32
I don’t know how long Raker carried me, just that when I finally look up from his neck, sun is pouring down into the forest, right above us.
My body is curled tightly against his chest.
There’s a mess of vines blocking our path, and he shifts my weight to one arm, pulls his sword out with the other, slashes the vines to pieces, then sheaths it again. All in one smooth motion. Then both his arms are holding me again.
“Raker,” I say, and his focus doesn’t budge from in front of him. He’s alert and ready, just like he must be all the time on the battlefield, fighting countless rebels.
“Aris,” he says, the sound like ground stone.
I swallow. I still hate him. I hate that he didn’t even try to save those people.
Maybe we would have died, trying to go back, or trying to help more. I don’t know. I will always regret not at least giving them a chance.
But I also regret how I reacted. I don’t want to be as bad as him.
“I’m sorry I attacked you.” The words are forced. I’m sure he can tell.
He finally looks down at me, sun glinting off the metal of his mask, as if he’s shocked that those words seriously just left my mouth.
I think he might be about to answer.
Then, without warning, he lets go of me, and I stumble before managing to catch myself, even though my legs are still numb with sleep.
He summons his sword in a flash. “And I’m sorry you were so fucking bad at it,” he says.
Right. Stupid of me to think Raker could be tolerable for more than a few hours.
For a second, I wonder if he’s just going to finally get rid of me, but then he falls into his stance and says, “Try again.”
I blink. He can’t be serious.
He nods at my incredulous look. “Try harder this time, Aris.”
Hate. Me. Harder.
I reach back for my blade. Pull it from its sheath. Fall into my stance.
“All that rage?” he says. “Make it mean something.” Then, he’s on me again.
Our swords clash and skim and join and tremble against each other. And without the rush of anger, my head is clearer. I frown in focus, remembering every time I’ve watched him fight. Every little movement. Every detail. My
memory is my advantage.
And I’ve been watching him.
Maybe too carefully.
I know his favorite moves. I know how I’ve reacted to them in the past.
So, when he goes to shove me against a tree, lifting his blade to press it against my neck— I duck around him, kick the back of his legs, use his own momentum to my advantage, and shove him against the trunk instead.
My metal is at his throat.
I’m panting against his chest. The sword is shaking in my grip.
Shit. I … I did it.
He’s not even winded. I’m not sure he was even fully trying.
His mistake.
A win is a win.
I lift to my toes, and lean in, very carefully, luxuriating in this rare moment I never thought would fucking happen. “All this metal slows you down, Raker,” I whisper, as close to his ear as I can get. “Hiding behind it might just be your downfall.” My lips curl into a smug grin.
I let the metal graze him for just another moment.
Then, I go to drop my blade, but his hand reaches up, stopping me. His long fingers curl over mine, swallowing them. “No,” he says. “Go ahead.
Follow through with it.”
I frown. What?
“Come on, Aris,” he drawls, his voice a rasped challenge. His rough thumb gently brushes against my pulse, and my treacherous heart stutters.
“You know you want to.”
The sword trembles even more.
But his grip doesn’t loosen. No, massive hand gripping mine, he guides my blade’s edge closer to his throat. Together, we dig it into his skin.
Harder. Harder. Until blood drips down his neck. There’s a line of it, a thin mark on his previously unmarred skin.
My eyes widen, watching the crimson, horrified.
“There,” he says. “A memory of my weakness.”
Then, he drops his hand.
I stumble back, his blood on my blade.
A sight I never thought I would fucking see.
I open my mouth. Close it. Still unbelieving that I actually bested him, and that he marked himself with my sword.
“Good job, Aris,” he says as he walks past me, not even bothering to wipe away the blood.
Dueling becomes a daily event.
I never get close to beating him again, but that’s because he’s finally trying. Finally treating me—consistently—like a worthy opponent.
Even though he doesn’t know it, he’s training me to have a chance against the gods. It’s why I don’t mind the break in our journey, the few hours it takes for us to get all our frustrations out with our blades.
After one of these sessions, I draw the map for him, and together we decide to go north, to avoid the desert completely. It adds a few days to our travels, but I’d rather be in woods lush with berries and mushrooms and game, than in a sea of sands.
Thanks to the starlight, we can travel more hours of the day than ever. We sleep whenever we must. And instead of the old nightmares, I have new ones. I hear the immortals’ screams. The ones we ignored.
I look at Raker, and I see mercilessness.
But I also see the knight that carried me until I woke up. That has trained me, every day since I marked him, like he wants me to be able to do it again.
I don’t pin my hair up anymore, tying it into its two braids at the sides that become a long one down my back, using it as a cover over my eyes at
night, to sleep while wearing my bright necklace.
But tonight, I just stare up at the stars. According to the map, we’re almost to the edge of the forest. Almost to the Land of the Gods.
This is what I wanted. It’s why I’m here.
But for some reason, my mind is filled with all the things I’ll have missed out on if facing the gods leads to my death.
“I’ve never seen the sea before,” I say, staring up at the sky. I don’t even know if Raker is still awake. We’ve been camped out here for over an hour now.
He doesn’t answer. Of course he doesn’t.
Still, I turn to my side to face him. “Have you seen it?”
His hood is still on, just like his mask. I’m used to talking to fabric, but I have the strange urge to see his face. To see if he is truly the monster he acts like.
“I grew up by the sea,” he finally says.
I’m shocked into silence. It takes a few moments for me to say anything at all. “Was it … was it beautiful?” I ask, knowing all on Stormside has
rapidly degraded since the gates.
“It used to be,” he says.
And that’s it. But now that he’s given me another tiny thread of his life … I want more. I want to know how this man became the most feared
knight on Stormside.
“How did you claim your sword?” I ask.
By the tensing of his shoulders, it seems my question is a surprise. And, perhaps, unwelcome.
Right. Foolish of me to think he would be interested in having a lengthy conversation.
“It’s fine,” I say, scowling, turning back around. “I don’t know why I
thought you’d—”
“I killed its wielder,” he says simply.
Of course. It makes sense. Still, I swallow. “Its wielder must have been powerful.”
He lifts a shoulder. “Not more so than me.”
I roll my eyes. “At least you’re humble.”
He turns toward me. His voice sharpens. “Should I lie? Should I pretend to be a simpering weak fool, the way you do?”
At that, I bristle.
“I saw you, at the Culling,” he continues, sitting up. I do too. “Shrinking into yourself, playing weak damsel until you got close enough.” He makes a
derisive sound.
I saw you.
My back teeth scrape together. Never in a thousand years would I have imagined Raker had been watching me.
It makes sense. He was getting a good look at his supposed competition.
And he’s right about me. I do it often, on purpose. There is nothing stronger than a woman underestimated.
But his pointing it out, his knowing it was an act, makes me strangely furious. “You’re one to judge,” I say, getting closer, so I can say the words right at his face. “You’ve never been starving, you’ve never been without a family, you’ve never been imprisoned, and tied down, and tortured.”
“You don’t know what I’ve been,” he says sharply, ducking his head, just inches away. Wind howls around us. It blows my braid back. I just stare up at him, and that glimmering silver.
“You’re right,” I finally say. “I don’t know anything about you. I don’t even know your face. Tell me. Does building a wall around your heart make it hurt less?”
He stares me down. And his invisible gaze feels like a weapon itself. His sharp voice feels like one too. “I wouldn’t know. I don’t have one,” he says, perhaps recalling all the times I’ve called him heartless.
“Well, at least you’re honest,” I say. “At least you know you’re a
monster.”
That word … it makes him flinch.
And I’m still so angry about what happened in that forest that I want to dig in that knife and twist it. “Yes. That’s what you are,” I say. “You are heartless. You are a monster. You are merciless. I’m sure you wear those words with honor.”
“Mercy will get you killed,” he says, his voice rumbling just inches from my mouth.
I laugh without humor, remembering when he was merciless to me. “Is that what you tell yourself to sleep at night?”
He shrugs. “I’m not the one with the nightmares, Aris,” he says.
Bastard.
I open my mouth—
And lightning flashes across the sky, illuminating everything, followed
by a knee-wobbling crack of thunder.
I remember.
How soft the small patch of grass was beneath our fingers. How quickly
the storm came rolling in.
How wide my sister’s eyes— A hand locks around my arm. “Come on,” Raker yells, and that’s when I notice it’s raining. Badly. Out of nowhere, like the sky was just ripped open at the seams. “Let’s find somewhere dry.”
I open my mouth, trying to recall the surrounding landscape, then freeze.
It’s not just the skies. The ground is thundering.
Fuck.
Hooves. Horses, grunting.
The cavalry has found us again.
We start to run.
And the rain pours down harder. I don’t know if it’s to our advantage, or not, all I hear is those dozens of horses, getting closer.
“The light,” Raker says, looking over at me. I look down. It’s like a beacon, leading them right to us. Even through the rain.
I know he probably wants me to leave it behind. “But—”
He rips it over my head in one smooth motion.
“That cave, up in the mountains. You go there,” he yells, motioning northeast, to the faint shape of a mountain I can barely see through the rain.
He says it like a general ordering his forces. Then, without waiting for my response, light clutched in his hand, he runs in the other direction.
I realize what he’s doing immediately.
Shit.
I try to run after him, but he’s so much faster, even with the armor. It doesn’t really slow him that much, not really, no matter what I said.
He disappears in the blur of the rain. I stay rooted in place, listening to those hooves as they change course. As they chase him.
Raker is the best warrior I’ve ever seen. He also doesn’t really give a shit about me. This isn’t some sort of noble sacrifice. This is him telling me I’ll just get in the way.
He’s going to be fine. That’s what I tell myself as I take a breath and start to move, sprinting to the hill, and the cliff carved into its side.
My boots slip and my knees crash against the rock. Dirt gets lodged beneath my nails. But I finally make it to the mouth of the cave. A curtain of water is spilling over it, runoff from the top of the hill. I dart through the entrance, and finally, I’m dry.
I didn’t realize how cold the rain was, until now. My skin is pebbled. My teeth chatter.
Arms crossed over myself for warmth, I stand there, for a few minutes.
Then, almost an hour, just waiting.
Waiting.
Raker doesn’t return.
Dread starts to crawl through my blood. Should I—should I go looking for him?
No. I think about when I bolted through the Storm Woods, believing I would save him. He’s the head of the king’s guard. He’ll have had a plan. A
way to distract them or lead them away.
I sit. And wait.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
Quiet.
Scrapes echo against the stone like nails scratching a wall. I groan, turning over, realizing I fell asleep waiting for him.
A step sounds close by.
Raker.
Relief slams into me. I open my eyes, blinking away sleep, only to see a creature with a skull-like face reaching toward me, with claws of glimmering steel. They scrape against each other gently as they stretch out.
Fear grips my chest.
Demon.
Without moving, my gaze travels to the mouth of the cave, where the rain has stopped. The water that was like a door in front of it is gone.
I don’t dare breathe. I don’t dare blink.
The claw goes right toward my face, sliding against my cheek—not stopping until it reaches my sword, still on my back, the metal peeking up from behind me. My hands tremble against the stone ground.
The creature seizes. Stops. Then it throws its head back and screeches, revealing rows of sharp, mismatched teeth.
That’s when I strike. I kick it with all my strength, and when it staggers back, I reach for my sword, fast as ever. It recovers quickly, and lunges forward.
I put my blade up to block it, both hands gripped tightly around its hilt.
Entranced by my metal, the demon launches forward, claws of steel extended, reaching.
It hits me with the force of a wagon, slamming me against the wall with blinding speed. My head hits the jagged rock. My vision spins.
Those claws reach past my blade and wrap around my neck.
I gasp.
Before they can shred my throat to ribbons, the demon is pulled back by its protruding spine.
Raker doesn’t waste a moment before putting his blade right through its
skull.
Raker.
Relief washes over me in a wave. Not just because he saved me from the demon. But because he’s … alive.
Chest heaving, I grip the wall for purchase. I shoot a look at the mouth of the cave, and the water that’s no longer there, but mercifully, it seems we won’t need it any longer. The entrance begins to be bathed by the first signs of day.
But Raker isn’t looking at the sunrise. He’s not looking at the dead
creature. No, he’s looking at me.
At my throat.
He takes a step forward. Am I bleeding? The cuts can’t be deep or I would be dead. I reach a hand up.
And that’s when I feel it. The long tears in the fabric. I swallow.
“What. Are. Those?” is all he says.
“Nothing,” I say, voice sharp, as if I could command him to forget this.
Instead, he takes a slow step toward me. Another. I can hear the intensity of his breathing. “They are very clearly not nothing.”
I turn to leave, but his arm juts out, blocking my path.
I could stab him. I don’t know if it would do me any good. He’s seen them already. There’s no taking that back.
The fear, the shame, the guilt of these markings … it has consumed me like a poison. Now the truth is out. It can’t ever be locked away again.
“What. Are. Those?” he asks again.
Instead of shrinking away, I lift my chin.
Fuck shame. Fuck hiding. I’ve been through too much—this body has survived too much to be ashamed of itself.
I rip my shirt over my head and throw it to the ground. Only the tight band of fabric around my breasts remains. He sees it all now.
Silver. Thin roots of silver, faintly sparkling through the remaining darkness.
The exact color a knight like him has trained to hunt and kill.
He doesn’t say anything. He’s staring. I can feel the heat of his eyes on my bare skin. Panic races through my blood, years of fearing knights and getting discovered rushing through me. I want to run.
But enough.
I stand very still, spine straight.
And he shakes his head. “Impossible,” he breathes. Then he lifts his gaze slightly. I can almost feel his eyes boring into mine. “How?”
I don’t want to tell him. I want to keep this secret for the rest of my life— but all the people who know this story are dead. The truth of that slams into my soul, and my eyes burn.
I have the sudden urge to tell someone. Because maybe … maybe that would lessen the shame. Maybe I wouldn’t feel so alone.
The words come out in a whisper. “When I was eight, my sister and I snuck out of the house. We went to a nearby cliff, to the only remaining patch of grass. We wanted to steal a few pieces. We thought we could bury it in our backyard and make the green grow. We … we were hoping to find wildflowers too. Out of nowhere, the sky changed. The storm struck. I could feel it coming. Right toward my sister.” I swallow. “I pushed her out of the way, and the lightning struck me instead.”
I take a shaking breath.
“My sister was just a little kid, but she pounded on my chest for hours.
My parents eventually found us, in the rain, and my father didn’t stop trying to get my heart started again. He never stopped. He never gave up on me.
None of them did. Until it worked. My eyes opened. And the red marks from the lightning turned silver.”
I don’t tell him that it’s my biggest regret, pushing my sister out of the way. That if it had hit her instead, maybe she would still be alive, after what
happened later.
“Lightning,” he says roughly.
I nod.
Slowly, so slowly, he reaches toward me. He gives me more than enough time to stop him, but I don’t. I just watch as his long fingers get closer and closer to my bare skin.
Then his rough thumb is gently trailing down my neck over the markings, and I gasp. A chill rains down my spine. No one but him has ever touched me there. Anywhere, really. His thumb is callused, but his touch is featherlight, just like it was in the cave. He strokes my pulse, then across my collarbone, before following the markings down, touching me in a path, like he’s tracing a constellation. Down my chest. Farther still, until he reaches its center. His large hand splays out, his fingers curling over my breasts. My skin prickles.
Out of nowhere, he stops, ripping his hand away.
Then, without another word, he turns and leaves the cave.
“They’re silver, Jesper.”
“I know they are.” My dad sounds tired. My sister and I have our ears to the door. I sink low and peer at my parents through the keyhole.
My mother’s face is in her hands. “What are we going to do?”
My father places his palm on her back. “We’re going to protect her, at all costs,” he says, his voice steady. “We’ll never let them take her away.”
My mother shakes her head. “Never,” she promises. “If they find out … they’ll never stop chasing her.”
“Who?” my sister asks from up above. I shush her. I don’t really know.
The king? He’s known for his greed. Perhaps he wishes he was silver.
“His knights will come for her,” my mother says, her voice now steady.
“One day, they will all come, and they will try to take her. They will … they will try to destroy her.”
My father’s voice is as firm as I have ever heard it. I feel the strength of it in my bones, distilled from pure anger and determination. “Let them try.”
Just when I thought we had formed a tentative truce, we’re back to silence.
He knows about my markings. That one fact makes me feel bare, exposed, at a disadvantage. It’s one of my greatest secrets. For my entire life, I’ve hidden away, afraid that someone would find out about them and take me from my family.
Especially the knights of the king’s guard. Let alone its damned leader.
I feel shame crawling across my skin for what I am, all that confidence in tatters. The way Raker stormed out doesn’t make me feel any better.
For nearly an entire day, he doesn’t talk to me. He doesn’t even look at me. It’s like I’m invisible. Or disgusting.
Am I that strange? That repulsive? I haven’t seen many people shirtless, but my markings don’t seem that noticeable. Or maybe they are.
We reach a long field with grass that shines and curls like ribbon. It’s beautiful.
I can hardly notice that beauty. Inside, my emotions are battling. We’ve been through countless obstacles together. Traveled side-by-side for weeks.
After all the stones taken down from this wall between us, I refuse to let it build up again.
I stop walking. Raker keeps going. Of fucking course he does.
“If you’re going to kill me, just do it already.”
I unsheathe my blade. I stand my ground.
At that, he pauses. His shoulders stiffen.
“Kill you?” he says from up ahead.
“Kill me,” I say. “Or capture me. Or whatever else the king does with the silver he collects.”
He still has his back to me. His voice is a snarl. “You think I would hand you over to the king?”
I keep my hands tight on my blade, knowing his metal could be against
mine in a flash. “You serve him.”
“I serve no one,” he spits.
I scoff. “That’s very interesting, considering you’re literally the head of
his guard.”
He doesn’t say a word.
So, I keep speaking. “I heard you talking to him, promising to bring something back. What is it? The magic? Is that why you’re on this quest?
For him?”
Raker makes a derisive noise. “I’m not on the Questral for anyone but myself.” I remain rooted in place. Blade up.
“So, if you’re not going to kill me … why … why won’t you look at me?” I take a shaking breath.
And I feel stupid for even saying the words. But I can’t stay silent.
Once his apathy was expected, but now … after everything … it feels like a betrayal. It hurts, and I know that rudeness and cruelty is all I should
expect from Raker, but damn it, it feels like the least he can give me is his respect.
“I’ve been ashamed of my markings since the moment I got them,” I say.
“You don’t—you don’t have to make it worse.” My voice cracks, and I fucking hate it, but I keep going. “You might find me ugly, and that’s fine. I don’t care. But you … you are the only person alive who has seen them, and you, of all people, should know what it’s like to keep yourself hidden.
To show yourself. And … and then to be shunned …”
I hate that my eyes are stinging. I hate that I’m speaking at all, that I think he even cares.
“You say I don’t know you, and you’re right. Because you haven’t told me anything. All I know is you’re a warrior who grew up near the sea, and once had siblings. All I know is you hide your face, and you hate mercy, and you wield a blade better than probably any human in history. Now you know one of the worst moments of my life. You know my greatest secret. I have laid myself bare to you, and you … you might as well be a stranger, Raker. I guess you’re just a knight … and I’m silver. We were always meant to be enemies. Stupid of me to think any different.”
He tenses, but he doesn’t turn around. I stand there, regretting ever opening my mouth. Ever caring. I look at the ground.
Then he speaks.
“There is nothing to know about me,” he says. “Nothing I can give you.
Nothing I can offer. I am nothing but rage and vengeance, Aris. Nothing but countless kills on a blade. There is no home. No family. Nothing to look forward to. Nothing to covet. Don’t waste your time trying to figure out a person that doesn’t exist. I am nothing beyond this.”
I swallow. “I—”
He keeps walking. He doesn’t look back.
I remain in place, watching him, the broken pieces coming together. The shards of his life. The way someone turns into Harlan Raker.
He has nothing and no one, just like me.
Maybe … maybe we really aren’t as different as we both like to think we are.
I sheath my blade, and finally, I start to move again, eyes on the grass.
My skin still prickles with shame.
He doesn’t need to look at me for us to continue this journey. His notice doesn’t matter. We aren’t friends. We aren’t anything but unlikely and
begrudging companions. After we reach the Land of the Gods, we’ll never see each other again. That, I’m sure of.
And I don’t know why that thought makes my stomach twist.
I’m so lost in my head, that I don’t even hear the hissing, not until it’s so loud, it’s impossible not to notice.
I squint. I take a step forward, reaching back for my blade, only to stop in front of a long, coiled snake with sparkling silver scales.
It reminds me of the one in the maze. The one that looked at me, with far too much awareness.
This one does too. Its forked tongue flicks out, and then it rises, inch by inch, until it nearly reaches my height. It stares at me with bright silver eyes, rimmed in red. I inhale sharply. I know those eyes.
I’ve seen them before.
A flash of memory shocks me still. Silver-red eyes, burning through the
fire. Silver hair, floating as she—
Far ahead, Raker has turned.
“Aris,” he yells. “Aris, don’t—”
Whatever he says fades away when the serpent lunges—and bites the place between my neck and shoulder.
A rattling, otherworldly pain fills me. I gasp, then seize, falling to the ground, my limbs going numb.
There’s the slice of a blade, and the hissing stops.
White-hot agony blinds my senses. It’s unlike anything I’ve ever felt before.
Everything—my nerves, my voice, my skin, the world—is screaming.
Then, like blowing out a candle, it all goes silent.