much, Ary.” With a gentle squeeze of my shoulder, he forged ahead.

We continued southeast, leaving the ashy cliffs in our wake. One day, I thought. One day, I would stare right into one of those pools of burning earth just to prove to myself I could.

That night, I was so exhausted that I hardly saw where we stopped and my dinner almost became my pillow. Someone must have taken the near-empty bowl from me and laid me on my sleeping mat, because I woke the next morning, cozy and comfortable like I’d gone to sleep of my own volition.

I opened my eyes to daylight, taking in our camp. Above me, gray rock—a wide but short overhang—sheltered us, leaving open air on all sides save for where the rock connected with the earth below us. A fortunate shelter from the rain. No wonder I’d slept so long. The sound of rain always soothed me.

“Good morning, lovely.” Gemma smiled down at me. Her outstretched hand held my daily mug of honeyed green tea. “It seems you slept well.”

I sat up and accepted the mug. “Thank you.”

Caz and Ezra were laughing and talking next to the campfire. Finn saw me sit up and came over.

“Where’s Smyth?”

“Hunting.” Finn sat down with his map and unfolded it. “He was gracious enough to insist we stay out of the rain.”

Gemma rolled her eyes. “Yes, what a delightful fellow.”

Finn nudged her leg and shot her a look of warning. I failed to suppress a grin.

They made sense, the two of them. Finn Sinclair was remarkably level-headed and unflappable. Gemma was… not. It was a balance between them, just as Marin sounded like the stalwart calm to Caz’s boundary-pushing levity.

Over the past few days—after many sessions of persistent nagging that I was quite proud of—Gemma had explained her feelings for Finn.

Feelings that had been developing for a decade.

Her parents had died when she was young, and she’d grown up in the Winterton Caves just as he had.

They had been close friends as children, but Finn—three years Gemma’s senior and the good man he was—refused to pursue anything until Gemma was at least eighteen.

But then she was picked to participate in Commencement and chosen by Simeon and the Wintertons to be my social-guide-slash-secret-emissary.

Since her time with me in Warrich, she’d floated from village to village in Avendrel and Wymara, occupied with various surveillance and reconnaissance missions for Elias’s army.

For Gemma and Finn, the pieces had yet to fit.

She wanted it to work. She even said she might love him, though anything physical had yet to transpire. I knew it was only a matter of time. And their happiness made me happy.

“We’re two days away from Tovick.” Gemma’s voice dragged me back to the present. She and Finn focused on the map. “I’ve never been there, but it’s supposedly bigger than Freyburn. With Simeon’s wards in place, it’ll be safe from Molochai’s shadows.”

“It’s unlikely Molochai knows you exist yet,” Finn added when he noticed my worry. “Simeon knew what he was doing, keeping you hidden all your life.”

Gemma nodded in agreement, not without an apologetic look for what being hidden away had done to me.

“But still, we need to be careful. Most of Nyrida knows about Christabel’s prophecy. It’s likely Molochai does, too, so any suspicions about you could be dangerous.”

“Being inconspicuous is key,” Gemma sighed. “Which is why we can’t use horses unless necessary. They’re harder to hide and cover tracks. A right shame, as we would likely be in Brinnea by now, and my ass wouldn’t be on fire.”

Finn snorted, folded up the map, and tucked it back in the pocket of his brown canvas jacket.

Using horses had never crossed my mind. I’d only seen them in drawings. I added those to the list of things I needed to see, touch, maybe even ride, before going to the Winterton Caves. How embarrassing would it be if their queen couldn’t ride a horse?

“Damn.”

We heard Caz’s voice and followed his attention to the source of swift, strong footsteps echoing off rock.

To Gavin, who’d returned from his hunt. Completely soaked through the long-sleeved shirt that gripped his hard, mammoth shoulders and arms. The sight of him might have stolen the air right out of me had my admiration not been leveled by the sight of a massive dead animal slung over his shoulders.

A red deer. With antlers. He’d killed and carried a full-grown red stag over his shoulders for the gods knew how long and how far.

I cursed myself for enjoying such a savage sight.

He thrust the animal over his head in one fell swoop.

Effortless, like everything else he did.

The dead stag hit the ground with a sickening smack.

Then Gavin looked right at me, no one else, and said, “This should cover your next few meals.” He knelt down on one knee beside the stag and unsheathed a razor-sharp blade from its place on his belt.

“Oh, shit !” Gemma hissed. “I swear on all the sons and daughters of Sussurro, if you do that right here, right now, I will murder you and—”

Gavin sliced open the gut of the red stag with unnatural precision, earning groans of objection from Gemma and Ezra as he proceeded to physically remove the guts from the animal and toss them aside, away from us.

Caz nudged Gemma toward Gavin. “Sounds like Sussurro’s going to have a bone to pick with you if you don’t kill him.”

She rolled her eyes and gagged. I doubted one of our twelve ancient gods would bother with Gemma, even if she could get close to his multitude of alleged children.

Caz kept me company as we watched Gavin gut, skin, then hang the stag with a rope over a long, jagged rock that jutted out from the wall of stone.

I watched, well aware I should know how to slaughter and prepare my own meat.

Still, watching him was… brutal , but the way he worked was almost routine, as if he’d butchered hundreds—perhaps thousands—of animals to survive.

I watched blood drip and drain out of the carcass, having heard Phillip talk about cleaning an animal to know it was necessary.

I thought the sight of red would grip me by the throat and steal my breath, but it didn’t.

This was… different. Gory and brutal, yes, but this was survival.

Maybe it was because he was here or simply because I wasn’t alone anymore, but I wasn’t afraid of the blood. I couldn’t afford to be. Not anymore.

And I thought… maybe that’s why he was doing this right in front of me. Because he knew that too.

Still, there was one piece of the slaughtered stag that haunted me. It churned my stomach, but I forced myself to look at the deep gash in its neck. The final kill. Where Gavin had ended its misery.

I jumped when Caz put his arm around my shoulder. He squeezed me, winked, and whispered in my ear, “Always entertaining to watch another man mark his territory.”

I opened my mouth to ask him what he meant, but he was already gone.

“We will stay here for the day,” Gavin announced to no one in particular. “The rain looks like it will clear soon.” He turned to me, hands still bloody. “Once it does, I want you outside for training. Bring your knife.”

Sure enough, the rain stopped about twenty minutes later. I shoveled down breakfast—the last of our bread and strips of jerky leftover from Freyburn. I stared at the hanging stag as I passed it.

Gavin was still damp when I found him, but his wet, dark, shoulder-length hair was pulled back into a knot at the base of his neck, revealing more hidden scars that I ogled longer than I should have.

He was clean—no trace of the stag’s blood on his hands or clothing.

The amount of skill it had to take to slay, carry, and butcher an animal while only bloodying his hands…

I shivered.