Chapter 35
Guards jostle Ryland to move, and he barely reacts. His blank eyes stare off into the distance.
It scares me. It’s so unlike him.
Agatha weaves her arm through Ryland’s as if claiming him, and fire erupts behind my sternum. She has no right. Can’t she see he doesn’t want this?
Can’t she see it was supposed to be me?
‘Wait,’ I call. ‘I need to speak with Ryland.’
Atlas opens his mouth to object.
‘No,’ I say angrily. ‘Give me one minute with him. You owe me that much.’
His eyes narrow dangerously at my defiance, but I tear away from the crowd to a quieter spot. Something in me is splitting at the seams. But if I can hold it together long enough for us to regroup, it’ll be okay.
Moments later, I hear Ryland’s boots, following after me. We come face-to-face, and I don’t understand why he won’t look at me. Why he’s still so emotionless, even though it’s me. The seconds are ticking, and I need him to speak. Everyone’s watching. I shift, angling away. ‘Ryland, are you okay?’
His lips pinch.
‘Of course you’re not. I-I’m so sorry he did this. I’m sorry’ – my eyes close – ‘that I didn’t just marry you when we had the chance.’ I choke back a sob. ‘Tell me what to do now.’
‘There’s nothing we can do.’ His voice is flat. ‘The connection … it worked.’
‘No,’ I breathe.
His mouth opens and closes. He looks so lost.
‘Then, let’s leave,’ I urge. ‘You don’t love her. You don’t … want her.’ The pressure in my chest grows, rising in my throat. My back is throbbing in pain. ‘Let’s run. We’ll go to Kingsland. We’ll –’
‘Marian,’ he whispers. ‘I married her … and it’s been set in stone with the connection.’
My heart stills a beat. ‘I know. But you made promises to me too. And the promises you made to Agatha were forced; you didn’t mean them.’ I stare. ‘Right?’
His eyes appear shiny in the sunlight.
I look away, my heart breaking. ‘This is how it is with Atlas – you do what you have to in order to survive, then behind his back you defy him. But I didn’t think you’d … so that’s it? We’re done? You’re going to carry on where we left off, but with her?’
‘Marian,’ he breathes.
I rake my hand through my hair and pain explodes in my head from where my scalp is torn.
Tears sting my eyes. So what if he can share memories with Agatha when they’re in the same room; he doesn’t have to enter a committed relationship with her.
‘There is a way out of this. You’re just not willing to take it. ’
His jaw flexes as the despondency on his face sharpens to something desperate. Finally, a response. ‘She’s already a part of me, Marian. I can feel it. There’s a blending of me and her.’
Blending? He thinks they’ve become one? My hand goes to my chest.
He inches closer to me. The intensity in his eyes pins me in place. ‘I’m still going to get you out of here,’ he whispers, urgently. ‘I will never give up on finding you a better life.’
It just won’t be a life with him.
The mask I’ve worn nearly every day, the same mask that Ryland’s gentleness and protectiveness finally gave me the courage to let down, slips back into place. Part of me knows I’m being irrational. He didn’t choose this. He wishes it were another way.
But he made me fall in love with him. Asked me to trust him. And now he’s just walking away? ‘No, don’t worry about that any more. I’m not leaving. The Dresden need me.’
‘Marian,’ he says. His hand twitches like he wants to reach for me.
Inside, I beg him to do it.
‘I’m not leaving,’ I say more firmly. ‘But you should. As soon as possible. And if you ever cared about me, don’t make me see you two together. Avoid me at all costs. Goodbye, Ryland.’ I walk off, feeling him stare after me. But he doesn’t stop me. He’s really letting me go.
Of all the horrific pain coursing through my body from my injuries, it’s now my heart that screams the loudest.
Lucky turns at the sound of me approaching the lookout post he’s manning. ‘Marian.’ He jumps to his feet, eyes roaming the empty forest, before returning to me.
‘Hi,’ I say as I limp closer.
His freckled face pinches with confusion. ‘What’re you doing? Where’s your horse?’
Isn’t it strange that after our grisly encounter with Soren earlier today, life just carried on? Lucky had to go back to work. And I – ‘I was … going for a walk.’
The crease in his brow turns into a trench.
‘Any vagabonds?’ I prop my hands on my hips and pant a couple of breaths.
‘Um … no.’
‘Good. That’s good.’ I nod. ‘I should’ve grabbed some water for you. You always forget. Do you need me to find some?’
‘What are you doing here, Mare? You should be resting.’
I let out a single hard laugh. Rest. I haven’t slept in a day and a half. ‘I can’t do that.’ Though I don’t mention it’s because I can’t close my eyes without seeing things – things I very much don’t want to see right now.
Like my sister kissing Ryland.
‘Well, then, you should sit.’ He gestures to a tree stump.
‘I don’t need to sit. I don’t want to sit,’ I clarify. Then, inconveniently, I sway on my feet. I wince as I’m struck with a bolt of pain down my back. Mutinous tears sting my eyes. We stand in silence as I fight to pull myself together.
‘Why are you here?’ he asks, gently.
‘Because …’ The two people closest to me, the two I would give my life for are now –
I sniff hard. Don’t think about it.
‘I didn’t know where else to go.’
‘Well, you look awful.’
My head bobs. ‘Thank you. I feel awful.’ And as if that weren’t enough, an image of Agatha pressing her lips against Ryland’s flashes in my head. I reach for a tree for balance and miss. I start to fall, then catch a branch on my second try, awkwardly lowering myself to the ground.
‘Marian,’ Lucky shouts, lunging for me.
‘I’m fine. Just distract me,’ I say. ‘Tell me about what’s going on with you. How’s your leg, where Soren got you with the whip? Or your ailments?’ You never stop talking about that. Don’t fail me now.
A switch seems to flip in him, and the concerned lines in his face smooth out. ‘Well, actually, I have been doing pretty poorly, myself. My leg’s not too bad. But that pain I have just never goes away any more, and I think I’m getting a fever –’
Ryland’s face flashes in my mind.
‘I can’t sleep. I can’t –’
I clear my throat. ‘And Grendle has nothing that will help you?’
‘She wouldn’t even look. Said I was fine. Called me an incessant complainer.’ He shakes his head. ‘If only I could see the spot myself, I’d know what I’m dealing with.’
Agatha didn’t hesitate to kiss him.
My head tips back with nausea. Now that Ryland is Agatha’s husband, he’s too honourable to turn her away. He’s going to love her back. Eventually.
Suddenly, I need to move, so I crawl awkwardly to my feet. ‘Show me,’ I say.
Lucky’s bushy orange brows shoot up. ‘What?’
‘Show it to me. Whatever’s the problem.’
‘You’re going to –? Oh, thank the saints.’ He starts to unbuckle his trousers. ‘It’s on my lower back, maybe a bit beneath that, but it’s nothing carnal, I promise. I just need someone to –’
I throw up a hand. ‘I know.’
‘Okay.’ He nods aggressively, then turns around.
I hear his trousers come down a little.
At first, I only give the area a cursory glance, blocking most of it with my hand. But there is something there. I squint. ‘You definitely have a wound.’ I move closer but then jump back, nearly losing my footing.
He whirls around, dragging up his trousers. ‘What is it?’
I exhale harshly. I don’t know; maybe I imagined it. ‘Show me again.’
He does, but this time he’s also trying to look.
‘Stop moving,’ I scold. Then I see it.
I spin away and dry heave.
‘What?’ Lucky shouts.
‘You have maggots,’ I say. ‘In the wound.’
‘Maggots!’ he shouts. He whips around, trying even harder to see, and something about it, about all of this, brings me to my knees. I drop my forehead to the cool forest floor. I can’t catch my breath. Tears suddenly fill my eyes and spill down my face, soaking into the dirt.
Why do we live in such a cursed place?
My breaths grow louder, turning into sobs that I don’t know how to stop.
‘It’s just some worms, Mare,’ Lucky ventures, tentatively. ‘It’ll be okay.’
But it won’t be. Nothing is okay.
And nobody is coming to make it better.
When I finish weeping, my mind is finally still. There’s a blissful numbness to it. I should really let myself cry more often.
Lucky sits – somewhat lopsidedly – beside me, staring at a tree. It’s the longest I’ve ever been around him without him saying a word.
‘What are we going to do about your wound?’ I mutter.
‘Leave it for now. You’ve got enough to deal with.’
‘That hardly seems like a good plan. You should go back to Grendle.’
A raven swoops down to the ground from a branch. Benedict. He hops closer, pauses, then changes direction. He’s nervous with Lucky here. We watch him continue the pattern until he’s only a dozen feet away. He cocks his head. Then drops something metal from his beak.
‘Did that bird just bring us something?’ Lucky asks.
‘Looks that way.’ I study the shape of it but can’t make it out.
Lucky rises to retrieve the gift, and Benedict flaps away. ‘It’s a key.’ He examines it. ‘Mare, you know this is a sign, right?’
‘It’s really not that deep.’ I sigh. ‘That’s Benedict, the raven. This is what he does. I feed him and he brings me things.’
‘But is it always a key?’
‘No.’
He holds it higher. ‘Then it’s a sign. I’m serious.
Ravens are intelligent and otherworldly.
’ He hands it to me. ‘But a sign for what? The raven dropped a key, and then he flew away.’ His eyes tick back and forth, thinking.
‘The raven … left. Maybe that’s what he’s telling us: the key is that we need to leave. ’
I scoff. ‘We need to do the opposite of leaving. We need to stay … and start an uprising.’
It’s so painfully obvious to me now.
‘What?’ Lucky looks aghast. ‘Th-that isn’t what the key means.’