That was it, wasn’t it? Choices. I’d made mine, and Tulia had made hers, and I hadn’t even realized until it was too late.
“Are you alright?” I asked, resisting the urge to wrap my arms around them and never let go. I couldn’t get the image of them in the snow from my mind, freezing, bleeding. How easy it would have been for Tulia to speed up her magic and freeze them from the inside out.
They still looked pale and unsteady, but shrugged. “It’s nothing I haven’t dealt with before, I promise.”
“And Wesley?”
“He’s fine. When I left, Idris was guarding him by the fire to make sure he didn’t try to go out.”
“You shouldn’t be out here, either.”
They slid an arm around me, eyes on the grave. “I didn’t want you to dig it alone.”
I managed half of a smile, but I knew it was wobbly. “Thank you. But you can go back, Kye. I…I want to bury her by myself.”
“Are you sure?” My throat was closing, so I nodded. They paused to search my face, “Be careful.”
“I will be.”
They pressed a kiss to my forehead, then left, and I stood and listened to the sound of their footsteps fade into silence.
I pulled my knife free and stared at it. The blade shone in the moonlight, broken by the dark flecks of blood that hadn’t come off. I should have cleaned it properly, but I didn’t have the energy. I tilted it back and forth, watching the way it moved. It had sliced into her so easily, like into butter.
There and then gone, in a second. No going back.
Sarafine and Mother would be livid, determined to find me and do away with me. Only them now. No Tulia. Ever again.
She’d been different, lighter, and it was my fault she was gone. Entirely mine. I could have talked her into agreeing, I knew I could have, if I’d chosen better words. Better timing. Something.
She wasn’t different, my mind snapped, severing the train of thought. Maybe she could have been, but ‘could have been’s aren’t any use to you. She wasn’t. You wanted to pretend she was, and you know how pretending goes now.
I closed my eyes, tucked the knife away, and started toward where I’d left her body.
She lay in the stained snow, one hand over her stomach and the other stretched out, some last half-conscious effort to reach for something. Her eyes were wide, empty, and tiny beads of ice decorated her braid. The blood was dried and frozen, stark red against white and brown and green. I could still feel the heat of it. Hot and alive, pulsing as it coursed over my hands. As her fingers clamped around mine, as her eyes bulged in pain and shock.
I heaved, bile rising in my throat and gagging me, and then vomited the contents of my too-empty stomach into the snow.
I’d never been sick over a kill before. No matter how unjust, how bloody, how difficult, I’d never been so repulsed by the memory of it. I’d never felt it so clearly, never had this feeling twisted into my gut. When it was over, I sat on my heels, fingers laced into my hair, and breathed in the freezing night air until my stomach settled.
This was my kill. My fault. I’d clean it up myself. Maybe Tulia didn’t deserve that, whatever I wanted to believe, but I did.
I hauled myself to my feet, wedged my hands under her stiff arms, and dragged her, foot by foot, to the grave. Carved my way through the snow. Rolled her into the shallow hole, and I swallowed at the sound of her hitting the bottom.
Her green eyes stared at me as I tossed the first shovelful of dirt onto her. Then the next. Again and again until I couldn’t see them anymore.
Until the closest thing to a sister I’d ever had was nothing but another silent, frozen thing buried in this Ladyforsaken forest.
I was bone-tired when I dragged myself into the tunnels, and I stopped halfway to my hollow. It was late and I needed sleep; the best thing to do would be to collapse in my blankets and furs and sleep for a day or two. My feet took me to Kye’s instead, and I paused in the entrance.
“Don’t stand there, Neyva, you need sleep,” Kye mumbled, sounding half conscious. I crossed to them and they hooked an arm around me, pulling me close. We lay there in a comfortable tangle, nothing but warmth. Kye said, “I’ve wondered if I was about to die plenty of times, but never like that.”
“She could have. I was…I thought she would, Kye.”
“But she didn’t.” I nestled closer, listening to their heartbeat. They were here. They were alive. “Because of you.”
“I killed her.” The words stung. “The only one of them I actually loved and I…”
“Shh.” They ran their fingers through my hair, quieting the tears or guilt or nausea. “I can’t imagine what it was like but do not feel guilty. Not when she came to kill you.”
“But I do, and I don’t know how to stop it.” How did people live with this?
“Is it still better than feeling nothing?”
I traced a whorl of midnight blue on Kye’s bicep, where it split off into one of the intricate knots winding around their arm. “Do you hate them?” I asked in a whisper. “The tattoos?”
They took a moment to answer, their face tucked into my hair, and their voice came muffled and careful. “No. I used to.”
“What changed your mind?”
“When I made it to Selliira I hid them. I didn’t want anybody to know, and more than that I didn’t want to be reminded. I wanted to make a life here and forget what had happened. Forget Shadowfen and the North. Then I met Idris, and when he found out he made me roll up my sleeves. Not asked—ordered it.” I let out a breath of laughter and heard a smile curl Kye’s voice. “He talked me into letting them—all of it—be seen. Not to flaunt it, not to talk about it if I didn’t want to, but not to hide it. He’s the one who made me realize that Shadowfen made me who I am. It was terrible, but it’s my history, and if I didn’t own it, it’d eat me alive. Which is what it had been doing for a year before then.” They twined their fingers with mine. “Sometimes it still does,” they added under their breath.
“It’s over,” I said. “You won.”
“Did I?”
I twisted my head to meet their eyes. “You won the world, remember?”
Half a smile broke out on their lips and they pushed up, rolling so I was on my back and they hovered over me. Skin pressed to skin, forcing away the late-night chill. They pressed a kiss to my jaw, “I don’t need the world. This little piece of it will do.”
“Forever? You’d stay in this forest, cursed, living in a cave, forever?”
They looked at me, and I tried to read what was swirling in their eyes. Tried and failed, like so many other times. “Whatever piece of the world has a beautiful, brilliant witch to keep me company and enough ink for me to fill a hundred books.”
I closed my eyes, inhaling the smell of paper and ink and wind, and ran my hands down their arms. Hands stained with blood, even if I’d washed it off hours ago. “I can’t stay here forever, Kye. Even if we beat Sarafine, my mother…” I sighed. “Even if I’m free from them, and you’re free from the curse, I’ll always be a witch. I’ll always be a Morningspell. My mother made sure that would never leave me, whatever I did. It’s my tattoo, and it’s not one I can own.”
“Look at me.” The command was soft but firm, and I opened my eyes. “Will I always be a monster for what I’ve done? For choosing to kill children to save myself, over and over?”
“No. Not at all.”
“Then you don’t get to say you’ll always be a Morningspell. You said your scars aren’t on your skin. They’re deeper than that. And I won’t lie, if they’re anything like mine they’re always going to be there. They’re a part of who you are, but not all of it. The person I met here isn’t a Morningspell.”
My eyes stung, “My own family never loved me.”
I’d never said it like that, plain and truth, and every word felt like shards of glass on my tongue.
Kye kissed me, brief and gentle, and said, “Their loss, our gain.”
We slept like
that, curled together, no more need for words. A silent understanding of the fear and grief and exhaustion. A warrior with no direction and a puppet with no strings.
My eyes snapped open to darkness, silence. I wasn’t sure what woke me as I lay there blinking in the dark, sleep halfway to dragging me down again. Then I felt the cold air brushing my back, my shoulder.
No warmth from Kye sleeping beside me.
The taste of magic hadn’t faded.
I was on my feet in a heartbeat, lighting a candle with a flick of my fingers. The cave danced with shadows, like beasts charging me, but was quiet and cool. And Kye—
Kye stood with one hand braced on the wall where the cave opened into the tunnels, shivering. I crossed on silent, bare feet, ignoring the chill, and touched a hand as light as a feather to their bare back. “Kye?”
They jumped. The candlelight flashed on pallid skin—too pale. Their chest was heaving, their eyes wide and dazed. “Something’s wrong,” they breathed.
The magic—it came not from somewhere within the shelter but from them. Rolling off their skin, their blood, so strong it took over my senses and nipped at my own magic and both were snarling like possessive hounds. It was an effort to keep my hands steady as I cupped their face. Their skin burned.
“Kye. Look at me. What is wrong?”
Their eyes cleared, focused on me, and they drew a slow, shaking breath. “The curse, there’s something…Something changed.”
“Enaelle?” Some rule of it broken by her death, now strong enough to be felt? Or something worse, the full weight disintegrating at once?
“I don’t know.”
A scream pierced the tunnels, shooting through me. Kye doubled over with a gasp. Droplets of blood, black in the dim light, fell to the stone floor. I could only stand and watch, every muscle like stone.
Their curse didn’t do this. This wasn’t a simple shapeshifting curse—this was fury, pure and raw fury and vengeance. Something had woken it.
No curse was this brutal, this primal and violent, except…
“Kye, I need to speak to Idris.” I was sure the fear in my voice was clear, but they didn’t comment. I wasn’t sure if they could. “I’ll be right back, alright? I can fix this. Just stay here.”
The barest nod, and I darted away, feet pounding through the dark tunnels. As soon as I rounded the corner, it was pitch black—a black that suffocated and crushed me, so dark I couldn’t see my hands, couldn’t see the walls. I threw my arms out and my fingers collided with stone, and then I continued, mind racing with an internal map of the tunnels, with what I’d need to find out, what I’d need to do.
Right, just as I would have thrown myself into a jutting stone wall—I sent a silent thanks to my magic for being more aware than me.
One more corner.
There was no light to tell me where Idris was, but my magic reached out to feel every nook and cranny and found the opening. I wondered if he could see as well in the dark as his inner beast could, and I frantically waved for anything in the space that would give me light, sending my magic in waves to search.
The flickering and catching of flames passed right through me, the faint light burning my eyes; I ignored it and slid to my knees before Idris, collapsed against a wall. His head was bent, auburn hair falling over his face, but was tensed head to toe and trembling. “Idris. Idris!” He jerked his head up; face even paler than Kye’s, blood dripping from his nose. His eyes burned as he gasped for breath, jaw clenched. “What’s happening?” I demanded.
He dropped his head again. “The curse,” he ground out.
“I know that, but why?” He looked at me. “I know, Idris. I know it was a job. I know you were supposed to protect a village, and the witch cursed you for it. I know the others asked you to refuse it, but you ignored them. I know you must have taken the brunt of it. But I need to know what you did. What really happened.” Still, he stared, defiance arching across his features. My voice rose. “All of you are like this, and I can stop it, but I need to know. Swallow your damn pride and help me!”
Another moment of silence that stretched so long my frantic heart was about to give out. My fingernails bent backward; I was digging them into the stone. Then he whispered, “It was a spell. We were hired to ensure the spell worked. And I killed her for it.”
A tremor rocked through me, “You couldn’t have killed her. She cursed you.” Curses took time, effort—they couldn’t be cast with one’s dying breath, however powerful or angry the witch.
He shook his head, sucking in another sharp breath. “Not her. The girl.”
“The girl? What girl?” Silence. “Idris!”
I didn’t care about how much pain he was in. I didn’t care that he was fighting through it to get every word out. I needed to know, and I needed to know now. Before everything came unraveled at the hands of the furious magic converging on them.
“The daughter,” he said.
My blood went cold. “She had a daughter?” A vague nod. “You killed her daughter?”
“I’d never met a witch, Neyva, I—he told me she’d suffer. I didn’t know witches could love their children like that. Her scream when…” He fell silent, and I wasn’t sure if it was from the curse or the topic. I sat on my heels.
He’d killed a witch’s daughter. They all had—or helped, at least. And to put this much anger into a curse in revenge…
That witch wasn’t unfeeling. This wasn’t the reaction of someone who had lost a tool, however valuable.
To reciprocate a wound so deep and raw to those who had inflicted it—it was a blood curse. A blood curse that had decided to come and collect.
Dark, dark blood magic, powerful and vicious. Not a shapeshifting curse at all, only disguised as one.
The earth might have fallen out from beneath me. I couldn’t tell.
“Neyva,” Idris gasped, snapping me from my shock. “You said you could stop it.”
I couldn’t. I didn’t think I could. The thought made every inch of me tremble, made my throat close. I’d finally found people I wanted to stay with—finally realized how much I wanted to help them, for once in my life, and it was the one time I couldn’t.
His blue eyes were drilling into me, fierce and sure despite the agony lacing them. “You can stop it.”
I shook my head. “Idris, I—I don’t know—”
“You can stop it,” he repeated. “I’ve seen you. You can.”
I closed my eyes, but behind my lids the others assaulted me. Alone out there in the darkness, being eaten away. All of them. Wesley, that darkness descending to devour him. Tamsin, so young and worried and lost. Aurynn, no longer proud but broken and bleeding. Rayick, all trace of laughter, his broad smile, gone.
Kye, waiting for me to return, because I’d promised I would, and no matter what I said they knew the truth and believed in it.
I swallowed every fear and doubt, managed a single nod, stood, and faced the waiting darkness.
There were six of them, spread out, and I didn’t know how much time they had. I was too tired, worn thin by the last days. The edges of my dream clung to me, the shadows dancing in my reflection’s eyes. My magic felt too heavy to stir awake. I prodded at it anyway, pushing it out. It went reluctantly, fighting, and I closed my eyes and controlled my breath. Please, work with me tonight. Please.
It growled but relented, snaking through the tunnels, searching for the magic that settled in the back of my throat. One by one, latching onto each piece of it.
Two. Three.
I kept walking, blind but refusing to slow, refusing to think about where I was going. Let my magic guide me and find the perfect spot, the place where it could reach all of them.
Four. Five.
I stopped. A slow breath in, and out.
Six.
My hold was shaky. My magic trembled as it clung to each, digging its claws into the power within them and the oily curse wrapped around it. Like when I'd touched Tamsin's in my horribly failed effort to
break it. Times six.
It wasn't going to go well. A little twist in my gut told me that loud and clear. I didn't care. I had to try.
My breath strained against my lungs as I made the hold firmer, pushing against the snarly curse. Its power stung me, and I was sure there was blood trickling through my fingers. My magic listened to what I felt. It reacted when I was most desperate, most furious, most hurt. It lashed out and destroyed. Killed. I didn't know if it would direct itself at exactly what I wanted it to. I didn't know if it would work at all. I wasn't furious. I wasn't hurt.
I was scared.
But I was desperate, too, and coiling among it was that thread of pure, aching loyalty that shouldn't have been there. The feeling I'd wanted to stamp down and wreck, but that stayed firm and wouldn't leave. They were my family, the family I'd chosen and would defend to the death. No matter how strange the choice seemed. I loved them, all of them, and that had to be enough to coax my magic into creating enough power to save them.
It had to be. There wasn't another option.
My fingernails bit into my palms. My chest felt like rocks were crushing it. Go, I ordered the magic. It struggled against the command, and I shoved everything I had at it. The strength of the earth around me and the wind far in the distance and the sleeping life of the entire forest—all the whispered songs I could hear. Now.
Another breathless second of nothing, and then it snapped itself together. And struck.
My knees crumpled. I bit on my tongue to keep a scream from escaping, hands hitting the dirt floor. The pieces of them I was straining to touch flung into chaos, spinning around me. The curse writhed and bucked and screeched.
My magic shivered. I pushed it further. More.
The curse was darker than the black pressing on my closed eyelids. It rose like a tide, yawning wide and deep and lined with sharp edges. I braced myself, fingers curling into the ground and fingernails bending, arms shaking.
One more push. I sucked in a thin breath and thought of Kye's arms around me. Rayick's smile. Tamsin's wide eyes. Wesley’s mischievous grins and Enaelle’s musical voice. Aurynn’s fiery strength. The guilt in Idris's voice. Good. All of them were good, better than any witch. I loved them. Whatever I'd called love before, it wasn't like this.
The Ruin of Snow Page 26
