Chapter 2
Night of the escape, still. Keep running. Can’t marry.
I slam a palm over rough bark and, on the lingering sting, I slump through the woods towards an unknown future.
As for the one I left behind . . . I slam my eyes shut on the kind faces I’ve just abandoned.
Akilah; my soft-hearted mother; my beautiful little niece Lucetta, who I so often carry on my shoulders.
Just last night, we’d watched the stars, her bouncing up and down, gleefully pointing to the shiniest ones . . .
I swallow. At least . . . At least they won’t have to worry about me getting them into trouble anymore.
A sudden ferocious gust of wind slams into me, scattering pine needles like daggers. The sharp stench of burning magic—wet wood and scorched thimbleweed—floods the air.
I gag as I scour the woods. My heart sinks. Not wild magic.
Deadly.
I run away from a storm of cries and snapping branches nearby, but the forest seems to shudder with the force of it. I scramble up an embankment, clawing at roots for balance and suddenly, the chaos halts. The wind dies and the air settles into an eerie stillness.
But through the quiet comes a cry.
“Someone’s hurt,” I murmur, my feet rooting to the spot.
Keep running. What if the aklos catch up and drag me back? To the luminarium, to finish the rites?
The cry echoes again, sharp and anguished. Dying. I squeeze my hand into a fist. I can’t ignore this.
I slide down the embankment, heart pounding as I follow the trail of destruction and emerge from the shadows of the pines. I find myself in a grassy clearing littered with a dozen bodies. All wear red of the royal army. What happened here?
I steel my stomach and scurry to the nearest one. Frantically, as I check for signs of life, I pull at my flask and tip the contents down my throat. Dead. Pierced by larch needles at the seven deadly acupoints. I move to the next body, and the next. All dead.
Where—
A blast of spiritual power slams into my back, throwing me into the middle of the clearing. I catch myself hard on hands and knees.
“Who are you?”
Fighting the power rippling in my gut, I spit and raise my hands.
I turn just in time to see the man’s palm thrust forward.
A gust of wind lifts me off my feet, slamming me against a tree trunk.
Bark digs into my back and wind rushes into my face, plastering my shirt to my chest; even my boots seem to strangle my ankles with the force of it.
I need to stay focused. I can’t let him kill me.
“Don’t move,” I choke out, noticing the dark veins spidering up his neck. “You’ve been poisoned.”
“Did my uncle send you?”
My eyes water; I force myself to keep them open. My knowledge of sentinian fighting spells is scant—barely enough to conjure a measly shield, certainly not enough to hold back this man—but the force of the wind is faltering. He’s weakening.
Blood streaks his pale robe, the embroidered belt out of place in this chaos. He’s wealthy by the looks, titled perhaps. But ambushed? Or, an assassin who made quick work of his enemies.
His arm shakes. Dark eyes pierce me with suspicion.
I slip a few inches down the tree and choke out, “I can help you.”
His eyes narrow, untrusting. “They look like normal redcloaks. They’re dead. You’d help me?”
“Healers don’t see enemy colours.”
He wheezes. “You’re a vitalian?”
Technically, I’m not allowed to call myself that. But if it will lower his guard . . .
I nod.
Clasping his chest with a cry, he falls to his knees, the loose lengths and twisted braids of his hair partly veiling his pained expression. The wind ceases abruptly, and I drop onto knotted tree roots.
My knees and palms sting. I struggle to catch my breath, but there’s no time to rest. This man will die in front of me if I don’t hurry. I have to do this right.
Summoning essences of thornwort and swiftleaf, I direct them into a swirling mist of blue light, thickening it like water. Scrambling toward him, I press the spell into his wound.
His face twists with pain, his hand twitching upward.
“I’ve done this before,” I assure him, though my pulse ticks sharply with doubt.
Blood dribbles from his lips. “I don’t trust anyone.”
“You’re dying. What choice do you have?”
He laughs hollowly and collapses, clutching his chest with a ragged intake of air.
I straddle his hips, pinning his convulsing body down. Five larch needles. I settle them into the swirling blue. With my free hand, I part his robes and bare his chest.
He gasps, his body jerking with the poison, eyes widened on mine.
“This will hurt.”
I force the five needles in.
The instant the last needle sinks into him, the cries of pain cease.
His body goes limp under me, head lolling with each shallow breath.
Sunset casts an eerie glow over his sharp jaw, giving him an almost ethereal look.
“If it’s any consolation,” I murmur, “if you end up a corpse, you’ll be a beautiful one. ”
The faintest smirk tugs at his lips before he collapses again. “C-can’t feel . . .”
“I’ve paralysed you, to slow the spread of the poison. We’ve three hours, unless the Arcane Sovereign himself intervenes.”
The man groans. “A god is never around when I need him.”
I scan the clearing with a rapid heartbeat. We’re just two men, one incapacitated, where no carriage could come and with no horses in sight, and nowhere to go.
Unless I go home. I still have some of Grandfather’s books hidden there; I have a chance to save this man.
But back home . . . I shudder. “I’ll get you to an apothecary.”
“Don’t. No one can know.”
I scan the bodies around us, and believe him. I stare at him warily.
“May as well kill me now, if you’re planning to leave me anyplace official.”
Pain and fear are still etched into his face; his skin is pale and smooth under the blood and dirt. He looks young, maybe not much older than I am. Lines of strain crease his brow. A man who smells of cedar and trouble. “What’s your name?”
A pause.
“Call me . . . Silvius.”
Right. “You’re putting me in a tough spot, Silvius. I’m supposed to be running away. Not running back.”
He murmurs an apology that twists into a pained moan.
He loses consciousness.
There’s no time for personal dilemma.
I haul him by his arms, puffing. “Do you carry the weight of the world on your shoulders or something?” I set him down again and cast a focused eye around the clearing.
My gaze slides back to the soldiers . . .
I grab some fallen branches and strip the dead—a couple of pairs of leggings, shirts, belts, cloaks.
It feels . . . strange. Disrespectful. I move quickly and efficiently, but gently, and let myself consider who these men might have been.
Who might’ve been doing this—undressing their bodies—if they’d died another way.
I’ve never been this close to a redcloak before.
These all have the same hard, spare conditioning—strong and well-nourished but very lean.
Scars, some barely healed; crusted grazes.
Calloused hands. At each nape, a serpent-like brand ripples the skin.
Ceremonial. I check the others: they bear it too.
A chill prickles. No time to play detective.
The scavenged clothing makes a sturdy stretcher and with two good rolls, the pretty man is lying prone atop it. I strap him in place with stolen belts, lift the two branches at one end and begin the long slog towards town.
By the time I emerge from the shadows of the trees, I’m exhausted, my palms burning, arms aching and a fine tremor vibrating through my limbs. I barely see the gangly figure running towards us in time. He’s looking over his shoulder; he doesn’t see us in his path. “Hoi!”
The boy’s head whips round and he skids to an abrupt stop. That’s when I see what he’s clutching: a bit of bread with a bite taken out. He hugs it close to his chest, and I understand.
The swish of leaves in the distance is followed by pounding footsteps.
“I g-gotta hide,” the boy says.
I’m dragging a body through the royal woods.
We share a look of unspoken understanding, and I point to a particularly dense bush. “The leaves stink, so they won’t look there too hard.”
He starts towards it and stops, coming back to help me lift the stretcher behind the putrid-smelling foliage. We tuck ourselves deep into the leaves and keep still.
A scant few seconds later, three luminists plough through the woods, their robes glowing white. When their glow is gone, I stare at the boy.
“Three? Just for a bun?”
He pulls a small box from his belt. Not any old box.
It’s made of violet-oak wood, and it’s glowing.
A tithiscar—a coffer of pure magic. Valuable indeed.
“My family’s sick,” he murmurs, clutching the bread roll tighter.
“We can’t afford the vitalians’ fees. I thought . . . maybe I could trade this.”
It seems we all have dilemmas and tough choices to make. I pat his hand, take the box, and fish into Silvius’s robes for the little sack of coins I found earlier. “Take this.”
A gasping laugh comes from Silvius. So he’s conscious again.
His laugh shudders into a groan and I check his pulse; it’s growing sluggish.
I look at the boy, pleading silently.
Without a word, he takes the other end of the stretcher and together we move back out onto the path and faster through the narrow streets. But near the canal, close to home, I hear Silvius’s raw breaths—the sound of one’s last.
I halt us. No time. I squeeze my fist, summoning a spell I’m not allowed to use. But if I don’t, we won’t make it home.
The spell thrums in my palm, raw power that can give him the time we need—or ruin me. I can almost hear my father’s voice: One medius spell, and the luminists will hunt you to your grave. But what kind of healer lets a man die?
The spell pours out of me in waves of glowing blue, until a distant voice shouts. The boy yelps, but I grit my teeth and finish the spell. We have to go.
We haul Silvius, running, but soon the luminists are on our tails.
The boy lowers his end of the stretcher with a wobbly grin. “Watch this. I can help him without magic.”
Then he moves out into the light of the moon, waving his pilfered bun. He runs off with a goading laugh, and the luminists give chase.
I stare after the boy a second. Maybe we’ll meet again someday. I’ll repay him properly then.
I clutch the stretcher and labour onwards. Towards the crumbling Amuletos vitaliary, where I can find what I need to save this man.
But as I near, my feet drag, Silvius’s weight nothing compared to the weight in my chest.
Returning means facing my family. My father . . .
And his fury.