Chapter 38
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
T he pass reeked of danger. Everything about it felt like a place inhospitable to all life. The stones were foreboding and jagged, leaving barely enough room between them to cut through, even for the most surefooted travelers. The fog was so thick here that it blotted out the sun completely—so thick that I could feel it in each breath, and in the threads themselves, like all senses were coated in a thick, blurred layer. The slyviks weren’t visible, not with eyes nor even with the threads, but I could sense them distantly, like flitting, deadly shadows, impossible to pinpoint.
I could understand why this place had claimed so many lives. The journey through the pass could take a human fourteen days, if they were very, very quick. But no one was quick, because attempting to navigate the maze of the pass with eyes alone was a foolish, losing proposition.
Atrius, arrogant as he was, figured we could make the trip in seven days.
In theory, maybe he was right. Vampires were hardier than humans. Their eyesight was far better in the dark. They healed faster, didn’t need as much food to survive. And, Atrius pointed out smugly, they had me—our key to making it through the pass without getting lost.
I wanted to believe him. Needed to believe him. Time loomed over me like the shadows of the slyviks I knew were waiting for us ahead. How long would it take for the Arachessen to kill me?
Not long. They were very efficient.
Seven days, I figured, could work.
Atrius and I stood at the front of his army. Not many of his warriors would make the journey with us—he had lost so many, and more still needed to stay behind to care for the wounded. It seemed laughable to think that this army of one hundred men could be the downfall of the Pythora King.
But then again, these weren’t men.
Still, as I stood beside Atrius at the narrow gap between these jagged rocks, feeling my own mortality’s breath at the back of my neck, I found myself with a strange sensation: raw, genuine fear.
Time , Atrius had told me once, the first time I healed him. I just need time.
I understood that now.
That morning, before we left, I had sat down to compose what I knew would likely be my final letter to Naro. All of them had been stilted and awkward, fuller of the things I didn’t say than the things I did. Mundane questions that didn’t matter— How are you feeling? How are they treating you? How is the weather in Vasai?
He never responded, of course.
This morning, I sat before that blank paper for a long time without writing. It seemed disingenuous to give him my usual forced small talk, even if it was the most comfortable option.
I had given up the comfortable option.
I would likely die soon. He would likely die soon. Both of us were being slowly strangled by those who had taken all our faith. We had no one to blame but ourselves.
What the hell were we pretending for, anymore?
So this time, I wrote what I really meant.
Naro—
I love you.
I’m sorry for the ways I failed you.
I forgive you for the ways you failed me .
Maybe in the next life, it can be different. But if not, what I feel in this one remains the same.
I love you.
Vivi.
It was a short letter. Just a few sentences. And yet, what else was there to say but that? What else could I offer him?
Now, at the entrance to the pass, my death looming over me, I thought of that question again. It was all I had, but it still didn’t feel like enough.
I could feel Atrius staring at me. He was as nervous as I was, but his presence still comforted me. I swallowed past a thick lump in my throat, heavy with fear and guilt.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
His voice was abrupt, and yet gentle.
He saw too much.
“Nothing,” I said, and started to walk forward, but he caught my arm.
“What is it?”
I paused, fighting that same sensation I’d felt when I wrote Naro’s letter earlier today—like Atrius’s question was another blank page in front of me.
I turned back to him.
“I need you to promise me something,” I said.
A ripple of concern. His brow furrowed.
“Promise me that you keep going,” I said. “Even if you lose me. Promise me that your only goal remains the Pythora King.”
Silence. His concern grew stronger.
I reversed his grip, so I was now holding his hand, pulling him closer.
“Death is what happens when you stand still,” I said. “Don’t stand still. Not for anything.”
Finally, he lowered his chin in a nod.
A wave of relief fell over me. I turned back to the pass before us.
It felt, I supposed, exactly like what a path to the underworld should feel like.
“Are you ready?” I asked.
He wasn’t. I could sense that. But he still said, without a hint of uncertainty, “Yes,” because Atrius worked only in absolutes. I appreciated that about him, even though I knew it would be the very quality that would end me.
“Good,” I replied.
I was the one to take the first step, leading us into the mist.
I hated following the threads through rocks. They were so much more opaque than soil or water, with so little life running through them to cling to. These ones were among the worst—endless expanses of serrated death.
The gaps between them were so narrow that no more than two of us could walk shoulder-to-shoulder, and even that was tight. I led the group, the navigator pointing our way. Though the vampires had far better eyesight in the darkness than humans did, the dark wasn’t the problem here—the mist was. A human would be functionally blind here. The vampires could see what lay directly before them, but little more. Certainly not enough to work their way through the maze of stone alone.
That was my job.
I clung to the cliff walls, pressing my hands to the damp stone, threading my awareness through them. It took all my focus—I kept stumbling over the uneven terrain because I couldn’t keep track of our larger path while also seeing what lay directly in front of me. Atrius remained by my side, one hand keeping his sword at the ready, the other holding onto my arm, as if he was terrified of losing me.
We walked for hours. The one benefit of the pass’s brutal environment was that it shielded us so well from the sun that we didn’t need to stop to take shelter from it. There was little difference between night and day. As a result, time blurred. The vampires had far better stamina than humans. They didn’t need to rest as often .
But eventually, I was suffering. My head pounded. The ache of my injuries from the recent attack, still not fully healed, nagged at me, and the constant focus was exhausting.
“You need to rest,” Atrius said after a while.
I didn’t even dignify that with an answer. I just kept pushing forward.
There wasn’t enough time.
Atrius did, eventually, command that everyone rest, though I’d long lost track of the hours by then. I couldn’t even sense the fall or rise of the sun through the mists. By now, even the vampires were exhausted, gratefully sliding to the ground at the order, reaching for their canteens of deer blood.
I couldn’t make myself move from the rock, my fingers still curled against the stone.
After a moment, Atrius gently took my hand. The moment he pulled me away from the stability of the wall, my knees buckled.
He caught me and the two of us sank to the ground together. My head was spinning. I felt, for the second time in my life, truly blind—my exhaustion so deep that, in this dead place, I couldn’t grip any of the threads around me.
Except for Atrius’s. His presence, solid and unshakable, was a single stable harbor.
He didn’t say anything, but his worry radiated through me like a trembling string.
“Drink,” he muttered, pressing a canteen to my mouth—tilting my chin up when I struggled to hold it myself. The liquid inside was sweet and thicker than water. Whatever it was, my body screamed for more of it from the first drop.
“A tonic,” he said. “It’s better for you.”
He’d prepared for me. Gotten human-specific tonics to help me make the journey. I knew him well enough by now that I shouldn’t have been surprised by this, and yet... my heart clenched a little.
He pulled away the canteen, and my head sagged against his shoulder. I wouldn’t admit it aloud, but I needed this, to be cradled against his body. His aura grounded me after so many hours throwing myself far away in the threads .
“I need to stay awake.” My voice slurred. “There could be slyviks?—”
“You need to rest,” he snapped. “Here.”
Something touched my lips—a little piece of jerky. I took it and chewed, or did my best to.
“I’ll watch,” he said.
I swallowed the jerky, with significant effort.
“But you won’t be able to see?—”
“Enough.” His hand reached out to caress my cheek. Something about the harshness of the word combined with the softness of the touch made all further protests fade.
He laid his sword beside him, and I settled deeper into his hold, my head sliding down into his lap.
The last thing I remembered before sleep took me was my hand curling around his—a mindless impulse, like a compass drifting north.
I slept so deeply that when the warm liquid spattered over my face, it took me several long seconds to realize that it was blood.
But once I did, I knew it was Atrius’s immediately.
His pain was a sharp twang to the threads, loud enough to snap me back to awareness. At first I couldn’t grip anything else, jerking upright only to fall against the uneven rocks, the mists and darkness and all-consuming lifelessness of the pass surrounding me.
The sound that cut through the air was a high-pitched scream, not unlike a child’s terrified wail, starting bone-chillingly high and then falling into a guttural chatter.
My grip on my surroundings snapped into place. I jumped to my feet.
A slyvik.
A slyvik that had Atrius.