Eva rushed forward, looking for Ian who twirled his falchion about his torso. In fluid movements, Ian slammed his blade into the neck of one Raider, jerked the blade out, twirled the sword, and lodged the blade into another Raider. The soldiers dropped to their knees, black blood leaking onto the ground.
A heavy, sweaty hand grabbed her shoulder and swung her around. “I was sure that you had endured your share of battle, little sister.”
Edward’s face was much gentler than the last time that she had seen him, when he had drunk himself into an impertinent stupor. He turned from her to slay a soldier nearby. “What are you doing here?” he asked with sweat spilling down the sides of his face.
Eva’s eyes fell, ashamed to even state her mission to her brother. “We intend to rescue the queen.”
Edward’s hazel eyes bolted open, and he grabbed her by her shoulders with the hilt of his blade clamped against her arm, sword tip up. “You cannot be serious!”
“She isn’t as evil as the people make her out to be,” she said, though she did not believe the lie herself. She needed to have Edward’s approval if she was ever going to make it to the Black Lands, and the only way for her to survive in the Black Lands would be with Ian’s help.
“Not as evil?” Edward retorted, shaking her. “I will not have this conversation with you now. If you find the queen, you kill her, or may your blood burn in the heat of the day alongside hers!” Edward swirled away from her, jamming his foot into the chest of an oncoming Raider and hacking again and again until the man ceased to move.
Her brother disappeared into the mob of soldiers, aiding his comrades as he battled through the mass. Eva could barely move. Edward had just wished her dead, under certain circumstances, but still he had wished it.
In the midst of her thoughts, a metal shoulder barreled into the bottom of her spine. Her hands lunged forward, scraping against the stones in the dirt as she landed. Her chin crashed onto the ground, and her teeth chattered from the jolt.
Still thinking of Edward, she twisted her torso to look back at her attacker, but the man’s weight was too heavy. She only caught a glimpse of his onyx armor before his solid fist rammed into the side of her face.
Blood sprang out of her mouth and splattered on the ground. She pushed herself up, but another fist pounded into her head. Eva looked up, and all that she could see were the scuffles of boots grinding nearby. She listened for the whispers, but they had abandoned her, much like the gods. Then she heard the voice, the one that sounded like a rusted chain.
“Get off her! She’s mine!”
The dead weight on her back lifted as the Raider dismounted her, but the feeling like metal claws scratching into her head jerked her up by her hair. She stared into Dreyshore’s dark eyes. Though her feet were on the ground, she dangled from his grasp, and she tore at his black gauntlets with her fingernails to no avail.
“Let me go!” Eva kicked and swung at him, her fists clanging against the impenetrable metal.
“This time I’m going to gut you like the slippery fish that you are,” he said, voice grinding over the back of his throat.
Dreyshore clenched his falchion in his hand, reached back, and slammed the blade through Eva’s gut. She felt the cold blade run her through then pull out, letting her hot blood spill out down her sleek. Dreyshore dropped her to the ground, and she balled up tightly, quivering with her fingers clutching her stomach.
“Help…” she whimpered.
A deathly grin peeled back the edges of Dreyshore’s cheeks. “May your blood turn cold before you waste away.” He kicked her across the face and hurried off, gutting through Strikers as he left Eva on the ground to die.
Eva tried to form more words, but her breath was caught in her belly. The heat of the spring felt like a cold draft over her skin that had already begun to turn blue. Bodies collapsed around her, but she could scarcely hear their screams. Her only thoughts were of her own pain that throbbed in every part of her body.
She coughed a bit, and flecks of blood lined her lips. Afraid, she tried to hold her breath, hoping that her blood would not leak out of her. Why had she chosen to fight? Why had she followed Ian to save a woman whom she had despised? These thoughts ebbed into her head and oozed out of her mind as she faded in and out of consciousness.
“-Va. …Up.”
Eva could hear the muffled sounds of someone calling to her, but her blurry eyes refused to focus, only viewing in smeared smudges of color as her eyes crossed and straightened.
“Eva, wake up.” Wolf put his warm hands against Eva’s cheeks. His tomahawks were missing, and he had several pouches of Essence on his belt. He pulled off one pouch and dumped the entire bag on her wound.
A smooth sensation, almost like gentle fingertips, rubbed the edges of the sore, then came a sensation like a needle pulling thread. Eva’s head swirled, and she wanted to vomit, but she kept it down, afraid that she would puke up her insides. The pain did not leave her after Wolf used the Essence, but her hearing became more acute. The clashing of metal against metal became more succinct, and the cries of the downed soldiers were no longer muffled.
“We have to get you out of here.” Wolf’s voice was rushed and panicked. He pulled off another leather pouch and covered the two of them with its contents.
The people’s screams faded away, and even the heat of the sun vanished. Her body shivered uncontrollably, and all she could hear was the constant sound of thudding, almost like a heartbeat, though the beating was not in sync with her own heart.
The Raiders had faded away, and she could only see Wolf. He picked her up and carried her in his arms. In her disorient, she noticed that he was no longer wearing his wolf pelt over his shoulders, something she had scarcely seen of him.
With her body pressed against his chest, he carried her. “What’s happening? Where are you taking me?” She fumbled her tongue around for the words that finally escaped her lips. She could still feel her blood leaking out of her, though it did not seem to be spilling out as swiftly as before.
“Away from here,” he replied in his heavy voice.
The thudding sound of the constant heartbeat got louder as Wolf rushed her away from the battle or what she presumed was the battle, since she could not see anyone else. Wolf had somehow brought her into the world of the invisible with him. As her eyes searched, she saw nothing but a white light that surrounded her — no trees, no grass, and no sky. How can he even navigate through this invisible cloak if he could not see where he was going?
They traveled for miles, and Wolf did not seem to tire. Eva held on, and he kept her awake by stopping and giving her mouthfuls of water along the way. As they fled, Eva could see her surroundings again, though she had no idea where they were headed. The grassy flat turned to hills, and the hills were soon clogged with trees on either side of the dirt trail that lead through the woods.
Days passed, and Eva felt that her life was fading. Her nights were full of fevers and cold sweats, and she could barely sleep through the evenings. Wolf tended to the wounds with more Essence, but he was running out, and the pain was getting worse. He had not even been able to treat the infected sores on her upper thigh from the claws of the Dissenter.
Eva shivered most of time except when the fevers came, but what seemed colder was that Wolf had barely spoken to her since they had escaped the battle. He didn’t seem upset, but he seemed bothered by something distant that he didn’t dare speak of.
It was night out, and she lay on the ground in the forest clearing. Wolf set up a fire for the two of them. He dragged her close to flames so that she could be warm. The heat was too intense for her at that close of a distance, warming her legs but leaving her upper body to freeze, yet she neglected to complain for fear that she might tip Wolf over the edge.
Her cold hands were shoved into the pits of her arms, her iced knuckles stiff and cramped. Wanting to be more comfortable, she pulled Wolf’s leather satchel under head, patting it to her comfort. When she adjusted he
r head on the bag, her fingers felt something sticking out of the side, something soft in most places but hard like thick gems in others.
At first she thought nothing of it, watching Wolf snap twigs into halves and then into fourths. Afterwards, he stacked the kindling in the fire, making a tiny wooden tower. Eva pulled out the smooth skin that she felt with the tips of her fingers, and her eyes grew wide. It was the Water Walker robe with the reflective mirrors, bright red like Stasis’s, but why did Wolf have it? Had he had one all along?
Surely not, she knew. Wolf had been a man of necessity, carrying little and making the most of whatever was on his person – two tomahawks and a wolf pelt. Perhaps he had gotten it from a Water Walker. But what did he need with the robe? It made no sense to her. She shoved it into the bag before he noticed, and she kept her eyes on the flame.
What if he had gotten it from Stasis? That thought struck through her. He had done nothing when Jahn had injured her in the tavern. What if Wolf had found her?
Ashes rose high in the smoke cloud and flickered away as the night winds brushed by. Eva watched Wolf pop a few more twigs from some dead limbs that he’d gathered when she finally brought herself to prod him. “Where are you taking me?” she asked, revisiting her question from a few days ago.
Holding three sticks in both hands, he pressed his knee against them, cracking them in two. Then he tossed the broken sticks into the flame. “The Black Lands.”
Eva’s voice was still weak. “Why didn’t you tell me that when I asked you before?”
“Would you have remembered?”
“I remember asking you, don’t I?” Realizing that she had perhaps been too abrasive, Eva took the edge off her previous comment. “I’m just scared.”
Wolf hiked over to her and kneeled down next to her, putting his warm hand against her face. “You don’t have to be afraid, Eva,” he replied in his molasses voice.
Her heart nearly halted, and she shuddered underneath his touch. Wolf had always called her Genevieve. Why was he calling her Eva now? Her eyes dragged up to meet his, but she quickly looked away, hoping not to draw undue attention to herself.
“Did you get rid of your white wolf pelt?” she asked as calmly as her voice would allow, though she wanted to accuse him of so much more.
Wolf glanced down at his shoulders, then he stood and sighed. “It hinders my fighting,” he replied as he walked back over to the dead limbs.
Eva put her hand lightly over the wound in her stomach, and she could feel where Wolf had managed to keep it closed, though she was sure that it would become infected just like the wound in her leg if she did not get some medicine soon. Almost forgetting that she had not responded, Eva replied, “It never hindered your fighting before.”
Wolf snapped a few more sticks, and the expression on his face turned from cold to freezing. He stared down at her with an iced expression for just a moment, and then a graceful smile happened on his lips, though it seemed misplaced. “I’ve never had to ambush the Raiders before.”
She wanted to mention how he had worn the pelt when he had rescued her from the Raiders, but she didn’t want to push it. She was nervous and afraid, and she was still uncertain as to why Wolf was keeping Stasis’s Water Walker robe in his satchel. “How much farther until we reach the Black Lands?” she asked, changing the subject.
Wolf cracked a few more twigs and tossed them into the flame. Before the sticks landed, he mumbled a few unintelligible words, and the fire burst into the sky like a tower of flames that licked up as high as the tops of the trees.
Eva’s body jerked, and the slit in her gut twitched, shooting jagged lines of pain through her body. The flame lowered as quickly as it had risen, bringing with it a circular black mass that covered the ground, forming a dark, bottomless crater. She tried to scramble backwards from the pit, but she could scarcely move due to the pain.
Not able to keep back the torrent of questions, Eva unleashed them, pointing to the blackness, though she lay on her side. “What is that? Why do you have Stasis’s robe, and what did you do with the pelt?”
Wolf rushed over to stand over Eva who stared fearfully into his black eyes. He glowered down at her with his hands on his hips and pressed the toe of his boot against Eva’s side. “That is the entrance to the Black Lands, and I am Stasis.”
The bones in his body cracked and snapped as it formed into a woman. His skin twisted and tightened. His dark, golden flesh bled into a pale, white fairness. Sun-blonde hair colored the blackness atop his head from the roots to the tips, and the once look of compassion had now become a gaze of death.
“What did you do to Wolf?” Eva asked, clenching her side.
Stasis smiled. “He’s been taken care of it.”
Eva twisted to her stomach, clawing the dirt to get away. As the wound kissed the ground, the edges stretched, and her body screamed in pain. With teeth taut, she drove her elbows into the dirt, crawling, praying to the gods to set her free. But it was not her turn.
A swift hand reached down and yanked off the pendant of the eagle. A solid boot smashed into her spine, pinning her to the ground. She swatted back, pounding into Stasis’s knee with the heel of her fist, each blow tearing at the sword wound, firing shrill pains like lightning up and down her body.
Stasis grabbed Eva by the back of her collar. Her fingernails peeled away the skin on her nape. When Eva tried to yell, Stasis rammed her face into cold ground. Dirt filled her mouth, and blood leaked from her nostrils. She counted four more times of her face smashing against hardness.
By the tenth or eleventh time, Eva began to drift away – to fade into her own mind. Perhaps it was because of the dull ringing in her head, or perhaps it was because of the harsh screech of pain on her side. “Gods,” she muttered. Their only answer was to bring her back to consciousness long enough to feel her head bang once more.
Stasis shouted and screamed as she flipped Eva to her back, though what she was saying made no sense. The words were just murmurs bursting out of moving lips that made muffled sounds. Then, with a resolute grunt, she grabbed Eva with both hands, nudged her forward, and flung her into the bottomless blackness known as the Black Lands.
IF YOU ENJOYED READING THE GIRL WITH THE SCAR, BE ON THE LOOKOUT FOR THE BLACK LANDS – BOOK 2 OF THE DARK CONNECTION SAGA
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The Girl with the Scar (Dark Connection Saga Book 1) Page 27
