17
Just when I start thinking I have this land all figured out, the green ends.
It’s replaced by ash. Mile after mile of ash.
It looks just like the Prism Pass but ruined. It looks like Stormside. The trees in the forest are rotted. The branches are bare.
But there are streams. I rush toward one, my throat throbbing with thirst, and pause just before my fingers skim the surface.
The water is red as blood.
Even on Stormside, the water isn’t this shade. Most sitting water is murky and not safe to drink … but not crimson.
I look up at Raker. By the tilt of his head, I can tell he’s studying the liquid. Without a sound, he turns away from it. Undrinkable, then.
We walk until the sun hangs low, and then we find a cave, with a red sheet of water in front of it. Raker stalks off to either hunt or train.
He won’t teach me to wield my sword. Foolish, really, for me to even ask. But seeing how expertly he uses his has convinced me more than ever
that I must learn.
Figure it out.
Under the fading sunlight, just beyond the cave, I lift my sword.
I haven’t practiced since my dragon. I almost smile, remembering how she helped me. How her magnificent tail struck over and over.
If I thought days of walking with it would have made the weapon feel lighter, I was wrong. No, the steel feels even heavier now. My arms feel weaker.
Maybe berries and mushrooms aren’t enough to sustain me on this journey. Maybe I should have asked for some of Raker’s food.
It isn’t just my lack of nourishment keeping me weak, I know. I’m resting every night, but not fully. I don’t trust Raker. I don’t trust this world. It’s hard to completely slip into sleep out here.
This is the Questral. Of course I’m tired. Of course I’m hungry. These excuses won’t matter when I reach the gods. I’ll have to train myself through them.
I grip the hilt of my sword with both hands. My arms tremble as I lift my weapon higher.
Raker’s voice cuts through my mind. You are unworthy of any blade.
Your sword is just as pathetic as you are.
Rage simmers in my blood.
He’s wrong. I am not pathetic. And one day, I will wield this sword just as easily as he does.
A growl escapes my throat as I lunge forward, cutting through the air, attempting even a fraction of Raker’s speed. Instead of an elegant arc, the weight has me stumbling forward. Pain flashes through my biceps as I fight
to keep it from piercing the ground.
Fuck, it’s heavy.
It must be weightless in my hand if I’m going to fight with it. And that, I think, just requires practice.
Even a beast can be eaten in small bites, Stellan used to say. I would wrinkle my nose at the phrase, finding the idea of eating a beast repulsive, but, as the years went on, I understood his meaning. Everything in life can be conquered in tiny steps.
So, I start from the beginning, just like I had to when I was first learning to wield a sword. I begin with simply raising and lowering my metal for half an hour, until my muscles burn, trying to get used to its weight.
Then I attempt a simple cutting motion, one I’ve done a thousand times.
This sword changes every detail and calculation. My stance. The energy needed. The strain.
I stagger forward—shit—then straighten. Shift my grip on the hilt, my right hand up against the guard, the other at its end. Grit my teeth. Try a second time.
And nearly fall on my face, the full heaviness of the weapon pulling me forward. I barely keep from dropping it.
Bent over my knees, I pant. Get yourself together.
Again.
Again.
This is the focus I find in the forge, and in early-morning training sessions with Stellan. I sink into a rhythm, and the world washes away, taking all my problems with it. It’s only me and this sheet of sparkling metal. Nothing else matters. Nothing else gets my attention.
I shift my approaches, learning, then adjusting, until finally, I can do the move without compromising my stance. It’s a simple victory, but pride seeps through my chest. I hold the sword in place, chest rising and falling, sweat sliding down my brow. I did it.
I’m just about to set it down when Raker emerges from the rotting trees.
He has a creature on his back. I stare at him, breathing hard, forcing every bit of strength into my arms to keep my sword up.
He just strides past me, toward the cave up the hill, shaking his head, as
though I am utterly ridiculous.
Screw him.
I continue, through the sounds of a fire being built, through the mouthwatering smell of roasting meat, through the crackle of the flames and the pattering of the crimson water. I train until my body is boneless, and the last shred of light fades away.
And then I drag myself through the bloodred waterfall and collapse into sleep.
I dream of a crackling hearth. Just beyond it, I can hear laughter, echoing through a full house. I smell burnt sugar and feel my sticky fingers curling around cards.
The fire burns out. The house is quiet again.
The darkness is thick as a blanket. The world is silent, and sleeping, and
perfect.
All at once, it’s burning.
Everything I’ve ever loved is up in flames, and I can’t stop it, and I’m gasping, and coughing, and everything, everyone is— I’m knocked out of my nightmare by a breath, right against my forehead.
I reach for my sword, but a firm hand is tied around my wrist, as if someone knew that was the first thing I would do.
Their other hand is covering my mouth.
I struggle, my scream muted, until I blink and see familiar gray eyes in front of mine. The rest of him is still cased in shadow. But the fact that I could feel his breath … it means he’s not wearing his mask.
Raker’s voice is a growl. “You were screaming.”
He lowers his hand quickly, like touching me for even a moment is
revolting.
It happened again. The nightmares.
I tremble against the ground, the remnants of that panic still running through my blood. I can feel the prick of tears in the corners of my eyes.
“You’re going to get us killed,” Raker snarls, before stalking away to his side of the cave.
Like Raker’s mood, the rot worsens.
The ash-spun ground turns to mud. Every river, creek, and waterfall is red.
It isn’t long before the juice from my berries isn’t enough to quench my thirst. Raker drinks from the liquid in his pouch, offering none to me.
My throat aches. My head throbs. The sun beats heavily down on us without the veil of magic, scorching hot. This rot is a curse. All I can do is hope it ends soon.
We finally happen upon a forest, and my dry eyes search wildly for anything living.
Red. I spot large apple-like fruits and lunge forward, picking them—only to drop them. They’re spoilt and teeming with insects.
I eat one of my berries, only to see that they themselves are starting to rot. It’s as if this place has a sheen, a poison around us.
“We should go a different direction,” I say, shaking my head. “This place
—”
Raker ignores me.
We pass the carcass of an unrecognizable animal. I bury my nose in my shirt against the smell. Maggots crawl in and out of its skin, and its—its veins are dark, like that demon that tried to coax me out of the spring. Its
flesh is gray.
Is this the God of Death’s work too?
We walk for hours, without finding a suitable place to spend the night.
Finally, we settle beside a rushing red river. We’re not surrounded by water … but close enough to get in it, should we need to.
I really fucking hope we don’t.
I won’t be resting a moment tonight, anyway, remembering what happened the last time I fell asleep along a riverbank. Which is fine. I’m in
no rush to return to that memory. Raker—bastard that he is—is right.
Screaming in the middle of the night is a liability.
So is my very mortal reliance on food and water.
Training yesterday has only intensified my need for both. I’m so hungry that I find myself disappointed when Raker returns empty-handed. There’s nothing to hunt anymore, I assume. Nothing that isn’t poisoned.
I stare at my sad spread of food. I planned to save it for as long as I could … but it’s shriveling already. It won’t last another day. I eat a good portion of it, the food grinding together into a dry paste in my mouth that I work to swallow.
Then I look up at the towering figure that is sitting on a rock by the red stream’s edge, hunched forward. For once, his posture isn’t perfect.
He must be hungry. Clearly, it takes a lot of food to keep a knight like him satiated.
He should have tried foraging. I’m sure he wouldn’t turn up his nose at my berries and mushrooms now.
I eat another piece of fruit. I continue to watch him, trying to summon satisfaction and happiness at his current position.
I can’t. Maybe it’s because I know that him being weakened will only end up hurting me in the long run. Maybe it’s because I’m not a heartless wretch like he is. Maybe I’m still hoping he’ll train me.
You really are an idiot, I think to myself, before grabbing some of the mushrooms and berries and walking over to him.
He’s sharpening his blade. Fantastic. His hands grip the sword and polishing stone and—they’re huge. They’re the biggest hands I’ve ever seen.
Why am I staring at them? These huge hands have killed hundreds. I should be disgusted by them. I am disgusted by them.
My eyes dip to his sword, wondering if I’ll get another look at his mask in its reflection, but before I can, he lowers it, as if sensing my purpose.
“Here,” I say, extending my hand.
He doesn’t even look at me.
I scowl. “I know you’re hungry. Are you truly too proud to take
something from me?”
He doesn’t say a word.
What? Does he think it’s poisoned? I make a show of biting one of the mushrooms in half, chewing, swallowing, waiting, remaining very much
alive, then offer the other half to him.
He turns away from me, as if the idea of eating something that has touched my lips is a worse fate than being poisoned.
I roll my eyes and offer him a different one. I wait a moment. Two. Fine.
He wants to starve? Fucking go ahead. “You know what, I—”
He reaches out and takes it.
I’m stunned into silence. Slowly, his hand disappears beneath his hood and mask. I hear the faint sound of chewing. Swallowing.
“So, there’s a face under there after all,” I murmur to myself.
I’m shocked when he speaks again. Even more surprised when he reaches out and takes another mushroom from my palm, being careful not to touch my skin in the slightest. “As opposed to?”
I shrug. “A beak? A coil of snakes? A black hole?”
He makes a noise that sounds halfway between unimpressed and … and almost amused. “All of those would qualify as a face.”
“True. Which means you still could look like a monster under there.”
He doesn’t say a word. He doesn’t pull his hood back and remove his mask to assuage my curiosity. He just keeps taking mushrooms from my palm until they’re all gone.
“I have more,” I say warily, walking back to my things. As much as I hate him, I need him at full strength. And maybe this could be the start of a true partnership. One where I might actually be able to offer him something else of value, more than just the map … and he might, in turn, change his mind about training me.
I uncurl my leaves. All my food, out in the open. I sit in front of it. It takes a few minutes, pointed staring, and a long-suffering sigh from him, but—to my surprise—he joins me.
Good. This could be … good. We eat in silence, hands far away from the other’s. But at least we aren’t fighting.
Just when I think we might have formed a tentative truce, just when I think he might be capable of not being an asshole for just a few minutes, he says, “Why would someone like you be so desperate to go on the quest?”
My eyes narrow. “Someone like me?”
He takes a mushroom. Pops it into what I presume is, in fact, a mouth.
“Breakable. Weak.”
I should have let him fucking starve.
Fury boils beneath my skin. I have to remind myself why I’m working with him. Why I’m feeding him. “Excuse me, even though you have an immortal ego, you are very much human too. Just as breakable as me.”
He tilts his head in a movement of utter arrogance, clearly disagreeing with that statement.
I roll my eyes. “I’m here for revenge,” I say simply. “You?”
If his silence is any indication, my answer has surprised him. I suppose it would be shocking. Most people who make the journey are after the magic.
He considers his answer for a moment. “You could say I have a similar purpose.” He looks back at the spread of food.
I snort. “Who would be stupid enough to piss you off?” I ask, wondering if they’ve seen him with a sword.
Very slowly, his head tilts back up to me. I can feel his gaze locked with mine, even though I can’t see his eyes. His voice is jagged steel against stone. “I don’t know, Aris. You seem to do it quite often.”
Aris.
He says my name for the first time, and my skin prickles. The way he says it … like his voice is both caressing it and mocking it … makes my
pulse stutter.
But there’s something else.
“How do you know my name?”
I’ve never told him. I’m not sure the Watchman ever even called it out.
I’m certain he doesn’t remember that day, two years prior, when we first
met.
He says nothing.
I don’t ask again. Instead, I give him a sugary smile, trying to ignore the stammer in my chest. “What can I say? I hate you. I’m sure I’m not the first.”
He doesn’t seem surprised by my hatred. He’s probably used to having enemies all around him. He just continues to stare at me from the darkness of his hood, and I roll my eyes. “It’s rude, you know. Keeping that hood on.
I can’t even see you glaring at me.”
Raker just shakes his head and turns his attention back to the mushrooms.
We eat the rest in silence. When everything is gone, I carefully fold the leaf into a square. I look up and am shocked to see him offering something
to me.
His water.
For a moment, I just look at it. I blink. I consider refusing. But in the end, I take it. Eyes fixed on where his must be, I slowly raise it to my lips. Take a sip. Try not to groan at how good the clean water feels sliding down my dry throat.
I offer it back to him, but he stands. “Keep it,” he says roughly. And I know it’s not because of generosity or care for me. I just know it.
I repulse you, don’t I?
You have no idea.
He let me keep it because he doesn’t want to drink from something my lips have touched.
We don’t speak the entire next morning as the mud beneath our feet turns to dirt. Any hope of clean water withers as the crimson streams darken even more, to a thick metallic tar with an oily sheen. The sun is like an eye, staring me down, heat blazing. I make Raker’s canteen last most of the day, then I’m thirsty again.
Mid-afternoon, Raker drops his pack by another riverbank and wordlessly slips away to hunt.
“I’m doing okay, thanks for asking,” I say in his direction long after he’s through the trees. I sigh.
If only I had literally any other travel companion.
My body is aching and spent. My legs want to buckle beside this putrid stream, but I slide my sword from its scabbard. I take a deep breath.
Then, I do the same slashing move I practiced before.
And I don’t stumble. I keep my stance.
I keep my stance. I almost grin, realizing last time wasn’t just a fluke. A jolt runs through the metal, striking my blood.
I tense.
I could be losing my mind. But I swear my sword just … congratulated me?
It could be the dehydration. Or the loneliness. Or my metal is really communicating with me. Whatever it is … it’s the push I desperately need.
Time to see if I can do it while switching stances.
I can’t.
I almost slice through my thigh actually, the blade careening forward.
Again.
My muscles burn as I shift my feet and legs, knees bending then straightening, yet every time my sword moves in its slicing motion, I lose my balance. It seems impossible to do both at the same time.
But I mastered it once, with a lesser blade, moving from wooden practice swords to metal, as a child with Stellan.
I can do it again.
I’m so focused on my shifting stances, that I don’t even notice that the woods beyond the riverbank have gone deathly quiet.
I don’t even see the glowing sword— Until it’s at my throat, casting a crimson light the exact shade of blood.
My breath catches. All my questions about how this sword is glowing come second to the fact that my pulse is currently beating against its metal.
I slowly turn my head to the side, only to meet a sparkling gaze. An immortal, whose skin is dry and split, like this is what happens to someone who spends too much time in this rot.
“Such a pretty sword,” he whispers, in a strange lilt. “Lordship will love
it.”
I scream as loudly as I can.
Then, the glowing red sword’s hilt smacks against my head, and the world goes dark.