26. Reznyk
Chapter 26
Reznyk
THE FORBIDDEN MEADOW
“ M orning, sunshine,” Kira says, with a shy little smile that twists like a knife inside my chest.
I try my best to smile back. She lit the fire and hung the teapot over the flames, and now the scent of the flowers she’s been using as a tea replacement swirls through the air in the cabin, a soft counterpoint to the rising woodsmoke. Xavier lifts his head from the foot of the bed and stares at me with his wide, green eyes. A wave of annoyance radiates from his person.
I know. Spending the night in the old keep was a bad choice. I woke up shivering so violently it hurt. But somehow, freezing my ass off in the keep felt safer than trying to sleep in the same room as Kira after that kiss.
Kira hands me a steaming mug. The shadows under her eyes suggest she didn’t have the most restful night either, but she doesn’t say anything.
Good. Probably best for both of us if we ignore yesterday’s hand-holding and everything that came after. Now I know Kira wants to go to the Port, and she knows I’m not going with her. Later today, we can start to make plans for her trip.
But first, I have a promise to fulfill. I take a slow sip of what Kira’s handed me, which tastes like wet grass, if I’m being honest, as I lean against the doorframe and watch her rotate the last of yesterday’s turnip in a pan.
“It’s not much of a breakfast,” she says, when she turns back to me. “But you’re fresh out of bacon and eggs.”
“Damn, I knew there was something I forgot to pick up at the market this morning,” I reply, as she hands me a bowl with a warmed-up lump of boiled turnip in it.
Our eyes meet. She smiles in a way that gives me a sliver of hope. Perhaps we can go back to the way things were, that tenuous balance of teasing and flirtation that seemed so close to friendship.
At least until she leaves forever.
I swallow the last mushy lump of turnip, then shake my head, as if I could knock that thought away.
“So,” I begin as I slide my bowl back to its place on the sideboard, “are you ready to see the meadow?”
The direwolves feel close, but still on the far side of the peak, I think. And the weather is clear. It’s going to be a beautiful day to climb the ridge.
“Oh!” she replies. “The forbidden meadow?”
“The very same,” I answer.
“I don’t know,” she says, with a grin. “Isn’t that where you keep all your secrets?”
“Only the darkest,” I reply.
“Great!” she cries, but then her smile fades and she looks at me like she’s about to tell me something I might not want to hear. “You don’t need to do this, you know,” she says.
My throat pulls tight. I blink, then look away. Past the fire she lit, the tea she brewed, the breakfast she prepared out of the dinner she cooked last night. It’s already hard to imagine how this place will feel without her.
“I know,” I say, clearing my throat. “But it’s going to be a beautiful day, and there’s not much to do around here.”
That’s a blatant lie. There are at least a hundred things I should be doing around here, but I’d much rather show Kira the late summer wildflowers blooming in the meadow than worry about the damned garden or split even more firewood.
“Well, if you’d like,” Kira says, with a shy sort of smile.
“Please,” I say, after giving her a little bow. “Allow me.”
I hold my arm out for her like I’m Syrus Maganti about to escort her to a dance in the private section of the Crown Day festivities, and together, we leave the cabin.
The wind picks up as we climb the ridge, tugging Kira’s hair back from her neck. Magic buzzes and flickers in the air, making it hard for me to determine where exactly the direwolves are roaming. Clouds scurry across the face of the sky, leaving dappled shadows over the forest below us. I watch sunlight wash across the stony faces of the mountains I’ve named after the other Elites, the only friends I’ve ever had, and once again it occurs to me that Tholious might have had a point, damn him.
I have been lonely. Nine hells, I’m befriending the mountains.
“Shit,” I mutter under my breath.
“What’s that?” Kira calls down from above me.
She’s pulled herself up the steepest part of the ridge, just below the lip of the meadow. The wind has done a commendable job of ruining her tight braid, and now loose strands of amber hair flutter around her cheeks. Her skin is slightly darker now, after a week of working in the garden with me, and her full lips part as she catches her breath. The sound of the stream clattering down the stones beside us fills the air, interrupted by the occasional shriek from the fat little rodents who’ve claimed this part of the ridge for their kingdom.
She looks happy up here, on the far edge of the world. And now I’ll never be able to look at this part of the ridge without remembering the way she’s smiling at me right now.
“Nothing,” I call up to her. “Almost there, that’s all.”
I lean back and watch as she pulls herself up the final pitch, sunlight glinting off her hair and the wind ruffling the back of her shirt. When she reaches the edge of the meadow, she makes a soft little cry, a sound that’s partly surprise and partly a whispered, reverent prayer.
I join her. Together, we stare at the tiny, perfect world cupped between the mountain I named for myself and the other three peaks I named for my fellow Elites. Below us, the stream cuts a winding curlicue through emerald grass. Willow bushes hug the edges, thick and whispering in the breeze. Seed heads rock and bob, dotted here and there with late summer blossoms of crimson and gold.
“Hells, Reznyk,” Kira says, turning back to me. “It’s beautiful up here!”
There’s a wild sort of joy in her expression. For a heartbeat, she looks so perfectly at home here that I can almost believe she’s a part of this place, that I stumbled on Kira just like I stumbled on the ruins of the keep and the wolves.
The wolves. Their presence tugs on my magic again, and I turn to stare at the far rock field, the low saddle between Syrus’s peak and Aveus’s peak. Kira walks into the meadow with her arms spread, like she’s ready to embrace the whole place.
“Is this where you found those berries?” Kira calls.
She crouches in the grass, halfway to the stream, beaming like she’s just found a pile of gold in the leaves. I turn away from the mountains and join her.
“Nicely done,” I say, when I see the little red sphere between her fingers. “I thought I found them all.”
“Here, you should have it,” she says, holding her hand out to me.
Our eyes meet; heat floods my body even as the presence of the wolves flutters and dances across my magic. My breath catches in the back of my throat.
“You go ahead,” I reply. “Here. Let me show you the place with the best view.”
Kira is silent as we walk along the meadow’s ragged edge, the place where the rock field quietly abandons itself to the vanguard of the grass. The thrum of the wolves’ awareness grows stronger. By the time we reach the flat-topped boulder overlooking the meadow, I can’t ignore it any longer.
The wolves are coming over the ridge.
“Kira,” I say in a low voice.
She turns to me. I press my finger to my lips, then point to the low saddle between the two peaks. She follows my gaze. Sun dances off the rocks, and the wind rustles the leaves on the willow bushes. Somewhere in the distance, a hawk calls for his mate.
And then the first of the direwolves climbs into view.
It’s the old male, the leader. He stops at the edge of the ridge and sniffs the air. Kira gasps, then slams her hand over her mouth. The male stares down into the meadow, his gaze traveling over the two of us as if we are of no more significance than the boulder we’re sitting on. Kira’s breath catches; her arm presses into my side.
“It’s okay,” I whisper. “They’re not interested in us.”
The old male lowers his shaggy head, then picks his way slowly down the rock field. One of the rodents screams a warning as the wolf’s mate crests the ridge. The birds fall silent.
Another female crosses, and then the four pups gallop over the ridge, all long legs and dangling tongues. They jump on each other and wrestle, the opposite of their leader’s stately descent.
“Those are the cubs,” I whisper to Kira. “Born this spring. They were tiny.”
I hold my hands up, trying to estimate the length of the direwolf pups when I first saw them, but Kira’s eyes don’t leave the far ridge as the rest of the direwolf pack pours over the pass and drops below the meadow. I count them, as always, my chest tight as a fist until I see the entire pack is safe.
The old wolf stops at the far edge of the meadow, looks at us once more, and then leads the parade of his pack into the forests below. I exhale slowly, thanking all the gods who are listening that those damned hunters are gone.
“Reznyk.” Kira’s voice trembles, making my name a sort of panicked whisper. “What’s that?”
I know what they are before I turn back to the ridge. I can feel them, like eyes on the back of my neck or a pocket of cold water welling up from the bottom of the ocean. Something ancient, something impossible. Something magical.
Slowly, the old god crests the top of the pass. They look almost like a direwolf this morning, although smaller, and the longer I look at them, the more fluid their body becomes. Now a wolf, now more of a deer, and now a pool of inky smoke pouring down the side of the ridge.
I turn to Kira. She’s crying. Tears trace glistening tracks down her cheeks, even as she smiles. Her mouth opens with a sort of wonder that doesn’t belong in this mundane world of turnips and washing basins.
I reach for her hand. Our cold fingers intertwine as we watch the last old god in the world. They rest at the fringe of the meadow, long enough to stretch and shake, their body like feathers, like silk, and then like fur. They sniff the ground, a sort of snorting huff that echoes off the stones, and then they turn and follow the wolves.
Even after they vanish over the ridge and the birds resume their songs, Kira and I watch the spot where they disappeared.
“Was— Was that?” Kira whispers.
My gut twists, and my chest feels tight. I nod.
“But, I thought,” she stammers. “I thought the last one was?—”
Her voice cuts off, mercifully. I swallow, trying to drown the bitterness rising in the back of my throat. It’s bad enough knowing I murdered an old god in the abstract. But after seeing one?
Now she knows exactly what a monster I am.
“I thought they were all gone,” Kira finally whispers.
“That’s what everyone thinks,” I say. My voice sounds like stones grinding together. “No one knows there’s an old god still living in the Daggers. As long as I’m here, no one ever will.”
She makes a sound in the back of her throat, something sharp and sudden. I turn to see what’s happened. She’s staring at me through a haze of tears.
“You’re protecting them,” she whispers.
Her voice twists inside me like a knife. Suddenly, it’s too much. Seeing the old god, knowing that Kira understands what I’ve done.
I drop off the boulder and onto the grass. Kira’s voice follows me, calling my name. I turn around. Kira is right behind me, reaching for me. The look on her face hits me like a punch to my gut.
“Stop it!” I scream.
Kira blinks. “Stop what?”
“Stop looking at me like I’m some kind of hero!”
“Hero?” she says, in a voice that’s almost as loud as mine. “Reznyk, you’re going to starve up here so you can protect the last old god. You’re an idiot!”
I exhale. The sun winks on the tears in Kira’s eyes, and her shoulders sink as she sighs.
“You’re idiotically heroic,” she says.