Chapter 19 #2
I sink deeper into my stance. I will not fall over. I will not collapse. I will not stand down. Hard things prove my strength. I will be as unbreakable as my blade.
I repeat it over and over and over.
Just when I think I’ve reached the dregs of my strength, there is more. The well within me is deeper than I ever knew. I learn that only after hours of trembling, of holding on. Of standing firm.
And maybe, just maybe, that is what Raker is trying to show me.
It’s still dark outside when his voice cuts through the silence of the cave. “Enough. Go to bed, Aris.”
I nearly collapse onto the floor. Raker seems to know it, because I can hear his deep sigh.
My eyes are closed before my head even settles against the stone.
Raker doesn’t acknowledge me the next morning. Or during the hours we spend trekking through the sinking rot.
But when we arrive at our shelter for the night, he gives me a new position. Long guard. Extending my sword forward, in front of my body. With both hands, since I still can’t lift it with one.
Then he leaves to hunt.
My arms are sore and aching from the night before, but my mind is stronger. My focus is unwavering. This time, I cycle through those ten memories. The ones I cherish. The ones where I was the happiest.
And that happiness … it is so much stronger than the pain. It is like Starside steel meeting lesser metal. Shattering everything in its path.
My mind narrows to them. To my purpose. To why I’m doing this.
I startle when I notice Raker leaning against a tree, watching me. The sun has dipped low. I’ve been in this position for over an hour. I raise a brow in question. Enough?
He dips his head in a nod, and I thank the stars as I stumble forward. I drop my sword against the dirt in front of my boots and lean on my knees, panting. I only look up when he passes me, moving toward the mouth of yet another obsidian-blocked cave. “Nothing?”
He shakes his head. My berries are gone. The canteen he gave me is empty.
Inside the cave, Raker sighs as he drops his stuff onto the floor.
“Draw the map,” he says. It both relieves and scares me that he sounds tired. If Raker is fading … if he is beginning to feel the effects of thirst and hunger, what chance do I have?
Arms still shaking, I carve the map into the stone with my sword, making faint scratches.
More of the same. Which I now know is just endless nothing.
Raker curses.
“We should travel north,” I say. “Off the path. There are towns.”
I expect Raker to ignore me. To stay silent while he comes up with his own plan, or to admonish me for wanting to veer from the quest.
But all he does is nod, before disappearing into the shadows of the cave.
This is the last time Raker is ever going to fucking listen to me.
The village is abandoned.
The rot has infected it like a disease, mold spores eating through the sides of houses, thorned vines snaking through windows.
“The map, it—” Is clearly outdated. Raker doesn’t spare me a glance as he walks past me. My throat tightens. Is this the moment he realizes my memorization of the map isn’t as helpful as he thought?
Seventeen days into the Questral … and we aren’t even halfway to the Land of the Gods.
If we plan on returning to the gates before the fifty days are up, we have to go faster.
Or find a shortcut. We can’t afford to make these kinds of mistakes.
I come to a stop, half expecting him to turn.
To slice me to ribbons and take my sword.
But all he does is stalk through the town, to the other side.
I follow in silence.
He’s going north. He must see what I do—that although this village was overcome, there are the faintest signs that the rot is lessening the farther north we travel. There are a few blades of grass peeking through the dirt, and the occasional sparse tree.
The Land of the Gods is northeast, anyway. We aren’t going too far off the path. And we both know we won’t make it there without food or water. We just need a lucky break.
After hours of walking, we finally reach a river that is only slightly clouded in color. Not clean enough to drink, though I’m almost desperate enough to try. I reach my hand inside, just to smell it—and Raker snarls at me. Begrudgingly, I remove my fingers.
There’s an old bridge made of crumbling gray stone that curves over the water. It isn’t wide. It isn’t long either.
We’re both exhausted, but still, he says, “Unsheathe your blade.”
I expect another position. But Raker just stares at me, and says, “Again. Shoulders down, this time.”
I do it again.
He shakes his head, reaches back. Then, all at once, his silver is in front of him. He’s so fast, it becomes just a streak of metal. He sheaths it again. “Like that.”
I grind my teeth. I didn’t even fucking see what he did, since it was so quick. I try again.
He exhales deeply. Then, far slower than before, he reaches back again. This time, he uses both hands. It’s for my own benefit, I know, since he only unsheathes his with one.
I watch the angles of his arms. His posture. His stance. I try again.
“Better,” he admits, and I’m beaming.
“But you’re so slow, your head will hit the ground before you even get your blade out.”
I scowl at him, and try again, faster.
He shakes his head. “Dead.”
Teeth gritted, I do it again, arms screaming.
“Still dead.”
Irritation flares through me, and this time I’m so fast, I surprise myself with my speed. My blade blurs.
I’m panting, but the bastard still says, “Dead.”
“You’re wrong,” I snarl, chest rising and falling.
“Am I?”
“Yes.” To prove it, I sheath my blade, then take it out again, and this time, I’m more than half a second faster than I was before, my metal arcing and—
It’s still in the air, pointed toward the sky, not even in front of me at all.
And Raker’s sword is at my throat.
His metal skims my pulse. “Dead without question,” he says from the other end of it, his voice a rough whisper in the darkness. I swallow, his blade following the movement. All it would take is a millimeter less precision, and I would be bleeding out in seconds. My lips part.
Then, in a flash, his sword is gone, and I’m left burning in frustration. But instead of stalking off, like I expect, he says, “Again.”
And this time, we do it together. He sheaths and unsheathes his weapon, so much faster than I am, but strangely, with him doing it at the same time, it pushes my limits. Makes me quicker than I ever thought possible.
“Good,” he finally says, and I think I might keel over in shock. He notices my surprise and happiness, and makes sure to snuff it out by adding, “For you.”
I glare at him.
The bridge is where we sleep, the stone so narrow we’re forced to lie side by side, our blades between us. Raker’s body almost makes it all the way across.
I drew more of the map for him, but he hasn’t told me where we’re headed. I open my mouth to ask, and he turns, giving me his back.
Right.
I stay on my spine, tired and starving. All that practice drained my energy.
How long can we go without food? Without water? I know how long I’ve gone without both on Stormside, but here? Carrying a sword like this? Traveling many miles every day? I try to do the math, to make the predictions, but my mind feels like ash in the wind.
This thirst, this hunger … it could kill me. I know that. It feels like it might. Like I could go to bed here, on this bridge, and never wake up.
Maybe that’s why I open my mouth. Why I speak to a cruel warrior who clearly wants nothing to do with me. “Are you afraid of anything, Raker?”
I feel him stiffen beside me. But he doesn’t answer.
That’s fine. I’ll answer my own question. “I’m afraid of the dark,” I say, and I don’t know why. He already thinks so low of me. Why add more to that list of weaknesses? Still, I don’t stop.
“I used to hate the night. For many reasons.” Like that guttering, ending, soul-shredding darkness when the fire that took everything from me finally extinguished.
“Here, though … right now … looking up at these stars.” I stare at them in wonder.
They shine so much brighter. Diamonds tossed across the galaxy like skipping stones.
“I think I could learn to love the night.”
He doesn’t say a word. But he doesn’t tell me to shut up either.
“I’m afraid of water … and fire. You know the first one, I guess. Because … because I can’t swim. Almost drowning helped that fear, a little. Because that death was almost quiet. Almost quick.” The second certainly is not. My mind pulses with memories, and I move on.
“I’m afraid of dying in a stupid way, like tripping into my sword, or eating a bad berry, or dehydrating on an old bridge, next to the most miserable knight in existence.” I turn my head toward him. “Are you afraid of anything?” I ask again.
“I’m afraid you won’t stop talking, Aris,” he says.
It doesn’t hold as much bite as it could. I almost keep going, just to irritate him. I open my mouth.
I only manage to say something half sensical before being dragged into sleep.
In the middle of the night, I’m awoken by sharp stabs over every inch of my skin. I gasp and nearly choke—
Rain.
No. We aren’t that lucky. But I swallow, and yes. Clean water. It washes away the grime on my face; it sinks through my fabrics, cleansing them of the blood and mud. The cold grips my bones, but I don’t mind. I don’t mind anything at all, because finally.
I rise to my knees, tip my head back, and drink.
I run my hands through the messy braids, washing it of all the grime.
Then I scramble to fill my canteen. My hands tremble around it, fearing the rain will stop, but it keeps coming.
I wait until water is spilling down the sides.
I drink the entire thing and then refill it, before I look up and see Raker doing the same with a new canteen.
His back is to me. His hood is plastered to his head.
If he turned, would I see his face, or his mask?
I wait to see if the fabric slips … but it doesn’t.
And neither does mine. It clings to my body. I lift my collar, trying to wash my neck the best I can, without exposing my throat. Not that Raker is looking. No, he’s very pointedly still facing the opposite direction.
This is a gift. If I was most mortals on Stormside, I would be thanking the gods.
I don’t know who to thank, but I slowly rise to my feet and drink some more, feeling the cold water run through my dehydrated veins, until my shoulders finally melt, some of my tension releasing.
We’re still hungry, and moving too slowly across Starside, but at least we aren’t thirsty anymore. This is a win.
I make to move, but suddenly my feet feel heavier. I look down. The riverbank is overflowing. The bridge is quickly becoming submerged.
I take a step forward—and slip. Only a hand locked around my wrist keeps me upright. Swirling black ink wraps down each finger, and I try to read the writing, the symbols, but I can’t.
Slowly, I look up, wondering what I’ll find, allowing myself hope that I might finally see him, but all I see is his mask.
And those gray eyes.
I blink, and I’m thrust back to that day, in a storm just like this one. Eyes hard and merciless as steel, staring me down. Hand gripped tightly around my wrist. Dragging me through dirt and mud as I thrashed and screamed.
I jerk back, and he drops my arm.
He turns wordlessly and stalks off the bridge. He doesn’t stop. I know what he’s thinking. If demons are so afraid of water, they won’t surface in the rain. It’s better for us to cover more ground.
Dirt slips beneath my boots as I follow Raker through the downpour, the scars on my lower back tightening—an ever-present reminder of why I can’t trust him.