Chapter 39
Raker killed all of them. In rapid succession. Easily. His blade flew, spinning, cutting down, besting even immortals. I’ve always known it would take little effort for him to kill me, but now … seeing it …
I’m grateful he saved me. Again. But it doesn’t erase the time he didn’t. The time he decided his duty, or whatever else, was more important than helping someone.
It was years ago. It was before … before all of this.
Still, those days have marked me in more ways than the carvings on the base of my spine.
I have pinned my hatred on him for so long.
He represented everything I hated about the wretched king’s guard I was taught to fear since I got my markings.
He was their leader. He was the warrior without marks on his armor.
There’s only one person I can think of that would be able to defeat him, and he’s on his way here.
“The God of Death is coming,” I say as we race past rows and rows of statues dedicated to him.
“Let him come,” Raker says, not looking as worried as he should as he cuts through the wild parts of the untamed garden with his blade.
“Even you should fear the gods, Raker,” I say through wild breaths.
In a burst of unchecked anger, Raker’s arm juts out, his sword glimmering, and he slices the air in a flash. The nearest statue is reduced to rubble.
I swallow. Part of me expects the silver-haired god to emerge from the fiery depths of the underworld right now and strike us down. But he doesn’t. By some small mercy, he doesn’t.
And at the edge of Lord Rodin’s lands, we slip into the quiet of a forest without incident.
The rest of the day we walk in silence before camping in a final stretch of woods, protected by the starlight necklace Raker kept with him.
I barely sleep, expecting the God of Death to appear at any moment, surrounded by his demons. But the sun rises, just like I must.
You rise, I tell myself, even though I’m tired. Even though I don’t really want to. My knees crack as I get to my feet.
“Why do you say that?”
I blink. I didn’t realize I said it aloud.
Raker looks at me expectantly.
“It’s something—it’s something someone used to say to me. He said you rise, always. Sometimes I have to remind myself why. Because sometimes rising is hard.”
He looks deep in thought.
I start to make my way out of the clearing, but his voice stops me.
“Aris,” he says. And for once—for once, he says my name like a plea.
Slowly, I turn to face him.
He’s right there. And he says the last thing I would ever expect: “I remember you.”
I tense. My pulse stutters. No. I wouldn’t believe him if I couldn’t see his face, if he hadn’t lowered his hood, as if to show me. To show me what he shows no one else.
He’s towering over me, just like he did that day as he keeps going. “I told them to throw you onto the streets. Not into the prisons.” Anger flashes in his eyes, hard and blazing, before disappearing. “I didn’t know they disobeyed. I didn’t know … I didn’t know they—”
“Carved their names into my back with rusted blades?” I say, my voice quivering. Tears sting my eyes, but I don’t let them fall. I won’t waste more of them on those worthless guards.
His eyes shudder, for a moment. And for that moment, I see a flash of true emotion. Hurt. Fury. Conviction.
“I should have known. I should have stopped it.” His gaze sears into mine as he says, “I’m sorry.”
All the words I was about to say die in my throat.
Because never in a thousand years would I think Harlan Raker would be apologizing to me.
I open my mouth. Close it. In the end, I just shake my head, and say, “It doesn’t matter.”
I make to keep walking, but his hand catches my wrist. That one touch. That one touch sends fire through my blood. I turn to look at him, and his eyes are blazing into mine. Shining, glorious gray, like clouds before a storm.
“It matters, Aris,” he says. “You—you matter.”
I don’t know why those simple words go right into the center of me. I don’t know why they make my eyes burn. I’ve blamed myself and hated myself for so long that anyone seeing past the worst I’ve done … anyone caring about me at all …
“I don’t,” I say, meaning it. “You said before that you are nothing beyond your rage and vengeance. I’m … I’m the same, Raker. Maybe I was someone, once. But that person is gone. I have one last thing I want to do. One last thing worth fighting for. And then … and then there’s nothing left for me.”
His eyes harden. He looks angry. “So what? You’ll just let yourself die?”
I shake my head. “No. But I’ve known from the beginning what I signed up for. That … that most likely, the end of this journey is the end of me. And … I’ve made my peace with that. I’m willing to die for this.”
He searches my gaze for something. Weakness? Anything short of pure conviction? What he finds has him scowling. “And how do you plan to kill these gods, Aris?”
I lift a shoulder. “With my sword. I’ve learned it’s a good one.”
“The one you don’t know how to use?” he sneers, and I see right through him. He’s trying to get me to doubt myself. He’s trying to get me to change my mind.
“I do,” I say. “You trained me.”
His nostrils flare. I can almost feel the words between us, the ones he doesn’t say. We stare each other down.
I turn away again, and his fingers fall from my wrist, as he lets me go.
We walk for miles without stopping, until the ground becomes so dry, there are cracks in the dirt.
“We’re about to reach the desert,” I say.
Raker nods like he knows.
We reach the last spring that’s marked on the map. We drink from the running water and fill our pouches. It might be the last water we see for a while.
It’s the forty-first day of the quest. Maybe if I use the oaths on my sword, I can portal to a Great House and gain passage back to the gates in time to make it through. Maybe this journey does really kill me. Either way … I’m almost to the gods. I’m almost to the end of this.
“Ready?” I ask Raker, as I stare at the endless sea of sand. Somewhere out in that desert sits the creature even Vander Evren couldn’t face.
I’m not afraid of anything, Raker said. He looks hesitant now.
“Let’s get this over with,” he says.
The dunes shift in sparkling shades of sunset. Flecks of silver are speckled throughout, catching the light, before being covered by another layer.
“I wonder how many things have been lost here,” I say, thinking an entire city could be buried below, and we wouldn’t even know it.
Raker’s eyes are on the horizon. His sword is already in his hand. It’s as if he can sense something I can’t.
But it doesn’t come. We walk the entire day, and through the night, without any movement at all.
Though we’re protected by the starlight necklace, the demons don’t pierce these sands even beyond the light, just like they didn’t pierce the mists.
Which only makes me more afraid of what is slithering within them.
Every brush of wind makes me tense. I turn at even the slightest shift in the dunes. Nothing.
I start to wonder if the creature Vander mentioned has moved on. Maybe his own effort was centuries ago—I never asked. Or maybe this beast has better things to do than torment two humans.
We drain our pouches, washing our faces and soothing our throats. I wish for my high collar again, if only to hide my face from the dust. Then the thirst begins.
We don’t speak. We just keep moving, feet dragging through the heavy sand.
Until my foot doesn’t move.
I frown down at it. I try to pull it free, but it doesn’t budge. “What?”
I jolt with pain as nails sink into my flesh—
And pull me under.
I don’t gasp. I shut my eyes, shuddering as the sand scrapes my cheeks and slices against my clothes.
What feels like a lifetime later, I’m finally deposited in another part of the desert. I emerge clawing and gasping, shaking away the sand that has scorched every inch of exposed skin.
It’s everywhere. I blink the grainy dryness away—and the dunes in front of me begin to shift. They rise, sand flinting, glittering, making shapes.
They make … people.
I tense, watching as the worst of my memories form around me.
My sister and I slipping out of the house in the rain to pick wildflowers. It was my idea.
Her eyes widening as the lightning strike came right toward her—and the rush of air from her lungs as I pushed her out of the way.
I shouldn’t have pushed her away.
In that moment, I thought I was saving her. I acted on instinct, without question, putting myself in danger instead of her. Always instead of her.
Instead, I unknowingly sealed her fate.
As quickly as they are formed, the glittering sand falls away, and another gust of wind brings more figures.
My mother. Combing my hair in front of a mirror.
“Look at yourself, love. You’re beautiful.”
I shake my head. “I’m ugly. I’m strange.”
The markings were a sign of my recklessness. My irresponsibility. My sister could have died.
She bends down to my level. “You are you, Aris. And that makes you perfect. Don’t ever hide from yourself.”
“You’re the one who tells me to hide!” I yell, getting up from the chair. “You make me feel wrong! Maybe I should go outside like this,” I say. “Maybe if the knights drag me off to the prisons, or to the king to cut me up and study me, I’ll deserve it!”
I’ll never forget the shock on her face. I never raised my voice at my mother. It wasn’t fair of me to do so. All she ever did was for my protection. I know that now.
But it was easier to blame her for my problems. My mom never screamed back at me, and maybe that made her an easier target for my anger.
The thought roils my stomach now.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper from the sidelines, feeling the twist of guilt as the sand falls away. “You were perfect, Mom.”