Chapter 4
Run.
If I can run and get onto a horse, I’ll have a third of a chance at making it into Starside. I could actually do this.
I’m not the only one with that idea.
I watch dozens of others run past me. And then I watch them fall.
Because half of our group has another plan. They’re going to fight for each horse. Archers are already in the trees, shooting runners down one by one. I stop. Turn. Duck behind a tree at the last moment. Hear the splitting of wood as an arrow pierces its trunk.
Every single person who ran is now on the ground. Dead or dying.
I can’t give my back to them.
I’m going to have to fight.
Zane sighs, a few feet to my left. I watch as he unsheathes his ax and rests it against his shoulder. My eyes widen. The silver is thick and reinforced with gemstones. I’ve never seen that before, the way the diamonds and rubies seem to melt right into the metal.
He sees me watching and shrugs. “It’s been in my family since before the war.”
A relic. Something the Great Houses offer. I look down at my own sword. Stellan was one of the best, but a blacksmith can only do so much with lesser metal.
“Hope to see you at the castle,” Zane says, nodding his head. And then he charges forward.
Swords clash. Metal shatters.
Next to me, using the same tree as cover, Kira is shaking. “My sister,” she whispers.
“What?”
An arrow just misses my side. I pull us both behind a larger trunk. It won’t block us for long, not while the rest of the group is advancing.
“She’s sick. That’s why I’m here. She … she’ll die without the magic.”
And she might as well have reached into my soul and squeezed it.
My eyes close tightly as I remember my own sister. Her cries. Holding her body in its last moments as—
My cheek rips against a root as Kira drags me to the ground.
“What—” I look up and go still.
The entire top of the tree is gone.
The Enders. They’re holding a glittering chain between them.
It’s—it’s coated in a thin layer of Starside steel.
They’re using it to halve anyone in their path.
Including the trees. Fuck. Bodies lay in pieces behind us.
Trees fall in every direction, making the ground tremble.
There isn’t a safe place to hide. I watch a girl lunge forward, eyes widening, just before she’s crushed by an oak. Blood spurts out her ears.
Kira throws up next to me.
“Come on,” I say, dragging her up. I would have been halved if she hadn’t pulled me down. I was too lost in my mind.
Distractions. My emotions and memories are distractions. They’ll get me killed.
I have to bury it down. All of it.
The arrows have stopped. Most of the archers were cut down from their trees, thanks to the Enders.
This is the best chance we’re going to get.
We start to run. Ahead, the forest has been flattened.
The ground is a minefield of snapped trunks, sharp edges sticking up like broken blades.
I sprint, careful not to impale myself on any of them, and—I’m moving too slowly.
I can hear the stampede of challengers, not far behind.
Faster. I push myself to run as fast as I ever have before, and Kira’s ragged breaths make me think she’s about to pass out, but she manages to keep pace.
Branches split below our boots, already hollow and weak.
An arrow whistles past my head, and burrows into the ground in front of me.
Fuck. At least one archer is back up.
I leap over a downed tree, then nearly trip over another. I duck arrow after arrow, ignoring the sounds of those dying around me, burying the instinct to help.
There’s a thud as a woman running a few yards to my left goes down, her body drudging up dirt. Ahead, a man is hit in the neck, and I barely avoid trampling his body.
The archer is close. And so are the next wave of challengers. Their steps thunder and crack against the broken forest floor. Some simply bolt past, others lash out, striking those around them, trying to increase their chances.
I don’t turn, I just keep going, the hairs on the back of my neck rising, anticipating being struck at any moment. Their yells are getting louder.
“They’re coming,” Kira says. And then she goes down.
Go, my mind says. Get a horse. Leave her behind.
But I think of her sister. I couldn’t save mine … Maybe Kira can save hers.
I stop. Whirl around. And my sword meets iron.
The man from the cart. His crowded teeth glint as he smiles. Kira’s screaming, a hand pressed against the back of her head, blood pouring between her fingers. That’s when I see he’s holding a thick strand of her hair. He fucking ripped it from her skull.
“Protecting someone who will surely die? That seems foolish.”
Our swords meet again, and this time his fractures. The line is like a vein running down his blade. A few more strikes, and it will shatter completely.
“So does fighting someone with greater metal,” I say, slamming my blade against his. He stumbles back. Frowns, as if not expecting I might be able to hold my own against him. His eyes narrow in fury, and then he’s lunging at me again.
But I’m ready.
A decade of Stellan’s training steadies me against the panic, and I fall into my stance. I block his next sharp blow.
He spins then lashes out in a brutal mess of strikes, like he thinks his speed will catch me off guard.
It might, if Stellan hadn’t been far faster than him. If I hadn’t done this exact practice every morning. The titanium sword is nearly weightless in my grip as I block his every advance and force him back.
The arrows have stopped, at least. The archer must assume we’re going to kill each other, and doesn’t want to waste their limited stock.
I could kill him. I know I could. But it would take time we don’t have. Not as we’re passed by swarms of challengers running toward the line of horses.
That should be me. I should turn and run.
He tries to disembowel me. My blade meets his.
Another fracture.
“Waldron,” he says. Sweat spills down his brow. He’s not looking at me. He’s looking at my titanium sword. “You … you will belong to Waldron.”
Great swords have been known to betray their wielder if they encounter someone more powerful, even in the middle of a duel, but this isn’t that kind of sword.
And Waldron isn’t proficient enough to get in even a single strike.
Our blades meet again.
This time, the fracture runs completely down his sword, nearly splitting it in two.
Without a weapon, he has no chance in the Questral.
He seems to know that, because before I can strike again, he steps back.
“I’ll have your blade,” he says. “Another day, I’ll have it.
I’ll carve my name right into its hilt. I’ll carve it right into your corpse.
” Carved names. My breath catches. A memory chokes me.
By the time I shove it down, all I see is his smile, promising a heinous death, before he runs past us.
Kira is still on the ground. She’s staring at me, wide-eyed, her blood staining the dirt. “You—you saved me,” she says, a hand gripping the back of her head.
“You saved me first.”
“Yes, but … I didn’t—”
“Get up,” I say.
She does.
And we run. We run before we’re cut down by the dozens still behind us. We run until the forest ends, and then we have to climb.
Kira is slow, bleeding profusely, but I drag her up with me, my legs burning.
Thunderous hooves drown out the clashing of weapons, and we leap out of the way just before horses with House Bolter crests on their armor nearly trample us.
They’re carrying Cadoc, who is tucked between two warriors, covered by their shields.
Pathetic.
Many more have passed now, not bothering to stop and kill us, caring more about getting a seat on a horse. I wonder if there are any left. I wonder if I should have just left Kira to die.
But I pull us both up the hill until we see them. A line of horses. All of them taken.
No—not all.
Two, side by side, in the back, without riders. We run. Steps rumble behind us.
“Go!” I scream, and Kira is breathing wildly as she throws herself onto the first horse. I fling myself onto mine, a great brown one with a white marking on its forehead. Someone tries to pull me off by my foot, but I kick, and they go down.
And then I’m seated.
We made it.
Kira is still bleeding, but she’s beaming.
A few others stumble out of the forest. Even more don’t make it out of the trees at all.
We hear the cries of the dying, begging for help.
Begging for someone to come back. The young boy from the platform …
I don’t see him. I wonder if he’s one of those voices.
Bury it down, I remind myself. Your empathy is a liability.
I look around at those who have claimed a seat and find Zane.
Cadoc, of course. All four Enders. Waldron, the sick bastard.
The archer, with dark hair. A few others I recognize. One person is markedly missing.
That’s when I spot Harlan Raker, still at the edge of the forest, leaning against one of the only remaining trees.
He’s just … watching.
Even with that massive sword at his back, it doesn’t take long for him to make it up the hill. It’s useless, though. There aren’t any horses left. Challengers have already turned toward the castle. They’ve already begun the journey to the king.
Just when I think Raker has been left behind, he reaches back and launches his sword through the air in a glimmering blur. It flies as fast as an arrow, with just as much precision.
And pierces right through Waldron’s chest. He slumps forward.
Raker outstretches his hand—
And the sword cuts back through Waldron, before returning to Raker’s fist.
My mouth goes dry.
Magic. The sword … it has magic. And Raker knows how to use it. My blood is roaring. I’ve never seen a weapon do that before.
Waldron’s lifeless body slides off the horse.
Raker takes his place.
Silence.
Somewhere nearby, I hear Zane say, “Welcome to the Culling.”