Chapter 24
Flint
The sun is beginning to set, painting the sky honey-gold.
There are no trees on this part of the moor that we could use to help build a shelter, and no gorse to protect us from the cool breeze blowing in from the north.
I watch as Sheen walks in a perfect circle around our camp, his hands outstretched.
‘He’s creating a wind shield,’ Spinner informs me as she unhooks the cooking pot from her satchel. ‘It’ll keep us warm while also acting as a sound barrier.’
‘Well,’ I say, making a conscious effort not to sound impressed. ‘That answers my question about what other tricks he can do.’
‘Would you like me to make you a list, Harglade?’
I almost jump out of my skin as Sheen’s voice whispers into my ear, despite the fact that he’s standing more than ten feet away from me.
There is only one other person I know capable of such a thing – King Balen.
‘How are you doing that?’ I gasp, unable to suppress the shiver that crawls up the back of my neck.
‘I told you,’ Sheen murmurs, barely moving his lips. ‘I’m exceptionally gifted.’
I clamp my hands over my ears. ‘Stop it.’
He turns back to finish his wind shield, smirking slightly.
I bristle, peeved at being bested yet again.
I wonder whether he secretly enjoys our sparring.
It’s the only time I’ve ever seen anything slightly resembling amusement flicker across that face – which is, I might add, entirely wasted on him.
Unpleasant people don’t deserve to be beautiful.
‘Flint? Come here and light a fire, would you?’
I wince. Every night Spinner asks the same question, and every night I give her the same feeble response. ‘Too tired.’
‘Again?’
‘Yup. It takes up a lot of energy, you know, being me. Use the flint and steel – they’re in here.’ I slip my satchel from my shoulder and toss it to her.
Grumbling, Spinner begins rummaging through the contents. She pulls out my last few vials of painkiller. ‘There aren’t many left. Have you got reserves?’
‘Those are my reserves,’ I tell her.
‘Oh,’ she says, looking troubled. ‘Well, maybe we’ll pass an apothecary soon and you can get some more.’
‘Yes,’ says Sheen dryly, glancing round at the deserted expanse of moorland. ‘I’m sure I glimpsed one just up there by that patch of heather.’
I manage to ignore him though it’s getting harder and harder to ignore the pain radiating from my burns.
Spinner pats the ground beside her and holds up the pot of salve. ‘Why don’t you let me put some of this on for you?’
‘No.’ I say it too quickly. Both of them are looking at me. ‘I mean … no, thank you.’
‘Why not? You haven’t let me help you at all.’
‘I – I just prefer to do it myself.’ I shrug. ‘It’s no big deal.’
Spinner looks slightly wounded. ‘Well, all right, then. But burns take a while to heal. You need to take proper care of them. The physicians said –’
‘Yes, yes, I know. I’ll get right on it.’ I snatch the supplies out of her hands and start picking my way across the uneven terrain.
‘Where are you going?’
‘Nature calls,’ I yell cheerfully over my shoulder.
When I’m far enough away, I sit down and remove my eyepatch. I take a long time applying the burn salve, letting out a low hiss of pain mingled with relief, then ration out half a vial of painkiller, swallowing it down along with the lump in my throat.
I know I should be thankful. My burns are healing. But while the physicians were able to save my skin, they couldn’t save my eye.
Half-blind. Half my vision gone, just like that.
I’m still not used to it. Sometimes someone will start speaking and I’ll jump because I didn’t see them standing there.
I have no peripheral vision on my left side.
You don’t realize how much you can see – until you can’t any more.
Now I have to swivel my head round like some skittish owl.
My sight is impaired, and it’s … well, it’s terrifying.
But there’s something else, too. Something I’m afraid to admit, because it makes me sound superficial and conceited, and maybe that’s because I am.
It’s like this – I have spent my whole life being someone people enjoy looking at. Yet now, I’m damaged. Disfigured. An eyesore with a missing eye.
Sheen was right to call me vain. Only since the third trial, I’ve had no reason to be. Where there was once vanity there is now shame and a crippling self-consciousness.
I never realized before just how much of my happiness, my identity, my sense of self-worth, was so tragically dependent on how I looked.
I took such pleasure in it, seeing the effect I had on people.
Only now, that’s undoubtedly a thing of the past. I’m not sure the phrase ‘bedroom eye’ has quite the same ring to it.
But then there’s Spinner. The way she smiles at me, the way she kissed me in the Ridge tunnels … it was like nothing had changed. Am I a fool for wanting to believe she feels the same attraction to me? Or am I just so insufferably shallow as to imagine she wouldn’t?
Grandmother always used to say, It’s what’s on the inside that counts.
Except I’m just as screwed up on the inside as I am on the outside. But unlike my burns or my blindness, at least I’m able to hide it.
Nobody knows about the times when the panic descends. When my lungs stop working and I feel like I’m dying and part of me … part of me doesn’t care.
And nobody will.
In my dreams, I see Ember.
The world burns as firebombs rain down from the sky. I throw up my arms to shield my face, and when I lower them, it’s no longer Ember standing in front of me but Blaze, a flame igniting in her palm. She smiles, then launches the fire straight at my head.
I scream as agony explodes across my skin.
‘Flint? Flint!’
I wake to Spinner shaking me. It takes me a moment to realize I’m still screaming.
‘Flint, what is it?’
I make out her face in the light from the smouldering fire, shadows dancing along her tattooed cheeks where some of the panstick has been rubbed away.
‘I … I’m fine,’ I croak. ‘I just … I had a bad dream, that’s all.’
Spinner looks unconvinced. ‘Are you sure?’
I will my hands to stop trembling as I find hers and squeeze it. ‘Go back to sleep.’
At last she relents, kissing me lightly before lying down again. I wait until her breathing turns slow and rhythmic before carefully disentangling myself.
I take a few shaky steps away from the camp, far enough that I’m sure I’ve gone beyond the wind shield, then collapse to my knees and vomit into the heather.
I retch and heave until I’m empty and shivering, then return to the camp, seeking Spinner’s warmth. She mumbles something incoherent, pulls my arm over her and snuggles into me, yet somehow, I feel more alone than ever.
I lie awake, clenching and unclenching my fists, and begin to count.
My fingers.
My heartbeats.
The clicking of insects in the undergrowth.
The soft snuffling sounds Spinner makes in her sleep.
Two violet eyes, fixed on me from across the dying embers, unblinking and unreadable.
My breath catches. The thought of Sheen witnessing me like that – weak, vulnerable …
A memory stirs. I’m lying in the medical wing, bandages obscuring half my face, drifting in and out of a drug-induced stupor. A figure sits at my bedside, head tipped forward on his chest, white-blonde hair gleaming silver in the flickering candlelight.
I look away quickly, banishing the image from my mind and burrowing under the blanket beside Spinner.
Only when I glance back sometime later, Sheen is still watching me.
And maybe it’s my competitive nature, or maybe it’s that the intensity of his gaze offers some reprieve from the ceaseless torment inside my head, but I watch him back.
I watch him right back until I fall asleep, and in the morning I don’t look at him at all.