Chapter 2
Most children who ruin celebratory balls might be punished with a day of answering their father’s letters from disgruntled Tamarynth residents or sorting their mother’s twenty-pound Morphic history books.
My father offers me a hunt.
My rain-sodden cloak hangs like a leaden weight across my shoulders.
The moist smell of damp earth mingling with wet horsehair tingles in my nostrils.
I relish the sensations of the forest. Although I wish I’d gotten the chance to braid my hair and eat breakfast, I don’t complain about the early hour.
This is the first time Father has let me ride with the Hawks.
Although he’s made it clear he expects me to spend the next few years learning from him about what it takes to sit on the council, he’s starting to come around to the idea that I may have a future with the Hawks.
Letting me go on this hunt is his way of saying he might agree to my joining in a few years.
I just have to figure out a way to convince him I’m ready now.
His words from this morning come back to me and replace my initial surge of excitement with a stone sinking in my gut. This is not a punishment, nor is it a reward. What happened last night cannot happen again. This hunt will show me and the Hawks you’re ready to start training with them.
Even if Father lets me train, I’ll be lucky to spend one evening a week with the Hawks.
If he gets his way, I’ll spend the majority of my days shadowing him in his council duties and the rest, attending university.
Although I’ve tried to argue that Leith started training seven days a week when he was sixteen and became a full-fledged Hawk at eighteen, Father reminds me Leith didn’t make it through his first year. As if I need that reminder.
Grayson leads our group of hunters atop his broad gray stallion.
He hasn’t looked at me once since we rode out before dawn.
No longer all lanky limbs and shy grins, twenty-five-year-old Grayson Caddel has filled out with muscle.
His hair glistens dark gold, and his pale skin has splotches of pink from the cold rain.
I catch a flash of his green eyes as he throws a glance over his shoulder, a gaze that reminds me of the sensitive eighteen-year-old boy I used to see in Leith’s company every day.
“No Morphia on this hunt. I mean it, Roe.”
Gray may have been my brother’s former lover, but that doesn’t mean he plans on giving me special treatment.
It’s been seven years since Leith died, and Gray’s lost the carefree smile he used to have when he and my brother would steal away into the barn together.
His warning chips away at my confidence, frigid as the icy rain pelting the back of my neck.
I incline my head in a stiff acknowledgment but turn my attention back to the forest. I ride a dark bay Thoroughbred with one hand on the reins and the other on the arrows in my quiver. At the slightest sound, I prepare to draw one. I don’t care that all the Hawks snicker at me.
“Careful,” Jasper croons, letting go of the reins to wave his arms. “There could be an attack at any moment.”
If he were closer, I’d knock him off his horse, but some of the Hawks are less accustomed to me than Gray and Jasper.
After my brother died, many of his friends took me under their wing, but not every hunter appreciates their powerful boss’s teenaged daughter coming along on a mission.
They’ll need to start seeing me as one of them.
No better time than under a cloudy gray sky with rain plastering our hair to our faces.
Several of the Hawks sneak nervous glances in my direction. Many were in attendance last night and witnessed my disastrous performance. I fight the sag of my shoulders under the weight of their suspicion. I can’t let them see their doubt bothers me.
A piercing scream sounds a few paces ahead of me, yanking me from my thoughts.
Although the sharp shriek makes my hair stand on end, none of the Hawks stir.
My heart threatens to stop beating as I fight to stay calm.
My horse shifts beneath me and exhales a nervous snort.
The scream comes from a woman riding on horseback ahead of us.
She’s lost control of the reins and narrowly misses colliding with a tree.
The girl locks eyes with me, and the fear in her ice-blue gaze is almost enough for me to gallop forward to help her.
But before I can react, the horse missteps and the girl tumbles onto the ground.
Her shout of surprise is followed by the wet smack of her skull colliding with a rock.
Blood seeps into the dirt as the horse sprints away.
When no one else reacts, I slowly realize this is nothing more than a waking deathmare.
I take deep breaths to remind myself it’s not real.
The worst part of the deathmare closes in at the end.
Spirits reach out to me, smothering me with their hands as they try to use me to visit the mortal world.
I cannot move, and I’m grateful my horse keeps pace with the other Hawks while I try to calm myself.
It’s been fourteen years of deathmares, and I still can’t stand the feeling of skin against mine.
When I use my Morphia and summon spirits, I pay in waking deathmares or horrific deathmare dreams while I’m asleep. The worst part is, sometimes I can’t tell if they’re real.
This time, a dark thought seizes hold of my mind and won’t let go.
I don’t want to see a stranger die in the forest that stole my brother from me.
The bitter sting of disappointment lingers.
It’s like a cruel joke to see another person’s death in these woods.
As if the forest is sending me a reminder that no matter how much I want it to, it will never show me Leith.
“So, what do we know about this Morphic?” I ask, desperate to redirect my thoughts from the woman’s glassy stare and slack-jawed mouth.
One of the young women smirks. She urges her horse forward. “We know he’s destined for a nice, long stay in Malachite Prison.”
The Hawks break into a trot. We weave between tall trees with glistening green leaves and spiderwebs dappled with raindrops. Mud and rocks squelch underfoot. I suppress my shudder and try to pass it off as a reaction to the cold.
Malachite is the prison for Morphics who run from their trials or commit crimes.
I’ve never been, but Father tells me it’s a frightening place.
Since he works closely with the Hawks, our estate isn’t far from the prison.
Mother talks about how unsafe it is every other night at dinner.
I don’t care how thick the forest is, Cyrion.
It would take those prisoners less than an hour to get to us.
Think of the children, she’d say through gritted teeth.
I clear my throat. “I meant, what’s he done?”
Gray holds up a closed fist, indicating for us to stop.
He swings his leg over his horse, patting its flank as he dismounts.
He crouches, examining a pair of footprints embedded in the mud.
“A mender,” he answers, standing and swinging back up onto his horse.
“He’s been luring families with false promises.
Takes their money but doesn’t heal anyone. ”
Frustration tightens in my gut. Morphia magic is sacred to me, and I can’t stand when someone uses it to hurt others. It’s Morphics like him who make people afraid of us. All menders should technically complete two years of service in their province’s infirmaries, which I’m guessing he skipped too.
“Don’t worry,” Jasper says to me. “We’ve got him now.”
As if on cue, Gray brings his fist down fast. The Hawks draw bows and arrows, galloping forward with only the strength of their knees to keep them from falling.
Morphic crafters enchant their arrows to fly as fast as the bullets from a pistol.
They can enhance weapons, but their magic fades.
Father wishes the Hawks would carry pistols, but the council thinks there’s some sort of justice in having rogue Morphics taken down by their own weapons.
I urge my horse into a gallop and pull an arrow back on my bowstring. My blood pumps with adrenaline.
A man wearing a deep green cloak and torn trousers weaves among the trees on foot. The labored gasps of his breathing and the snap of twigs are the only sounds he makes as he runs. Gray raises his voice and orders the man to stop.
He doesn’t.
We’re gaining on him, but he has a major head start. Another sound floods my ears. A sound I don’t think Gray recognizes for what it is. The crash of a large body of water slamming into rocks. We’re close to the divide between Credence and Windmere Provinces, which means he’s heading for …
“Damn,” Jasper yells. “He’s heading for Windmere Falls.”
The woman scoffs and releases her bow to clutch the reins. “He wouldn’t jump, would he?”
The man runs in a straight line toward the sound of water. Gray holds out his hand as we ride hard to catch him, but the undergrowth’s thicker and the rocks more slippery. “Don’t shoot! We catch him unharmed unless we have no other choice.”
Jasper coughs. “I think we’re coming up on no other choice.”
Without waiting for Gray’s signal, a Hawk to my right releases an arrow. It’s a narrow miss. Another arrow from somewhere behind me grazes the man’s leg. I grimace at the spatter of blood and the way it reminds me of the deathmare woman’s cracked skull.
Before I can stop to think, my body heats.
The chill from the rain leaves me as my arms tingle with white-hot energy.
I catch a swift shake of Gray’s head as he realizes what I’m about to do, but he can’t stop me.
This is what I’m good at—made for, even.
I close my eyes, allowing my horse to guide me.
The blues and grays of the realm beyond life call to me, and I reach for a spirit.