Chapter 27
Five hours later, we’re deep in Carodmoor Forest, approaching the unofficial border between Windmere and Credence, my home province.
The sun set hours ago, and Alana exhales gratefully when Gray slows his gallop. “Can we stop for the night?” she asks, shifting in her saddle.
An excellent horseman like all Hawks, Gray weaves through the trees on his stallion like he’s riding a shadow. “Not yet. There’s no telling who might be after us now.”
Ivander clicks his tongue, and his red mare canters to match pace with Gray’s dark bay. “We need a break, at least.”
“Some of us haven’t sat a horse in a while, Gray.
” I pull back gently on the reins and slow my horse to a stop.
If I leave the choice to Gray, he’ll have us riding until we reach Damarcus Estate.
It’s not fair to ask Ivander and Alana—who’ve been on a ship for months—to ride for two days straight without rest. With the dark pressing in on us, I can’t see Gray’s expression, but the thud of his boots hitting dirt reassures me he’s agreed to stop.
Swinging my leg over the side of the saddle, I hop down from my mare and lead her to the slow dribble of a stream nearby. Leaves crunch underfoot as I crouch. I dip my hands into the water and sigh.
Alana joins me, plunging her whole face into the stream. She emerges, smiling wide. “This beats our tub on the ship, doesn’t it?”
I grip fistfuls of mud in my hands and allow them to slip through my fingers. I missed the feeling of solid earth under my feet and soil in my palms. And I was only gone for a month compared to the others.
Gray gathers wood and twigs to start a fire, making a pile by Ivander’s feet. “I can help,” Ivander offers, but Gray shakes his head.
“Don’t worry about it. You three rest.” Gray drops a fresh branch onto the pile, glancing at Ivander and Alana. “Although, you two aren’t crafters, by any chance?”
They shake their heads, and he sighs, trekking farther into the forest in search of firewood. If we had a crafter with us, they could start a fire in no time by fashioning a match from a dry piece of wood. They might only lose their sense of touch in a couple of fingers.
As it stands, the three of us aren’t that useful in the middle of the woods. There’s a chance Ivander could shift our clothes for better camouflage, but the expenditure of energy and accompanying pain wouldn’t be worth it.
As we huddle close to the pile of sticks, Ivander’s shoulder brushes mine, and Alana crouches on my other side, face glistening with water from the stream. “He can start a fire, right?” she asks, pulling her knees close to her chest.
I nod. Gray’s spent plenty of nights in the forest with the Hawks.
The thought makes the hair on my arms stand on end.
Why would he give up everything he’s worked for to break the law and help us escape the Celestial?
I know what he felt for Leith was real, but it was real seven years ago.
Is keeping a promise to protect me worth losing his position in the Hawks, maybe even his freedom?
I see my own uneasiness in Ivander’s tense shoulders and Alana’s darting eyes.
With the thought fresh in my mind, I think about the other parts of today that didn’t make sense. “Where did you learn to use a knife?” I ask Ivander.
I’ve trained with a bow and pistol since I was old enough to run around outside.
Crafter-made bows and arrows are expensive, and pistols are even more so.
They were all as much a part of my training and Eliza’s as playing the piano or learning how to waltz.
But knives are desperate weapons. They require getting intimately close to the danger you’re fighting.
For someone with a knife, it’s not a matter of winning a competition or elevating their social standing. It’s a matter of survival.
Ivander pulls out his long knife. Even in the dark, the swirling pattern of symbols and lines etched into the hilt draws my eye. He hands it to me, fingers passing over mine as our hands touch. My skin tingles from the quick contact, the warmth from him richer than any fire we could have lit.
“I learned from the other kids when we’d go in a group to Aryndar’s markets.
There were a couple of Morphic kids in our group, and a few of them had been jumped before.
It wasn’t something Morphics talked about often, but many of us knew there were people who might try to kidnap us, or worse.
I always thought my Morphia would be enough to fight them off, but then Adrionna started coming with me when I got older, and I knew I had to carry a knife every time.
I couldn’t take chances.” He turns the blade over in his hands, letting it glint in the moonlight beaming through the trees.
Alana leans toward us. “Roe doesn’t know what it’s like. She grew up as a lady of Damarcus Estate, remember?” She nudges me—playful, not judgmental.
She’s right, but maybe I wasn’t as immune as I thought.
Father used to be very careful about locking all the doors to our estate at night, then checking the entrances multiple times.
He’d always bark at Eliza and me if we left our windows open.
At boarding school, I’d been bullied because my gift scared people.
I’d glimpsed a letter Mother wrote to the school asking how they could ensure my safety.
I hadn’t thought the reason I’d started training with weapons so early might be because my parents were afraid.
Ivander adds, “There are always people out to kill Morphics. Sometimes to sell them for illegal extraction. People take the raw Morphia and use it themselves, or smuggle it all the way to Gryndar. Forced extraction is illegal, but no one’s looking out for people like us.”
Just like on the Celestial. It’s another way greedy people abuse Morphics and their magic.
As far as I knew, the only raw Morphia was aboard the Celestial.
Throat tight, I admit to myself that illegal extractions of Morphia are probably more common than I realized.
I can add it to the long list of things I had no idea were happening.
“Of course, there are always people—assassins—who like to kill Morphics for no reason at all.”
I know what he means, but there is a reason. Hatred. Jealousy. Both. If I hadn’t been born a Damarcus, resurrection might have gotten me killed. “Have you ever had to use it?” I ask, nodding to Ivander’s knife. “To defend yourself?”
He tucks the knife back in its hiding place within his coat. “More than I wish I had,” he says as Gray returns with branches in his arms.
Kneeling on the other side of the wood pile across from us, Gray reaches into the deep pockets of his coat and pulls out a chunk of flint and some dry kindling. He manages to light the fire and points to the stream. “That water should be safe enough to drink. The Hawks have camped here before.”
From his other pocket, he takes out a few pieces of hard bread and a handful of jerky. I’m not sure if the meat’s squirrel or deer, but the three of us scarf it down. Although I nearly break my teeth on the bread crust, I don’t complain.
Ivander sits up straighter, inclining his head to Gray as the flickering firelight illuminates his face. “So why does Roe trust you so much?”
Gray is caught off guard by the question but answers despite the catch in his throat. “I was in love with her brother before he died. He was a Hawk too. I became close with his whole family.”
Ivander nods and the tension in his shoulders releases. He looks almost relieved at the mention of my brother.
“Where’d you get the food?” Alana asks. “I’m guessing it didn’t come from the Celestial.”
If she’s like me, she’s already missing Isla’s cooking.
Gray pokes the fire with a stick. “Bought the food in the port market. I told my parents I’d be gone for a while.
Then I went back to the ship and came to get you.
” He throws the stick into the fire, and a swarm of embers leap into the air.
“Hawks always carry a fire starter, but they wouldn’t let me on board with mine.
That reminds me.” He reaches across his horse to a bow and quiver of arrows attached to his saddle.
“Here. They keep personal items locked away beside the extraction room.”
It takes me a moment to recognize the white bow and quiver of arrows as the ones I left at port before sailing. I grasp them with tears in my eyes.
When my fingers clasp the smooth wood, indecision forms an odd lump in my throat. Something about holding this expensive childhood birthday present no longer feels right when I’m sitting beside Morphics who’ve used knives to defend themselves. I set it on the ground.
A question for Gray lurks on my tongue, like the creature hungry for blood in the ship’s lagoon, but I’m too nervous to let it rise to the surface. The crackling fire before us almost makes me feel like I could be back home in Father’s study, but that peaceful illusion is slipping away.
I dig my fingernails into my knees. Memories of Father aren’t warm anymore. “I know there’s a lot you weren’t telling me back on the ship. Can you tell me now?”
A weighted silence hangs heavy and threatening between us and Gray. Like a vat of hot oil threatening to tip over. I pull in toward myself tighter, not wanting to touch anyone as I wait.
Gray lets out a shaky breath and looks over the tongues of flame to meet my eyes. “Yes,” he says slowly. “I think it’s time.”
Alana leans forward, and Ivander shifts beside me, but neither speaks. They wait, as expectant and fidgety as I am.
“I need you to know that everything I didn’t tell you was because I thought I was keeping you safe. You were so young when your brother died.” Gray struggles to say the words.
My heartbeat is thunderous. I strain to hear him over the pulsing in my temples.