Chapter 50
he others have noticed too. The crows are screeching at us, and since Kyor saved Ruben from the Rottings, not a single bolt of lightning hasT crashed down from the sky. Not a single ball of fire has been hurled at
the monsters.
Their magic’s gone too.
Rohan told Caz that only thirty men from an entire battalion survived the Myrkr he faced. The thought swims around in my head over and over. We’ve faced the Myrkr once already, and there’s no way we can get that lucky again and walk out of here unscathed.
Little Raven, I did not find you just to lose you now. Fen’s voice comes through my mind, and with it a spark of confusion arises. Our magic is muted, yes, but the bond between Fen and me somehow remains.
Which can only mean that the Myrkr is not all-powerful. ‘Rose, behind you!’ Caz yells out.
Levelling my sword I swing around with reckless abandon, and a sickening crunch meets my ears as the metal separates the vertebrae of a Rotting. But there’s no time for elation. A low hiss whistles through the air, and beneath my feet the ground withers. The Myrkr’s magic takes life as surely as my green magic gifts it.
Fen’s fear rumbles through me, but that’s a good thing, I tell myself.
We can feel each other, I say to him. Focus on that. There’s magic here.
He’s not taking it all. He’s not unbeatable.
Maybe there’s also other magic he hasn’t taken. Something else I can call upon. With a flurry of hope, I will the ice to my fingertip, yet nothing but the biting cold meets my skin.
‘Come on!’ I scream in frustration at the Gods. ‘You want me angry to
use my ice? I’m angry!’ It’s true. I’m fucking furious.
I get one lousy day with my bonded wolf? And just a couple of days with my brother? And now my life is to end with me bitten and clawed at by Rottings all because of some mythical nightmare that decided it’s going to
stalk us through the woods?
Fuck that.
There’s a way out of this, a way we all survive. I know there is.
And yet the answer still evades me, as does my bloody ice magic.
Stoked by my fury, I scan around me, continuing to swing my sword through encroaching Rottings. As my blade cuts through the hinge of a jaw, my eyes fall on the Sannings. They are fighting with all their might, lunging at the Rottings and tearing their limbs from them with hand and spear.
But they are the ones lunging, I realise. Not the other way around.
Whether it is the lack of magic, or their fox garbs, or something else … the Rottings are not attacking the Sannings at all.
And maybe if I can find the reason for that, I can stop them coming for us, too.
The thought has barely formed when a high-pitched howl screeches into
the air.
Fen.
My whole body seethes with pain as I turn to see the dire wolf hurling backward. The Myrkr’s steed’s back legs fall to the ground as if it has just finished a buck. ‘Hey! Not my fucking dire wolf!’ I yell as the horse’s glowing red eyes land on me.
I charge towards it, fury whipping me at the feeling of Fen’s pain, the action happening on instinct, long before conscious thought can catch up.
My eyes lock on the flaring nostrils of the hell beast, and I hold my sword with both hands as I thrust it towards the animal’s chest.
The weapon slides in, and smoke bubbles out. Any doubt I had that it was not a normal horse evaporates as a freakish wail rips through the air. Low and piercing, it blows the hair from my face as the horse-like thing’s knees buckle, but my mind has already moved past the injured steed and is now focused solely on the rider.
The sight of the Myrkr is enough to make my entire body want to recoil.
Half shadow, its edges blur as if reality can’t quite agree on its shape, while beneath his hood is nothing but darkness. An abyss. An abomination. Death made corporeal.
Yet where Fen’s fear should threaten to overwhelm me, it does the opposite. It steadies. Reminds me of what I already know: it cannot control all magic.
It can be defeated. And I’m happy to volunteer. ‘Don’t let them scratch you!’ Kyor urgently reminds us as the Rottings continue their gnashing and clawing. As he sends another head flying, I’m barely listening. Even as a Rotting snatches at the air a hair’s breadth from my cheek, I slice through its arm with detachment. ‘They don’t care how many limbs we chop off,’ I say. ‘They’re not stopping. They won’t stop.’ ‘Then we keep going until they are all dead,’ Stide replies as she lunges towards me, spear pointed towards a Rotting that has its eyes locked on me.
Only as her blade pierces its skin does it swivel round and claw at her. My breath hitches, but there’s no need. Before I even lift my blade, its head rolls
to the ground. ‘Thanks,’ I mutter to Stide. ‘You’re welcome, The Rose. I like you better breathing.’ I grin. ‘Back at you.’ The severed head on the ground snaps its teeth at my boot.
I nudge it aside with my foot. ‘Still grumpy.’ ‘You would be too if someone ruined your day like that,’ Stide says, already turning to the next Rotting, her spear flashing with confidence.
I cut down another Rotting, and my line of sight is once again cleared back through to the Myrkr, who now stands with his feet on the earth.
His beast is next to it, already recovering from a wound that should have
been fatal.
They’re both watching us now.
Not attacking. Not intervening. Calmly observing. As though whether we live or die is of no consequence.
Rage flares hot and sudden, burning through the fear. ‘Fuck you,’ I scream at it. ‘You don’t get to stand there in judgement. The Goddess herself found me worthy.’ I raise my sword, only for a Rotting to step between the Myrkr and me.
The blade jams through its back and between its ribs, yet as I go to pull it
back out, it snags on something. Fabric, tendon, who knows, but at the angle I stand, pulling it out is only going to pull the Rotting closer towards me. So I don’t. Instead, I kick it, pushing the Rotting away and freeing my sword.
That’s the plan anyway, but my hands are slick from sweat and putrid Rotting, and the hilt releases from my grip and flies forward with the creature. For a split second, I consider going after it. Pulling it out of the mottled flesh in which it is now sheathed, but I stop, my eye drawn back to the Myrkr as my hand slips to my side, and the dagger held there.
It’s the dagger Dinah gave me, and twin to the blade that High Priestess Mila used to judge us at the start of the Retterheld to assess if we were worthy; those who weren’t were left to bleed out on the floor of the Sunken Temple.
So what are the chances that the Gods are going to find this death- wielding cloaked fucker worthy?
As I clench the hilt in my fist, the Myrkr turns its head towards me, slow and deliberate. There are still metres between us, but its gaze does something that makes me feel as though I’m the plants withering beneath its feet.
That’s what it’s trying to do to me. Make me wilt.
Well, fuck that.
I pull the blade clean from the sheath, only for a scream-inducing pressure to strike my skull.
It’s attacking me somehow, trying to defeat me without even fighting.
Fucking coward! That’s what it is. A fucking coward. Letting the Rottings do its work. Stealing our magic to stop a fair fight. It’s a fucking bully, and I’ve put down more than one of those in my life. ‘I’m the fucking gifted!’ I scream the words, but they’re as much for myself as for the Myrkr.
I need the reminder that the Goddess picked me once. Actually, more than once. And I don’t think she did that just so I could die out here in the dark.
A hiss rattles from beneath the hood as it takes a single step towards me.
The pressure behind my skull increases to a crushing weight that makes my vision blur. But I have experienced hunger, starvation, cold, and deprivation.
I have survived them all.
And I will survive this.
Gasping against the pain, I squeeze my eyes shut.
Kyor. Kay. William. Fen. The baby. I say the words in my head. I will not
be taken from them. Not now. Not like this. Kyor. Kay. William. Fen. The baby.
As the world narrows to breath and motion, the Myrkr takes another step, only this one is closer to a leap.
It lashes out, not with a blade, but with a fist that catches my cheekbone and sends me sprawling. Pain blooms across my face, sharp and distracting, but I roll and come up fast, dagger clenched tight.
Still no magic.
Just me.
I have been without magic before, and I was enough then.
I am enough still.
He gleams with something. Anticipation. He wants a fight, and a fight is what he’s going to get. A harsh metallic screech tears into me as he
withdraws his sword from its scabbard.
So it won’t be a fistfight after all.
Dagger versus sword is never a good move, but somehow it feels right.
I don’t second-guess myself. Instead, I shift my weight just like Zelle taught me, and I launch myself at the monster. ‘Rose!’ Kyor’s cry is strangled and full of panic. Before I can tell him not to, he is racing towards my side. ‘I need to strike it with the dagger!’ I yell at him. ‘The judgement, like the trials!’ If Kyor thinks the idea is insanity, he doesn’t say as much. Instead, he simply moves closer, trying to attract the Myrkr’s attention to give me an opening.
But it doesn’t work and its blade flashes towards me.
Kyor is there to block it before I can begin to move.
The block doesn’t come without a cost though, and Kyor cries out as his tortured shoulder screams in pain, but he holds his blade steady. The grating screech of metal against metal sets my teeth on edge, but I don’t have time to be precious. The way Kyor keeps the Myrkr’s sword locked has given me the perfect opening and I don’t plan on wasting it. ‘Let the Gods judge you, arsehole!’ With every ounce of strength I have left, I slam the dagger into its chest, clenching and turning my head in anticipation of the blood that I expect to spurt from the wound. But instead, the blade sinks into something that resists like thick tar before giving way completely.
And the Myrkr…? Though I cannot see its face, I know somehow that it
smiles.
Then it laughs.
The sound is wrong, a tearing shriek that scrapes at the edges of my mind as it grows louder and louder.
I wrench the blade free and stumble back, clasping my hands to my ears as the creature begins to convulse. ‘Thank you, child of three, child of four,’ it says, the dissonant voice scraping along my nerves.
As it shakes, the darkness sloughs away, the black of its cloak drifting into the ether like … like feathers? As the shroud of darkness yields, drifting up into the air, colour bleeds into its form, and the shadowy form transforms into the solid, bright red fox-stole of the Sannings. ‘Great Mother,’ I breathe, goosebumps covering my skin as I watch on, transfixed as warm blond hair spills from his temples, his forehead marked with the stone of priesthood.
And there, around its neck, a single black feather hangs on a leather cord.
A man. Not a monster, but simply a man? All this time? ‘Child of one, of two, of three, of four …’ The nonsensical words continue to peel from his lips as he laughs again, pure joy ringing out. The sound echoes across the clearing and dread coils tightly in my gut.
I did not aim to kill a priest; I aimed to kill a monster. But the dagger is surely the Gods’ judgement, so priest or not, this thing has been found wanting.
The laughter breaks off in a wet gurgle as he slumps to the ground and his life slips away.
A moment later there is nothing more than fabric sprawled on the withered grass.
The hair on the back of my neck rises. Bodies don’t just disappear. Is it dead? Did it portate? ‘Where … where did it go?’ I stutter, my eyes darting to Kyor, not daring to take my attention from the husk for a moment longer in case the body returns as quickly as it vanished. ‘He was a priest,’ I say in total confusion.
Kyor snorts. ‘Fuck that. If that monster was ever a priest, it was a long, long time ago, Thorn. You made the right choice.’ ‘The three vendari,’ Caz breathes. I turn to look at her, but her gaze shifts
from the stole upon the ground to Thessa beside her. Her tone is accusing when she speaks. ‘Thessa, I read you the book. You told me the vendari weren’t real.’ ‘I did not think they were …’ Thessa admits, eyes wide as she stares at the priest’s ceremonial garb still crumpled on the ground. ‘There’s something you’re not telling me, Thessa. I can feel it.’ I can hear the pain in Caz’s voice. The knowledge that the woman she cares for is hiding things from her is hurting her. ‘These vendari …’ I say, looking at Caz. ‘What are they? You said the
word means they’re protectors?’ ‘That’s what the name means, but —’ ‘Did I kill some kind of fucking protector?’ I hear my voice rising. ‘Caz, what the fuck did I just do?’ ‘I … I … don’t know.’ As she shakes her head, Kyor places his hand on my cheek, drawing my head around to face him. ‘Thorn, you killed a fucking Myrkr. Not a priest, not a whatever-the-fuck- vendari. A Myrkr. One of the deadliest siphons to walk the earth. You accomplished something today that is literally the stuff of legends. They’re going to sing songs about this for centuries to come. You’re a living legend, Thorn. Fucking own it.’ The look of pride on his face almost undoes me.
As he brushes his fingers down to my jaw, it loosens something within me. ‘We’re alive because of you,’ he breathes. ‘What you did … it took huge courage, and I promise I’ll show you my appreciation later, but for now, we need to get the fuck out of here.’ With a final squeeze of my shoulder, he moves away. Despite his words, the feeling of wrongness still vibrates through me.
Kyor’s right. I did what needed to be done, didn’t I? And it’s not like I knew what the blade would do. It didn’t cause so much as a scratch when it
struck me.
And yet the heaviness remains.
All is well, Little Raven, Fen murmurs. You did well. Pride shines through in that simple sentence, and I can feel it in his chest, bursting out of him. His bonded killed a Myrkr.
Thank you. I look around, relief surging through me as I can see that none of my friends are injured. Better yet, the Rottings haven’t just left; they died.
They finally stopped. Writhing limbs have stilled, and gnawing jaws are now blissfully motionless.
And us? We’re still living.
In the silence, Fen presses closer to me, his breath a low, steady rhythm I didn’t realise I was matching. My hands are trembling, and I bury them in his
fur to hide it.
But I can hide nothing from Fen.
You are safe now. I have you, he reassures me gently.
The words hit deep, in the best way. I lean forward and rest my forehead against the warmth of his neck, and for a heartbeat I let myself be nothing but a body still breathing.
Are you hurt? I ask, wishing the question had come from me sooner, but even as it fills my mind, I know the answer. There is no pain coming from
him now.
I am fine.
I’m beginning to think you’re always fine.
Because I am, he shoots back, making me smile. My hide is thick. I am
strong.
You are, I agree.
I let his certainty settle around me like a cloak, though my mind refuses to rest. Whatever the Myrkr was before his death, he was once something other than a being of darkness. In fact, what he was looked remarkably familiar.
Silently, I walk over to where Thessa weaves between the dead Rottings, though rather than stopping when she sees me approaching, she continues. ‘Thessa?’ I hasten to catch up with her and begin talking to her back in the hope that she’ll turn around and face me. ‘What was that thing? He was dressed like you … like a Sanning.’ She stops, her back facing me. Slowly, she turns around, her lips pressed together, face solemn. ‘I cannot tell you, The Rose.’ ‘A vendari. That means a protector, right? That’s what Caz said. What was he protecting?’ Her lips press further still, tightening to such a thin line that they all but disappear. Then, without a word, the Sanning turns and walks to Stide, leaving me to watch her go.
The two Sannings may not have magic, but they have knowledge.
And right now, they’re keeping it from me.
But not for long. Not while my friends’ lives are on the line.
