by Amy Tintera
“Aren.” Olivia pointed to something in the distance. A long line of people on foot, in wagons, on horses. The soldiers were just a distraction to allow the people to get past Sacred Rock. They were probably trying to get to Lera.
Olivia took off running. “Come on!” she yelled over her shoulder.
Aren didn’t follow. Jacobo and a few other Ruined pushed past him to run after Olivia.
Screams rippled through the crowd. Bodies launched into the air and hit the ground with a thud. Olivia didn’t need to use her arms to control her power, but she swung them along with the bodies like she was conducting musicians.
He turned away.
A Vallos soldier was scrambling to her knees, and she froze when Aren spotted her. A piece of dark hair fell from her bun, her heavy breath blowing it away from her bloodied face.
“Run.” His words were barely a whisper and he wasn’t sure if they were for her or himself. “Run.”
She took off at a full sprint, dodging bodies. Ahead, a soldier held his hand out, and she grabbed it and they ran together. A warrior watched them go, raising her eyebrows at Aren. She took the bow off her back and looked at him questioningly. He shook his head.
Behind him, the screams slowly died out. The warriors around him sheathed their swords. Some of the Ruined were laughing. The few Vallos soldiers left alive were disappearing the way they came.
He blinked at the bodies around him. Last time they were dressed in blue; this time in black and yellow. No matter what kingdom they came from or what color they wore, they all ended up like this. Dead at his feet.
Em was in front of him suddenly, her forehead creased. She said something he didn’t understand.
He muttered something he hoped sounded like “what?” The world was growing dark around him, his vision reduced to a tiny spot in front of him.
“I asked if you’re all right,” she said.
“Hmm.” What a stupid question. “I told her not to.”
“You told who what?”
“I told Olivia not to kill those people. They came because she killed them.”
“Wait, what? Olivia killed who?”
He shook his head. He was tired of answering questions. He didn’t want to be standing in front of the people he’d killed.
“Olivia!” Em yelled. She took off. “Olivia!”
Aren sidestepped a few exhausted Ruined. He wiped his hand across his face. Red. He looked down at his shirt. Red.
He wanted to run. He was telling his body to run, but it wouldn’t listen. He was surprised he was even still walking. His legs seemed to be moving on their own.
He finally reached the bakery, and he started up the stairs to the little apartment above it. Was someone calling his name? It was too much effort to turn around.
He pushed open the door. He stopped over the threshold.
What was he supposed to do now? It seemed like he had come to his apartment for a reason.
“Aren.”
He knew that voice.
“Aren?” Iria appeared in front of him suddenly. “What’s …” She trailed off as she took in his appearance.
He looked down at his hands as he walked past her. Lots of blood.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
“What?” Iria’s footsteps were near.
“I’m sorry,” he said again, but not to her. “I don’t know if that’s what you would have done, but I think …” He squeezed his eyes shut. “I’m sorry.”
His parents didn’t answer. They never did.
He looked up. Her face was drawn, like something was wrong.
Was something wrong?
He caught sight of his arms again. Blood. That’s what was wrong.
He dropped to his knees, clawing at the blood. “Get it off.” Why wasn’t it coming off? “Get it off!”
Iria ran away from him, and for a moment he thought she was running in fear. No. She closed the front door.
He tugged at his shirt, ripping at it with such force that one of the sleeves split open.
“Here.” Iria helped him pull it over his head and tossed it away. He unbuttoned his pants and leaned back, kicking them off.
“Right. Those too.” Iria’s voice was a little strange. “Sure.”
“Get it off,” he muttered, to no one in particular. He smeared the blood on one arm as he swiped at it.
Iria grabbed the bucket of water from the corner. She had a rag in her hand as she dropped to her knees in front of him.
She touched two fingers under his chin, nudging his face in her direction. She swiped the rag down one cheek and then the other. It was red when she dunked it back in the water.
He shivered as she cleaned his arms, the cold water trickling down his skin.
“Can you tell me what’s wrong?” she asked.
He didn’t reply. Did he have words to tell her what was wrong?
She swiped the rag down his chest, then got to her feet and deposited the bucket and rag near the door. He looked down at himself. The blood was gone.
“Hands,” she said.
He didn’t know why she wanted them, but he gave them to her anyway. She wrapped a bandage around his wrist, where the Weakling had hit him. Then she hauled him to his feet and guided him to the bed. That was a good idea. He curled up in a ball and there were blankets over him suddenly.
Iria knelt down next to the bed. She slipped one of her hands into his. He took in a sharp breath, the feeling of her skin against his snapping something into place in his brain. He met her gaze.
“Do you want me to go get someone?” she asked. “Em?”
“No,” he said quickly. “Please don’t.” What would Em think of him? She would certainly judge him for being a pathetic mess after a simple battle.
“All right,” she said quietly.
He pulled her hand a little closer to his chest, bending his head close to it. He didn’t know why he had her hand, but he liked it.
“I didn’t want to kill those people,” he whispered. “My mom used to say that my power was—my power was …” He ducked his head into his chest, the rest of that sentence lost as his throat closed up. Tears trickled down his cheeks.
“I’m so sorry Aren,” Iria whispered, putting her hand on top of his head. She held his hand a little tighter. “I’m so sorry.”
TWENTY-ONE
OLIVIA SIGHED DEEPLY as she looked down at the dark spots of blood on her jacket. No wonder her mother was always going through so many clothes.
Olivia didn’t sleep. She helped dispose of the bodies of the Vallos soldiers, then scouted the area for any lingering soldiers. She’d mostly been trying to avoid her sister.
Olivia pushed open the door to her apartment. Em sat at the kitchen table. The dark circles under her eyes suggested she also hadn’t slept.
“Where have you been?” Em asked.
Olivia shrugged out of her coat and walked to the living room to stand in front of the fire. This apartment was better than the cabins, at least. The furniture was clean and modern, the shelves lining the walls filled with books, the artwork professional. There was a painting of every ancestor in this room, and Olivia looked over her shoulder at Boda. Her mother’s favorite ancestor stared back at her from her seat in a garden.
Em looked at her expectantly, waiting for an answer to her question.
“I went to the surrounding areas to make sure there weren’t more soldiers,” Olivia said.
“And?”
“There were a few. I took care of them.”
“Aren said the soldiers came because you killed them. What did he mean?”
Olivia scrunched up her face. “Aren’s different than I remember him.” She remembered a boy who barely acknowledged the warriors when they came through. Now he followed that Iria girl everywhere she went.
“He’s been through a lot.”
“And I haven’t?” Anger seared up her body, but it came out in the form of tears. She quickly blinked them back. “I know you
and Aren spent a year running for your lives, but what do you think I was doing during that time? I wasn’t living a cozy life in that cell.” A tear slipped down her cheek and she closed her eyes against the unwelcome images that surfaced. Being covered in Weakling. Being ordered to heal injured humans. The beatings that followed when she refused.
These were the people Em wanted to protect?
“I know,” Em said softly.
Olivia opened her eyes. “Yes, I killed some of the people who fled this place.”
“Unprovoked?” Em asked.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Olivia had expected Em to chastise her, not ask why. Aren wasn’t the only one who had changed. Em may have wanted to protect Cas and his followers, but she was still the girl who’d killed the Vallos princess in cold blood.
“Because I don’t trust them,” Olivia said quietly. “Because I don’t want any of my fellow Ruined to go through what I went through. I’m going to keep us safe, even if I have to kill every human to do it.”
“I understand,” Em said. “I know you think I don’t, but I do. I’ve seen how dangerous they can be.”
“Then why are you mad?”
“I’m not mad. I’m … scared.”
Olivia pressed her lips together. Maybe she was scared too, but she refused to admit it. Fear was weak. She refused to be weak again.
“I’m scared I can’t reason with you, Liv. I’m scared that your hatred is going to make you do something stupid that’s going to get you killed.” Em leaned forward, her words soft. “We need the warriors. We need to be smart. What if the Vallos army had been twice the size? What if they’d gotten past you and Aren? All of this could have ended before it started.”
“But that’s not the only reason, is it?” Olivia asked. “You think it was wrong for me to kill those people.”
“I do think it was wrong. But more important, I don’t think it was smart. I don’t think it was the action of a queen. We need to be thinking strategically. We need to plan and communicate. We won’t secure the safety of the Ruined by randomly attacking small camps of people.”
Olivia let out a long breath, annoyed by that logic. She couldn’t argue with it. “You’re right.”
“Yeah?” she asked, clearly surprised.
“Yes,” Olivia said with a laugh. “You’re right, and you’re also a hypocrite.”
“How so?”
“Is keeping Cas here what a queen would do? When you know it makes me and August uncomfortable? Is that smart?”
Em dropped her eyes from Olivia’s. “No,” she said softly.
“Let’s both be smart, then. Deal?”
Cas waited for Em all night. When she finally walked into his room after dawn, he jumped to his feet.
“Is everyone all right?” he asked. “Who was that?”
“Vallos soldiers.” She leaned against the wall instead of coming to him. “Everyone is fine. We fought them back.”
“Good.” He wanted to go to her, to gather her into his arms, but everything about her body language said she wanted him to keep his distance.
“I need to tell you something,” she said.
“All right.”
“We came here to kill Jovita. It’s our main mission.”
He laughed. It bubbled up in his chest and burst out louder than he intended. He laughed again, almost hysterically.
“I’m serious, Cas.”
“I know you are. Why else would you be here? She attacked you. You’re only a few hours from the fortress.” He hadn’t given much thought to why Em was in Vallos. He wondered, then dismissed it. He was just happy to see her.
Em was here to respond to an attack. To kill the leader waging war on her people. She was, as usual, taking action.
“I know she’s your only remaining family, but—”
“I don’t care,” Cas interrupted. “Kill her. Tell her I said goodbye.”
Em reeled back in shock.
“You thought I’d be mad?”
“Maybe.”
“She poisoned me. She locked me in a room for days. She convinced people I was insane. I don’t care what you do to her.”
Em nodded, turning her gaze to her shoes. “You need to leave. After we kill Jovita you can swoop in and seize power again—”
“I don’t want it,” he interrupted.
“What?”
“I don’t want the kingdom. Let Olso have it.”
“What?” she asked again with growing incredulity.
“They’ve already taken most of the country anyway. It’s a losing battle and I’m too tired to fight it. I’d rather stay here with you.”
“You can’t.”
“Why not? I’ll renounce Lera or do whatever you want me to do. I’ll send Galo, Mateo, and Violet back, if that’s what they want. Let me help you. Let me fight on your side.”
Em ran her hands down her face, a humorless laugh escaping her mouth. “That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.”
He blinked, surprised. “What?”
“You’re going to give up? You promised me you’d make things better for the Ruined as Lera’s king, and now, when you encounter even the slightest problem, you run away?”
“Slightest problem? I was declared insane, Em. My own people rejected me.”
“So? You think I don’t know how that feels? I didn’t go off and sulk about it. I did something.”
“This isn’t the same. I’m ashamed of what my father did. I’m ashamed to be from Lera.”
“Then make it better!”
“Why do you care?” he asked, his voice rising. “You hate Lera! I’m offering to give up everything for you, to help you—”
“I did not ask for that. I would never ask you to give up everything for me, and if you think I would, you don’t know me very well. And clearly I don’t know you that well either, because I never thought you would just give up.”
“I guess not,” he said bitterly. He couldn’t quite meet her eyes anymore. Shame had lodged itself in his throat and refused to leave.
“Even if you have no intention of going back to Lera, you can’t stay here,” she said. “It makes too many people uncomfortable. Olivia and August in particular. August has proposed a marriage alliance to me, and it’s under serious consideration.”
Cas’s heart stopped. The room tilted sideways.
“Olso wants to make a permanent alliance with us, so he’s supposed to marry me or Olivia. He prefers me.”
“Oh.” His voice sounded funny. While he’d been lying in bed, dreaming of staying with Em, she’d been planning a marriage to someone else. Planning an attack on the leader of another kingdom. Protecting her people.
No wonder Jovita was trying to steal the throne from him. He’d done nothing to deserve it.
“Your horses and wagon are in the barn,” she said. “I think it’s best you leave now. You can have a few hours to prepare.” She turned to the door but paused, her hand on the knob. “It’s not that I don’t care about you, Cas. It’s just that there are a lot of people counting on me to keep them safe, and I have to put them first.”
She walked out of the room and pulled the door shut behind her. He sank down on the bed, listening to the sound of her footsteps on the stairs.
His hands shook, and he debated running after her to yell that she had no right to be mad at him. She was the reason he’d lost so much.
But he was frozen on the bed, the lump in his throat growing painfully.
“Cas?” Galo said through the door. He pushed it open, a deep frown on his face. “What’s going on? Em said we need to leave.”
Cas focused on his feet. “Yes. Today.”
Galo closed the door and leaned against it. “What happened?”
“Olivia and August don’t like us being here.”
“No kidding. I’m asking why I heard yelling.”
“I asked to stay with her. She didn’t like that idea.”
“What do you mean?”
Galo asked. “How can you stay with her?”
“It’s not like I have anywhere to go. Jovita has pretty much taken the throne at this point. Might as well stay with Em and join the Ruined.”
Galo was silent, and Cas crossed his arms over his chest, unable to look at him. The more he said the plan aloud, the more ashamed he was of it.
Galo strode across the floor and smacked his head, knocking Cas’s hair into his eyes. Cas yelped in shock.
“What the—” His words died in his throat as Galo whacked him again.
“What? You said you’re nothing. I can smack a nobody around.” Galo lifted his hand again and Cas scrambled off the bed and away from him.
“Would you stop?”
“No. Come here. I’m going to smack you until I knock some sense back into that brain.” Galo lunged for him, and Cas ran across the bed and pressed his back against the wall.
“I get it!” he yelled, holding his arms up defensively. “I’m a total idiot.”
“Yes, you are.” Galo stopped a few steps in front of him. “You offered to stay with Em?”
“She said no.”
“Of course she said no! I barely know the girl and I know what a terrible idea that is.”
“Sure, rub it in,” Cas said. “Like I don’t feel bad enough right now.”
“Cas,” Galo said, his voice softer. “Every choice Em has made—who was it for?”
Cas looked up at the ceiling and refused to answer the question.
“It was for them,” Galo said, gesturing to the front of the house. “For the Ruined. I don’t doubt that she has feelings for you, but everything she does is for them.”
Cas didn’t respond. He had once been furious at Em for choosing the Ruined over him. She hadn’t told him that the warriors were attacking and he’d lost his father and home as a result. He’d been so angry with her for making the wrong choice, for not choosing him.
But she was never going to choose him.
“August wants to marry her,” he said.
“Ugh,” Galo said. “That’s smart. A permanent alliance between Olso and Ruina.” He paused. “I’m sorry, Cas.”
Cas pushed off the wall and cracked a knuckle. “Forget it. We need to decide where we’re going to go. Maybe if we go south, farther into Vallos …” His voice trailed off. He had no idea where to go.
