8. Chapter Eight
Chapter Eight
We’ve been traveling for three days.
Three painful days of walking in near silence.
I make a point to slow my pace to Mayah’s—I’ve noticed she’s colder without my radiating body heat.
I can’t resist goading her, though. Challenging her self-righteous perception of her kingdom.
When she does speak, she doesn’t bother trying to conceal her disgust. I don’t blame her—I’ve done horrible things.
Monstrous things. I’ve acted as Arbinj’s sword for over half my life—swinging where commanded, never questioning, always doing my duty.
I can barely look at myself in the mirror sometimes.
But she thinks this war is one-sided—as though Tundraynis are the only ones who’ve suffered. As though she’s the only one who has known loss.
A pained, garbled moan.
Open, unseeing eyes.
Cold skin, unnatural and rigid.
The fire crackles, pulling me from my thoughts. I watch her from the corner of my eye as she scrubs clean snow over her hands and face, then down the slender column of her neck, firelight dancing across the necklace resting between her collarbones. The logs pop, and I tear my gaze away.
The pampered princess is likely accustomed to handmaids fussing over her and luxurious scented baths.
She hasn’t complained, though. Not yet, at least.
Her shadow falls over mine across the stark snow as she sits, leaving two feet of space between us. Like I might bite her, if I felt so inclined.
A soft moan escapes her as the fire warms her pink fingertips. I grit my teeth at the sound. I should’ve taken Lying Lyra up on her offer before leaving Arbinj.
“I’ll take first watch,” Mayah says, voice firm. Her gaze darts toward me, then back to the fire. “You stayed up the last two nights.”
I study her face, the dark shadows smudged beneath her blue eyes. Her body needs the sleep more than me, though I suspect if I tell her as much, she’ll bite my head off. Her jaw is set, shoulders tense as if she’s bracing for a fight. So I just nod and head toward the blanket.
Later, when she carefully peels back my cloak and lies down beside me, I pretend to sleep.
“How much farther until we’re out of Tundrayn?” she asks a few days later, her breath misting in the frigid air.
“At least another two weeks.” I can’t help but smirk at her. She’s a delicate flower as much as she pretends to be made of steel. “Tired already? I didn’t realize Tundraynis were such babies.”
She rolls her eyes. “I’ve met corpses with better insults than you.”
“Meet a lot of corpses, do you?”
“Yes, actually. It’s quite cruel. They come back in droves from the border. Usually burnt to a crisp by lightning.”
I clench my jaw so tightly, my teeth ache. She loves to remind me that I’m a monster—of the lives I’ve taken, the blood on my hands.
What of the lives Tundrayn has taken?
Cold, stiff skin beneath my palms. A pained, garbled moan. Unseeing eyes, frosted over with ice. He can’t blink, can’t speak.
Rage crackles through my veins, and I walk faster so we aren’t side by side anymore.
That night, when I hunt for dinner, I take twice as long—not because game is scarce, but to avoid being in Mayah’s presence. She hasn’t uttered a single word to me after our conversation—I doubt she even notices my simmering anger.
When I head back to camp with a large snowshoe hare in hand, she’s already started a fire. I skin the animal in silence before skewering it on a long branch and setting it over the fire.
Mayah doesn’t say a word, not when the hare is cooked, not when I set her portion before her, not while we eat. Anger sparks inside me like a storm desperate to be unleashed. I grit my teeth together in an attempt to temper my rage.
She didn’t start this war.
She didn’t murder Lev.
No, she’s just here. A pawn, much like I am.
But the longer she sits there, silent in her self-righteousness, firm in the unshakeable belief that she’s on the right side of this decades-long war, my fury rages hotter.
“You think my lightning is cruel?” I’m unable to remain silent a moment longer. “You should see what waterwielders can do.”
Her gaze snaps to mine, blue eyes wide.
“I’ve pulled men off the battlefield with ice spears piercing their lungs—jagged, serrated shards.
They choke on their own blood while we try to break ribs to dig them out.
I’ve seen soldiers with bubbles of water forced over their heads.
They scratch their faces bloody trying to escape before they drown.
“But the worst? Water forced in through the nose, mouth, eyes—until it fills the body. And then frozen solid. You know what that looks like, Mayah?” Lev’s contorted face flashes before my eyes, and I turn away from her.
“And while your people have healers with glowing hands and soothing light, know what we have? Poultices. Crushed roots. Bark soaked in boiled snow. Whatever the earth gives us. We’re fighting the same war with blood and dirt, while your people can erase wounds into nothing. ”
A beat.
“So don’t talk to me about cruelty.”
I can’t bring myself to look at her as I stalk to the blanket.
For once, I actually try to sleep when she has first watch. But every time I close my eyes, I see Lev’s face—eyes vacant and unseeing.
The fire hisses as she kicks snow over it, then trudges over to the blanket. She hesitates, then heads towards the other side. Away from me. Probably doesn’t want to be near me after our fight—and is willing to risk freezing to death in her sleep.
“Mayah.”
She falters, but obeys the command in my voice. I’m glad—I don’t have it in me tonight to argue with her. Mayah unlaces her boots and scoots over, resting her head on my bicep. I can’t look at her and face her hatred and disdain and disgust. Not right now.
But when she speaks, it’s not at all what I expect.
“Who did you lose?” she whispers.
I stiffen.
“My best friend.” My voice is a hoarse rasp.
I’m not certain why I answer. “Levaint. We grew up together. Zev and Lev.” A humorless laugh claws from my throat.
“His parents were nonwielders—simple farmers.
Imagine their surprise when their five-year-old son grew a giant tree in the middle of their cottage.
They brought him to the palace for training. We were inseparable after that.
“He was a powerful wielder—and all wielders must join the army. We fought our first battles side by side before I was assigned to a different squad. Stormwielders are lethal even from a distance, but earthwielders are more effective in close combat. He—”
I swallow hard. I’ve never voiced these words aloud to anyone.
But then—her small hand clasps mine, and Mayah laces our fingers together. My hand twitches, wanting to squeeze, but I don’t.
“Lev—it was after a brutal battle. Your side won. We retreated. I was settling down for the night, tending to my wounds, when a soldier rushed into my tent, said I needed to come immediately. In that moment, I knew. I just knew what was waiting for me.”
“What happened to him?”
“Waterwielder. Forced water into his body and froze it. He couldn’t see, couldn’t speak.
We had fires burning around him, blankets covering him to try and melt it, but wielded ice is cruel.
He was in unimaginable pain, and there was nothing I could do for him. Lev suffered for hours before he died.”
“I’m so sorry,” she whispers.
“Me too.”
She’s quiet for a heartbeat, grief roiling in her gaze, before she says, “My best friends were Sura and Tumaas.” Her voice cracks over their names.
“Twins. Their mother worked in the palace kitchens. We grew up together—three shadows always getting into trouble. They called me Mayah-bear. Because I’m ferocious when I’m mad. ”
Her soft laugh is a pained, watery sound, but it brings a smile to my lips regardless.
“One time, we snuck into the palace laundry and stole every piece of clothing. Knotted everything together and strung them across the banisters like garlands. Father was livid. Tumaas made up a song about it. We were inseparable. Sura always had this hope that Tumaas and I would get married, and we’d be a real family. ”
The light dies from her smile, and I find myself holding her tighter.
“But they were nonwielders. And in Tundrayn, that means you’re expendable.
They were sent to the border five years ago, despite my begging.
Father wouldn’t make any exceptions. Not even for me.
Especially not for me.” Her voice becomes thick with tears.
“They wrote to me every few weeks—long, silly letters. Tumaas would dictate to Sura—I’d always teased him about his atrocious handwriting.
I kept each one. I used to reread them when I couldn’t sleep. ”
She steels herself, and I do the same. I know her story doesn’t have a happy ending.
“There was a big battle. One of the worst. So many wounded, so many dead. We won—barely, but we won. They made it back to camp. I know because Sura wrote me a letter. Said she was safe, that they’d survived.
And that maybe, in a few weeks, they’d come home.
I slept with that letter beneath my pillow.
Clung to it like a promise. Her letter made it, Zevayr, but she never did. ”
My breath catches.
I know that battle. Skies, it’s the same battle.
Lightning shearing the dark sky.
The screams of the dying.
Lev’s garbled moan. Open, unseeing eyes.
“Hours after the battle was over, they were attacked. In the dark of night. Tidescursed cowards,” she spits. Her tears soak the fabric of my sleeve. “Everything was incinerated. No survivors.”
Skies damn me to the ends of the earth. Lightning burn me to ash. Mayah doesn’t know she’s cocooned in the arms of her friends’ murderer.
I swallow hard, drawing her closer, though I know I should push her away and confess. If she despised me before, she’d try to kill me now without a second thought. Maybe I want her to.
“I—I’m sorry” is all I can utter.
“It’s all right. There’s no healing this,” she says softly. “Some wounds never close. No matter how many times you pass your glowing hands over them.”
Sleep weighs on her lids, each blink lasting longer until she eventually falls asleep.
I remain awake, though. Guilt wrenches my chest, each shallow breath sawing through my lungs.
I’d never regretted my actions that night.
Tundrayn has waged war on Arbinj for decades before my birth.
They broke treaty after treaty. They killed my friend.
I believed my actions to be justified—brutal, but justified.
Until now.
I’d judged Mayah for her one-sided beliefs about Arbinj, but I’ve been guilty of the same. Lev’s death left a festering wound in my heart that never healed. I never considered that I left an identical wound in someone else’s heart, leagues across the realm.
Mayah shifts in my arms, her brow smooth in her sleep. Something sharp claws at my lungs. She sleeps so easily in the arms of a monster.