by Emily Colin
I don’t reply, just hold his gaze.
“What happened today, Eva?” He flattens his hands against the wall, careful not to touch me.
“Nothing happened.”
“Liar. Something’s gotten under your skin, and I’d like to know what it is.” Beneath the honeyed shell of his voice runs a core of steel. There’s no point in arguing, and so I don’t bother.
“It was the Executor, if you must know. He talked to me personally, and it made me uncomfortable. There didn’t seem to be a whole lot for me to do, and so I thought—” I shrug as much as I can manage, trapped against the wall.
“You thought maybe you were only there so he could look you over. Yeah? To see if you belong here, with us. And it made you angry. Don’t worry, I won’t tell.” He runs his thumb down my face, his touch warm against my skin. “Your secret’s safe with me, Eva.”
His choice of words does not sit well. During the second week of my training, Ari took me down to the interrogation chamber and had Kilían confide a secret in me while he waited in a separate, soundproof room. Then he came into the chamber and did his utmost to extract it, by turns charming, threatening, and cajoling. The encounter has left me wary of his ability to manipulate, even when I’m on my guard. “I gave you what you wanted,” I say, struggling not to flinch. “Now let me go.”
The familiar sardonic grin lifts his lips. “You have no idea what I want.”
“Why don’t you tell me, then? Or do you plan for us to stand here all night? You’d better hope Efraím doesn’t object to you spending the evening in my bedroom, strip you of your title, and leave you for the Bastarour in the woods.”
Ari’s face goes blank, like a hand has wiped it clean of expression. “Watch what you say, Eva.”
“Why?” I say, annoyed beyond restraint. “Are you that afraid of the Bastarour? They’re just cross-bred, genetically engineered creatures designed to kill—surely the great Ari Westergaard has nothing to fear from them.”
His lips flatten into a thin line. “Shut up.”
I’ve never seen anyone get to Ari like this. Intrigued, I press my advantage. “I hear they’re monstrous. Part tiger, part leopard, part wolf—how could they not be? And fierce. Rumor has it they bring their kills to the edge of the woods for the Executor’s inspection. How would they identify you, Bellator Westergaard? From the scars on what remains of your back?”
He takes a step closer to me, eyes narrowed in threat. I can hear his heart thumping faster than usual, smell the sudden change as his scent deepens, laced with a forbidden undercurrent of anger. “Be quiet,” he hisses.
“Make me.”
The thumb tracing my cheekbone slides lower, pressing against my lips. “Like this?”
Furious and unnerved by the feel of his body so close to mine, the heat of his breath on my face, I can only glare—which doesn’t deter him in the slightest. He regards me, his head tilted as if the sight amuses him.
“You’re in a rare mood,” he says, sounding more like his normal, controlled self. “Pushing me like this—it’s not a good idea. But I think I know what you need. I’m going to step back, and then you’re going to stop fighting and trust me instead. All right?”
Without waiting for me to reply, he yanks the blade out of my sleeve, pockets it, and retreats to the doorway, out of reach. “Come on,” he says, and leads the way down to the training room, where he tosses me a sverd and then spars with me for hours, dodging and feinting, lunging and goading, until all I can think about is what we’re doing to each other, until sweat soaks my body and my numb fingers can no longer grip my blade.
The sun has faded from the sky and the stars are visible through the windows when he pins me against the wall, sverd pressed against my chest. He looks me over, gaze moving over me from head to foot, assessing. And then he says, “Enough.” He pulls his blade back, sheaths it, and walks out without another word, leaving me to put the room to rights.
As the haze of battle lifts, I realize that, much as I hate to admit it, he’d understood. While we’d been fighting, I’d stopped thinking about my upsetting encounter with the Executor, and focused instead on survival. There’d been no room for anything else.
Sheathing my blade, I survey the wreckage—mats shoved askew, a scattered stack of weapons belts, the room’s one chair turned upside down, a target knocked onto the ground. I’d made him work for his victory. He’d had to earn it. He hadn’t taken it from me.
Enough, he’d said, but it hadn’t been. Not nearly. Next time, I will be faster, a better strategist.
Next time, he will be the one against the wall.
11
Ari
I go for a long run while it is still dark, alone. All the way through the woods that stretch between the City and the rapids, I curse myself for letting her get under my skin.
I know she thought it was her comment about the Bastarour that pissed me off—had made sure she believed it, in an act of self-preservation—but I could give less than a damn about that. No, it was her dig about Efraím finding us together in her bedroom, as if she could see right through me. As if she knew the whole time I was sitting on her bed, waiting—and later, when I pinned her to the wall with my knife through her sleeve—I was thinking about things I shouldn’t. That I am drawn to her despite myself, the way a child seeks to touch the blue heart of a flame.
I shouldn’t be her mentor. I should renounce my claim, withdraw my oath. But I know I will do no such thing, sinful or no, and the knowledge is a dark shadow, nipping at my heels, weighing heavy on my soul. I push myself harder than I ever have, but no matter how fast I run, the shadow of my claim on Eva is always with me, driving me onward, chasing me home.
12
Eva
When I finally sleep that night, I dream. First I’m a wolf, the scent of the woods alive inside me, hard on the heels of elusive prey—then a falcon, soaring above the trees, searching for movement below. I spot a mouse in the tall grass and dive, wings pressed to my sides, beak closing on the creature with satisfaction as I take to the skies again. Hot, fresh blood spurts into my mouth as the bell rings, wakening us well before dawn.
In the bathroom, I run my tongue over my teeth, half-expecting to taste rust and iron. But when I spit into the sink, my saliva runs clean.
It was a dream, that’s all. Just a product of the traitorous, wild imagination that has plagued me since childhood.
But I can’t let it go.
I’m not an animal, I tell myself. I won’t let them make me into some kind of beast. But what if it is too late for such empty promises?
My eyes burn and my head aches, heavy with exhaustion. To make things worse, Efraím calls an early assembly of the Bellatorum at the top of Black Falls, a massive cataract carved from ominous dark lava. With minutes to go until the first pale fingers of light creep over the horizon, I stand next to Ari, concealed in the shadow of a crag, wondering what we are doing here. The ground where we stand slopes sharply up from the drop, giving us an unobstructed view of the cascades and the churning whitewater below. Black Falls is far higher and more treacherous than the rapids we use for the Trials and training, the icy water plunging so far into its depths, I’m sure no one could survive the descent.
I stand, eyes fixed on the inky darkness between the pines, as Samúel steps forward from our ranks. He reaches Efraím’s side, and the lead bellator raises a hand. Silence falls, and into it, Samúel speaks. “My time with the Bellatorum has been the greatest of privileges. It has been my honor to serve as one of the esteemed Thirty.”
Puzzled, I glance at Ari, but his face gives me nothing. In perfect concert with the other bellators, he answers, “As it has been our honor to serve alongside you.”
Samúel lowers his head in acknowledgment. “Thank you for your kindness. The privilege has been mine. But there’s a time to take up arms, and a time to lay them down again. This dawn, I will surrender my soul to the Architect. I do so willingly, without hesitation. Transit
umbra, lux permanent. We will meet again as brothers in the light.”
Efraím’s lips rise in a humorless smile. “Aye, we will. For the Bellatorum’s way is to give the elders amongst us a choice: Live out their days in peace, reconciled to their bodies’ decay, or offer them an honorable death in their prime. You’ve chosen bravely, Bellator Nystaad. We won’t forget. The one who takes your place amongst the Thirty will fight in the shadow of your name.”
Horrified, I gape at Samúel. I’d meant to ask Ari what Samúel had meant about coming to the end of the road, and had never gotten the chance. But this—surely he can’t mean to sacrifice himself?
Samúel lifts his hood, shrouding his face from view, and hands his weapons belt to Efraím. Then he turns toward Kilían, who stands at Efraím’s right hand. “I am ready.”
“As you wish it, so shall it be.” Kilían kneels at his feet, tying a burlap sack filled with stones around Samúel’s ankles. Samúel stands stoically, his hands clasped behind his back. He doesn’t fight them.
When the weight is secured, Kilían straightens and nods to Efraím. Moving in eerie synchronicity, they take his arms, and I see what they mean to do—lift him and cast him outward, over the sheer drop that lies beyond. I bite my tongue to stifle a scream.
As they hoist Samúel from the ground, his eyes sweep the crowd of black-clad figures, coming to rest on mine. He holds my gaze, and I think of the way the condemned man had done the same that long-ago morning in Clockverk Square, before I said the words that loosed the bellator’s blade.
I must make some small sound of distress, because in the shadows between us where no one can see, something brushes my hand, warm and feather-light. I glance sideways at Ari, but he is staring straight ahead, his expression betraying nothing. Perhaps I have imagined it? But no—his hand grazes mine again, that same questioning touch. I feel his fingers playing over my knuckles, the tips calloused from hours of bladework, and know his touch is no accident.
Shock vibrates through me, paralyzing me so I don’t pull away the way I should. After an eternity I come to my senses, only to realize something even more disturbing: I don’t want him to stop. Everywhere he touches, my skin tingles, as if he’s ignited a slow-burning flame along my nerve endings. The strange, prickling sensation lingers long after his fingertips have moved on, trailing a meandering but sure line along the back of my hand, crisscrossing my palm until they come to rest against the inside of my wrist. I jerk in surprise and his fingers press harder in admonition, demanding I hold still.
Though we are at the back of the crowd, apart from the rest of the bellators, I’m still terrified that one of the others will turn toward us and glimpse this small gesture. If someone sees us, it will surely mean our deaths.
My pulse pounds wildly against his fingers, a bird trapped in a cage, wings thrashing in an effort to get free. Humiliated at my body’s betrayal, I do my best to bring my heartbeat to heel—but it gallops on, racing so I am dizzy. The forest swims before my eyes, trees blurring into a single column of green that tilts unrelentingly toward the plunge of the falls.
No one has ever touched me this way. Certainly I never felt the smoldering heat of a slow-burning fuse when the medics worked on me or the Mothers sluiced the shampoo from my hair.
I stand stock-still, caught between horror at what’s happening at the edge of the falls and the impossible fact of Ari’s hand in mine, as they raise Samúel higher, so his feet dangle in midair. He glances downward, and the expression on his face shifts, betraying the terror he feels, after all. Then the wind catches him, and I see his graying hair blow back from his face, see his body sway. The two bellators lean backward in unison to counter his momentum, and their eyes meet. Efraím nods once, gravely. Kilían bows his head in response. And they let go.
Samúel goes over the falls without a sound, plunging toward the rapids. The heavy weight drags him down, hands stretched above his head, his body a straight, taut line. I imagine his face as I last saw it—his eyes wide, searching ours, his mouth an O of surprise that belies all his training.
Ari’s hand clenches tight on mine. Then he loosens his grip, and one of his fingers traces the veins on the inside of my wrist, outlining the riotous passage of my blood. As clearly as if he has spoken aloud, I feel the wry acknowledgement in his touch.
Pull away, I tell myself furiously, even though that is the last thing I want to do. I am seized with an unaccountable desire to turn toward him and press my lips to his, to twine my fingers in the dark silk of his hair and discover if it feels as soft as it looks. Gritting my teeth, I try to force the thoughts from my mind. Where is your sense of self-preservation? Maybe he has a death wish; you don’t. Step away from him now, before there’s no going back.
This is excellent advice. I ought to follow it.
But I don’t move.
I don’t dare turn my head for fear the movement will catch another bellator’s eye. They stand stock-still around us, silent as stone. I’m desperate to make sure their attention is on the horror in front of us, and not the sin happening behind their backs.
But I’m frozen in place, too frightened to breathe.
Ari’s hand turns in mine, guiding me so my fingertips find the inside of his wrist, the way his found mine moments before. His touch is unexpectedly gentle, imbued with a reverence I have only seen him display when handling a finely crafted weapon. I feel his pulse pounding in tandem with my own, settling into the same punishing rhythm.
It is an admission of the most treacherous kind.
I’m seized with sudden horror that the other bellators can hear us, that they will spin around, blades unsheathed, and demand to know what we are doing—but they gaze into the fading night, paying Samúel the respect that is his due, watching his figure grow ever smaller as it hurtles down the sheer drop of the falls.
A spark of indignation grows, flaming until it is a bright, hot core of outrage at the center of my being. Samúel could have lived on, as an instructor or tutor or a dozen other things. He was too old to fight—but that doesn’t mean he was useless. What does it say about my new brotherhood, that this is how they value their elders?
Ari’s hand turns again and his fingers intertwine with mine, gripping hard. Our palms slide against each other, damp with sweat, but he doesn’t let go. I hear his breath hitch, barely audible over the commotion of the falls.
Shocked back to myself, I yank my hand free with a rush of terror—what if someone had seen us, shadows or no?—as Efraím gestures to the lightening sky, his head still bowed, palm up as if to contain the rising sun. We speak in unison, as he intends, as we are trained to do. “The Commonwealth grieves for you, Samúel Nystaad.”
Our voices break the silence of the new morning, echoed by the piercing screams of the falcons that circle the gorge, roused by the dawn and our presence in their woods. They’re hunters, like us—but they’re scavengers, as well. When Samúel’s body washes up on the shore, the falcons will pick the flesh from his bones, leaving them to whiten in the sun.
The benediction fades into silence and Efraím speaks alone. “The peace of the fallen and the blessing of the Architect be with you, Bellator Nystaad. As from the earth you came, so to the earth you shall return. Integer vitae scelerisque purus.” Unimpaired by life and clean of wickedness. It is the greatest compliment he can bestow, how all of us hope to meet our end.
As the sun breaks over the crags, Ari makes a low, uneasy sound—in regret? Warning? I cannot tell. The wind shifts, blowing from the south, and I breathe deep, the spray from the rapids hitting my face, washing me clean.
13
Ari
Alone with Eva in the gear repair room after the ceremony, I busy myself with a cracked weapons belt, trying to ignore the accusatory weight of her gaze. There at the verge of the rapids, her eyes fixed on Samúel, she’d looked miserable, lost. I’d wanted to comfort her—an unfamiliar impulse I tried to fight back as soon as I recognized it for what it was. And that was the only w
ay I’d known how, sin or no sin.
What I’d done was dangerous beyond measure—but the sensation of her hand in mine was the purest rush I’ve ever felt. I would do it again, and hang the consequences. I just wonder if she regrets it, or if she feels the same.
She’d walked by my side through the woods afterward, spine straight and eyes ahead, every inch the perfect apprentice, revealing nothing. I’m sure I looked much the same. But the truth is now we share a secret, a dangerous one. If anyone had seen us holding hands in the forest, the consequences would have been swift and brutal. Likely death for one of us, and exile for the other, condemned to wander the ruins of the Borderlands, at the mercy of the hordes.
I look her over, an inscrutable small figure who is so much stronger than she seems at first glance, her blade slung over her back in its custom-fitted sheath and her belt dipping low from her hips. Leaning against one of the white brick columns that hold up the ceiling, wearing her black gear, she is a study in contrasts. I can’t read her the way I can almost everyone else, and it maddens me.
By the Architect, though—her pulse pounding against my fingers, the way she’d dug her nails into my wrist, the feeling of her small, callused fingers threaded with mine, skin to skin—I’ve never felt so alive.
I would do almost anything to feel that way again.
The full measure of my transgression settles in my belly, heavy and uneasy. When Samúel went over the Falls, I should have grieved him—and then turned my attention to which of us might be named one of the Thirty in his place. It’s a coveted position, one I cannot take for granted. Instead, I stood with my hand in Eva’s, feeling the heat of her flesh against mine, wanting things I had no business thinking about.
It’s maddening to have her so close, yet so inaccessible, and suddenly I am furious—with her, with myself, with the whole virtueless situation. I want her—and the temptations she represents—gone from my sight.
