by Emily Colin
“Maybe it’s too soon, yeah?” he says, careful not to look at me. “Or maybe—you don’t want me. Not like that.”
Despite the gravity of the situation, I can’t help but laugh. His eyes flash to mine at the sound, the expression in them wounded. “Funny, is it? Glad I could amuse.”
With a start, I realize I’ve hurt his feelings—the last thing I intended. “No,” I say, sitting up myself and rubbing my bare arms in an effort to stem my shivering. “Not the way you mean.”
“Then what?”
“I’m here, aren’t I?” Tentatively, I rest a hand on his arm. His muscles are rock-hard, coiled the way they are before a fight, and I let my hand fall. “I’ve lost half my clothes,” I say in an effort at conciliation. “Or did you not notice?”
Ari snorts. “Oh, I noticed all right. By the Sins, Eva, I’d notice that if I were dead. Which I am definitely not. As you may have noticed, yourself.”
“So then…” I say, fumbling for the right words, “why would you say that? Have I given any indication I don’t want you?”
“No,” he says dubiously. “Except when I asked—you didn’t say yes. And you’re shaking again. You’re still doing it, and I’m not even touching you.”
“I didn’t say anything,” I point out. “And I’m shaking because—because I’m frightened, if you must know.”
“I frighten you?” His mouth is a grim line. “What I want—”
“Not you,” I say, forcing the words out, ignoring every instinct I have, all my Commonwealth indoctrination. Efraím is dead, but I can still hear him saying, Information is fuel for your enemies. The less they know, the better. The more they know, the more they can hurt you. Mundus vult decipi, Eva. The world wants to be deceived. “I frighten myself,” I tell Ari. “What I feel for you. What I want to do.”
In the darkness of the tent, his eyes widen. “And what’s that?” His gaze travels over my body, lingering everywhere it shouldn’t, and the intensity in his voice makes me shiver all over again.
“Are you not scared, then?” I ask him, dodging the question.
“Ah, Eva.” His eyes settle on my face, and in them there is a haunting tenderness. “Can’t you tell? I’m terrified.”
“Then—”
“I’m terrified,” he continues inexorably, “but not because I think we’re making a mistake. Not because I think this is wrong, or a sin, or because we’re condemning our souls to a lifetime of eternal damnation.” He relinquishes his grip on his knees, presses his palm against my cheek. “I’m terrified because I can’t imagine feeling more for you than I already do. I can’t imagine feeling closer to you, or more—more consumed. You own every part of me, little warrior. And if we do this—I’m terrified there will be nothing left. But I’ll take the risk, because I’d rather die with you than live alongside anyone else. And if I were to sacrifice myself, I can think of no greater cause.” His other hand rises, cupping my face. I can feel him trembling, but his voice is even when he says, “So speak, Eva Marteinn, and remember between us, there is no more room for lies. Will you have me?”
I close my eyes, lean my face into his hands, let his burnt-sugar scent roll through me like the tide. He deserves the truth—about who I really am, who we might be to each other. If I don't tell him—if I go through with this, knowing with every second, I might be binding him closer to me as my anchor—I am no better than the Executor and the Priests who took our free will away.
Drawing a deep breath for courage, I sit up straight, away from the lure of his touch, and meet his gaze. “There are things you don't know about me, Ari. Things I should tell you before we go any further.”
He meets my eyes. "There is nothing you could tell me that would make me think less of you. Nothing that would make me want you less."
There is such confidence in his voice, such faith in the way he looks at me. It shatters me inside—especially when I know what I have to say might shatter him the same way. "Don't be so sure," I tell him, thinking of the way I'd woken on the floor of that freezing cell to find my hand leathery and tipped with claws. If he'd seen me then, would he still say the same?
I am a beast, a monster. The way I looked that morning—what I can become—is the least of it. I could enslave him, steal his soul.
"Hey." His voice is gentle. "We have time now. All the time in the world. We don't need to figure this out tonight."
He wraps his arms around me, guiding me back down to the mat. I let him, reveling in the illusory safety of his touch.
"You're burning up, Eva," he says, pressing his hand to my forehead. "Are you sick?"
Tell him, I think, but I don’t have the heart. I want the memory of this night with him—just one perfect night, untainted by ugly truths that might tear us apart. "I'm fine," I tell him, glad that the dark hides my face. "And most importantly, we're free."
He kisses my hair, pulls me close against him, and falls silent. I lie awake, Ari's arm draped over my body, listening to his breathing even out into sleep. I don't dare close my own eyes—what if what happened to me in the cell happens again?
Still, there’s comfort in the feel of Ari's body against mine. Tomorrow, we’ll leave for the Brotherhood's stronghold. Tomorrow, I’ll have to decide whether to break his heart. Tomorrow, the rest of our lives will begin.
But tonight I lie, secure under the weight of his arm, the knife I liberated from his belt cold in my hand, and allow myself to find peace.
Acknowledgments
I started this book back in 2016, when the world looked very different. I hadn’t yet faced a personal health challenge that would test my strength and resilience beyond anything I’d experienced before—and I’ve experienced a few daunting things!—nor had I imagined a global society stretched to the breaking point by COVID-19.
As I write these acknowledgments, we are still several weeks away from the projected peak in the state I call home. New York City, where I was born and where my parents still live, is a war zone. My son grieves his inability to see his friends; everything that enters this house does so by delivery, and cardboard boxes sit on the porch for 24 hours before we bring them inside, lest they carry the virus; doctors and nurses face terrifying shortages of personal protective equipment. Each day, I peruse news feeds like a scavenger, sorting through opinion pieces for gleaming scraps of facts from epidemiologists and public health experts who, despite years of work in the field, are only able to hazard their best guesses as to the shape of our collective future.
And yet…if there is one thing these past few months have taught me—even in the darkest of times, there is hope. Sometimes it is blinding, like the glare of a floodlight…and sometimes it is a pale ray, a lifeline whose path you follow, having faith that eventually, it will show you the way home.
More than a few individuals have been my lifeline during the past year. I owe my unending gratitude—and potentially my sanity—to them, especially LaToia Brown, Sarah Carpenter, Carol Crate, Melinda Cummings, Dina Dudas, Anne Firmender, Amy Lyon, Kari Skaar, Jessica Smith, Kris Spangler, and my amazing service dog, Tracy Wilkes. All the folks who brought us delicious meals—I will owe you forever. A special shout-out to my parents, Lois and Michael Colin, who disrupted their own lives to assist with ours when everything went to hell in a handbasket. Huge hugs to my community at DREAMS of Wilmington and the Wilson Center for your support. Bottomless appreciation to Dr. Kenneth Kotz and all of the nurses at the Zimmer Cancer Center; Dr. Elizabeth Weinberg; and Dr. Patrick Maguire. To my fabulous neighbor Traci Johnson—I raise a glass to your kindness. And, of course, all my love to Neil Horne, who stood by my side during the maelstrom. Thank you for being my lighthouse when I couldn’t see the shore.
Beyond those who stuck with me during this extraordinary year, I owe a debt of gratitude to several individuals for their contributions to the Seven Sins series. Thanks go out to my beta readers, Anne Firmender and Neil Horne; my agent, Felicia Eth, for supporting me as I ventured into new territory; Emily
Hainsworth, whose feedback on an early version of this manuscript was invaluable; Emily Grace Williams and Jessica Bayliss, for their insightful perspectives; and the Weymouth Center for Arts and Humanities, for granting me the time and space to tell Eva and Ari’s story. Tremendous appreciation to Lisa Amowitz for designing my lovely Facebook banner and to Sarah Anderson for hosting my Instagram cover reveal. Cake, balloons, and fine wine to Katie Rose Guest Pryal and Lauren Faulkenberry for taking a chance on me and helping me see the manuscript with fresh eyes. You are rock stars.
My ultimate gratitude goes, of course, to my readers. Without your support, I wouldn’t have the privilege of continuing to tell the stories I love. If I could hug each and every one of you, I would.
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Ari and Eva’s story continues on the pages of Book 2 of the Seven Sins series, Siege of the Seven Sins. Read on for a preview.
Preview: SIEGE OF THE SEVEN SINS
1. Eva
The world is on fire, or I am.
I come to consciousness with a start, tendrils of white-hot pain curling low in my belly, then spiraling outward to twine, vine-like, around my limbs. My body burns, fire-tipped thorns sinking deep into my bones, holding me still.
Pinioned, I turn my head—all I can move—sideways and see my hand, pale in the darkness of our tent. As I watch, horrified, it shimmers with light, then changes form: a talon, fledged with vicious, curved claws; a flipper, flapping helplessly against the nylon of the tent’s floor; a mammoth, black-furred paw, nails scrabbling, searching for purchase. The shifts hurt, and I stifle the need to cry out. There is some reason that I need to remain silent, a secret I need to keep—
Next to me, Ari stirs, and with the force of the water crashing over the edge of Black Falls—the place where the Bellatorum used to sacrifice our fellow warriors—I realize why I need to keep this horror to myself. There are no vines holding me in place; instead, the weight pinioning my limbs is him. I’m on my side, facing away from him, my back against his chest. He’s holding me close, his arm wrapped around me, his leg thrown over mine. His face is nuzzled into my hair, his breath warm on the nape of my neck. His scent surrounds me: pine needles from the forest we trekked through to get here; a hint of the tart berries we ate last night for supper; and his own burnt-sugar scent, as unique to Ari as his fingerprints. A scent that has come to mean home.
I’ve never woken up next to a boy before. In the Commonwealth, such a sinful action would have been punished with death or exile. Locked in my cell in the dungeons, imprisoned by the actions I’d taken to save Ari’s life, I’d dreamed of a moment like this. One day, I’d imagined, we might be free. I could hold his hand, even kiss him, and not worry that the Priests and Executor would find us both guilty of the highest treason—at best, exiled to roam the Borderlands; at worst, kneeling with our necks bared for our fellow bellators’ sverds in Clockverk Square.
That dream died the moment the Executor told me the truth.
I lie still, breathing deep, trying to force the paw to shift back into a hand. Ari thinks I’m human, a person. I’d just wanted one night with him, before I had to confess everything.
I’m a genetic experiment, my DNA spliced with that of four beasts. I was bred to be a weapon, and you were raised to be my slave. And if you don’t agree, then I will die.
Yeah, that would go over well.
I stare at the impossible paw, my skin sparking with heat, willing it to become a hand again. I have no idea how to do this. For all I know, focusing on it will only serve to make things worse. My vision shudders, and for a second I could swear I see the black fur creeping upward, limning my arm the way moss limns a rock, my bones shifting and cracking and changing—
I blink, my eyes feeling as if their sockets are stuffed with sand. It was an illusion, thank the Architect. The paw’s still there, but my arm looks normal. Relief breaks over me, until I feel Ari stir beside me. What will I do if he sees me this way? Please, I beg whatever forces out there will listen. Please make it stop.
But nothing answers.
Then, above me, on the ceiling of the tent, I see the shadows take shape and grow, the way they have since I was a child. As I watch, they converge, merging into a single trunk, branches reaching down toward me, knitting a canopy of ghost-trees, a forest within a forest. Skúmaskot, they hiss. Skúmaskot, look.
Never before have I been able to make out their words. Everything they’ve said has been no more than a susurrus, the syllables audible but braided together too tightly to unravel. Now I can understand them. Now they have called me by name—or at least, what the Executor said I was. Skúmaskot, a creature made of myths and shadows.
The shadow-branches curve further, their icy tips tracing that horrifying paw, sending shivers rippling through me—as if I’ve been touched by the darkness itself. Shapeshifter, they hiss again, their not-voices tinged with impatience. You are one of us. Skúmaskot, look.
So I do.
I do what I never had the courage to do before: I peer into the heart of the shadows and let them show me what they will. And in their depths I see the greatest of contradictions.
The darkness is burning. And soon, we will be too.
Run, skúmaskot, the voices whisper. Run, and live.
A deafening sound fills my ears—the shadow-voices, roaring. The branch retreats and the tree cracks open, revealing a gaping hollow at its center. From the corners of the tent, shadow forms rush toward it—a swooping falcon, wings spread wide; a spike-furred wolf, belly low to the ground; a selkie, flippers pressed purposefully against its sides, its body an arrow; and last, a giant, prowling panther. The beast turns its great head and looks back over its shoulder. Run, it tells me, though its lips don’t move. Then it vanishes, consumed by the tree.
The creatures take all the oxygen in the tent with them. There is a noise that is not a noise, the rushing of air into a vacuum, so loud it hurts my ears. It seems absurd to me that Ari doesn’t wake. My outstretched arm burns and aches and stings, the pain devouring me.
Then, as suddenly as it came, the pain disappears. My hand is a hand again, and I can breathe. But when I inhale, I smell what the shadows were warning me about: The acrid scent of smoke.
Panic floods my veins, and I shake Ari to consciousness, each second the ominous tick-tick-tick of a clock. The bellators are coming, the world is burning, and we must run if we want to live.
2. Ari
“Get up.” It’s Eva’s voice, fierce and urgent. Her touch on my upper arm, shaking me—I would know it anywhere. But sleep has me in its grip, holding me in the depths of a cold, black pool. I’m trained to wake in an instant, but somehow I can’t move.
“Ari.” Her voice comes again, hooking me, reeling me in. I want to answer her, but that would require breaking free and swimming for the surface. My limbs feel like they’re weighted down, and my heart thuds slowly, as if I were truly underwater, starved of oxygen and freezing.
Forcing my eyelids open is a challenge, but I manage. I blink, once, twice—and open my eyes to the darkness of our tent. When I fell asleep, Eva was lying beside me. I woke once to find myself wrapped around her, her body soft and pliant in sleep, her long hair freed from its braid. She hadn’t put it up after last night, when we’d almost—
But there’s no time to think about that now. She’s crouched over me, shaking me harder, her nails digging in. “Ari! Get up. We have to leave.”
I struggle up to my elbows, trying to make her out in the dark. “What’s wrong?” My voice is hoarse, glutted with sleep.
“Fire,” she says, and the insistence in her voice is enough to bring me the rest of the way to wakefulness.
I sit up, inhaling deeply. It’s the middle of the night. All I smell is the forest, seeping in through the thin fabric of our tent: leaves and dirt and the slow approach of winter. “Ma
ybe you were dreaming—”
“I wasn’t. I swear.” Her voice shakes. “They’re coming for us, Ari—for me. We have to leave.”
I don’t smell fire, nor do I hear anything untoward—but I trust Eva. Her instincts have saved us more than once, even if I don’t understand them. I get to my feet, reaching for my weapons belt. It’s a good thing I’m used to operating without sleep, because I’m so tired, I have to fight the urge to sway where I stand.
Eva, on the other hand, is all but vibrating beside me in her eagerness to alert the others. Her hair is back in its usual braid. She’s already strapped on the sheath and sverd she took from Benedikt, the bellator whose throat she slit in our escape from the Commonwealth’s prison. She’d liberated Benedikt’s weapons belt, too, but lost it somehow during the battle in the forest that followed.
It had been brutal, fighting the Bastarour—the Commonwealth’s mutant beasts—along with Efraím Stinar, the lead bellator, and the Thirty, his most elite warriors. We were lucky to get out alive—and as skilled a fighter as I am, if it hadn’t been for Eva’s ingenuity, we probably wouldn’t have. I may be prideful, but I can admit the truth. Still, though we managed to escape, the sverd is the only weapon she has left…aside from Eva herself, who is weapon enough. I ought to know; I trained her.
She rolls up the sleeping mat, which turns inside out to become a tiny pouch, complete with a carabiner for clipping it onto a belt or pack. “Come on,” she says, ducking through the flap of the tent. “We have to find Ronan.”
I follow her out into darkness. The camp is set in a semicircle, with a sheer rockface at its back and woods bordering it on three sides. Even with colder weather approaching, most of the trees here are evergreen and their leaves are thick. Blackberry brambles tangle with vines and undergrowth, making the way to the campsite inaccessible except by a narrow mountain pass, a bottleneck where the cliffs that surround us converge. Once through the pass, the road dips down into a valley, opening up into a wood-bracketed clearing in easy hiking-distance from a stream.
