by Page Morgan
A snaking line of lantern light filled the border road by the time Tobin and I reached the first trees of the forest. Screams and shouts pierced the air as Rooks Hollow dropped back into the nightmare everyone had believed was over. I could only imagine the worry gripping my father right then as he scrambled to find me. I hadn’t even said goodbye. My heart shriveled as I crouched beside Tobin in the scrubby brush of the forest, our heavy panting turning into silver clouds in front of us.
“Shouldn’t we be running?” I whispered.
“I want to be sure,” Tobin replied.
“Sure of what?” I couldn’t see his face at all, draped in forest shadow. All I could see were the whites of his eyes. Alert. Unblinking.
“That no one is following us.”
The meadow was empty except for a few cows, pacing and moaning from all the commotion along the road.
“Good, let’s go,” he whispered, and his fingers wove through mine. His palm was warm but dry. He was nowhere near as nervous as I was. Tobin seemed to know exactly what he was doing, whereas I felt like I was falling off a cliff.
We were just a few paces into the forest, headed toward the ford in the Melinka, when I heard Bram’s voice echo across the meadow. I wrenched my hand from Tobin’s and turned. The back door to Volk’s was still wide open. I hadn’t shut it, or put out the lights in the kitchen. Bram’s figure was in view now, surrounded by glinting metal forms. Warriors. He’d really done it. He’d led them straight to my father’s tavern.
“Ever, let’s go.” Tobin took my arm, but I dug my heels in.
“Here! He was right here!” Bram’s shout carried across the meadow. Two armored warriors came up beside him. I saw a flash of a spear against the backlighting of the kitchen. I hitched my breath as Tobin tugged at me.
“No, don’t watch—”
The spear plunged through the air and disappeared from sight inside Bram’s dark outline. I slapped my hand over my mouth to block the scream rising up my throat. Next to my ear, Tobin hissed a slew of curses. A warrior extracted the spear from Bram’s chest, and Bram’s figure crumpled.
“No,” I whispered. They’d killed him. My god, they’d killed Bram.
Tobin pulled me up and heaved me backward. My feet stumbled and slipped, but he didn’t let go. When we reached the ford in the Melinka, he refused to release my arm to cross the thin neck of land. We went over it together, the wet mud sliding out from under my feet. Bruises from his tensed fingers were undoubtedly forming, but if he released me, I might have very well sunk to the forest floor in a spasm of shivers.
What if they turned their spears on my father next?
I let Tobin lead me through the forest without rest, our pace never slowing. Tree branches scraped my face, my heart rapping madly in my chest, until finally he crashed to a halt. Blood rushed through my ears. The forest was dark and loud and spinning. But Tobin’s arms were around me, holding me up.
“Ever, breathe.” His held lips against my ear. “Breathe. Just breathe.”
He said that word, again and again, and when he said it, I did it. The forest was silent. The chaos, gone. And we were alone, standing still, breathing together.
“I don’t hear anyone behind us,” he said. “I don’t think they’ve come into the forest, but we should keep walking. Just in case.”
I didn’t know how Tobin knew in which direction we were headed, but we continued on, my hand secure in his. My legs and feet went numb about an hour into the forest, and my stomach cramped. I tried like mad to hide it from Tobin for what felt like another hour, or more. He’d taken me from the danger, and in doing so he’d walked away from his own purpose. He couldn’t kill Frederic like this.
Darkness surrounded us, the tops of the trees blocking starlight and moonlight. Tobin, at long last, came to a halt. Without words, I sank to the forest floor, the moss soft and wet and squishy. Tobin rustled around in one of the bags, and then I felt the weight of a woolen blanket on my shoulders. I closed my eyes, the underside of my lids burning.
“They killed Bram,” I said. The first words I’d spoken in hours. Tobin took a long moment before responding.
“Sleep, Ever.” He meant to say there was nothing I could do about any of it. Not now. There was nothing I could control, not even my own mind or body, it seemed. I couldn’t sleep. I listened to the night sounds of the forest, to Tobin’s smooth breathing, to the sway of the branches above our heads. I burrowed deep under Hilda’s blanket, wishing I could continue farther, into the earth, and never come back up.
Dawn slit through the canopy of branches to light our way. A paltry breakfast of water and walnuts had lessened the cramping of my stomach, but had made me feel ill all the same. My feet ached, and the front of my shins were hot and painful from running the night before.
“Where are we going?” I asked. There was no need for Tobin to be holding my hand now that the forest was waking, so he walked ahead a few paces. The bag of provisions was slung across his back, and I carried the bag of blankets. I thought of Hilda and if my father would remember to feed her this morning…if he was even alive to do so. I could ask the mirror shard, but then I’d know the answer, and if he was dead… My throat ached.
“There’s a Morvansk village about an hour across the border from Havenfeld,” Tobin answered as the root of a pine tree caught my toe. I steadied myself, but still felt startled.
I didn’t like that we’d be so close to Frederic’s movements. Surely, he would have led his warriors back to Havenfeld when he hadn’t found Tobin, as Bram had promised. I breathed unevenly, the memory of the spear slicing into Bram’s faraway figure playing again in my mind. For the first time, I considered Frederic’s return to Rooks Hollow. He’d turned some, or all, of his army around on the word of an unknown Klaven boy. He’d abandoned his search for me in order to find Tobin instead. With a wave of shock that stopped me dead in my tracks, I realized that the young man leading me through the forest was just as important to Frederic as I was.
It took a few moments for Tobin to glance back and notice me standing still. He started to speak, perhaps to urge me on, but then sealed his lips. He came to a stop and faced me fully.
“Who are you to him?” I asked. Frederic had killed Tobin’s family. The horror of that hit me with new strength every time I thought of it. To have lashed out at Tobin so personally, so hideously, could only be an act of revenge. Or was it punishment?
Tobin dropped his eyes to the pitchy forest floor. This was his end of the confession.
“I betrayed my duty to him.”
If he’d betrayed his emperor, did that mean he’d also betrayed the princess? I pictured Princess Mara, her pleading gaze turned to the night sky from where she’d stood on a balcony entrance. The outline of her nightdress, her braided hair, and the nervous way she’d been fidgeting with a bracelet.
The pearls.
“You,” I whispered. “You have it.”
Tobin frowned. “I have what?”
I pointed to his coat pocket. “Princess Mara’s pearl bracelet. You have it!”
His hand went to his pocket reflexively. I’d been so stupid, so naïve. I already knew Tobin had been on Princess Mara’s mind that night. Now, he’d admitted to betraying his emperor. I hadn’t recognized the princess’s bracelet when I’d washed and dried his coat, but…it had to be a trinket to remind him of her.
My stomach twisted with fire. “You were in love with her.”
The surface of Tobin’s face was like a mirror when I commanded it. It shivered and twisted into a grimace. “Love? No. The princess was…an acquaintance.”
“Then why do you have her pearls?”
Regret transformed his face next. “If I reached my family before Frederic did, I was going to need money. I planned to sell them…” He shook his head. “How do you know any of this?”
He was being honest. At least I thought he was. But what did I really know about him?
“I saw her. I saw Princess Mara.” Imme
diately, I had his full attention.
“You did? When?”
“Before she died. Before any of this happened,” I answered. “When the news came that Prince Orin would be marrying, there were rumors going around that she was…well, not an attractive woman.”
He frowned. “So you asked the mirror to show her, so you could see for yourself.”
“I know it was petty,” I said, shrugging off the instinct to apologize for it. “But when I saw her, I heard her say something. She said she hoped someone wasn’t lying to her. That he was telling her the truth.”
Tobin’s frown only deepened.
“After her murder, I asked the mirror to show me her killer,” I went on.
Tobin stood rigid.
“But the mirror showed me nothing. Only gray mist. So instead, I asked the mirror to show me the person Princess Mara had been thinking of. The one she’d hoped hadn’t been lying to her. The mirror showed you, and I—I watched you in the forest. I watched you being attacked by that hound.” I lowered my eyes. “It’s how I found you in the Melinka.”
There. It was all out. He’d had a second confession from me, and he’d yet to give even a first.
“Did Frederic kill your family because Princess Mara was in love with you? Because you threatened his alliance with Klaven?” I asked, hoping for an answer this time.
Tobin took off the hunting bag and set it on the pinecones and needles at his feet.
“The princess never loved me. And I’ve already told you, there was never going to be an alliance. Frederic wanted his daughter killed just to be able to invade. He designed everything, and now I know it was to come here and search for you.”
I drew back in shock. He’d wanted his daughter to die? “Were you one of Frederic’s advisors?”
Tobin shook his head, breathing out with an irritated snort. “No.”
“Then how could you possibly know he wanted his daughter dead?”
He turned in a tight circle before grasping the thin trunk of a sapling. His fingers flexed so tightly, I worried he might snap the trunk in half. Tobin wouldn’t look at me.
He exhaled. “Because he ordered me to kill her.”
The floor of the forest seemed to shift, knocking me off balance. Tobin let go of the sapling and came toward me. I stumbled backward.
“You asked what I was to Frederic, and now I’m telling you. I wasn’t a warrior. I wasn’t an advisor. I did the emperor’s bidding.” He lowered his voice. “I was his assassin.”
22
Tobin
My confession evaporated into the chilled air of the forest.
“You…you’re an assassin.” Ever’s heels knocked into a raised root as she staggered backward. “You kill people?”
I was about to correct her. Say that I had been an assassin. But it didn’t matter. Ever didn’t care how I’d become a killer. I could spout the whole story about being caught poaching in the emperor’s forest and how I’d been faced with the choice of my death, or a lifetime of servitude. I could try to pad the truth with excuses of why and how. But they would be pointless. I was a killer.
The bridge of her nose crinkled into delicate ridges as she squinted at me. “Did you kill Princess Mara?”
“No.” It came out a growl. “I killed her murderer.”
Her brows pinched together. “The gray mist. The mirror showed me gray mist…because he was dead?”
It wasn’t a question for me. I could tell she was busy sorting out an answer for herself.
“I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t kill her,” I said.
She focused her attention back on me, eyes still glazed. “Why?”
“Because I don’t kill women.”
I had my rules. The emperor had known it. Seen it as a weakness. And it had gotten my family murdered. Now, I should only have been living and breathing to avenge them, and yet here I stood in the border forest between Ever’s empire and my own, incorporating her into my plans.
I picked up the leather bag and tossed it around my shoulder. “We need to keep moving.”
I started westward again. There was no sound of snapping sticks or the brush of boots behind me. When I checked, Ever hadn’t moved at all. I sighed.
“Are you afraid of me now?”
I wanted her to be. I wanted her so scared that she wouldn’t dare ask any more questions. Scared enough to run off into the forest and let me continue on alone.
Ever’s arms crossed in front of her, guarding her bound chest. “I don’t want to be.”
“But you are.” I just wanted her to admit it.
Still holding herself tightly, Ever glanced over her shoulder. She stayed this way, searching the forest behind us. I wondered if she was thinking of her father, or of Bram.
“You’re right.” She faced me again. Her expression was cool. Empty. “We need to keep moving.”
She picked up the woven burlap bag and shouldered it. She wasn’t going to run. A twinge of relief feuded with disappointment, but I headed west before she could read any of that on my face.
We walked in utter silence, and when we stopped to rest we did so without words. The longer we went without speaking, the more difficult it seemed to be to break the silence. Even if I could have managed to say something, anger and frustration would have colored it. But it wasn’t Ever I was angry with. It was me I couldn’t stand. I hated the way the word assassin had sounded. How could I have ever been proud of that title?
By dusk, the wood had thinned out. Patches of forest with nothing but stumps of trees left from logging indicated a village was nearby. But I only had a few Klaven storgs in my pockets, and if we were on the Morvansk side, as I believed we were, the coins would do us no good. I stopped in the center of a quad of tree stumps.
“We’ll rest here for the night,” I said.
Ever dumped the bag she’d been carrying and sat on the jagged sawn plane of a stump. During the warm afternoon, she’d stuffed her cap, scarf, and coat away with the blankets, and the sleeves of her shirt were now rolled to her angular elbows. She tucked her legs up to her chest and rested her forehead to her knees. Within a few moments, her rhythmic breathing joined the quiet hum of the forest. I was working to light a fire beneath a small, dry mound of scavenged sticks, and when a spark shot off the firesteel and ignited the kindling, she snapped her head up.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I shouldn’t have fallen asleep.”
I concentrated on building the fire so I didn’t have to look at her.
“If you’re hungry,” I said, tossing the bag of food to the base of her tree stump.
Ever rummaged around inside. Instead of food, she took out the large shard of mirror and cradled it in her hands. They trembled. The light was bleak in the sky, but her face also seemed oddly pale. She caught me watching her, and set the mirror face down in her lap.
I added another branch to the fire before getting to my feet. “Do you want to be alone while you do that?”
She didn’t need to explain. I knew she wanted to see what was happening with her father.
Ever took up the mirror again and absently polished the surface of it with the closed fist of her hand. “No. I don’t mind if you stay. As long as you don’t…mind.”
I shook my head and gestured to the mirror. I was actually eager to see her magic again, to know more about how it worked, how she controlled it.
“Mirror,” she began, followed by slight hesitation. “Show me my father.”
Though I couldn’t see the swirling rings of color, the light danced off Ever’s pale skin. She closed her eyes, exhaled, and then smiled.
“He’s alive,” she said. “And it looks as if Volk’s is busy.”
Worry tainted her relief, wiping away her smile.
“Ben can handle the tavern alone,” I said. Ever shook her head, still focused on the mirror’s image.
“It’s not that. It’s the reason why the tavern is so busy tonight.”
Of course. Bram. And the other men,
all murdered.
“Clear,” she commanded. The light reflecting off her face vanished. She set the fragment on the stump. The crackle of dry kindling rose up between us.
“Trina Petrev’s brother, now Bram. And four other innocent men,” she said. Her open hand hovered over the mirror. With a sudden flick of her wrist, she swiped the mirror aside. It landed on the ground with a padded clink. “All of them are dead because of me.”
I poked at the flames with a long, bent stick. I wanted to tell her I understood her feelings of guilt, but didn’t. She wouldn’t care about me, or what I’d lost, especially now that she knew I was just as horrible as Frederic.
“They aren’t dead because of you. It’s Frederic who’s done this.”
Ever slid off the tree stump and closer to the fire, the final light of day gone from the forest. The melancholy cry of an owl shuddered through the treetops, and the flutter of fast, dark wings beat against the twilight sky. The bats had woken for the night hunt.
Ever returned the mirror to the leather bag. She took out an apple and broke the skin with her teeth. Her lips shimmered from the juice. I looked away, a pang low in my stomach.
“If you didn’t kill the princess, who did?” she asked, mouth full. “Or is she even really dead?”
I took out the blankets from the burlap bag and snapped one open, the draft fanning the flames of the fire.
“She’s dead.” I circled the fire and handed her the blanket. “I watched her die.”
Ever covered her lap with the woven wool, her chewing having slowed.
“I faltered in the last few moments,” I said, my voice low as I sat on a stump across the fire from her. “I told Mara what was happening. What her father had ordered me to do.”
Being able to speak of these things gave me a rush of courage. I wanted to tell Ever everything. What was the risk? She couldn’t possibly think less of me now.
“But Frederic had an idea I wouldn’t be able to kill a woman, and there were two other assassins waiting to take over. One put a blade through Mara’s throat. The other ran back for Yort to report my failure.” I threw the stick I’d been prodding the fire with on top of the burning mound. “My mother, brother, and sister were dead by the time I made it home. My house, burnt to the ground.”
