Chapter 70
Ileave after dawn, feeling just as guilty for ruining Nizzara’s future with Lekk as I am feeling overwhelmingly right. Her smell on my skin has me reliving every second of last night, because I kept my promise and kissed her until damn near sunrise.
When I get to the Red Cape to change clothes to retry my sister’s supposed meeting spot in Zem, I hear arguing tones come from inside a room.
Jasper and Helina.
I continue past, giving them privacy.
When I materialize at the bar, my mother’s voice floats into my mind.
“I told you.” My mother appears on the barstool beside me, a glass of chocolate rum in her hand. “You’ve fallen for that girl.”
“Even in my imagination, you are smug.”
I grab the bottle of rum and pour a glass, my mind on Nizzara. She slept so soundly, not a single nightmare.
My mother smiles, forming small creases near her eyes. My favorite smile. “I can’t be perfect. Just really close.”
I roll my eyes and stare into the amber liquid. “Why does the universe also have to be so smug?” I was murdered but not allowed to pass on. Given godly power, but no freedom. Offered the chance to be with someone at the cost of the one I wish to be with.
Admitting that to myself ignites something fierce inside. It’s true. I’ve seen her soul, her memories. It is her. She’s my hellion.
My mother tilts her head, her hazel eyes looking me up and down. “Don’t turn your back on your heart, Dae.”
“There’s no happy ending here. Either she dies or I do.”
“Everyone dies, Dae. The happy ones are those who choose to live in the meantime.”
Jasper clears his throat from the doorway. “Talking to yourself?” he says.
Helina stands behind him with a scorned expression.
I peer at the stool next to me. The wonderful figment of my imagination is gone. “You could say that.” I stand, tossing my glass of rum back in a quick shot.
Jasper takes the stool next to me with a grave expression. “The rebel camps were hit by rogues last night. They need supplies, and they need them now.”
I jolt to my feet. “Then let’s go.”
“I have some medical supplies gathered here, but they will need more. Someone must take what’s here while I travel to Zem for more. Hoack sent one of his guards, but he’s in bad shape, and I don’t think he’ll make it ba—”
“I’ll take it,” I say. “You go fetch the next shipment.”
Jasper clasps my shoulder. “Are you sure?”
I nod. I will miss my chance to find Lo, but people are dying. She would understand. His eyes roam over my face. “Then we must be fast.”
He leads me to the back alleyway to where he’s assembled a mining sled full of medical supplies boxed in crates. Even with my strength, the sled is heavy, most of the boxes containing mineral rocks and water. I pull it through the back alleyways until I reach the wall.
The nearest perimeter gate is ten miles down the wall and guarded by infantry guards. It would cost too much time to drag it that far off course. I resort to climbing the wall. Unable to spirit the boxes over, I hoist a box onto my shoulder and climb over before going back for the next one.
I move as fast as my human form can go, scaling up the stone wall with one hand, descending the other side, piling crates on the blood-orange dirt.
After twenty-six trips, only the sled remains. I tie the sled’s pulling ropes around my shoulders and waist, creating a makeshift harness before beginning my final climb.
It thunks and scrapes below me. Once I reach the top, I straddle the wall and muscle the sled up, tugging and pulling the ropes until its nose peeks over the wall. I grab hold and pivot, yanking it up and over, before lowering it down to the other side.
I reload the sled, using every ounce of speed and strength from last night’s soul.
Once it’s loaded, I run. The first few miles are smooth terrain with few boulders. I pass through the tire tracks made by Nizzara and I just the other night.
Another wave of guilt hits. I wonder if she is meant to marry Lekk. As the dirt beneath the patches of snow grows darker and darker, I dig into my own memories to find the passage in the prophecies within The King of Kings she’s marked.
“. . . The soil shall turn red from blood and death.
To deliver the king she’ll give her last living breath.
The king is near. This is the year.
The king belongs to her golden light.
He’ll take the throne to make things right.”
I replay the poem over and over while I run. The golden light has to be Nizzara . . . who will die in childbirth?
It couldn’t possibly be my child . . .
A heaviness sinks through me. The Jaxelli’s child. Their offspring are extremely hard to bear outside of their people.
But she’s a goddess.
Dread hits me like the gusts of vicious wind I’m running against. She will marry Lekk.
And she will die.
But her son. He is the King of all Kings.
Boulders start to get thicker and bigger, reminding me why this journey must be made on foot. Even the narrow sled is barely squeezing through the open crags, and I’m forced to slow down to maneuver it.
I may have consumed a soul just last night, but it was a relatively weak soul and this is a particularly draining trek. Anything done in my human form simply requires more energy. I feel the last sliver of the soul snuffing out from within me.
It makes me think of Nizzara in the training room, lifting the weight out of spite. I smile.
And keep going.