I can’t breathe. Can barely move. I’m going to die if I don’t figure out a way to get the upper hand. Fast.
His knife arm goes up, and his eyes lock on mine, but before I can react, an arrow sinks into the narrow space between his eyes with a soft thud. He shudders, his body sags, and I scoot to the side as he crashes to the ground.
Someone whistles softly from a tree behind me, a near-perfect imitation of a blackbird, but I can’t look. I can’t bear to move. I can hardly bear to breathe. Soft footsteps hit the forest floor and come toward me. In seconds, a girl about Rachel’s age with olive skin and a long dark braid kneels beside me, a black bow in her hands.
“Did you get him?” Rachel asks from somewhere to my left, and now I understand why she was being unnecessarily loud.
It was a trap. A trap that worked. I want to give her kudos for planning ahead, but I can’t seem to get enough air to speak.
“Two of them?” the man asks.
“This one jumped out of the tree and tried to kill the tracker. I decided not to shoot him.”
I’m grateful. I hope she knows that. Pain sears my chest again, and I close my eyes, grit my teeth, and try to will it away.
“Who is he?” the man asks.
Another set of soft footsteps approaches, and someone drops to the ground next to me. “Logan?”
I open my eyes. Rachel crouches beside me, her glorious red hair lit with fire from the sun, her blood-stained hands hovering above me as if afraid to touch me, and her blue eyes so wounded, I want to hold her until some of her pain recedes. I lift my hand and press it against her cheek. She trembles.
“This is Logan?” The girl with the bow sounds surprised. “Rachel said you were locked in a dungeon.”
My voice wheezes as I say, “I escaped.”
“How?”
“Blew up a wall.” My eyes are still locked on Rachel’s.
“Nice.” The girl grins at me. “I’d like to learn that trick.”
“Logan.” Rachel lays a hand on my shoulder as if testing to see if I’m really there.
“I told you I’d find you.”
Her fingers clench around my shoulder, and she slowly curls toward me until she’s laying facedown against my chest. Her weight hurts, but I don’t complain. Instead, I cradle her to me and feel the missing pieces inside of me slide firmly back into place.
CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE
RACHEL
I lie against Logan’s chest listening to him breathe and shake like I’ve been caught out in a snowstorm in nothing but a tunic. He’s here. Alive. Warm and steady beneath me. I haven’t lost everything.
And yet, with Melkin’s blood still on my hands, I’m not convinced. The silence inside consumes me. I want to burrow into him and feel safe. Feel the grief, the anger, and most importantly the hope that I know hovers somewhere just out of reach within me. Digging my fingers into Logan’s shoulder, I desperately try to feel real again.
Beside me the body of the tracker starts beeping, a high-pitched insistent tone that has Logan pushing me to get up.
“Get back!”
He can hardly obey his own instructions. Digging one hand into the ground, he groans as he tries to lift himself off the ground. Transferring Melkin’s walking stick to my other hand, I reach down to help. Quinn joins me and together we scoop our hands under his arms and drag Logan away from the body.
The beeping speeds up.
“What’s going on?” I ask Logan.
“Bomb,” he wheezes, his face white with strain as we drag him into the trees. “Anatomical trigger looped on a closed circuit.”
“Speak English,” Willow says as she falls in step beside me and bends to help carry Logan.
“When his heart stopped, the device began its countdown.”
“Why would anyone—”
The blast throws us to the ground and rains bits of dirt, twigs, and a fine mist I imagine was once the Rowansmark tracker all around us. I land partially on Logan’s chest, and scramble off as he moans in pain.
“What’s wrong with you?”
“Broken rib.”
“We need to climb. Now.” Willow is already moving, grasping the nearest branch and swinging into the tree, her bow strung behind her back. “If that explosion didn’t call the Cursed One, it called every highwayman within one hundred fifty yards.”
“Worse.” Logan sounds like he can barely get enough air to speak. “Battalion. Rowansmark. Might have heard.”
Quinn jumps up and circles to Logan’s other side. “Can you get into a tree if we help?”
He nods, and we each take an arm and help him sit up. He sways, and it’s clear that pride is all that keeps him from crying out at the pain. He’s never going to be able to climb a tree. I see the moment he realizes it and decides to sacrifice himself for the rest of us.
“I’ll stall them. You go,” Logan says.
Quinn frowns and looks at me.
“Ignore him. He doesn’t get to play the martyr today.”
“Isn’t that his choice?” Quinn asks.
“Not while I’m still breathing.”
Logan jerks his arm away from Quinn. “Go.”
“Absolutely not,” I say.
“Rachel—”
“I love how you still think if you tell me to do something, I’ll just check my brain at the door and do it.” I try to infuse my voice with anger, but all I feel is fear. I can’t bear to lose him.
“Hey! Idiots who want to argue while disaster is heading our way! Maybe you should shut up and get up a tree,” Willow pokes her head out of a bower of leaves and glares at us.
“Listen.” Quinn holds up his hand for quiet. We fall silent and realize there’s no rumbling. No distant roar coming closer. The Cursed One must be terrorizing people on the other side of the continent or sleeping in its lair, because it isn’t coming.
“Fine. The Cursed One isn’t coming. But the battalion still could be, and I’m not going to watch you die just so these two can figure out who’s in charge.” Willow beckons to Quinn, but he looks at Logan again, and I can tell he doesn’t want to leave him behind.
“Go. I’m fine. I’ll stall them. Or hide.” Logan looks around, and I resist the urge to punch him only because he’s already injured.
“You’re coming with us.”
“No, I’m not.”
“Then I’m staying too.”
“I didn’t travel all this way just to watch you die. Please, Rachel.”
He’s all I have left, and he sits there like today is the day he’s going to die, and I should just be fine with it.
“Stop it!” I slam Melkin’s walking stick into the ground. It sinks below the surface about six inches, and the earth beneath us trembles violently.
We freeze, and everyone stares at the ground and then at me.
“What did you just do?” Quinn asks, dread in his voice for the first time since I met him.
I’m shaking my head. “I don’t know. I don’t—I was mad. I hit the ground with the stick, and it just went right into it and then there was—”
“A sonic pulse,” Logan says. “The Cursed One will have heard that.”
“Oh, now you’ve done it.” Willow starts climbing higher. “Get in the tree, Quinn!”
“I didn’t mean to. I didn’t know.” I pull the stick from the ground as a faint thunder rumbles beneath our feet. “It’s Melkin’s stick …”
Melkin, who shoved the stick into the ground while I was busy yelling at him, and then saved me from the Cursed One moments later. Why? Why would he call the beast and put us both in danger like that? I remembered him saying his stick was a gift. Not from Baalboden. Was it possible he hadn’t known what it could do?
I don’t have the answers, and I don’t have time to figure them out. The rumble is growing into a distant roar. We have less than a minute to get to safety.
“Get him up.” I grab one of Logan’s arms while Quinn grabs the other. Ignoring Logan’s gasp of pain, we heav
e him to his feet.
He sways, and Quinn wraps an arm around him to steady him, but when we start moving toward the nearest tree, we discover Logan’s slow progress is the least of our worries.
The Rowansmark battalion surrounds us, a tight circle of soldiers standing three deep and cutting off any escape from the Cursed One.
CHAPTER SIXTY
LOGAN
We’re surrounded by Rowansmark’s soldiers, their swords drawn as they establish a perimeter forty yards away from us, caging us in. We’ll be destroyed, while they can stay relatively safe if they keep quiet after the Cursed One bursts through the ground in front of us.
We’re going to die.
Willow drops out of the tree above us, swings her bow into position, and stands next to her brother like she doesn’t want him to die without her.
I don’t want to die without Rachel, either. I’m an idiot for not seeing it before. I didn’t dream of her, worry for her, and push myself across the Wasteland for her to fulfill my responsibility to Jared. It took being thrown into a dungeon to realize I need her.
It takes facing imminent death to realize I love her.
I love her.
A fierce light consumes me from the inside out. It blazes through my body until I think there’s no way I can contain it. I don’t want to contain it. I want it to overtake me completely. It’s illogical. Wonderful. Almost painful.
And I’m not going to die without telling her.
She moves against my side, and I turn to her, expecting her to fall into my arms and cling to me while fire consumes us. Instead, she shoves Melkin’s walking stick into my fist and says, “Hold this.”
She doesn’t wait to see if I’ve complied. She’s tugging a roll of black cloth from her cloak pocket, her expression fierce.
“Rachel, I—”
“You can save us,” she says, and pulls a dark gray metallic flute with three finger pads down its center from the middle of the cloth. “Here.”
She trades me the walking stick for the flute. Symbols decorate the top of each finger pad, but I don’t know what they mean. The ground beneath us trembles violently, and the Rowansmark men step back, some of them furtively glancing up at the safety of the trees above them.
“I don’t know—”
“It’s a device to control the Cursed One through sound waves. Push the button to send it away.”
“I don’t know which button that is!”
The ground begins to crack, a jagged seam heading straight for us.
“Better figure it out, tech head, or we’re dead.” Willow hooks her arm through her brother’s and drags them both backward, stopping about fifteen yards from the line of swords behind us.
“I can’t read these symbols.” Panic is beginning to claw at me.
“Experiment, then,” Rachel says. “Deduce. Make connections. Do what you do best.” She grabs my face and looks at me with absolute trust. “I have faith in you.”
The ground twenty yards in front of us explodes and spews the glistening black length of the Cursed One into the air. Its scales glitter beneath the sunlight, and its film-covered eyes swing in our direction as it sniffs the air, huffing puffs of smoke and rumbling in fury.
We’re about to die. I don’t know how to work this thing she’s handed me. I can’t understand the symbols on the finger pads. All the faith in the world won’t change that. Still, I’m going to try. But not before I say what I need to say to her.
“I love you, Rachel.”
Her eyes widen, but before she can say anything, I turn toward the beast and push a button with shaking fingers.
CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE
LOGAN
The beast roars and shakes its body, its scales rattling together like a thousand coins falling on a cobblestone street. Then it gathers itself, swings its muzzle toward us, and bellows. A brilliant crimson-orange fireball explodes out of its mouth and strafes the air above us.
We dive for the ground, and my ribcage screams at me as searing heat rolls over the top of us and sends the men behind us running.
Wrong button.
Panic is a relentless force inside me, erasing every logical thought from my mind. I take a deep breath and fumble with the device I hold.
The creature coils its body and digs its claws into the ground as it drags itself toward us, its milky yellow eyes glaring at nothing while it homes in on its prey. Desperately, I stab the second button.
Nothing happens.
“It’s not working. It’s not working!”
“It has to.” Rachel reaches over and slams her fist on the top two buttons at the same time. The beast rears back, swings its head to the left, and strafes the line of Rowansmark soldiers with fire.
The flames incinerate most of them on the spot, but a few fall to the ground wailing in agony. The surrounding trees explode into flame, a deafening thunder of dry wood hissing and cracking.
Hope battles with the panic inside me, and I clench the device tight and hit the bottom two buttons simultaneously. The creature swings to the right and sends a fireball hurtling into the ranks of men standing there.
Chaos reigns. Men are screaming, running, swinging into trees and leaping for safety. There is no perimeter of swords around us anymore. What’s left of the battalion is scattered, racing for safety while their fallen comrades disintegrate into ash and the lines of trees on either side of us burn fiercely. The Cursed One roars and coils itself to strike again.
“Send it back,” Rachel says, as if I know what I’m doing.
I hit the top and bottom buttons at the same time and the beast slithers away from us, spitting fire. There aren’t any combinations of buttons left except to push all three, and I’m afraid that will send it straight toward us. It’s the only direction left for him to go.
I don’t have much time left before the beast realizes we’re the last remaining prey in the area. My hands still shake as fear pounds through me, but I grasp the device with white knuckles.
Pressing the first button alone seemed to antagonize the creature. Logic would deduce that’s the sound used to call it to the surface in the first place. The second button had no discernible effect unless used in conjunction with one of the other buttons.
That left the third as the most reasonable choice for driving the Cursed One back to his lair at the center of the Earth. I whisper a prayer and press it.
The beast shudders and lashes the forest with his enormous spiked tail, sending a hail of branches and corpses flying, then slides back toward the gaping hole in the ground. I hold my breath as it comes closer, my finger white with the strain of pressing against the third button. The beast never hesitates. It simply slithers back into the tunnel it created and slides once more toward the center of the earth. I keep my death grip on the device until I can no longer feel the vibrations of its movement beneath me.
All around us, sparks hiss and spit as fire chews through the ancient oaks, and the few surviving Rowansmark soldiers moan in pain on the forest floor. They don’t have long before either the flames or the smoke put them out of their misery. The fire is spreading east to west, though that could change at the mercy of the wind. We have to put distance between ourselves and this spot. Not just because of the fire, but because as soon as they realize the Cursed One is gone, the last remnant of Rowansmark’s battalion will return to finish their assignment.
“Help me up.”
Rachel, Quinn, and Willow reach for me. My head swims from the pain in my side, and the scorched skin beneath the bandage on my neck throbs as the heat of the fire scrapes against it. I can’t possibly put enough distance between myself and this place in this condition. I hand the device back to Rachel and reach for the packet of pain medicine. There isn’t much left, and I don’t know what else I’ll have to face between here and Baalboden, but if I don’t obliterate enough of the pain now, I’ll never get the chance to find out. I tip the packet against my lips and let the rest of the powder slide onto my tongue. A moment la
ter, Rachel has the device packed away in her cloak, and the worst of the pain is ebbing. I cast one more glance at the fire now burning between us and the surviving soldiers, then we disappear into the Wasteland, leaving the burning wreckage of Rowansmark’s battalion in our wake.
CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO
RACHEL
We travel as fast as Logan’s injury will allow us, and just before sunset set up camp in a small, sturdy log cabin we find hidden in a copse of overgrown fir trees. A steady rain falls from steel-gray clouds and slides against my skin with cool, soft fingers. The rain is an unexpected boon that will both douse the flames we left behind and obliterate our tracks.
Quinn and Willow are coming to Baalboden with us. Quinn because he feels honor-bound to pay his debt to my father by helping Logan with the arduous journey. Willow because she refuses to leave her brother’s side, and because the prospect of seeing us try to bring down our leader fascinates her on a level I might find disturbing if I had the energy to care.
I don’t. I just want to get moving so we can lay a trap for the Commander. We have the device. We understand how to use it. He doesn’t stand a chance.
The cabin provides a welcome refuge from the rain, and Logan falls asleep almost as soon as we settle inside. I eat a cold dinner, wrap my cloak around me, and sit beside him. We haven’t had a chance to talk privately since fleeing the fire, but his words keep blazing to life inside me with glorious persistence.
I love you, Rachel.
Once, I would’ve taken those words as a romantic, sugar-coated fairy tale and built a castle of dreams on them. Now, they’re a hard-won promise forged in fire and loss by a man who means every word he says. I want to brand them into my skin as proof that I still have something left to fight for.
I wish I had the courage to give those words back to him, but the ugly brokenness inside me holds me back. I’m not the same girl Logan fell in love with. I’m not the same girl he fought to reach. I’m a hollow version of myself, and I have no right to grasp for happiness when I’ve caused so much misery. The thought slices into me, but the silence greedily swallows the pain before I can truly feel it.
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