by Lani Lenore
I need to get back. I just need to sleep.
She urged her feet to keep her balanced, but she had to fight for it. She lumbered through the trees, trying to feel her way back without lurching from the dizzying rush of the memories. She looked up to see if she could catch a glimpse of a campfire flickering through the trees – and stopped at what she saw.
Weaving through the woods before her was a black trail, barren and charred as if it had been burned. Whole sides of the trees were missing, shriveled and dead. Something had passed through here. Where did it go, and where had it come from? She felt that she knew, and yet something was drawing her closer to it.
Am I still dreaming? She couldn’t say.
She walked toward the trail of darkness with slow footsteps, as if her feet were making no noise through the dry leaves. She was no hunter, and whatever she was stalking must have certainly known she was coming, but she couldn’t stop herself. She was drawn to it, whether out of curiosity or for something she couldn’t explain. Maybe it was death she was looking for.
She followed the trail until it widened into a larger area where the ground was dark as a pit. Ashes were raining down from the trees like snow, and there in the spot of cinders, she saw what she thought was a nightmare.
The aberration was a great black beast, like a large wolf with many red eyes on its face. It was standing still, its shadowy hair waving about, even though there was no wind. She wanted to run, but felt that she was frozen to the spot by fear – and when she had blinked, she realized that what she saw was only a man.
She knew who he was. She saw him standing there in the dark, in the middle of the forest where he had killed the ground, but yet she didn’t run away. He looked at her with one clear blue eye. The other was hidden behind a patch which covered part of a long scar that ran down his face. She hadn’t seen him so close, but she recognized him.
“What are you doing, wandering around out here, alone?” the Scourge asked. “Don’t you know it’s dangerous?”
His voice was smooth and seductive, like the snake in the Garden, but she could not place his accent. Wren didn’t speak to him. She wrapped her arms around herself but didn’t retreat. He was alone, but how had he gotten here? Was he real? Or was he an illusion created by her confused mind?
“You’re not really here,” she said finally, her voice weak. “You can’t be. You’re dead.”
“I think I know what I am better than you,” he told her, and she didn’t question that.
The Scourge stepped toward her. Now that she was able to see his face, she found that he was not quite as old as she might have guessed. He was a head taller than she was, certainly a man of presence. His stance exuded power.
She knew she should scream, run, but she couldn’t. She wasn’t sure what was keeping her in place. Could it be true that she wasn’t afraid of him? He was close, just a few steps away. He smelled like fire and ash, like tobacco and smoke. The latter was a comfortable, familiar smell. He was in front of her, within inches, and she felt that her heart was affected by him. His wickedness was alive, encroaching on her.
He reached out and touched her cheek with a gloved hand, brushing some of her hair back behind her ear to view her face, but she would not look at his. She flinched at his touch.
“I never got your name,” he purred.
“Wren,” she said quietly. She stared at the ground, watching the grass wither beneath his boots. Her fists clenched, but she was rooted.
“That’s a pretty name, little bird,” he said. “Has he ever told you that?”
Rifter?
“No,” she admitted. It was one thing on a long list of important things he had never said to her.
“That’s a shame.”
It is a shame. And I’m a fool.
“You seem sad,” he said, tilting his head toward her, studying her expression.
Wren kept her head lowered, refusing to look him in the eye. His gaze can stop your heart. Surely he didn’t want to hear about her romantic troubles. He had no stock in that. She didn’t respond, feeling only that there was a black hole inside her.
“Things aren’t what you thought, are they?” he asked. “I’m not surprised at that. You want more than he can give you. That’s the difference.”
Difference? She chanced to look at his face, but she couldn’t find any feeling there.
“This is about love, isn’t it?” he assumed. “Do you love him?”
“Yes,” she said. She didn’t doubt that about herself.
“But he doesn’t love you?”
“No.” Of this, she was also sure.
The Scourge examined her carefully, and then he smiled, pitying her.
“So now that you’ve decided this, you’re aiming to leave, I suppose. You want to go home? I’ll take you home.”
Wren lifted her eyes. She may have been young, but she was not completely naïve.
“You know I don’t believe you.”
“Pretend,” he urged her. “Besides, I happen to know you’re wrong about him. He does love you – in a child’s way. The idea of first love forever is such a juvenile notion.”
She was surprised to hear him say that. How could he claim to know what Rifter felt? She wanted to tell him that he didn’t know anything – a man as black and terrible as he was couldn’t hope to understand those delicate feelings, especially since it was Rifter who felt them.
“I know him well, and without even knowing you, I can tell you exactly how he thinks. He loves you as much as anything he possesses, and he doesn’t like to give up his things. He would let you leave him though – for his own pride.”
“Why are you telling me this?” She would have thought he’d get more benefit from lying, telling her that Rifter didn’t care about her at all.
“I can’t lie to you,” he confessed. “There’s something about you. It’s uncanny…”
He stopped, looking up over her head. She dared to look herself, and saw that someone was standing not far away, staring at them with wild eyes.
“Wren! Get away from him!” It was Henry. He had come after her. She knew she wasn’t dreaming now.
No…
Before she could tell him to run, the Scourge had shot around her and snatched Henry up by the neck quicker than she could open her mouth. He lifted the boy off the ground as if he weighed nothing, and Henry had no choice but to hold the man’s arms to keep himself pulled upward, or else his neck might have snapped.
Though he might have killed the boy faster than she could protest, Wren threw herself on it immediately.
“No! Please!” she screamed. “He’s my brother! Please!” Wren went to her knees instinctively, ready to beg like she never had before, praying that she had enough time. “I’ll come with you! Anything, just don’t hurt him!”
He continued to hold Henry there for another moment, and though she was gasping with grief, she feared the worst. She couldn’t watch – but the wicked man had been touched by her words somehow, or had at least decided that Henry could have another use if left alive.
The Scourge dropped him onto the ground, letting him hit hard and then pressed his heavy foot against the boy’s chest to pin him. Wren only felt a small bit of relief, but at least her brother had been spared.
“I don’t care much for children, but I can’t refuse a lady.” He ground his boot a little harder into Henry’s ribs. The boy winced. “Since I know that you’re just going to run back to that pathetic bastard whelp and tell him exactly what happened here, I want you to give him a message from me. Tell him to meet me at the high mountain. Tell him to take his time, make his plans. I’ll be waiting. He can bring as many of his friends as he likes, but they aren’t going to be any good to him there. Just him, and just me. And we’ll see who the better man is.”
The Scourge lifted his foot and left Henry there to sputter and writhe on the ground, but he was forgotten. The man stepped back toward Wren who was still on her knees.
“I do believe y
ou made me a promise,” he reminded her, giving her his hand to pull her to her feet. She only looked at his open palm, recalling the oldest rule of the children’s code: don’t trust strangers.
Perhaps those rules no longer apply to me.
He wanted to take her with him? He was going to use her as bait to draw Rifter in?
“He won’t fall for it, you know,” she said, allowing him to help her up. “He’s smart enough to know it’s a trap.”
“I’m sorry, my dear, but you’re wrong. He won’t be able to resist my invitation – with or without you, I’m afraid. But you’ll sweeten the deal. Aside from that, you need to see it.”
The Scourge offered her his arm – as if he was a gentleman requesting a dance.
“Shall we?” he asked.
She looked down at his arm, and a thought struck her.
Didn’t Rifter cut off his arm? Yet here it was intact. The Scourge had spared Henry. She had no choice but to accept. Still, that didn’t keep her from wondering how he could have made himself whole again.
She took his arm, surprised by how it felt strangely solid beneath her hand. The Scourge led her off through the trees, into the darkness.
Chapter Thirty-Four
1
By the time Henry had gotten his breath, Wren and the evil man who had taken her were nowhere in sight. His body was still aching, but he managed to get to his feet and follow the dark trail through the woods, but it ended abruptly and he could not explain it. They were gone.
No… This was just like before when she had been taken by Rifter. Henry had gotten her back that time, but this was different. He might not be so lucky again.
His ribs were aching, but he ran back to the camp as quickly as he could and began to yell as soon as he saw the gleam of the fire.
“He took her!” he shouted. “It was him! He was just there!”
The others stood up when they heard him. Whether or not they understood what he said, they came to attention because of his yelling and flailing.
“Who? What are you saying?” Finn called.
“The Scourge! He took Wren!”
Henry doubled over to catch his breath when he had reached them. When he looked back up, he saw that they were all just standing there, looking toward the trees. Rifter wasn’t among them, but none of the others made a move. Wasn’t there something they could do?
“Aren’t we going to go after them?” Henry asked accusingly.
“No,” Nix said, and the rest of them stayed rooted.
“What?” Henry asked, aghast. “Why?”
“When dealing with the Scourge, we don’t go after one if it will put the rest of us in danger,” Nix explained. “That’s the rule.”
“Rifter will want to go after her,” Sly said, but he didn’t make a move either.
“Rifter’s a fool,” Nix sneered. “He’ll get us all killed this time – mark my words.”
“But it’s Wren, Nix,” Toss reasoned, sounding genuinely worried. “She needs us.”
“I don’t owe her anything,” he said sharply. “Neither do you.”
“You can’t say that she hasn’t grown on you,” Finn accused. “She’s one of us.”
Nix stood there, looking at the ground, chewing his tongue absently.
“She’s as good as dead,” he said finally.
Henry couldn’t believe that he was talking this way.
“She’s not dead!” he cried. “He just took her away! He’s using her to lure Rifter in! I heard what he said to her! We can save her!”
“What did you hear?” Sly asked him seriously.
“It was just the way he was talking to her. He acted like she was special or something. Then she asked him not to kill me and he didn’t.”
“He saw you and let you live?” Nix asked, surprised. “Did you try to confront him?”
Henry ignored that. He didn’t have time to explain his thoughts during that moment.
“He told me to give Rifter a message. He said to meet him at the high mountain, and—” He paused, trying to remember the rest. The excitement had nearly made him forget it. “He said that it didn’t matter who he brought with him, it would just be the two of them to fight in the end.”
“The high mountain… That’s different,” Sly said thoughtfully, looking at Nix. “I wonder why. No one can scale to the top of that peak. There’s nothing up there but ice.”
“Something’s different this time, isn’t it?” Toss asked. “Do you think that he knows it? Do you think he remembers the last time?”
Henry knew what that meant, even if he didn’t fully understand the gravity of it. All he cared about was getting Wren back.
“We need to tell Rifter,” Sly decided. None of them argued.
2
Rifter had been off on his own, unaware that his enemy had been so close to the others. When he returned, he could tell just by their expressions that something was wrong, and once they had told him what had happened just beneath his nose, he was fully agitated.
He didn’t say anything at first, as if in shock, but he was visibly tense as his mind wrapped around it, proceeding to choke it out. Rifter had all but banished the girl from his presence. She had told him she wanted to leave. She had broken the Vow, yet he wasn’t quite able to believe that he was free of her yet.
Wren. He took her from me. He shouldn’t have brought her into this.
Didn’t the Scourge know that he would have come to meet him anyway? How could he refuse, since all he’d been doing for the last several days was look for the one who had tried to take everything from him?
He can’t have her. This was a low blow. This was against the rules.
“It’s an obvious trap,” Nix said as they were all gathered around the fire to discuss it. “He knows something we don’t.”
“I don’t care what he knows,” Rifter said. “I’m going. She has nothing to do with this fight. He had no right to take her!”
“I’m just asking you not to go in there half-cocked,” Nix said angrily. “You need to forget about her. Don’t let it cloud your mind. Wait a few days…”
“No,” Rifter said firmly. “We leave now. Get ready.”
They began to move as their leader had instructed – all except one. Nix stared at Rifter in disbelief. The confrontation that had been brewing between them for weeks was twitching at his fingertips and building pressure behind his teeth.
“You really are blind to this, aren’t you?” Nix accused. “You would risk our lives for this? For her? It’s like she comes along and then we don’t matter at all, as long as she’s safe – and as long as you get your revenge!”
“I won’t listen to this,” Rifter said dismissively, turning away from Nix’s hostility.
“Of course not,” Nix said with a laugh. “I could count, on one hand, the number of times you’ve ever listened to me, and that would still be true if I had no fingers!”
Nix wanted a response, but Rifter had been true to his word. He had stopped listening. He stepped forward to make sure the others were preparing as he’d ordered them to, but Nix was quickly in his path, blocking his way. Nix took him on with a hard stare, and Rifter’s hand went to his sword hilt on instinct.
“Don’t test me, Nix,” he warned.
“I’ve never had a problem following you before all this,” Nix told him honestly. “And you’ve made some pretty reckless decisions, let me tell you. But it’s been getting harder. You treat us like shit. You just scrape us off your shoe! Are we your brothers, or are we your dogs!”
This didn’t fail to make Rifter angry, and Nix’s shouting didn’t help it.
“I shouldn’t have to ask for your loyalty, Nix!” he yelled.
“You don’t! I just need to hear that you know what you’re doing – that you know you’re willing to die for her before you ask us to die for you!”
Around them, the others had grown quiet, watching with bated breath. As Rifter stared into Nix’s unyielding glare, he wondered if
that was what it had come down to this time, but he refused to entertain the idea that he might have to die in order to save Wren. He chose to ignore it.
“I said get yourself ready, or we leave without you,” Rifter told him firmly. Nix stared at him in amazement, as if he truly hadn’t expected this response. He stepped back, shaking his head.
“You’re a selfish bastard,” Nix told him, but he didn’t say anything more. He stepped around Rifter and remained sullen as he got himself prepared for the journey.
They made an arrangement for Max to stay at the Tribal camp – with the elder’s promise that he would be kept safe – and set out that very hour, but there was a note of discord among them.
3
Wren waited in the captain’s room of the old ship. It smelled like dampness and smoke. Was this the scent of the dark? There was only a single candle to light the deep black corners where the mimics were hiding, snickering at her. Oddly, Wren didn’t feel nervous as she sat there, waiting in the belly of the ship. The vessel was groaning above her, the old boards rattling. Heavy footsteps passed overhead, but no one came down to her.
She didn’t remember exactly how she had gotten here, but she knew she had come willingly. She wondered why, but couldn’t say. Maybe it was because of the memories that Whisper had shown her. They had exhausted her mind, made her weak. Those visions had been heavy, and she understood why Rifter had wanted to forget those things.
Rifter, I’m so sorry. I understand now. I was wrong.
Behind her, she heard the door creak open in the silence. There was a steady clomp of boots across the floor, though the man himself blended with the darkness. Wren didn’t look at him directly, afraid of what powers he might have over her.
“I hate to keep you down here like this,” he said with the cordiality of any hospitable host. “You’ll have to forgive me.”
