Chapter 27
“Etarla.”
Skies, everything hurt. My head, shoulders, wrists, strung tightly behind me. My neck ached from the weight of my head, which was floating. No, not floating. Drooping. To the side, I think.
I was sitting, propped against something hard, and—my fingers twitched against its surface—rough. Tree bark?
“Etarla, you need to wake up.”
The urgent command wrenched my eyes open. A string of drool dangled from my lips toward the ground, which wasn’t that far away. I was so hunched, my body was almost folded in two.
I was so damn thirsty. How could I be drooling?
“We’ve traveled for at least one day. We’re at their destination,” the soft voice informed me.
Clarity increased, and the hushed tone registered. Harthon?
“They want us awake now. I think they’re going to take us to their leader. I’m trying to slice through my bindings, so get your shit together and act like you’re conscious so you don’t draw them over here.”
As the voice kept talking, I realized it wasn’t him.
It was Aric.
Fear had me jerking upright, dizziness assaulting me. Harthon. Stefano. Joris.
Where were they?
It took too long to blink the fog from my eyes.
Coarse, frayed rope wrapped tightly around my chest was the first thing I saw before spotting those haunting, faceless visages scattered amongst the surrounding woods. There was no sign of Harthon, Stefano, or Joris. Frantically, I craned my neck, a strained sound coming from my throat.
“They’re tied to trees back there, which suggests they’re still alive,” Aric hissed. “Now keep quiet.”
Except for the bindings and the dirt streaked across his cheek, he looked remarkably okay for a man who’d been taken captive. Then again, he was a man who thrived on conflict.
So are Harthon, Stefano, and Joris, I reminded myself.
They’d overthrown the former Princeps of Fourth, for Domus’ sake. This was child’s play. A training exercise.
Child’s play. Training exercise, I internally chanted as I studied the Horrads.
They reminded me of an ant colony, some sharpening weapons, others harvesting wood. A group of ten or so huddled by a gently flowing river. None of them spoke or seemed remotely concerned with their captives.
The hopeful mantra in my head died away.
They weren’t concerned with us because they knew we couldn’t escape, not with their presence everywhere.
I didn’t see our horses, and that river wasn’t flowing fast enough to carry us away.
Aric was still trying to saw through his bindings, though, which meant he must have seen some hidden opportunity for escape.
Or he was losing hope and making a last-ditch effort.
Behind his back, Aric’s forearms vibrated with increasingly frantic movements.
Keeping my voice low, I rasped, “What happens when they take us to their leader?”
The look he shot me was bone-chilling. “We’ll wish we shared Conrad’s fate.”
Fighting would have meant instant death, whereas this option offered the chance for escape.
That’s what Aric had said, and the second it’d come out of his mouth, I’d latched onto it—that chance of survival.
I was with two powerful Princepes and two incredibly trained fighters.
Anyone would have latched onto that chance.
But now, Aric was suggesting that either that chance was long gone, or had never even existed in the first place.
Aric isn’t Harthon.
Harthon’s figuring a way out of this right now.
If he was even awake.
Dread would have flooded me if it wasn’t already leaking out of my pores.
But dread wasn’t all I felt. The knowledge nestled beside my heart was flaring, the gentle warmth such a jarring contrast to my fear that the sensations made me nauseous. I didn’t know where the Horrads had taken us or how long we’d traveled for, but one thing was clear.
We were closer to the path into the Domus. Much closer. Not that it meant a damn thing when they were going to slaughter us before we even saw its walls.
Apparently, the shred of the magvis inside me hadn’t gotten the message about our dire circumstances.
Or maybe…it did?
Desperate for something, I tugged at that curious thread. These recent weeks had made it clear the ball of heat wasn’t an ignorant bystander in my life. It reacted in real-time. It wouldn’t make any sense for it to suddenly be blind to our situation.
And yet it was pulsing brightly, like it was—I don’t know—optimistic? Encouraging? Happy with our progress?
Which also made no sense, because Aric was no closer to freeing himself, Harthon hadn’t escaped, and the Horrads were beginning to turn their burlap-covered heads in our direction.
The group by the river dispersed, revealing that the buckets they’d been filling were now full.
To my right, burly bodies that’d been dissecting a tree dropped their axes.
They’d stopped here to gather resources, and now they were done.
“Aric?” I hissed.
A stifled grunt was his only answer. His forearms shook harder as his pace increased. Whereas before he’d shown controlled urgency, his movements were becoming frenzied.
Aric was panicking.
Then, all at once, he stopped.
My heart stuttered before kicking into a thunderous rhythm.
My eyes followed his to the two Horrads approaching us, limbs thick beneath their haggard clothing. They were something from a nightmare: silent, masked strangers bearing down on us, powerful intent in every step, while we sat entirely at their mercy.
With their faces masked, my imagination ran wild, conjuring toothless monsters who wished to swallow us whole, faces without skin, the black eyes of soulless spirits. Harthon had said they were once regular citizens of First, but I wondered if any humanity remained.
They halted above us, their terrible odor as choking as a noose. I readied myself for pain. A kick in the head, a broken nose, maybe. I clamped my jaw shut so they wouldn’t see it shake.
You’ve been hurt before. Your body will heal, I told myself. Again and again, louder and louder, until it was all I heard against the drumbeat of my pulse.
All that bravado vanished in a single, pathetic second when they crouched before me, Aric forgotten. One of them cocked their head, and my lungs refused to work. I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t do anything but silently quake.
One of them lifted a hand, and I recoiled with a jerk. An image of Jac’s headless body flashed through my mind.
They’re going to take your eyes.
A whimper clawed its way from my mouth.
Please, please, please. I begged the knowledge in my chest, the Domus’ walls, whatever people prayed to.
A finger landed on my cheek, below my left eye. Its owner turned to their companion, who nodded. The hand pulled away. Wooden daggers were drawn.
This can’t be happening. This can’t be happening.
The Horrad who’d touched my face surged forward—and began hacking at the rope around my chest.
Shock made me dizzy as his companion set to cutting Aric free.
My eyes would stay within my head. For now.
Needles pricked my joints as they hauled us to our feet. My legs weren’t ready to work right, but that didn’t matter, because I was being dragged forward, stumbling as I fought to find my footing.
I lost it, tripping over myself, when I saw them.
Saw him.
Parallel to us, Stefano and Joris were being pulled along, their limbs functioning, unlike the man being dragged behind them.
Harthon.
He was propped between two bigger Horrads, hands knotted behind his back, head dangling as his feet trailed on the ground. His hair hung around his face in tangled, matted strands, hiding what I was afraid to see.
They wouldn’t have tied his hands behind his back if he was dead.
That logic was all that kept me from shattering.
A sharp tug on my shoulder had me scrambling back to my feet.
Our angle changed, and Aric and I were now approaching the other men, the Horrads circling us with their water buckets and lumber.
None of us dared to speak, even as we fell into a line of prisoners, Harthon stuffed somewhere behind me.
I craned my neck, seeking out his face and almost wishing I hadn’t.
His hair still blocked much of my view, but the other side of his head, where he’d been struck, was matted with blood. A lot of it.
It didn’t take long for us to arrive at their village, tucked within the woods.
It was largely what I’d imagined—wide tents between trees, scattered fires with pots hanging over them.
The only aspect that surprised me was the newness of the tents, so different from the tattered rags that hung over their bodies.
Perhaps that was where all their best fabric had gone.
Not a single face or glimpse of skin was to be found in the Horrads’ mundane rhythm of camp life.
That rhythm abruptly stopped the moment we arrived, our presence like a nectar to waiting insects.
They stared, then folded around us, their chores forgotten as we were paraded into the heart of their camp.
Their silence was deafening.
There were a million ways to die. I knew this. But I never thought fear alone could kill a person, until now. It was going to suffocate me.
Yet that heat still burst beside my lungs, oblivious to our plight.
I expected to be led to a makeshift palace of some sort, a grand tent with a throne. Instead, we came to a stop—us and every damned person in the camp—in front of a tent as average as the rest.
My knees were kicked from under me, and I collapsed to the earth. Aric and Joris hit the ground on either side of me.
I twisted to see Stefano, and Harthon beside him, propped on his knees like a lifeless puppet. One of the Horrads who’d been dragging him ruthlessly backhanded him across the face.
I jolted. Stern hands shoved me back down. Unable to move, I watched, helpless as the Horrad cranked their arm again.
They paused.
Harthon’s head twitched.