Chapter 4
When I reach the Nettlerock stable, the fire baskets along the paths are already lit. Bright constellations wink above me. I slide off the mare and wince as my sore shoulder bumps against the stall. The prince’s cloak may have staunched the bleeding, but it’s done nothing for the pain.
I leave a few coins on the railing and hurry to Beula’s. I’ve been gone far too long.
My magic flings Beula’s door open, and I sprint inside. Mom flinches. Tears glisten on her cheeks. She unclasps her hands, having been in the middle of a prayer. “Where were you?” she demands. “Beula said you took off without a—”
I ignore her and enter the next room. Beula wipes away the sweat on Evie’s sallow face with a damp cloth. Black, spidery veins crawl beneath her skin. They wrap across her chest and around her throat. My sister is on the verge of death.
“Necrosis,” Beula says. “That venom came from a beast I’m not familiar with. I don’t have antivenom.”
A cry claws up my throat, but I force it down and hand her the bezoar.
“Oh, merciful Elowyn!” she exclaims. She crushes it into a powder, then sweeps half of it into a beaker of red liquid. I follow her to the hearth, where she slides the beaker onto a metal grate over the fire. The flames recoil, and the liquid simmers. Her Gift is controlling fire.
Satisfied, she removes the beaker, and Mom holds her breath as she follows us to Evie.
Beula stirs the liquid to cool it. My chest tightens as she tilts Evie’s chin and pours it down her throat.
“Where did you get it, Cynthia?” Beula asks.
“The docks. When will it work?”
“Soon,” she promises. “But there is nothing I can do for the necrosis she’s already suffered. Your father should be on his way back from Slagbend with their Aedrosian priest. He’s a healer.”
I hover my hand over Evie’s mouth. The weak puffs of breath are the only reassurance that she’s not a corpse.
How could I have done this to her? What would I have done if I were too late?
Bile stings the back of my throat, and I slam my eyes shut as I coax the nausea away.
I wasn’t too late, and that’s what matters.
Mom’s huff tells me she thinks otherwise. I open my eyes and see her glowering at me. “You swore you’d never go to the docks again.”
“That was ten years ago,” I argue, my defenses rising too fast for me to lie.
“You think age means you can disobey your parents?” she retorts. “And why did you drag your sister into a barrow? It’s forbidden to set foot in one!” Mom paces, and her voice grows shrill. “Your foolishness might cost your sister her life!”
If she knew I fed us by raiding tombs, she’d say my sacrilege had condemned our family to Osian’s hell.
Mom pulls at her graying hair and lets out a heart-shattering wail. “My daughter. . . My baby.”
Beula consoles her. “She’ll be alright, Ariadne.”
My heart hammers too fast for me to speak.
I leave, charging outside despite my mother’s sobs.
If I were a good daughter, I’d stay to comfort her.
I’d bury my anger instead of levitating rocks and twigs and flinging them into the forest. Brush crackles.
Stones thud. Something stirs beyond the trees, likely a startled deer.
I exhale with each surge of magic, but it does nothing to soothe me.
Ten years ago, I saved my family. We would’ve starved during the famine if I hadn’t pillaged my first barrow.
The two draugr stirring in their alcoves didn’t sense me, or maybe I was too weak to be a threat.
I stuffed my knapsack full of everything I could carry: small clay vases, stones, and rusty scissors.
It was a barrow for commoners, and most of what I found was worthless.
Yet a goblin at the docks took interest in a tiny chunk of glass inside one of the vases. He gave me ten bronze marks for it, cleaned it off, and showed me how it gleamed when held to a light. A diamond. He even gloated about it.
I wanted to rake my frail fingernails down his face, but instead, I left and bought three stale loaves and a sack of dried jerky in Mythos. The people there stared at my withered body as though I had crawled out of a grave. Little did they know I had.
That meager meal nourished us enough that when aid arrived a week later, we were still alive.
A horse gallops down the path, jarring me from my memories. “Dad!” I yell. On another horse behind him, a man clothed in Aedrosian orange waves. Thank the gods, it’s the priest.
Beula ushers the healer to Evie’s side but tells my parents and me to sit at the hearth and wait.
The tension could cut steel. Mom’s brunette locks have faded to a frizzled gray in the past year, and Dad’s blond is showing a tinge of white at his temples.
I don’t think I’ve realized how much they’ve aged until now, their wrinkles pronounced in worry.
Minutes pass, then hours.
“Cyn?”
My head jerks up. Evie approaches us on shaky legs, leaning against Beula’s arm for support. Relief swells in my chest so fast it hurts. She’s alive.
Mom gasps.
A skipped buttonhole on Evie’s tunic reveals a raised scar as wide as my palm, just above her navel. It’s pink and gnarled like tree bark, right where the arrow impaled her. Some of the veins in her torso are still black, one reaching as far as her jaw.
Evie touches her belly, feels the rough skin there, and freezes. Tears well in her dark eyes as guilt chokes me.
“That’s the best I could do,” the priest says. “The venom had worked deep into her body.”
I burst to my feet. “That’s not good enough!” That scar should be a burden I have to bear. Yet there it is, a taunt on her beautiful skin. All I can do is stare, hollow and furious, while she trembles on weak legs and pretends she’s whole.
The priest winces. “She will also suffer from fatigue and low immunity to disease for the rest of her life. A more powerful healer may be able to reverse it.”
Evie flinches. “The rest of my life?”
“Kneel!” Mom snaps at me. She sinks to her knees, hands clasped as she beseeches the priest. “We owe you and the gods her life. But I plead with you, is there anything we can do for her scar? She is of marrying age and—”
“Ariadne,” my father says, resting his hands over Mom’s. “Her life is saved. That’s all that matters.”
They trade grimaces, somehow both relieved and despondent. Then Mom nods to the priest. “Forgive me. Thank you for coming to our daughter’s aid.” She stands and hugs Evie, gazing at her with a loving smile before burying her face in Evie’s hair with a sob.
Evie and I look at each other. “I’m sorry,” I tell her, my voice catching. If she had died. . . I wouldn’t have forgiven myself. I should never have let her come with me.
She stares at me, too overwhelmed to speak.
“Is your shoulder in need of healing?” the priest asks me.
For a moment, I don’t understand what he means. The pain is a dull ache compared to the turmoil inside me.
“I would be most thankful to Aedros,” I murmur. He reaches for the makeshift bandage’s bow, and I recoil, surprising myself. “I’ve got it.”
I can’t explain it, but I want to be the one who undoes the prince’s handiwork.
With one tug, the strip of soft velvet unravels.
My blood stains it, but beneath the strong, coppery scent is a whiff of autumn rain, peppermint, and cedar.
The bandage shouldn’t have held up through the rough horseback ride if it came apart that easily.
Was it skill or magic holding it together?
My mother cranes forward to glimpse the wound, sighs, and mutters a prayer.
I squirm as the priest lays his fingers around it. He hums to himself, and my skin warms from within. The edges of the wound crawl together, then meet to form a thin, pale scar.
“May Aedros be with you,” the priest bids me.
A reply forms on my lips, but Evie wobbles against Mom.
“It’s time to go home,” Dad says. He lifts Evie into his arms like she’s a child again.
She’s so frail and limp as she cradles her head against his shoulder, just like the famine.
Yet even after the forest thrived once again, I continued raiding tombs.
Maybe this is a sign from the gods that I should stop.