Chapter 5 Dimas #2
Finaen’s eyes darted toward the window. “Look, if you just untie me and give me a weapon, I can help fight whatever’s out there. If it’s anything like that thing we saw in Forvyrg, you’ll need all the help you can get.”
Dimas hesitated. If he untied the siblings, there was a chance they would escape, leaving him with no leverage over Lenora when his hunters returned. But if he didn’t and one of Wyrecia’s ancient creatures was lurking beyond the carriage doors, then he was putting all of them in danger.
He knew what his father would say. An emperor’s faith is his greatest weapon.
Even without his Fateweaver at his side, Dimas should have been the first one out of that carriage, his sword drawn and a warrior’s cry on his lips.
There should have been no doubt in his mind that he would emerge victorious against whatever foe awaited him.
But his father was not here, and the thought of going out there alone—of not being able to help Ioseph if he was in trouble—had him reaching for the ornamental dagger at his belt.
“Do exactly as I say,” Dimas said, sawing through the rope binding Finaen’s wrists.
The village boy nodded, his eyes darkening, his lips parting.
It was the same look Dimas had seen in the eyes of dozens of recruits over the years.
He turned toward Maia, who shoved her wrists forward with an impatient thrust.
“No, she stays here,” Finaen said, ignoring the hateful glare she sent his way.
Dimas froze with the dagger hovering inches above Maia’s rope.
Finaen had told Dimas how the creature they’d encountered had knocked her down, and even though Maia claimed their village healer had declared the injury to her head minor, Dimas couldn’t risk her losing consciousness in the middle of a fight.
Dimas pulled back from the girl. “I’m sorry,” he offered, before turning his attention back to Finaen, who seemed to be trying to look anywhere but at Maia’s seething face.
“Let’s go. Stay behind me and stay quiet.
” Dimas had never given battle orders outside of a training field before.
It felt strange, as if he were playing a part in some kind of play.
The thought took hold, and as Dimas reached for the carriage door, he imagined himself not as a scared prince, but as a valiant, faithful emperor.
“Wait,” Finaen whispered. “I need a weapon.”
Ioseph had taken Finaen’s hatchet before allowing him into the carriage. It was now tucked safely into the soldier’s belt alongside his sword. The idea of a weapon in Finaen’s hand wasn’t one Dimas liked; untying him had been a risk he’d been willing to take, but arming him …
“You’ll get one if you need one.”
Once Dimas had seen what they were facing.
For all he knew, Finaen’s story about the Corrupted was just that—a story, meant to trick and frighten Dimas into trusting his claims. Finaen huffed but said nothing.
He simply stood at Dimas’s back, waiting to follow the prince into whatever situation awaited them.
Steeling his nerves, Dimas pushed open the carriage door, being careful to make as little sound as possible.
He needn’t have bothered; the wind was a howling, living thing, smothering any other noise with its screams. There was no sign of Ioseph as Dimas stepped out of the carriage, his boots crunching in the hard snow.
Finaen dropped down beside him, and Dimas tried to ignore the roaring of his heartbeat in his ears as the two of them crept alongside the side of the carriage.
It was too quiet. Even with the howling wind, there was a strange, unnatural stillness to the air. The same kind of stillness Dimas always experienced whenever he visited his mother’s tomb. As if, just for a moment, time itself had come to a complete stop.
Dimas drew his sword. He didn’t like to fight, but as heir, he’d been trained by some of the best fighters the empire had ever seen. He took another step forward, and then another, slowly inching closer to the front of the carriage.
A figure appeared in the dim light. Dimas raised his sword, his heart a wild thing in his chest.
“It’s me,” Ioseph said. Dimas peered up into his face, trying not to panic at the haunted look in his best friend’s eyes.
“I told you to wait in the carriage.” Ioseph looked past Dimas to the figure standing behind him, his lips tightening at the clear lack of rope around Finaen’s wrists. “You untied him?”
Dimas ignored the question. “What happened?”
Ioseph hesitated just long enough for Dimas to know the next words out of his mouth were going to be a lie. “It’s nothing you need to worry about. The storm will be here soon. You should get back inside—”
“Is that blood?”
There was a small smudge on Ioseph’s left cheek.
The soldier reached up to brush it away with a gloved hand, his lips parting in an answer Dimas didn’t wait to hear.
All his life people had shielded him from the truth, treating him as if he were glass.
And where had it gotten him? He was about to be emperor, and he was stranded in the middle of the Wilds without a Fateweaver at his side.
No more. He brushed past Ioseph with single-minded determination, the front of the carriage barely three feet away.
“Your Highness, please. You don’t need to see this.”
“Yes,” said Dimas, “I do.” He hadn’t felt this certain since he’d made the decision to track down his Fateweaver. He knew, somehow, that no matter what choices he’d made in the past, he was always going to end up here.
Ioseph must have sensed the conviction in his voice, because instead of arguing, he simply fell into step at Dimas’s side. “Alright,” he said, lowering his voice so only the prince could hear, “but the village boy shouldn’t be here for this.”
Dimas glanced back at Finaen, who was standing silently a few feet behind them. Leaving Maia alone in the carriage had been a risk, but with her hands bound and a blizzard on the way, he doubted she’d try to run. But leaving them alone together …
“He stays with us.”
Ioseph’s brow furrowed, but he kept his mouth shut, chin dipping in a barely perceptible nod.
“AEspen, stay close.”
Dimas didn’t wait to see if Finaen obeyed. Something inside him knew he would. Just like he knew that whatever awaited him at the front of this carriage was going to change everything.
He sucked in a breath of ice-cold air, letting the sensation calm his nerves. Overhead, the sky was growing increasingly darker with the impending storm, and flecks of snow had begun to settle on the strands of his hair. It’s now or never.
Dimas rounded the side of the carriage. For a heartbeat, everything looked exactly as he’d expect it to: Aldryn, the young soldier who’d been assigned to drive the carriage, was sitting upright in his chair, the reins of two ebony horses resting in his gloved hands.
The horses themselves were neighing softly in distress, their hooves churning at the snow beneath their feet.
There was something blocking their path.
A rotting, gaunt tree trunk that had been sawed on one end.
An ambush? He thought of his father’s warnings about rebellion.
Of groups of heretics banding together to fight back against the empire’s laws.
Even though they’d chosen the simplest snow carriage for their journey, one that couldn’t be identified as belonging to the royal line, Dimas had revealed the truth of who he was back in Forvyrg.
His desperation had made him careless, and for the son of Vesric Ehmar, carelessness could be as deadly as any blade.
But the Wilds were empty. Dimas scanned the quickly darkening horizon, searching for any signs of life.
His brow furrowed. He turned to ask the driver of the carriage what he’d seen.
To ask him why he hadn’t come to report the blockage as soon as he’d seen it, but as his gaze fell on the young soldier, the words died in his throat.
A single, crimson line ran across the width of his neck, as if someone had tied a ribbon around his throat.
Blood coated the trim around his cloak, turning the once-light-gray fur a rusty shade of brown.
But the worst part, the part that made bile rise in Dimas’s throat, was the bloody symbol that had been carefully carved into the soldier’s forehead.
Three diamonds that formed a shape almost like a star, nestled in a large V-shape that tapered into a single line at its bottom.
It was a symbol he’d only ever seen in classified history books.
One that was always accompanied by a brief but warning description of the Haesta, an ancient cult loyal to the Furybringer.
The royal priests claimed they’d all vanished after her death, becoming as forgotten as the Corrupted the heretics believed had once dwelled within the shadows of Wyrecia.
But if they no longer existed, then why was their mark carved into this soldier’s flesh?
“It’s probably just heretics trying to scare us,” Ioseph said. He was standing close enough that Dimas could feel the warmth of him against his side, and for a second, the prince wanted nothing more than to lean into that heat and let it melt away the icy shards of his fear.
Instead, he made himself step away. “Probably,” Dimas said, because the only other option was one he wouldn’t let himself think about.
He couldn’t tear his gaze away from the soldier’s face, colorless except for the bloody mark upon his head.
A mark that was only there because he had followed Dimas into the Wilds.
“What does it mean?” Finaen asked, voice barely a whisper above the icy winds.
“It’s … a symbol from old Wyrecian,” said Dimas. “It’s meant as a warning.” Not a lie, exactly, but not the whole truth, either.
After a few more seconds, Ioseph said, “We need to go. The storm will be here soon.” He placed a hand on Dimas’s shoulder, his fingers tightening just a fraction. “Get back inside. I’ll take us the rest of the way.”
Dimas shook his head. “ ’Seph, no. It isn’t safe—”
“Whoever did this is long gone. What matters now is getting out of this storm.”
Dimas glanced at the sky. The snow was falling heavier now, covering the ground with increasing speed. If they waited any longer, they’d be stuck.
“Alright.” He turned back toward the carriage, nausea rising in his throat at the sight of the deceased soldier still sitting in the driver’s seat. “What about Aldryn?”
Ioseph shifted uneasily on his feet. “We can’t take him with us. There’s no room inside the carriage, and if anyone sees him up front …”
“I doubt anyone will be out here with the storm coming, but … here”—Finaen took his cloak off, his teeth chattering against the cold—“use this to cover him, just in case.”
Gratitude washed over Dimas. He dipped his chin. “Thank you. ’Seph, are you … I can drive with him, if—”
“No,” Ioseph said, already climbing onto the bench next to the boy’s corpse. “I’ve got it.”
Dimas knew from experience there was little point in arguing. And so, with one final look at the darkening sky, he headed back to the carriage door, the bloody image of the Haesta’s symbol still fresh in his mind.