by Mary Weber
Because it’s the recognition that he craves being near me.
My internal lid begins sliding so quickly, I’m grasping for something, anything—anger, annoyance, frustration—everything I make a habit of feeling toward him—to spout out and use to cover the chasm so he won’t know the depth of my brokenness.
But my heart expands inside its cage anyway.
His breathing shallows.
I swallow.
“Nym, I need to speak to you.” Adora’s voice makes me jump.
Abruptly, Eogan drops my hand. I watch his openness collapse into a wall and a frown slip over his face. I search for one of Colin’s fissures to crawl into.
I clear my expression as Adora’s peacock fronds waggle into view behind my trainer’s gray-suited shoulder. She slides a hand beneath one of Eogan’s arms and across his chest. His pupils tighten.
“Eogan, how rare to see you at one of my galas.” Her gaze consumes him like a slab of venison. “And so dressed the part.”
His jaw shifts. “Thank you, m’lady.”
“Perhaps we could get you to come more often.”
“Your Ladyship honors me with the invitation.” He slides from the woman’s hungry grasp. He tips his head to her and snaps his eyes my direction, but they’re dim. Cold. “If you ladies will excuse me, I’ll check on Colin.”
Then he’s gone. And I’m left standing, wondering who keeps emptying this blasted room of air.
My owner stares after him until he’s drifted into the crowd, then turns to raise a perfect, purple eyebrow at me. “I assume Breck chose your dress?”
“I thought you had.”
“Me? Absolutely not. I’ve given her a selection to go from, but in the future I expect you to speak up regarding colors. That thing practically trumpets what you are.”
“Yes, m’lady.”
She slides a hand along my low collar and eases her tone. “Poor thing. You all but scream ‘woman with loose morals.’ No wonder the men have been chatting you up.”
If she’d slapped me across the face, it would’ve stung less. The shock reverberates all the way down to my stomach. Is that why Eogan wanted to be near me? And Colin? And the man from Poorland Arch . . . ?
She scans the dining room. Sniffs. “Not that any of the men here would be seriously interested, but it’s best not to give the impression you’re desperate. Or available. In the future, you’ll remember your place when allowing a blind servant to dress you.”
I imagine the floor swallowing both of us.
“As far as Eogan goes . . .” Her purple-lined eyes narrow on mine. “I’m wondering if I should be concerned at your growing level of attachment to him. You’ve hardly been here nine days and yet already seem too familiar with him. Therefore, outside of training hours, you’re not to go near him. During training, you’ll limit yourself to as little contact as necessary and only so far as it furthers your usefulness. I will not have a slave humiliating herself by imagining she can seduce my trainer. Am I clear?”
Breck’s warning on my second day here flits through my mind. The one about the death of the kitchen maid who’d had a thing for Eogan. I nod even as my gaze grows stiff, unyielding. I can feel the siren in me rising.
She drops her voice and leans in, that insane smile emerging. “Good. Now let me be even clearer. If you so much as bat an eyelash at that man, I will carve your face up, one pretty cheekbone at a time, and then cut your tongue out. You don’t need either of those to win a war. But first? I’ll carve out Colin’s tongue as well.”
And I have no doubt whatsoever that she means it.
CHAPTER 16
A lightning strike, and the terrible heat is burning my insides. I scramble through the fire and snow, whimpering, panting, flailing like a dancer following a bloody trail of terror.
I can’t remember why I’m here. I can’t remember anything but the unquenchable fear as Mum and Dad scream and the house explodes.
My dream morphs and suddenly it’s not them screaming anymore. It’s Colin and Eogan. Holding up swords and fire sticks, warning off their attackers. I refuse to look back as I rush to join them. “Don’t let it get me,” I try to yell. But my throat doesn’t work.
Not until I reach for them does it occur to me that they’re not looking behind me. They’re staring in horror at my hair, my Elemental eyes, my face where my grief-filled tears have frozen to fury. They’re staring at my fists as my explosions pelt around us and a thousand voices cry out—my curse tearing the kingdom apart in the midst of my guilt. My hatred. Because deep down, I am the real monster. I murder the innocent.
I murdered my parents.
And I could murder these—my friends.
“You in here, Nym? They’s tryin’ to leave!” Breck’s round cheeks blur through my vision as I’m jolted awake on my library window perch.
“I’m here, Breck.” I rub my eyes and stoop to pick up the Hidden Lands history book and return it to its shelf before blowing out the lantern. “About time. I swear Colin and Eogan take longer than Adora to get ready.” I grab my bag from the hall and pat Breck’s arm. “Thanks,” I say, and head off to find Colin and Eogan through the predawn dark.
I can already taste the friction in the weather mimicking my strained emotions today. It’s been nineteen days since Adora purchased me, and over a week since Eogan’s and my tension-filled moment at the party. And just as long since he’s made any eye contact or conversation with me other than his reserved, you-can-do-better-than-this training speak. The recent days have begun morphing together in one long, gruelingly awkward training session in which he’s utilized his calming ability to focus me on separating and using individual storm elements.
So far I’ve succeeded at wind manipulation and pulling lightning from the sky with my hands without killing Colin. Unfortunately, the more control I manage means the less I need Eogan’s soothing touches, making them as brief and infrequent as possible. Which maybe I should be grateful for, seeing as it’s exactly what Adora wants. Obviously she needn’t have even threatened.
But the pressure keeps building. In me. In the smoky air. In the Faelen people. And in between Eogan and me, and Colin and me, and in Adora’s house every third night as bald boy and I now smile for Adora’s festivities at which she has us appear, elaborately dressed, refined, reserved, in her banquet room. And Eogan has us always listening for the key to turning the war that’s about to destroy us. But he never asks what we hear, which just makes it easier to keep silent that Lord Myles is a spy—as does the mental image of him slicing Eogan’s throat open—until I can figure out what to do about it.
I shiver and walk faster through the gray mist.
Haven bucks to say hello when she sees me. She’s annoyed at the saddle Eogan’s making her wear and pushes her beautiful black head my direction, hoping for a mouse or mole to snack on for comfort.
“Whoa,” Eogan soothes. He tightens her reins. “The sleeping dead arises.”
I nod toward Colin. “I know. I thought he’d never get up.”
“I’ve been ’ere for a half hour!” Colin leans down from his horse to pat its neck. “Isn’t that right, boy?” The beast issues a quick warning snip, and Colin jerks back. Working with the horses has made us familiar, but overconfidence won’t be tolerated on their part, nor on Eogan’s.
I hide my laugh and hook my bag to Haven’s saddle while Eogan holds her steady. I whisper in Haven’s ear that I’ll find her a morsel soon enough, and by the time I’m mounted and ready, Eogan’s on his horse, with a broadsword on his back, steering us south toward the mountains at the base of our Faelen island.
“A break from the familiar for a few days,” Eogan informed us last night. “You’ll practice your abilities in other types of terrain, specifically the southern altitude and snow.”
I feel Adora’s gaze on me as we ride out, searing her warning about Eogan into my skin as he directs us away from the High Court and Castle and down toward the Hythra Crescent’s southern pea
ks. The same mountains that, along with our now nearly-wiped-out armada, have kept us safe from Bron for years. But not anymore. I look up through the dim to where the airship bombed.
“Why so far?” Colin asks once the horses are trotting at a good clip. “Why not any of the northern ridges?”
“Because I want to show you something.”
And with that, the ride settles into uncomfortable silence.
The road isn’t one I’ve travelled, but it’s familiar enough terrain once we get galloping. By the time the sun hits the first immediate town and its outlying villages, women are already up and working with their bedraggled children and half-clothed slaves, farming their barren earth patches or setting out feeble wares to sell even though few people are out on the road this early. And even fewer seem interested. We give a wide pass to a unit of soldiers probably heading to the northern front. When Eogan hails them, they offer nothing more than a nod. One’s missing a leg, the other an eye. A third looks like he won’t survive the day.
Next comes a merchant pulling a chain of cows with a goat and an old woman in shackles. She has four owner circles on her wrinkly arm. My throat sticks together, and I want to say something. To ask her name, at least. But one look at her face is enough to tell me that, whoever she used to be, she probably doesn’t remember.
Eogan falls back beside me. I look at him to see what he wants, but he stays quiet. His gaze is on the old slave woman too.
Just keep riding.
We pass more soldiers and edge around the outskirts of a larger town. And while the people in it are poorer, it reminds me a bit of my fourth home with its corroding stone archways and moss-covered sheep sheds. A young mother yells out a doorway for her slave to keep an eye on the kids, then retreats and slams the door. The poor, bedraggled servant looks about the same age as the unruly brats she’s supposed to be watching. Also reminiscent of home number four.
Is Eogan trying to make me erupt through memories? Or just torture me?
By lunchtime, Eogan is riding beside Colin again, and his mood has eased to such that the two of them are exchanging jokes like old schoolmates. The sun is hot and reflecting off the cracked clay road, in a section where the clouds don’t overflow as often. They drift above us, high on their sun-speckled wind currents, while we stop long enough to eat oranges and pasties and water the horses at a stream by a crop of trees.
I catch a field mouse and feed it to Haven. Then we’re moving again. Hour upon hour. Soldier after weary soldier. Village after village. They all blend together with flashes of most every home I’ve ever known. My stomach squirms at the premonition of seeing someone I recognize—one of my former owners perhaps, or their surviving kin. The thought makes me huddle in my seat and keeps me tugging my dyed hair forward to remind myself it’s brown. I look different now.
I am different now.
After five hours of riding, Eogan appears in no hurry to stop, and I can’t stand the discomfort any longer. I nudge Haven forward between the two men. “What do you know of Drust?”
“Why?” Eogan responds without looking over.
I shrug. “Everyone is always talking about the war with Bron, but no one says much about Drust.”
“So are you asking what I know of her history or what I know of the kingdom now?”
“Her history. How did Drust come to be?”
“Same way all kingdoms come into existence. People fight. Alliances form. The strongest survive. Drust has had six hundred years of kings, and I suspect they’ll have six hundred more.”
“But Bron conquered Drust. So technically shouldn’t their king be Drust’s king?”
“Bron beat Drust, which took a toll on both and made them allies of a sort. That doesn’t mean Bron had the man power thirty years ago to rule it, or even until recently for that matter.”
“When King Odion took over,” I say, recalling the library book I’d been reading.
Eogan nods.
“Took over?” Colin asks. “I thought he inherited it.”
I adjust to look at him. “When the old Bron king died, he left the kingdom to his twin sons. It didn’t go well, and Odion got the kingdom, and the other disappeared—supposedly offed by his brother.” I pause before glancing to Eogan. “Is that why our king’s never faced King Odion in person—because he’s too dangerous?”
Eogan’s jaw flexes slightly. “Doubtful. The way I hear it, Odion prefers the tactical side of things rather than dirtying himself in battle.”
“But have they never tried to negotiate?”
“King Sedric has. Odion just doesn’t respond.”
Colin furrows his brow. “Well, why’d Bron start fighting Drust in the first place?”
“To eliminate them as a threat,” our trainer says. “If Drust got Faelen, it would’ve taken Cashlin and Tulla as well, and those are the kingdoms Bron’s been fighting to get all these years. Faelen’s just an obstruction.”
“Why Cashlin and Tulla?”
“Their resources. Wood. Metal mines. Bron’s severely depleted their natural resources, and Drust is basically a wasteland.”
Clouds drift overhead as the sun starts its fiery plunge toward the Sea of Elisedd beyond the southern mountains, bringing a chill into the valley. I glance at Eogan. “But did they eliminate Drust as a threat?”
He laughs, and it’s a hard, callous sound. “Not by any means. If anything, Bron’s arrogance has blinded them to the real danger in recent years. Their focus on Faelen will be their undoing. Whether Faelen’s around to see it or not.”
“How?” Colin tugs his horse as close to Haven as he dares. “Yer not . . . yer not sayin’ Draewulf an’ his Dark Army’s real, are you?”
“He’s a wizard. Why wouldn’t he be?”
“I thought he was a wolf,” I correct.
“A shape-shifter, actually.” Eogan turns to look at me for the first time in over a week. Really look at me.
I stare back, as if to defy him and whatever his problem has been. Except something hungry stirs behind his gaze, and the next thing I know he’s taking my heart for a thirsty leap into green depths, and I’m drinking him in as fast as I can, excruciatingly aware of how parched I am.
He blinks, then tears his eyes away to refocus on the road, which is quickly heading into shadows. Why does he do that? I curse him under my breath as the sky overhead mimics my grumble. What does he want from me?
“You’re lyin’, Eogan,” Colin says. “He can’t be real. He’d be a hundred years old.”
“One hundred and thirty, or so I’m told.”
Colin’s eyes widen.
“As I said, he’s a wizard.”
“He can’t die?”
“Of course he can. Why do you think he eliminated the Elementals?”
What? I jerk my gaze around. “What does that mean?”
“Let’s just say he has a particular aversion to their power.”
“Can he shape-shift into anything he wants?” Colin asks.
“Only the person he’s taking over. And even then it’s not so much shape-shifting as possessing. He climbs into their skin and absorbs their essence until there’s nothing left but him.”
A gag squeezes my throat and I try not to think about what that would be like.
“What about his Dark Army?” Colin presses. “Are they actual monsters?”
I detect the waver in his tone. I feel it in my own breath.
“As I said, mate, he’s a wizard.”
My legs must’ve clenched too tightly into Haven’s sides at this because she gives a light buck and snaps her teeth back at me. I loosen my grip and swallow. “But how can he have an army? Bron wouldn’t allow it.”
“As I said, their arrogance is blind. And Drust has no love for Bron in recent years, meaning they’ll ultimately do what benefits Drust.” Eogan looks over at Haven. “We’ll break and let the horses hunt, then keep going.”
“Keep going?” Colin says.
“We’re riding through the night.�
�
Pink-ribboned cloud streams melt into the landscape as the sun exhales and the shadows set in. Deep. Dank. Twisting into strange shapes around the nearby forest, which is far from any hovels or townsfolk. The only hints of civilization come from a plume of dust in the far distance ahead of us and the sound of bells and hooves carried to us on the breeze. It’s an entourage of horses and yellow carriages from what I can tell.
“Princess Rasha’s retinue,” Eogan says. “Probably done travelling Faelen and on her way back to the Castle.”
“Why was she touring Faelen?”
“Assessing. Extending courtesies. As a Cashlin ambassador, the princess is expected to show good faith not just toward the king and High Court, but to commoners as well.”
My hands tighten on the reins. I wonder if assessing means rooting out our weaknesses. “You said her Luminescent ability doesn’t mean she can see everything. So how does it work?”
“Luminescents see on a spectrum. The more decided a person’s intentions, the clearer they become. And the stronger that person’s motivation is, supposedly the easier they are to predict.”
“You think she’s ever met Draewulf?” Colin asks with a snicker. “Wonder what she’d see of ’is intentions.”
“Not likely. Cashlin’s avoided Drust just as much as they’ve avoided the war,” Eogan says, directing us to a copse of trees.
Something howls just as we dismount. I shrug off the chills it brings and set to work brushing Haven. When I’ve finished, Eogan whispers to each of the horses and sends them off while Colin starts on a fire and I pull out a meal of apples, cheese, and bread.
Colin and Eogan talk over the information Colin’s managed to pick up from Adora’s parties, mainly the concern over Bron’s airships. I try to imagine what the metallic ships must look like up close. What it would be like to fly in one, sailing on wind currents, uninhibited by the restraints of earth and expectation. I trace over the bird tattooed beneath my sleeve and study the moon lifting his head over the horizon.
Colin pulls a wineskin from his satchel and pours drinks for Eogan and him. I shake my head when he offers it to me.
