Chapter 24
The air is charged, heavy. And it weighs on us all.
‘What the hell did you hear?’ Caz murmurs after several minutes of riding. ‘Because the tension right now feels like more than dick talk.’
A long sigh frees from my lungs. ‘I’m sorry, but I do not want to talk about it.’
‘Okay,’ she replies, giving my arm a squeeze and letting me have my silence back.
Caz is right. The tension is so taut it feels like it could snap at any second. But I can’t talk to her about it now. Not until I’ve got my head straight about what I’m going to do with this new – treasonous – information.
Besides, the way Elska skulks through the woods, she and Kyor could easily appear behind us without me noticing.
For now, the dire wolf is out in front, scouting and setting our pace – a rapid one that only seems to get faster.
It’s only when the foliage grows thicker and the density makes it appear impenetrable that Elska finally slows to a stop.
‘How is it possible that this place looks scarier in the daytime than it did at night?’ I ask, trying to break the crushing tension that’s haunted us all day.
And I know I’m not the only one who feels it.
The fact that Benny hasn’t even asked for a food break, despite the fuss he made about not having had time for breakfast, is evidence enough.
If the tension is still there when we make camp, Kyor will notice.
He’s many things, but unobservant isn’t one of them.
It twists in my gut. I find I don’t want to keep this from Kyor but what choice do I have? He’d kill Benny if he knew. I know he would.
Though my mind is focused on Kyor’s potential anger, it’s hard to ignore my own, simmering beneath my skin.
Zelle helped me just as much as the Eastern Isles group.
He believed in me and made me believe in myself, not to mention the fact that he was the only person in the High Hold I ever heard speak about my parents with fondness.
If it wouldn’t draw Kyor’s attention to the situation, I wouldn’t think twice about calling Benny out. Telling him just how fucking mad I am.
It’s shit. All of it is shit.
And it’s not the only thing I have to deal with.
As we gaze into the unyielding darkness ahead of us, a rustling whistle billows through the undergrowth, causing the hairs on the back of my neck to rise.
‘We stick together,’ Kyor says grimly as we reach him. ‘No more solo pee breaks.’ He looks at me pointedly and I try to keep the panic off my face.
Did he hear us?
He can’t have or he’d be tearing Benny apart limb by limb.
‘We’ll ride for a couple of hours into it, then we’ll set up camp within the forest,’ he continues, moving forward. ‘We don’t want to be moving when night truly falls.’
We all nod, sober and nervous.
The time for talk is done, and we move slowly as we head into the thick wall of trees. Within the first few steps everything is already so dense that I’m not sure I could find my way back out.
I could always climb a tree, I remind myself. It was how I made it through the forest last time.
I’m not the only one visibly nervous. The tension in Kyor is marked, and it makes my gut churn. He knows something, something that’s scaring him, and I need to find out what.
‘Stop!’ I call out, my voice escaping before I have a chance to second-guess what I’m about to say. ‘I’m riding with you,’ I demand of Kyor before twisting back to Caz. ‘You don’t mind, do you?’
She shakes her head. ‘No, not if it’s what you want.’
It is. I think. Right now, in this, I need to be with him. But not for my sake. For all of ours.
If Kyor is surprised by my demand, he doesn’t show it, his face still carefully blank.
Elska lopes back to me, and I climb onto her back, settling in front of Kyor. The strength of his body eases some of my rising tension, but the rigidity in his frame is telling. He’s keeping something back.
‘What’s going on?’ I murmur to him when we’ve outpaced the others. ‘You’re clearly spooked. Tell me the truth.’
Silence meets my question.
‘Talk to me, Kyor,’ I insist. ‘If you want me to trust you ever again, then you need to tell me things. Tell me what’s got you so freaked out. Because I know you, and I’ve never seen you like this.’
He leans forward until his lips are just touching the shell of my ear, mirroring Ruben’s actions from earlier. ‘We’re being followed,’ he whispers.
All the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.
‘By whom?’
‘Not who,’ he whispers back. ‘What.’
Well, that doesn’t sound good.
‘Well, what then?’ I ask, trying to steady my pulse.
He hesitates before the answer finally falls from his lips. ‘A Myrkr.’
My jaw drops only for a shocked laugh to break free. The Myrkr are nothing more than a child’s fairy tale.
Be good or the Myrkr will get you. Wasn’t that the line? I don’t really remember. My parents weren’t the type to buy into folklore. In fact, the last time I heard the word was probably when I interrupted poor old senile Rohan during one of his scribing sessions with Caz.
I wrack my brain, trying to recall the tales.
‘They’re no laughing matter,’ he mutters back, and the grimness – the fear? – in his voice makes my stomach lurch.
‘There were three, right?’ I say to Kyor, still struggling to believe this is real, but there’s not a hint of joviality in his tone. This is no prank. ‘Three servants of Mortidem?’
‘The strongest siphons in existence,’ he confirms. ‘They can drain the magic right from you.’ His use of the present tense causes that prickling to once again spread across my skin, but the words also stir a memory within me – of the book I found in my father’s study when searching for answers about Issen magic.
I only flicked through the folklore book because the tales it told were irrelevant to me. Or so I thought.
Now, though, I’m clawing at my mind to try to remember any scrap of information about the monsters. My dim recollection is that they’re immortal, immune to all magic, and heralded by the cry of crows.
If the tales are true, even Kyor’s lightning wouldn’t so much as burn a hair on their heads … because he wouldn’t have his lightning to call.
‘You really think trying to scare me now is a great idea?’ I ask, because my guts are indeed quivering. He can’t be serious.
‘It’s good that you’re scared. You should be.’ I can hear him swallow. He’s scared too, and that … that terrifies me.
He faced the jotunn without blinking, the kraken without breaking a sweat …
‘Kyor, you’re not serious? A Myrkr? Really?’
‘Deadly serious. Elska hasn’t sensed it since we’ve entered the forest though. Maybe it’s gone in another direction.’
I lick my now parched lips.
‘Stay with me,’ he entreats. ‘Stay with me on Els. Then I know you’re safe. Then I can focus properly. And we need me focused.’
I hesitate, but nod. Right now, despite everything, there’s nowhere else I want to be than in his arms – even if he did throw me away at his father’s command. Because if there really is a Myrkr on our tails, there’s no one I would rather fight beside than Kyor. That, at least, hasn’t changed.
Over the next couple of hours, every slight whistle through the trees or crack of a branch causes me to start.
The slow pace and constant creaks and sighs of the forest, combined with the anxiety that ebbs from us all, coil the tension so tightly that every breath grates.
The horses can sense it too, their movements rigid and their eyes wide.
When we finally stop, I drop down from Elska to find Benny staring at me, his skin pallid as he worries at the back of his neck. His look is asking a single question: Have you told Kyor?
As I offer one single shake of my head, the tension drains from him. Though it probably shouldn’t. Not if what Kyor’s told me is true.
‘I’m going to scout around,’ Kyor grunts. He takes off on Elska – back-tracking, I realise. Making sure there’s no sign of the Myrkr following us.
Fuck, I can’t even believe I thought that seriously. A Myrkr. It’s madness.
‘All right,’ Caz finally explodes. ‘I’m the only one in the dark. What the fuck is going on?’
Silence pulls at the group, and then Ruben tries to evade the question.
‘It’s nothing. Just Benny being a flirt,’ he says, but we can all see Caz doesn’t buy it.
With a low sigh, Benny shakes his head. ‘Rose found out I’ve been funding the rebels,’ he confesses.
Caz purses her lips. There’s no shock in her eyes. No gasp of disbelief or angry accusations fired at him.
She knew all along about Benny’s extracurricular activities. And that stings, more than a little. Did everyone know but me?
‘Did Llinos know?’ I ask.
Benny nods slowly. ‘It was why we were arguing. She didn’t want me to do anything while we were in the Retterheld.’
‘Why the fuck did you?’ I press, keeping a hold of my fraying temper with real effort.
‘Things were going badly for us,’ he explains. ‘We’d lost Suan, Jai, Coulter …’ He shrugs. ‘I still don’t regret it. If someone had brought Korvane down …’
‘They didn’t even get near him,’ I spit. And if they had, it wasn’t like Korvane would have even bothered to fight. He was so well protected that there was no need. Not when others were there to willingly lose their lives for him.
‘No,’ Benny agrees.
‘Make me understand,’ I say, rubbing at my temples. ‘Make me understand why you hate Korvane so much. I know he’s not the best king—’
‘Not the best king!’ Benny’s laugh is bitter, and it quickly turns into a scoff.
‘Where do you want me to start?’ he asks.
‘He is the worst of the worst, Rose. He doesn’t care about anything but his own power.
He’s been stripping the Isles of everything that makes them what they are.
The people, the land … he’s destroying it all. ’
‘What do you mean?’ I reply. I’ve only been to the Isles once, and even then it was only to the palace in Brandish, but nothing I saw looked as if it was stripped or destroyed. It was beautiful.