Page 25

Chapter thirteen

A bout half a day’s walk west of Tovick, we camped outside a small village. It was our last stop before a week’s rest with Gavin’s friend, whoever he or she was. Then, three more days of travel, and we would reach Brinnea. Where my real father waited for me.

I failed to hide my nerves. Meeting a four-hundred-year-old sorcerer was nothing short of intimidating.

Mentally, I wanted to prepare. Even if that meant proving myself.

Even if that meant spending a day alone in the forest, with only my hands and knife to defend myself while the others visited the town.

I needed to know I could be alone again.

Alone, without fading away, without receding back into an empty shell of the woman I was becoming. The woman I was starting to like.

I had to try.

That was, if I could convince him .

We skipped training the next morning. He hardly spoke a word to me that entire day, but I noticed he still hid the black-corded necklace with those rings tucked beneath his shirt .

He was quieter this morning than he was tense or angry. A good sign, I told myself. So I followed him into a small cluster of red maple trees to gather wood while the others made camp around the fire.

“What is it?” he demanded when he saw me approach.

A sharp invisible blow smarted in my chest at the chill of his words. “I was thinking that tomorrow, while the rest of you are in Tovick, I could stay back for a day and practice—”

“No.”

“You didn’t even hear what I was proposing—”

“I don’t have to.” He removed the cover from his axe and began to sharpen the blade. “You are not going or staying anywhere alone.”

“Would you stop interrupting me?”

Gavin shrugged. “I will when you stop making foolish suggestions.”

Anger pricked my chest. “You’re an asshole, you know that?”

He blew out a low whistle and chuckled. “Language, Your Highness.”

“You’re not listening to me!” I snapped, angry tears biting at my eyelids, but I held them in. “I—”

“Enough!” His booming shout shook the trees and made me shudder. “This is not a discussion, Aryella.”

“Gavin.”

His face immediately softened when I said his name, so I marched forward and grabbed his thick forearm in my hands. His eyes locked on my fingers, touching him.

“I need to know I can survive alone, even though you’ll all be in the next town over.”

He sighed. “I promise you’ll have plenty of opportunities to test yourself.” He withdrew his arm from my grasp and stepped away. “But not this. Not right now.”

“You…” I gritted my teeth and clenched my fists at my side, not caring that I looked and sounded like a petulant child. “You told me to ne ver let anyone take my choices from me. Are you going to take them from me now?”

His eyes narrowed. He studied me like I was on display, standing in the small clearing of trees, set out just for him. He rested the axe against the base of a maple tree and again closed the distance between us.

My angry pants collected in small clouds of mist between my face and his chest, giving me away. I refused to look up, to give him the satisfaction of knowing how vulnerable I was beneath his glare. But I felt his lips brush against my forehead and my knees began to buckle.

“Of course not, Aryella.” I felt the deep hum of his voice infiltrate my body as he savored each syllable of my name, like he could taste each one.

“But if you choose to willingly put yourself in danger, stay alone in the woods where every living, breathing thing wants to devour you, in one way or another…” His nose brushed against my temple.

“There will be consequences,” I felt the friction of his beard on my cheek and the air around me thinned, “that you are far from ready for.”

I shuddered. Out of pleasure or fear. Maybe both.

And I decided not to stay behind the next day.

***

To my chagrin, the small, dilapidated village just west of Tovick tested me in more ways than I expected.

Freyburn had felt warm , despite the literal cold. That small city had been living and breathing and full of hope and joy, but this place was gasping for air.

Gavin didn’t insist I hide my hair beneath my cap like he had in Freyburn. The people in this dying village paid no attention to our presence. As if they’d already surrendered to whatever dreadful fate had chosen them.

I shuddered, remembering that feeling .

The few children present weren’t laughing or playing like they had been in Freyburn.

The ones I saw were thin, their shoulders and eyes drooping with malaise, exhaustion, and hunger .

Stacks of black smoke oozed from ashy chimneys attached to ramshackle houses, many of which crumpled beneath the weight of their own rot.

Shops were boarded up, men and women alike lay covered in thin, holey blankets next to buildings, and two skeletal and mangy dogs trod over a pile of trash in an alley between a closed, shabby tavern and empty mercantile shop.

My eyes burned at the sight of a little girl across the path, curled up on a threadbare blanket next to a burnt-down building. Her old house, I assumed. Her eyes were closed, and she was shivering, covered only by a thin coat with no hat, no gloves, no scarf.

“No.” Gavin fastened his gentle but unbreakable grip around my forearm when I turned toward the girl.

I glared back at him, throat blazing with anger. “Either let me go alone or come with me.” My voice trembled. “Your choice .”

After a heavy pause, he unfastened his fingers from my arm and nodded toward the girl. The latter, then. The others watched as we crossed the path and I knelt down before her, ignoring the gravel’s sharp bite on my knees through my pants.

Hearing me approach, she opened her dull brown eyes and sat up, brittle bones struggling to support her weight. Her dark-blonde hair was matted and dirty.

“What’s your name?” I whispered and offered comfort with a gentle smile.

Her eyes widened. She shook her head.

“Okay.” I nodded, keeping my smile. “That’s okay, you don’t need to tell me.”

I started to remove the luxurious green-gold hat, gloves, and scarf Gavin had bought me in Freyburn, but he stopped me with a hand on my shoulder .

“Anything worth selling will get stolen off of her,” Gavin muttered. “Could make her a target.”

Indeed, I glanced around and noticed I was receiving a number of greedy glares from a few men and women close by. All eyeing the scarf around my neck and hat on my head.

My shoulders slumped, until I remembered that my old winter clothes were in my bag. Slightly tattered and fringed at the ends but still warm, still intact. They would help her.

To avoid startling her, I carefully lowered my knapsack from my shoulder and unbuckled it.

At the bottom were my old hat, gloves, and scarf.

I worked my throat through a swallow and tried to hand her the blue and gray bundle.

“Will you take these and wear them?” My voice trembled with tears I tried to repress. “Please.”

Her small, pale fingers were shaking. Fearful eyes darted between me and the towering force of man behind me. A rough gust of wind ruffled her hair, and she flinched at the cold.

“We won’t hurt you,” I promised. “Please take them.” I gently laid the hat, gloves, and scarf in her lap. She was so pale, thin, and cold. She looked afraid to hope . “You’re cold. You-you don’t,” I stumbled out, realizing she reminded me of myself, “you don’t need to be so cold and—”

“Who are you?” The strained, smoky voice of a female on my right made me jump. “Get away!”

I stood to my feet, arms outstretched in surrender as a haggard old woman with a broken cane rushed unsteadily toward me. “I just wanted to help—”

“Get away!” croaked the old lady, dragging the little girl off the ground and away from me. “Outsiders are no longer welcome here.”

“I’m sorry,” I breathed, stumbling backwards until I hit a safe, warm, wall of muscle. He rested protective hands on my shoulders and gave a reassuring squeeze. Relief soothed me when the little girl hugged the items to her chest.

Gavin steered me back to our group. Finn, Caz, and Ezra watched me with a mix of sadness and admiration. Gemma hugged me tightly and gently stroked up and down my back before smiling tenderly and taking my hand as we walked down the center road.

I swallowed vomit when I noticed blood staining the outer walls of run-down homes and empty shops. The number of dilapidated buildings far exceeded the number of people left in this village.

“Insidions,” said Finn. “They’ve been here.”

The farther we went, the more the village stunk of feces and carrion. I was grateful whoever had been slain was laid to rest. So far, the street was empty of corpses.

As if in response to Finn’s warning and in mockery of my hopeful thoughts, Gemma gasped and covered her mouth with her free hand.

To the left of us, a man was strung up in the dying trees with a noose around his neck. His abdomen was cut open. His intestines hung out of him, rotting. He reeked of decaying flesh and flies burrowed into his carcass.

“Oh, gods.” Ezra turned away and emptied his stomach contents behind a cedar tree, where he remained.

I faced the sight even though my stomach churned something terrible.

On the ground below the body was a small wooden sign with words written in the victim’s blood.

I sounded out words I’d never seen or heard before, but I recognized Molochai’s name.

My knapsack dropped off my shoulder to the ground.

I needed to remove a tangible weight so I wouldn’t buckle under the rest.

“‘Molochai is king,’” Finn translated. “Insidions only use the ancient language to spite the Selvaren.”

“Likely tried to resist Molochai’s men,” Caz sighed. “Left as an example for the others. ”

Hope couldn’t trounce logic even in the most optimistic parts of my brain. Caz’s nonchalance implied that a scene like this—though the first I’d seen—was all too common.

“Is this what’s happening in my world?” Tears pooled in the corners of my eyes, but I refused to blink them away. “My… kingdom.” The sound of that— my kingdom— felt ridiculous but true. “While I’ve been sitting in my cabin.”

“Not your fault, Ary.” Caz squeezed my shoulder.

But for the first time, I began to truly feel like this was mine to change.

“You don’t need to see any more of this today.” Gavin placed his hand on my lower back to usher me away. “Unfortunately, there may be plenty more of this to come.”

“Let’s not pretend ignorance is a privilege I still have,” I replied, voice trembling.

He frowned but didn’t force me to move, nor did he obstruct my view of the unsightly carnage.

“Can’t be more than a day old,” Finn noted, scowling at the corpse.

“It’s recent,” agreed Caz.

“That means Molochai’s Insidions could be close.” Gavin lifted my bag from the ground and threw it over his shoulder, next to his. “We need to keep moving.”

“I want to bury him,” I announced, feeling five sets of incredulous eyes slicing into me.

“He’s long gone, Ary.” Caz gave me a sad smile. “Smyth is right, we have to keep—”

“What if it was someone you loved?” I demanded, trembling with unbridled rage.

I thought of Marin, but didn’t dare say her name or put that image in his head.

“Wouldn’t you pray a stranger might be kind enough to lay them to rest rather than leave them hanged, humiliated, splayed open like a pig at the butcher? Take him down . ”

Gavin’s concerned gaze lingered on me before he nodded to Finn and Caz. “Dig a grave.”

Gemma groaned. As Finn and Caz moved the body, the rotten stench of death intensified.

I wanted to help, but Caz and Finn didn’t let me.

Instead, I stood and watched, letting my anger simmer.

I wasn’t convinced that justice for myself—for my loneliness, for being unfairly pushed into this role—would be enough to motivate me.

A sad truth, but a very real one. But this… this infuriated me.

I would not let myself forget sacrifices made by others for a better world. If this man had suffered and died for what was right, the least I could do was memorize every inch of his pain. Make it my own. Make it my catalyst.

I walked to where Caz and Finn had moved the body, held my breath, and reached for the sack on his face. “He shouldn’t be buried with a bag over his head.”

“Ary!” Gemma grabbed my elbow. “Ary, please, don’t—ah, shit!”

“I’m going to check on Ezra.” Even Caz tightened his pale-green face and turned away.

I held my breath and removed the sack to reveal that the man’s eyes had been carved from his skull, leaving gaping black holes drained of blood by gravity. Gemma’s and Caz’s footsteps shuffled away behind us. Finn followed, leaving only Gavin beside me.

“They carved him up like an animal,” I breathed, eyes burning.

“In their eyes, anyone who doesn’t follow Molochai’s orders is less than human.”

Gavin’s knuckles brushed against my elbow, a welcome comfort.

“You won’t turn away like the rest of them?” I looked up at him.

“I won’t let you face it alone.” He cocked his head and surveyed the corpse, looking eerily… bored . “And I’ve seen worse.”

I shuddered at the horrific, senseless loss of life before me. I couldn’t destroy Molochai today. Not a single trace of my power had shown itself, and with no clue where to begin, I’d be helpless against him for quite a while.

But there had to be something to be done about this, even a temporary solution.

Wasn’t I the queen? Barely trained? Yes. Still small and mostly weak and anxious? Yes. But the queen nonetheless, whether I wanted the title or not. A queen could give orders.

Some good could come of it.

“I want to take these people—these survivors —to the Caves.” I willed confidence into my voice and stared pointedly at the others. “I want them fed, sheltered, and cared for.”

Caz, Gemma, and Finn traded apprehensive glances but proceeded to bury the man as they were told.

Ezra walked up to me, shaking his head. “I wish we could save everyone, but… we can’t. We can’t just lead a hundred people all the way to the Caves.”

“What would Elias do?” I asked. With how much my cousin admired my betrothed, mentioning Elias could win him over.

“He would tell you to make the smart call and not draw attention to this place.” Ezra waved a hand around the dilapidated village. “If Insidions come back and find the survivors leaving, they will wonder who did it. There’s a chance they’ll track and follow us.”

I looked to Gavin, who shook his head. “He’s not wrong. We can’t do it.”

My shoulders slumped.

“But,” Gavin added, much to Ezra’s displeasure, “my friend in Tovick has connections. He can get word to the Caves, to Winterton. This wouldn’t be their first covert evacuation.”

I gave a relieved sigh and squeezed his large, calloused hand in thanks.

The feel of his answering grip lingered on my skin for the rest of the day.