Chapter 3 Dimas
THREE
DIMAS
The Goddess of Fate was testing him.
It was the only explanation for why she’d sent Dimas to such a miserable place. Beyond the window of his carriage, the Wilds stretched before Dimas in an endless sea of muddied snow, stormy skies, and a haggard expanse of emaciated trees.
The prince pressed his forehead against the window, letting the ice-cold surface soothe the headache behind his eyes.
He and Ioseph had arrived in the Wilds three days after leaving Novobyrg, and so far they’d found no sign of the heretic who was to be his Fateweaver.
Even the Fists he’d sent to search the forsaken place ahead of his arrival had been unsuccessful.
A snow eagle had brought word of their failure just hours before Dimas left the palace: they’d raided the first of two major villages so far, and whilst they’d found plenty of heretics, none had been a stormy-eyed girl with a scar on her cheek.
Dimas had crumpled up the parchment and tossed it into the fire before anyone else could read it. And then he’d penned his reply, ordering the hunters to stand down.
On his arrival to their camp, Dimas, exhausted and more than a little irritable, had met with his cousin, Milos, a hunter who had been appointed the Fist’s leader.
They’d sat around a small campfire that did little to ease the chill in Dimas’s bones as Milos had confirmed what he’d written in his letter: whilst they’d found plenty of evidence of people worshipping the Lost Sisters, there’d been no sign of the girl from his vision.
Dimas was running out of places to search. According to the map he’d found in the palace archives, there was only one village left before they reached the edge of the Wilds.
Which meant he only had three more chances to find his Fateweaver.
They’d set out that dawn, just as the sun was beginning to rise and a fresh flurry of snow started to fall, and had come to a stop less than a mile outside of the next village—a small, unremarkable dot on his map by the name of Forvyrg.
Ioseph had insisted Dimas stay out of sight whilst the Fist carried out their search, claiming his presence would only raise questions he couldn’t answer.
Not without confirming the rumors that for the first time in over a century and a half, the heir to Wyrecia was without a Fateweaver.
“This is impossible,” he muttered, the fog from his breath obscuring his view of the gray world outside. By this point, the snow had stopped, but there was a fierceness to the gusting winds that rattled the walls of Dimas’s carriage.
“Nothing is impossible,” Ioseph said from beside him, the fabric of his uniform rustling as he tried to get comfortable in the small space. “We’ll find her, Your Highness. I know we will.”
The conviction in his best friend’s voice eased some of the tension behind Dimas’s eyes.
When Dimas had been fifteen, and Ioseph Arness—just a few winters older—had been assigned the position of his personal guard, the heir had found it infinitely frustrating.
But as the years passed, frustration had turned to familiarity, and now Dimas wasn’t sure what he’d do without Ioseph by his side.
Which was why, as the silence of the carriage closed in around him once more, he found himself whispering, “I’m afraid, ’Seph.”
The understanding in Ioseph’s gaze was worse than pity. Dimas looked away, his cheeks flushing. Pathetic, he heard his father’s voice say. Weak.
But he couldn’t take the words back. Ioseph opened his mouth to say something, his sharp intake of breath slicing through the silence, at the same second the carriage door swung open.
“Your Highness,” Milos said, the formality of his words barely hiding the contempt underneath.
Despite their relation, Milos had never hidden the fact that he considered Dimas as unfit to rule as the late empress, a belief that had only grown in the years Dimas had spent without his Fateweaver at his side.
No doubt Milos thought him just as incapable of bringing her home as Dimas’s father did.
Still, the prized hunter was not stupid enough to call him out in front of all these people. He stood stiffly at the prince’s side, the muscle in his jaw fluttering in a clear effort to keep his thoughts to himself.
“We’ve searched the village, and there’s no sign of the girl from your vision.”
I’m too late.
Dimas couldn’t breathe. The walls of the carriage were suddenly too narrow, and his palms were slick with sweat despite the icy storm blowing through the village.
Keep it together! He’d come too far to fail now.
Milos was watching him. Waiting for Dimas to give his next orders. Dimas bit down on the inside of his cheek until blood coated his tongue. Until the sharp sting of pain cleared some of the fog in his mind.
Think, Dimas.
This was the only village left to search.
He couldn’t keep hiding in his carriage whilst his father’s hunters did the work.
No, he’d come here for a reason. His connection to his Fateweaver had shown him the Wilds for a reason.
And if he couldn’t trigger another vision, well, then there had to be someone in this fate-forsaken village that knew where his Fateweaver had gone. All he had to do was get them to talk.
“Gather the villagers,” he said, a plan forming in his mind. “Tell them their prince wishes to speak with them.”
Something like surprise ghosted across Milos’s green eyes. But then he bowed his head, said a quick “Yes, Your Highness,” and scurried away toward the village.
Dimas was halfway out the carriage door when Ioseph’s hand wrapped around his arm. Dimas looked back at Ioseph, his stomach fluttering. “What is it?”
“I know finding your Fateweaver is important, just … don’t lose sight of who you are.” The unspoken message beneath Ioseph’s words lingered between them.
Don’t become like your father.
“I won’t,” Dimas promised.
He stepped from the carriage, and the wind hit him with a fierceness that stole the breath from his lungs.
He let his gaze roam over the small wooden huts with their thatched roofs, a strange sort of familiarity settling over him.
Was this the place he’d seen in his vision?
It seemed the farther into the Wilds they ventured, the worse off the people were.
Dimas’s thoughts drifted back to his Fateweaver.
To how different their lives were. He had known the luxury of warmth and food all his life, whilst this girl he was searching for had carved out a life in this forsaken place.
The vision Naebya had given to him had shown her to be fierce and strong, with eyes as wild as a storm and a constant scowl marking her sharp features.
All he’d been able to do at the time was wonder how someone so young had become so hardened.
Looking at the villagers being herded around a derelict wooden well, with their painfully thin faces and grief-stricken eyes, it was easy to see it had been her fate that had made her that way.
We let this happen to her, he thought, his throat suddenly tight. We let this happen to all of them.
An apology lingered on his tongue. But Milos spoke before he could utter it, and the word died on his lips. Stupid. His father’s snarling face flashed in his mind. An emperor does not apologize to those lesser than him.
“You all know why you’re here. Emperor Vesric Ehmar has issued a new law that anyone worshipping the Lost Sisters is to be punished, and that anyone with bōden abilities who has not declared as such to their nearest temple will be detained immediately.
” Milos’s hand rested lazily on the hilt of his sword, the threat behind the gesture clear: play nice or things were going to get ugly.
Dimas knew about the lives the hunters had taken during their search.
Heretics, Milos had explained when the prince had questioned him about it the night before at camp.
Each one had resisted arrest. They’d given him no choice.
Dimas wasn’t sure he’d believed Milos, and judging by the look of hatred in these people’s eyes, the villagers of Forvyrg were just as wary.
The prince stepped out of the shadows, coming to a stop at Milos’s side. What Dimas was about to do … it was a risk. But it was one he was willing to take if it meant finding his Fateweaver.
“There’s no need to be afraid. I am Dimas Ehmar, son of Emperor Vesric Ehmar, heir to the Wyrecian Empire.”
A ripple of sound went through the small crowd at his declaration.
Dimas held up a hand to silence them. “No one is going to get hurt if you cooperate. I’m looking for a young woman accused of practicing the Old Ways. Her last known location was somewhere in the Wilds.”
Dimas withdrew a folded-up piece of parchment from inside of his cloak.
He’d sketched his Fateweaver as many times as his hands would allow, afraid that the hazy image of her face would slip away, leaving him with nothing but the memory of a featureless figure in the snow.
Now, as his gaze fell on the sharp, charcoal angles of her face, he was certain he’d been stupid.
There was no way he could ever forget the way she’d looked in his vision.
Fierce and wild, as if she would fight the Old Gods themselves if they remained in this world.
The same ache he’d felt when he first saw her began to spread through his chest again. A longing he couldn’t explain. He had to find her. He would find her.
Holding up the piece of parchment so that the villagers could see the drawing, Dimas said, “Do any of you recognize this girl?”
Silence settled over the crowd, but it did little to distract from the faint glimmers of recognition on some of the villagers’ faces.