Chapter 29
Helina leads me out the back entrance of the club to a mining sled full of excavation tools and medical supplies.
“What? No supply truck?”
She motions for me to take hold of the sled ropes. “We are only running this part of the way. But beyond where we drop it, the boulders are too thick for anything wider than this.”
I latch onto the ropes and follow her lead along the city wall which skirts a string of rock mills that are closed for the night. We travel about five miles until we near a perimeter gate.
“Once a week, Jasper’s brother has control over the guards here. He has them disappear for an hour.”
Sure enough, when we reach the gate, it is unguarded. She waves for me to hurry, and we pull the lever that raises the portcullis.
Once outside of the city wall, we traverse dark, flat ground.
The Barrens.
As we walk, Helina’s eyes keep finding me, her mouth opening as if to say something before closing it again.
She does this a few times until she finally says, “Jasper is over-protective sometimes. Out of the countless runs we’ve made, we’ve only been attacked once by rogues.”
I turn toward her, watching fear settle behind her eyes. “How’d you get away?”
“It was distracted,” she says. “With someone else.”
I tighten my grip on the sled ropes.
“Her screams were awful,” she whispers.
“You didn’t try to help her?” Glaciers form in my chest and the monster emits a low growl from deep inside.
“The rogue had already chewed her leg off.” Helina’s voice hardens. “Besides, my daughter and I haven’t survived this long without a solid grasp of self-preservation.”
“Was the woman in your group?”
She closes her eyes. “No. Another rogue dragged her from the city. Her screams are what saved us, drawing our rogue away from us.”
A sinking feeling takes my stomach. So much has worsened in my absence. “Do you know where they came from?”
She scans the dark horizon. “No.”
We walk another mile until small boulders begin popping up from the flat ground.
“This is where we leave it. The rebels will retrieve it from here.”
I drop the ropes and turn back for the city wall.
“What is it like?” Helina asks, gripping her fur coat tighter. “Baratrum? And the god of death?”
“Cold,” I say.
“Colder than this?”
I brush my hand through the air in front of me. “This cold is nothing. It remains outside of your skin.” I drop my arm. “The cold I know absorbs into you, sinks through your being as if it were created for the sole purpose of torturing souls.”
She purses her lips. “If a mortal ended up in Baratrum, would they survive the cold?”
“No.”
After a stretch of nothing but the sound of our footsteps on hard frozen clay, she asks, “Do all souls who end up in Baratrum become like you?”
“A deathwalker?”
She nods.
My fists curl and uncurl. “No. Nil has pets . . .” I guess that’s what you’d call his shadows. “They eat souls just like he does, except they prefer to do it slowly. Very slowly.”
I look at her. Her soul is red with the tiniest of dark spots, and the memories I can see of hers are of hardship after hardship. Abuse after abuse. I wonder if that’s why her mind conceals other memories. Due to trauma. “I’m going to let you in on a secret, okay?”
She nods, her eyes trained on mine.
“Your soul belongs only to you. Do you understand? The only way you can be sent to Baratrum is if you believe your soul belongs there.”
“Or a soul gun?” she points out.
My teeth grind. “Yes, or a fucking soul gun.”
“What does this have to do with the shadows?”
“The shadows,” I say, trying to ease the tightness throughout my entire body, “can only consume your soul if you allow their madness to break you.”
She shivers. “How do you do that?”
The tearing and shredding blaze through my mind. My screams and the screams of countless other souls . . . And the darkness. Such terrible darkness.
“You hold on to the best version of yourself,” I say. It’s the only way I know how to put into words how my soul survived the shadows.
As we near the city walls, she says, “So, if you survive his shadows, then you become a deathwalker?”
“No, Helina. Not even close. Surviving the shadows is only the beginning.”
She blanches in the moonlight. “Is that what the princess will have to endure if you deliver her soul?”
A surge of guilt clenches my stomach. No human things, I remind myself, but the lurch doesn’t go away. “Yes,” I say. “I’m sure Nil will want to own her soul like he does mine.”
“I thought you said that only we own our souls.”
“I did. And that is secret number two. Never bargain with a god.”
She frowns. “You said that Jasper’s brother is your backup plan. What is your original plan?”
I close my eyes. “I’ve seen some of her desires,” I say. “She doesn’t let it on, but she longs for companionship.” I open my eyes again. I haven’t brought myself to look beyond that.
Her brows are pinched, and there’s a depth in her eyes. Something like compassion or pity. “So, you plan to exploit that?”
“I have no choice.”
After a long stretch of silence, I ask if she’s seen my sister in the camps.
Her memories flash by of the times she’s visited her daughter, but I don’t see Lo. They stop on a woman who I don’t recognize, before she says, “I haven’t. But I know someone who might know more.”