Chapter 37
thirty-seven
Ikilled him.
The street became a cacophony of screams and a crescendo of blood.
The three that remained scattered, disappearing behind the hill with cries resonating in their wake.
As I skittered down the wooden beam, filling my palm with splinters, I tried not to look at the writhing man.
But when I passed, I broke and stared as he clawed at his weeping face, screaming.
His deeply tanned skin had turned pallid, and then crimson—that beating red stained everything.
Those final cries echoed in my mind as I started forward, taking off through the rubble.
I had to kill him.
It didn’t matter. That sound consumed my being, repeating in my head despite my thundering heart and rhythmic smack of my feet against the desiccated cliffs. I killed a man—but I had to kill a man. I had no other choice.
He had to die.
Just like I would kill my father.
Dying was meant to be easy. You throw down an axe and cleave them, but no one told me they struggled. No one warned me they’d fight death down to their last breath. No one warned me how visceral and ugly it was.
When would those sounds cease—the gurgles of his demise, climbing over him and choking away his life?
As I hurried forward, the sun finally crested upward, painting the horizon in a rusty, violent orange. It wasn’t the color of the fruit he’d brought me, more akin to the next blood I’d have to spill. The one marked and branded on my hand and soul. I’d fled a prison, but there was no way out.
Only a bloody path ahead.
Once I reached the ledge, the broken, crumbled bridge, I skidded to a halt.
And listened. The roar of the rushing river was absent, replaced with a cracking from below. Ice moving, shifting. The wind whipped at my face in a full gale that blew from the chasm.
But I felt nothing—except my sickened, beating heart.
“Give me answers,” I bellowed. Wind ate my voice and cast it away into the abyss.
I tried again louder, raising my voice until it cracked and ached.
“Come out, you coward!” This time it carried, echoing along the coastline. “Come out!” But the cold, emotionless rock face didn’t change. The only response was howling wind.
The rage within me seethed, and I thought it might eat me. The anger spread across my chest, writhing beneath every inch of my skin until I was red-faced and shaking.
I exploded.
“You BASTARD! You left me here alone. I nearly died because of you. You did this to me—this—impetus!” I gasped in a shaking breath. “I have it because of you.”
I waited for the chastening, his deep royal voice to chide me for calling it impetus. For the myriad of reasons that he did this to me.
But they never came. The sun continued to rise, casting the world in its damned glow.
And through it all, he never came.
So, with burning tears streaming down my cheeks, I collapsed to my knees and knew I was well and truly alone.
I hate him.
No, that was a lie. I loved him, and I hated that.
Truly, he was nothing but a lie. A ghost of a person I never really knew. But the pain, the deep, gnawing ache he caused, was very, very real. It was so tangible that, though the river ran through the gorge, I thought I might drown on this cliff.
The silence was worse. It mocked me with every second. I wished to shatter it into a million pieces so I might never have to sit alone with my thoughts again. Alone, with the everlasting pain.
My fingers tightened around my knees. He never cared for anything but my life—preserving it, to keep my power away from his enemy—his father. That was all. Nothing more.
I stared blankly at the blizzard that raged across the great gorge. Even from here, the rapidly thickening snowbanks were clear, white, against the spindly trees. They were dead now. The life stripped away by the cruel ice Ovatar wished to blanket the world in.
Where do I go from here?
I ran a finger across my chest and mourned the emptiness. I’d used the bit of my magic in the godforsaken guardhouse. It saved my life, but perhaps only temporarily. A brief extension of my heartbeat.
No magic, no blade, no dragon.
But there must be a reckoning.
I could go to him, give him a piece of my mind.
Slap him, beat him, and shove a knife through his bastard heart.
The cliffs below were steep and rocky, but not so much I couldn’t descend them.
The problem was the river—though frozen, it wasn’t solid.
The ice shifted; the cracking enough to remind me of how thin it was. Probably not enough to hold my weight.
My only hope was to draw him out—but how?
I wasn’t certain he’d listened to anything I’d said.
My eyes trained on the shadows across the way, the twisted forms cast from the winding branches. “I never loved you.” A lie—but I swore they flickered. Or perhaps it was a trick of the light. Or I blinked.
But it was enough to spark a fleeting whisper of hope.
My gaze flickered down to my featureless hand. He cared for nothing but my beating heart.
What could draw him out, except it ceasing altogether?
I studied the long drop before me. I’d jumped once, but the rushing river was there to catch me. Now it was nothing but shifting ice. If I jumped, I’d be horribly injured—or my breaths would cease altogether.
Did I care?
I raised my head to the deathly skies and the ever-creeping ice. I shouldn’t think too much about that.
Would it work? That was a better and far more relevant question to ruminate on. I hummed softly in thought and let it turn into a low song. An ancient melody that didn’t come from my mind, but resonated from my soul.
I let it linger on my lips and tongue and drank in the sound. It might be the last I’d ever sing or hear.
It wouldn’t be—he’d come.
He’d come.
I rose languidly, taking my time and enjoying the chill on my skin. Gooseflesh rose as I retreated from the ledge, never removing my gaze from the distant, dead forest. “Come out,” I whispered.
Two more steps backward until I was beside the jagged pillar that rose into the sky. Its shade caressed my skin. The sun on my arm provided no warmth, but the adjacent darkness brought a noticeable chill. I raised my hand, as if to welcome it.
I retreated further until the shadows concealed me in their cold embrace. His embrace.
“Come out, or I’ll jump.”
Everything remained as it was. I put more space between the chasm and me, accepting my fate.
“The river is frozen. The fall will shatter every last bone.”
The shade shuddered.
He was here. He listened. But he didn’t believe me.
“It will take my life with it, and the lumen in me straight to your father.” I felt the darkness become unnerved, restless. “Your world will be engulfed in ice.”
I bit my lip. “Encased.”
The shade twisted at unnatural angles, befalling the wishes of the light. It grew, snapped, and raged. So I kept my retreat until it stretched across the enormous gap between the chasm and me.
It seemed large now, but it wouldn’t be when I ran.
But no matter how far I retreated, the shade followed, snaking angrily. But I wouldn’t let his tantrum win. Not this time. He would answer what I asked in the dungeons or else.
“I will ask… one final time,” I sang, letting the warble in my throat drown out the sob. “Come out and answer me. Why did you spare me?”
The shade shrank, withdrawing to the natural angle at which it should sit. It was strange… that I wished for the shadows to encroach on me again. I used to despise them.
Yet he still didn’t believe me. Didn’t think I would. I always wondered who had been the greater fool, him or I. Now I had the answer.
I gathered my strength, but didn’t sing.
I ran. Every footfall was faster than the last as I barreled toward the edge. I was flying—free as he wished me to be.
“Let’s see if your little bird can fly,” I screamed between sobs.
The burning was instant, blinding fire on the back of my hand. The pact screamed. I couldn’t drown out its voice as I raced closer and closer to death.
Stop, stop, STOP!
It was branded into my brain, a knocking hammer of every word.
I didn’t stop. I urged further, and the screaming continued along with the feeling of pure terror that wasn’t my own. It shook my very being.
Right as the view of the chasm was upon me, shadows shot out, wrapping around my legs like strangling vines and digging in until they drew blood.
The sudden encasement threw me to the ground in a screaming heap. “You bastard!”
I know.
“Come out,” I bit back. “You fucking coward!” The inky tendrils wrapped up my body, constricting like a snake while I struggled. “I’ll kill you myself.”
I know.
“Then come here!” I screamed, my voice echoing off the cliffs.
I cannot.
Those weren’t painful, only a whisper like the chill of a coming storm.
“Yes, you can!”
His vine-like shadows tightened and then released, but didn’t shy away. One caressed my cheek like a familiar fingertip, and I despised the fire it stoked.
I cannot leave where he has imprisoned me. My avatars are weak. O’tvtar has returned. If they cross the threshold, he will know, and find you, and hurt you. I’m lucky he can’t sense all of my influence.
He paused, and in that, his tendrils tightened again. I didn’t know why, but I didn’t thrash or fight. I just relaxed in his grasp.
“I want answers—I deserve answers.”
You do.
“Then answer me!” His twisting vines didn’t answer, but finally his voice came.
You must come to me. If you do, I swear to you that you may have my head. My neck is yours to sever, if only you come.
There was a pregnant pause.
Please come.
"I want more than that."
What do you desire?
"Promise me you won't fight me when I need to return with Mourn. That you'll let me cross the river without tearing him to shreds again."
The pact radiated regret.
I cannot fight you if I have no head. You may have my life, my answers, and the dragon Mourn.
I swallowed the knot in my throat and considered his words.
I could say no. I should say no. But that would lead me to a dead end, broken, bleeding, and starving.
I didn’t have enough strength left to fight his shadows, let alone deal with the Ovatar’s mess.
I’d spread myself so thin, almost none of me remained.
But even if I agreed, the frozen river would pose an issue.
“I can’t.”
You cannot?
His thought was short and lilted.
“Don’t you realize the river is thin? The ice is shifting. I’ll fall through and end up dead, like I should have been months ago.”
The darkness around me cringed. It roved my body and snaked across my face as if to remind itself I was still there. One tendril lingered across my breast, where my heart lay thundering beneath.
I’ll freeze it. Come, and I’ll freeze it. I cannot send the dragons. That would be an ordeal and catch his attention. Come quietly.
A trap. It was a trap, no doubt. I’d be falling into the nest of spiders. I’d sworn I’d never return to that side of the river. But he’d offered me his head, and it was too tempting.
That wasn’t considering that to fix any of this, I needed Mourn.
And he was on the other side of the gorge. So I sucked in my pride and uttered the unthinkable.
“Freeze it.”