33
I wake up soaked in sweat. And I’m moving.
Strong arms are encircling me.
I tense, and look up, only to see Raker’s hood.
“It bit—” I say, my voice raw, like it’s been dragged across a rock face.
“You’ll live,” he snaps, with more than a hint of regret.
Was he able to find a cure? Did my body overcome the snake’s poison?
Raker won’t answer any of my questions anyway, so I close my mouth to conserve my voice. It’s only a few minutes later that he drops me onto a cave floor.
“Sleep,” he snaps at me. And then he disappears through the entrance.
I wake up with a pulsing headache, but better. Able to move. There’s a pile of berries next to me and a mound of mushrooms next to that. A pouch of water is right by my head.
Raker. He must have foraged for them while I slept. I look around— And that’s when I see him. Slumped against the wall.
Somehow, I know he’s not sleeping. I know something is wrong.
“Raker?” I get to my feet, losing my balance for a step as I fight off a wave of dizziness. In a moment, I’m on my knees before him.
He doesn’t look up at me. He only reaches up, as if to keep me away from him. His hand brushes against my shoulder. “Go back to sleep, Aris,”
he says.
But his hand.
I take it in mine before he can stop me, and—“You’re burning.” He’s hotter than should be possible. I’m not sure how he’s still conscious.
And his veins … they are the same red as the snake’s eyes. Did he get bitten too?
I think about how quickly I recovered without medicine. I reach up to touch the place the fangs pierced me, only to find the skin a normal temperature. My own veins are not this color. I’m completely healed, as if
— I swallow. No. No—he wouldn’t.
“Did you—did you suck the poison from my neck?” I ask, my voice just
a whisper.
He doesn’t say anything.
A strange feeling tugs in my chest. He sucked poison from my blood. He … saved me. Now here he is, burning up, the poison having reached his heart.
His enormous hand is still in mine. I weave my fingers through his, as if to cool it.
“What a stupid thing to do,” I say, my voice a whisper.
At that, he tilts his head up, only slightly. I can imagine he’s glaring at me. His voice is rougher than usual. “Saving your life? Stupider than you
can possibly imagine.”
So he did.
“Yet you keep doing it,” I breathe.
“Someone has to,” he says, echoing my own words back to me. As if … as if he was listening. Remembering.
I raise a brow. “I’ve saved your life too.”
He makes a sound. “Hardly. All you’ve done is made my life a fucking nightmare.”
Keep talking, I think, worry crawling through me. Don’t fall asleep. I don’t know if you’ll wake up. “Yet you sucked the poison from my throat.”
He sighs. “I need you alive.”
“Right. For the map.” Though he hasn’t asked me to draw it in days. “Yet
—yet now you’re dying.”
He doesn’t deny this either.
“Well … well, you can’t,” I say.
He shifts his head an inch, his body seizing, as if even moving hurts. “I would have thought my death would please you,” he says. “Given how much you hate me.”
I nod. “Normally, yes, but …” I shrug a shoulder. “It would just be embarrassing,” I say, “being the Warrior Without Marks on His Armor and then dying from snake venom.”
He makes a sound that almost resembles a laugh.
“Also, I don’t think that snake could lift your sword, so your death would really be a waste.”
There it is. That rough sound of amusement again.
I wish I could see it. I wish I could see if demons can smile.
His breathing is slowing. It makes something rise within me. Worry?
Panic? Poisons either need antidotes … or they need to be fought. He cannot succumb to it. I won’t let him. I need to keep him talking.
“Did you always want to be a knight?”
“Want?” He says the word like it’s foreign. He shakes his head. “I became a knight to survive.”
I frown. “You … you were starving?” I remember how fiercely he told me I didn’t know him at all. For some reason, I can’t imagine Raker ever not having anything. He just seems so capable of taking it.
“We were starving,” he says. “My father was a fisherman. My mother was a seamstress. One season, all the fish washed up dead. We were out of food by winter. My siblings were little more than flesh and bone. Against my parents’ wishes, I enlisted as a knight in the king’s guard. The stipend kept them fed.” I don’t miss how he uses the past tense when it comes to his family. I think about all the assumptions I made about him.
Shame sinks through me. I don’t know why I just assumed the opposite.
It’s the tale of many warriors. The king provides them and their families with food. So many of them often die, in training or in war. It’s a brutal sacrifice.
“And you were just … really good at killing?” I ask.
“I was good at doing whatever I needed so they survived,” he says. His voice is deeper. Rougher. “The more I advanced, the more food they got, so I became the best.”
“And did it work?” I ask, wondering if I’m prying. Wondering if he’s going to just stop talking. “Was all of it … worth it?”
His breathing is more labored now, as if his body is fighting. Good. If his experience with the poison is anything like mine, his heart will be racing.
His head will be pulsing in pain. A distraction. What he needs is a distraction.
“No,” he says, and it’s the only time I’ve heard even a sliver of emotion in his voice.
I can feel it in him. Barbs rising. He might as well have his sword between us. I’ve poked at something sensitive, and I know how much easier it is to build walls than to break them.
“I lost my family too,” I say softly.
I think he might tell me he doesn’t care. Or to stop talking. But he doesn’t. He just sits … like he’s listening.
“It happened in one night.” I swallow the emotion in my throat.
“The nightmares,” he says, his voice ragged.
I nod. “That’s what I dream about. Every time I reach deep enough sleep.
That night, when everything changed. I was the only one who survived.” I take a rattling breath. “And I wish it was me who died.”
“Reaching the end will help you get your revenge?” he asks. He must assume I’ll use the cup of magic for something in my plan.
I nod.
“And you?”
He nods back.
I sit down against my heels. “So, we have that in common. Dishonorable intentions.” I tilt my head. “Though I expected nothing less from the king’s most brutal warrior.”
He just stares at me from within the darkness of his hood.
“I know it’s selfish,” I say. “Our side is dying. People are suffering. But —but ever since that night, there’s been a hole inside me. It’s grown, devouring everything. Every shred of empathy or kindness … I feel it withering. I don’t want to care about everyone else. I cared about them, and they’re gone, and this world is worse for it.” My eyes burn. I smile weakly.
“I know it’s wrong. But I would trade every single person in this world for them. Without flinching.” I shake my head. “It’s wrong, but it’s the truth.”
“I understand,” he says.
“Of course you do,” I say. “You’re a demon.”
He makes that half-amused, half-frustrated sound again. It’s faint … but there. I stare at the darkness. He stares back. I wonder what he sees. I can feel the heat of him, of his feverish skin, right in front of me, as I lean slightly closer.
That’s when I realize he’s not wearing his mask. Only his hood.
My voice is barely a whisper. “Well … since you’re dying.” I swallow.
“Your face. I want to see your face before then. You know, in the interest of coils of snakes and all.” He has seen my markings. He has seen me. We have fought back-to-back and survived countless dangers.
He doesn’t say anything. So, I raise my arm. My hand trembles as I reach for his hood, slowly, so slowly.
I give him time. Space. Opportunity. But this time, he does not stop me.
His breathing seems to become even more labored. My fingers brush against the edge of his hood, and I swear I can feel him shiver. Perhaps it’s the poison. Or it’s the fever.
With a rush of curiosity, I push the fabric back, and there he is.
And the world isn’t fair, not at all.
Because Harlan Raker is a monster, but he doesn’t look like one.
He is painfully beautiful.
His skin is pale, his cheeks are sharp, his hair is dark and curled around his ears. Just looking at him makes my blood heat. He looks like he was carved by a merciless god, one that wanted a weapon people would run toward.
He’s like a blade. I know if I touch him, I’ll bleed. But I want to, anyway.
I can’t help but be enraptured. I stare, even though he’s watching. I open my mouth, then close it, unable to find the right words.
“Why hide?” I finally ask.
“Why did you?” he says.
“But you—you didn’t have a reason.”
His voice is sharp as a scythe. “Neither did you.”
That isn’t fair. Especially coming from the very person I was taught to fear.
I study him for far longer than is acceptable, and he just stares at me, eyes narrowed, almost as if he’s glaring, but I can’t stop.
“You—” I say, my voice just a breath.
“Are not a coil of snakes,” he says.
I shake my head. “No. Not at all.” Maybe it’s the shock, or the remnants of the poison, or because I’ve finally lost my fucking mind, but I say, “You’re beautiful, Raker.”
He raises a brow at me. “You think I’m beautiful?”
“On the outside, yes.”
He sighs in that long-suffering way I’ve heard before, but to see it … to see the way his eyes close in irritation, the set of his perfect jaw … He winces, as if pain has lanced through him again. For some inexplicable reason, I want to make it go away; I want to distract him.
“You must be filled with regret … dying for someone so insignificant,” I say, my voice light. Trying to make him laugh again.
But his own voice is serious. “Aris,” he says, my name a deep whisper that scrapes against my bones. “You are irritating. And reckless. And an
idiot.”
“Thank you—”
“But you are not insignificant.”
You are not insignificant.
It’s barely a compliment. Barely anything at all … but for some reason … it means something. I feel a rush of warmth.
For a moment, we just look at each other. His gray eyes … they’re like steel in the darkness. Like the magnificent metal of our blades.
“You’re nicer when you’re dying,” I whisper. “You should do it more often.”
And that is the moment I first see Harlan Raker smile.
My chest tightens, my breath stolen away. It’s just a small movement, not a full expression at all, but I can’t stop looking. His teeth are straight and white. His eyes crinkle at the edges.
“What?” he demands, that glorious smile now in ashes.
“You smiled,” I breathe. “I’m waiting for the world to stop turning.”
He shakes his head, the corner of his lips twitching almost imperceptibly.
“You’re funnier when I’m dying,” he says, dropping his head against the
stone wall behind him. His eyes close.
“It’s because I’m so happy.”
“Are you?”
“Yes. I can’t wait to get that sword in my hand.”
At that, his eyes open. “You wouldn’t know the first thing about handling a sword that big,” he says.
“Now that sounds like something else,” I say.
I don’t know if he’s about to scowl, laugh, or frown. He doesn’t seem to know what he’s going to do either.
My cheeks flush. I can’t believe I said that. “You’re dying,” I say, definitely making it better. “You won’t remember this.” It’s almost like I’m
trying to reassure myself.
Even if he doesn’t die, with this fever, everything is going to be a daze.
I hope.
“If I’m dying,” he says, voice strained, “and you’re so sure about it, and so thrilled … then tell me why you’re doing this.”
His breathing is slowing. His eyes are closing, then opening. I smooth my thumb across his wrist and feel his pulse. It’s not as strong as it should be,
but it’s there. Maybe he needs to rest.
Or maybe he’s actually dying.
He looks at the place I’m touching, then back at me. I drop his hand
before he demands it.
“You want to know?” I ask.
He nods.
I lean in close. He’s staring at me just as carefully as I studied him, even though he’s seen my face countless times in these past weeks. He’s staring like he might never see me again.
When I get close to his face, he stops breathing. I’m practically in his lap.
I lean in even more to whisper my secret right into his ear. “I’m going to kill the gods,” I say, my lips brushing his skin.
And that’s when he goes very still.
“You’ll die,” he says flatly.
I can tell he’s fighting the sleep that’s coming. He’s fighting to stay awake. He tries to shift himself to be more upright, but his eyes are blinking closed. He’s losing consciousness. I pull back, so I’m right in front of him.
I shrug a shoulder. “It’s okay. I’ll be with you,” I say, meaning it as a mocking threat.
It’s the last thing he hears before he goes under.
Raker sleeps through the entire day, but he’s still alive. I know. I check often, worry for him twisting my gut.
His pulse beats weakly but steadily against my fingertips, and relief rushes through my chest. I press my hand to his forehead, assessing his temperature. Still burning up. Yet still living.
Please keep living, I think.
Fingers still against his feverish skin, I marvel at him. He looks like a sculpture. Immortals are perfect, but he … he has a dangerous, striking beauty. It’s a shame he hides it behind a mask.
I can imagine he hates his face. He hates being called beautiful. He must have hated it most when it came from my lips.
He has to live. He has to.
But his fever is getting worse. If we don’t get help, he’s going to die.
There are herbs that help with fevers. My mother used to steep tiny, dried pieces of it, kept safe in a tin over generations, when my sister and I were sick. I don’t know if Starside has the same variety … but I have to try.
I quickly fill the pouches from the running water covering the mouth of the cave, then set off into the forest.
This final stretch of the woods isn’t as plentiful as the others. I weave through the foliage, searching for those long, pointed leaves, cursing as the minutes tick by.
Raker might not have much time left. Panic races through my veins as I search wildly. I’m just about to enter a grove, when I hear voices.
I stop, pressing myself to the closest tree.
“Look. Footprints,” someone says, with the smooth tone of an immortal.
“They must be close.”
Raker.
I take off in the other direction, going around, running so fast my heart burns with strain, before finally shooting into the cave. Fear grips my chest —then loosens when I see Raker still sleeping undisturbed. But not for long.
They’re faster. It’ll take them just seconds to find us.
I shake him gently. Then more firmly when he doesn’t stir. “Raker,” I say. “Raker, you have to get up. They’re—”
A boot echoes against stone.
I freeze. Slowly, I turn to the mouth of the cave, where a tall, sinewy- muscled immortal is leaning against the wall. He looks amused.
He’s not part of the cavalry, as I first suspected. Yet here he is, having clearly tracked us down.
“Well, well, well. What do we have here? It was almost too easy to find you.”
I unsheathe my sword as I rise from the ground. “What do you want?”
“You, of course,” he says. He takes a casual step forward. “Everyone’s after you. There’s a large bounty on your head.” He tilts his head. “And what a pretty head it is.”
Me? No. He must mean my godsword. Though Valen said the same thing.
I grind my teeth, trying to think, trying to come up with a strategy. “Who wants me?” I demand. “Which god?”
His eyes glimmer with hunger. “The God of Death, of course.”
The God of Death. The reason behind the demons. Possibly behind the rot. The god stealing brides. What does he want with me?
“You … I could possibly bring in alive … him … he wants him dead.”
I shoot a look at Raker. He’s still asleep. He’s still far gone … feverish.
Weak. This isn’t about our swords, then. It’s about us. Why? I take a step back, studying the man’s footing. His motions. All things I would normally do before a duel.
But he’s immortal. Even with this blade, I don’t stand a chance. I talk, to buy myself time to fucking think. “Why would someone want me?”
A slow smile crawls across the man’s wretched face. He takes his time looking me up and down, and bile slides up my throat. “I can think of a few reasons.” His eyes meet mine again. “As for why someone wants you dead?” He shrugs a shoulder. “As long as the money is good, I don’t ask questions.”
He lunges forward in a flash, and I barely get my sword up in time.
He’s fast. Strong. I gasp as his metal slams against mine. Only the tiniest crack forms across his weapon.
His sword is good. He must have stolen it off someone powerful.
But mine is better.
With a growl scraped from the center of my chest, I aim for his neck, using a move Raker taught me, only for the immortal’s blade to get in the way at the last moment. Another fissure forms, spiraling all the way to the hilt. Just a few more hits, and he’ll be without a weapon.
I try to raise my sword again, to aim for his side, but he’s too quick. He rams his weapon down against mine with such a force, it knocks me to the ground— And my sword out of my hand. It goes flying, clamoring against the other side of the cave.
The man smiles. “I’m sure I get extra for the blade. Or maybe I’ll sell it to a different god,” he says.
No. My head is spinning from the fall. I can barely concentrate on the words, but I reach my hand out.
“Stellaris,” I say.
“What was that?” the man says, taking a step forward.
“Stellaris,” I hiss, desperate. My blade trembles but does not fly into my grip. I try to focus my energy, my mind, but it’s scattered. It doesn’t hold.
The man reaches his sword up over his head for a clean cut. His metal arcs through the air toward my neck. I reach my arms up over my face on instinct, my eyes squeezing shut, my muscles seizing.
One moment passes. Another.
I slowly open my eyes to find the immortal still in the same position, only with a gaping hole through his chest.
Behind me, Raker has his hand open. His sword is in it. His blade went
right through him.
“You’re not dead,” I breathe.
I hear the man hit the floor, his metal echoing against the stone.
“Sorry to disappoint,” Raker says, echoing my own words back to me, before putting his hood over his face, erasing the beauty.
He stands, takes one step forward, then pauses. He’s still recovering. I race to help his balance. “We have to go. Now. There are more of them in the forest.”
He takes another unsteady step before his entire body tenses, like pain has stabbed through him. His knuckles are white, curled tightly around the hilt of his blade.
“Stay here,” I say, making a decision. “I’ll leave. They’ll chase me. I’ll— I’ll come back for you, with medicine.”
Raker ignores me as he takes another step, then another. He moves almost smoothly. I race to get my sword and follow him.
Voices. There are others, and not far. Raker raises his sword, ready to fight, though I don’t miss the tremors going through his body. I can see
them even through the armor.
Then—
Hooves. The cavalry. They’ve found us.
Fuck.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
I turn to face Raker. I know he can feel it, how close they are. In less than a minute, we’ll be surrounded.
He looks at me, his hood falling back. It seems like he doesn’t have the strength to straighten it. “Go,” he says, like an order, like he always does.
“I’ll buy you time—just go.”
I don’t budge.
He bares his teeth at me. “For once, would you fucking listen, Aris.”
I shake my head.
In a flash of fury, he steps toward me, as if he’s about to throw me over his shoulder again, as if he’s about to fling me into a tree or force me to leave him.
But before he can do anything, his body finally collapses.
I rush to his side. His face is burning up, worse than before. His veins are bright crimson. I don’t know how he gathered the strength to summon his sword or even stand.
I rise, watching as he tries and fails to sit up, powerful arms shaking.
“No,” I say, my voice a resolute whisper. “Unfortunately, I’m not leaving you.”
The hooves are like a roar. The trees are moving wildly. The cavalry is here. They’re coming from all sides. There’s no way out.
I remember all the warnings. Stay away from the Great Houses.
Summoning him would be a death sentence.
But the ground is trembling, and Raker can’t even stand. He sucked the poison from my blood. We’re surrounded.
Before I can talk myself out of it, I swipe my blade across my palm, dig it deep into the soil, kneel by its glimmering silver, and whisper, “Vander Evren.”
At the sound of his name, the forest stills, as if even it is afraid of him.
The hooves stop.
“No,” Raker growls. He crawls as if to stop me. But he buckles under the
effort.
A step echoes through the woods.
I can hear my own breath, the beating of my own heart. The hairs on the back of my neck rise, as if my body can sense danger.
I swallow, looking in every direction, hand still curled around my sword, blood dripping into the dirt, trying to see where the steps are coming from.
But I can’t.
I rise and turn— And meet one of the most beautiful men I have ever seen. Even standing tall, he towers over me, every part of him imposing. His hair is silver, cut shorter than Raker’s, the same color as his intricately detailed armor.
Silver. A color typically reserved for the gods. How powerful can this immortal heir be to have been born with hair that shade?
Every single warning about him skitters through my mind.
And they were all right.
He looks every bit the ruthless immortal warrior, especially as he frowns down at me, unimpressed. Then he turns to Raker, who is now motionless on the ground. His gaze stops at the blade I’ve buried in the dirt.
He raises his own without hesitation.
I’ve summoned him for a duel, using the ancient method. He’s the heir even immortals—even the Gardener—fear. He’s about to strike me down.
He’s about to win my sword.
I raise my bloody hand, as if that will do any good, and the words tumble out of me in a single breath. “Stellan said you would help me.”
His sword stills just an inch from my palm. A small fold forms between his brows. “Stellan sent you?”
He knows him. A prickling forms behind my eyes, to meet someone who did.
I swallow. I have a feeling he would know if I was lying. “Not exactly.”
The sword races forward again. “But he knew you would help me all the same! He told me to look for you.”
Vander frowns, considering me. Considering my words. Considering the warrior just feet away. “And where is Stellan?”
Stellan.
The image rises of him stiff on the floorboards, eyes wide and unblinking.
“Dead,” I say. At the crack in my voice, his eyes narrow. They are searching, and brutal, studying me as if he can see into my deepest thoughts and emotions. As if that one word could tell him even a fraction of the memories Stellan and I had together.
I don’t drop that piercing, clawing gaze. I stare into his eyes, the way Stellan would have wanted me to, unflinching.
It’s he who looks away. He curses.
Then, just when I think he’ll leave me here, or cut me down, he outstretches a hand.
Warnings still echoing through my mind, I take it. It’s cold as ice and smooth as bone.
“Leave him,” he tells the guards that have begun spilling in from the forest, out of nowhere, wearing the same crest that is carved into the hilt of the blade now sheathed behind this immortal’s back.
I rip my hand away. “No. I’m not leaving him here.”
He frowns, as if disgusted that I’ve spoken back to him. “I am not allowing an unknown warrior with a sword like that into my castle.” He looks over at me and my own sword. “The only reason I’m allowing you entry is because of Stellan.”
Panic spikes through me. “Fine. Don’t let him in the castle. Keep him in the stables for all I care. But I’m not leaving him here.”
Vander’s eyes narrow at me. At my nerve. Finally, he sighs, as if deciding that the struggle isn’t worth it.
He motions his warriors toward Raker. It takes five of them to lift him to his feet. His head lolls, as he’s still unconscious. I wince, hoping he’ll last long enough for me to find him medicine or a healer.
Vander reaches for his own blade, which glows bright violet. A godsword.
He digs his blade into the ground, and the forest vanishes.