Chapter 47
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
ABBY
M y hands ache with how tight I’m holding onto the horse’s mane, but it’s better than falling. That’s nearly happened already, and if we survive this, I’m going to have to brush up on my riding skills before Quinn actually makes me give him lessons.
I know that was a distraction from the things I’ve already seen through the wolves’ eyes, and for what I’m about to see through my own when I reach the city. Lunae isn’t far now. Though I can’t see it through the silver mist shrouding the city, I trust the horse to take me there. That’s what they’ve been trained for. To always return home. Lunae could always afford to lose a rider, but never a horse.
At least it isn’t Void’s darkness blanketing these barren fields. This mist is natural, and with the full moon high, it takes on a ghostly hue. Come dawn, the ground will be covered with dew—and in some places, blood.
I can just make out a building ahead of me and know it’ll be the stables. What was once grand enough to house over a hundred steeds has fallen into disarray. I don’t know how many it holds now, but when I left Lunae, there were only ten left. My horse slows, so I kick at its sides to keep pushing it forward. It’s breathing hard, and I can hardly blame it. Just like the people, it doesn’t eat enough, and I’m riding it into the ground. But there’s no time to think about that. I can’t chance a glance through one of the many pairs of eyes, but I can hear the chaos echoing over the looming city walls.
We’ll be there in minutes, we just have to—
My horse rears suddenly, and it becomes apparent that my hold wasn’t tight enough. I fall backwards, landing hard on my arm, but at least nothing feels broken. Not bothering to dust myself off, I stand quickly and palm a dagger. Something is spooking the horse. Its heavy breathing morphs into agitated neighs and snorts as it weaves from side to side, as if it can’t decide which way to run. There’s something moving in the mist ahead of us, and by the time I realize what it is, it’s too late.
Six pigs—at least—charge at the terrified animal. It rears again before kicking at one of them and just narrowly missing. The pigs don’t even flinch as one crashes into the horse’s front leg. There’s a sickening snap, and the horse goes down.
My first instinct is to run towards it, but these aren’t just any pigs. They’ve been surviving on meat alone for far too many years and have turned vicious. Even moreso than the boars that roam the forest.
Quinn was right. They’ll kill indiscriminately, and if someone let them out…
The panicked horse tries to stand, but there’s no hope for it now as more pigs move in. I hate myself for leaving it to this fate, but I know how quickly they can clean the bones of a man much larger than myself.
So I run.
I run for Lunae and don’t look back, even after the agonizing cries of the wounded animal cease. The pigs won’t move as a herd, and I’d only seen about ten while there’s at least five times that.
If they reach the city…
I open my connection to the wolves as wide as I can without allowing their visions to overlap with mine. ‘Someone let the pigs loose!’
‘Abby? Where are you?’ The voice came from Ellis, and I can’t help but be thankful he isn’t the one we lost.
‘That doesn’t matter. The pigs—’
He cuts me off. ‘We can handle ourselves. You shouldn’t be anywhere near this.’
I groan because he doesn’t understand and a laugh that could only be Seamus flits through my mind. ‘I knew you couldn’t stay out of the fight. I’m afraid there’s not much left for you. Most are already being driven towards the sirens. This will be over soon.’
‘Not if the fucking pigs—’
Someone screams, and I didn’t hear it through the connections with the wolves. The sound came from just ahead. There’s nowhere else for me to go, so I keep running until I reach the city’s outer wall. There’s an entrance to my left and with the chaos still raging inside, I don’t bother looking for a more discreet way in.
I pass under the stone arch, and into the city I once called home. It should be dark, but flames illuminate the dirt road ahead. When did the fire start?
I’d been expecting chaos, but in the form of Guardians and wolves and dragons battling in streets slick with blood. At this rate, the entire city will burn.
I run for the square, needing to shield my face from the intense heat as I pass one of the many burning homes. The smoke is thick in my throat and I choke on it just as I do Void’s shadows in my nightmares.
Did they start this fire? In one last effort to thwart our escape and ensure enough blood is spilled to tear open the veil?
I duck under an awning that hasn’t yet caught fire and open my eyes to the wolves. Fourteen pairs of eyes—not fifteen, which means we’ve lost someone else—blink open in my mind. I focus on the ones still in the square and search for any sign of Imelda or Void.
But there’s nothing.
Nothing but flashes of silver armour splattered in crimson and reflecting flames as the city around them burns. There’s no sign of Lunae’s citizens now. At least, none that live. The ground is littered with bodies, both friend and foe. Hundreds are dead instead of thousands, but the loss feels just as great.
There may have been no way to avoid this, but it doesn’t make it right. History repeats itself, but when will it stop? Why haven’t we learned? I want to live in a world where no one has to die. A world where fire doesn’t erase progress and blood doesn’t stain sand. Where waters don’t run as red as the slickened tip of a blade.
Movement darts to the left of Ellis’s vision. Silver, like the Guardians, but there’s something else, too. I’m almost convinced it was a trick of the light, but then a massive black wing streaked with red appears and I know immediately who it belongs to.
Jade is fighting, but he should be with Rhett. There’s no way they’ve already evacuated the city entirely.
I’m on my feet again in a heartbeat and blinking away all eyes but my own. I round a corner and trip over what can only be a body before landing hard on my knees. I don’t want to look, but I have to.
Unseeing eyes stare back at me, glassy in the firelight. She’s shirtless; the only thing covering her is the blood that seeps from her throat and spills down the length of her thin frame. For just a moment, I think of Teagan on the night her throat laid open beneath a star-filled sky.
But this isn’t Teagan.
This woman is vaguely familiar—even in death—and I know she’s one of the Marked we left behind. Anger flares in my belly at both the lashes I bear for this woman and the life she lived. She never got to taste freedom, and the sword in her hand tells me she was willing to fight for it. I may not know her name, but I’ll remember her bravery and her sacrifice.
I pick myself up and follow the sounds of screaming. The city square is straight ahead, but the sounds came down the path on my left. I take it and under a shadowy alcove, three citizens cower as the ravenous maw of a sacrificial pig tears open a fourth.
“ Abilene ?” one woman calls to me. How she recognized me without a dress and a crown, I don’t know. “Please, help us!”
I’m no stranger to that plea, but this time it’s different. Ten lashes won’t save the man on the ground, nor will it spare them the same fate.
It looked so easy before the Lunar Hunt. Yes, the pig is sated beforehand, but it only ever took the man I called father one slice of his sword to silence the squeals forever. The dagger in my hand trembles, but I tighten my grip and demand stillness. There’s been enough death today.
I’m moving before I can think twice. Running down the alley as flames engulf the buildings on either side. The fire is spreading quickly, and soon, the animal will be the least of my worries. It doesn’t see me coming, or maybe it doesn’t care. At least until I drive the knife into the back of its neck, all the way to the hilt.
The beast rears back, squealing wildly, and then black eyes settle on me. It charges, and I barely have enough time to reach for another blade before it’s on me. I jab upwards and hot blood sprays down from its torn neck, showering me in sticky heat. The animal stills and then I feel its weight entirely. The air is knocked from my lungs, but the sensation only lasts a moment.
“Thank you,” a second woman says as she offers me a hand. She and the two other survivors must have pushed the animal off me, and thank the Gods for that. Of all the ways I’ve thought I might die, being suffocated by a pig was not one of them. I accept the hand and allow her to pull me to my feet. “Thank you.”
“You need to get out of the city. Why aren’t you with the other survivors?”
“We got separated from the group. The smoke—” A cough punctuates her words.
Fucking Jade should be out here instead of having his way with the Guardians. For the first time since our bond broke, I wish I could still connect with him mentally, so I can tell him exactly what I’m thinking right now.
“Follow me,” I tell them and turn towards the square. A hand wraps around my wrist and pulls me back.
“We can’t go that way! They’ll kill us!”
“You have to trust me.”
They must, because this time they move with me as we weave through the fallen on our way back to Lunae’s heart. The battle rages just as it did the last time I checked Ellis’ eyes, but it’s somehow different from seeing the destruction from my own. Seamus was right when he said that much of the fighting had moved elsewhere, but what’s left isn’t any less devastating.
I hold no love for this place, but never once did I wish this upon it.
Jade swoops low some distance ahead of me and grabs hold of another Guardian by his breastplate, sending the both of them crashing against the wall of building that’s only survived the flames because it’s made of stone. One of the women behind me screams, and I realize it’s Jade she’s afraid of. The wolves too, probably.
“Stay here,” I tell them. “The Guardians are your enemy. The wolves won’t hurt you and neither will he.”
I dart into the square, and it’s impossible to avoid stepping into pools of blood. Even with the open grates, this square has never been so full of it. I do my best to ignore it as I stride for Jade, who seems to be in no hurry to finish off the Guardian he still presses into the stone. Metal screeches, and then the front of the man’s breastplate goes flying by me.
“Jade!”
He glances over his shoulder at me, eyes widening only a fraction as he takes in my appearance. I haven’t seen myself, but I’m sure it’s a stark difference from when he left me at the border.
There’s a tearing sound, and then a heap of fabric hits me in the chest. I catch it as Jade speaks. “Wipe your face.”
I do, and the torn shirt comes back as red as the ground beneath me.
He turns back to the Guardian. “Do you remember me? Because I remember you.”
I should have known Jade wouldn’t be able to resist satisfying some of his vengeance. Quinn told me that he had some of his memories. Only the most painful ones. The ones of cruelty and abuse and injustice. That’s why he hated me, and why sometimes I think he still does.
Whoever this Guardian is, he’d been part of it. I try to place him, but the only detail my brain provides is that his name starts with the letter ‘D’.
“How could I forget?” he sneers, though the fear in his eyes in unmistakable. Jade is more than he could have ever imagined. A winged beast with claws that could end a life with a single swipe. But when his eyes slide to me, that fear turns into something else. “Well, look at that. I guess she enjoyed your stalking , after all.”
Stalking? What is he talking about?
Jade looks to me again, but this time rage has turned to confusion. “Stalker…” he says, tasting the word before whipping his head back around to the man. He presses harder against the Guardian’s throat, though not hard enough to outright end him. I’m more surprised he hasn’t burst into flames yet, and with the bright glow of the crimson lines that cover Jade’s body, I’m almost certain he’s responsible for the fire raging around us. “You used to call me that. You carved it into my skin and then, when it would fade, you’d do it again. Why?”
“ Why ?” The man almost laughs. “Because you’re a sick fuck. Sneaking off to the palace at night. Spying on the princess. I could have reported you— should have reported you—but then we wouldn’t have had so much fun together.”
When Jade’s gaze returns to me, it’s as if he’s seeing something clearly for the first time. He may not remember our cursed bond or the feelings he once had for me, but the truth in this dark memory shines a light over some of what he couldn’t see. “Why are you here, Abby?”
“Why are you here? You’re supposed to be getting the people out.”
“Rhett can handle it.”
“If that were true, then why are there three terrified women over there who almost got mauled by a pig?” I point behind me, though I don’t know if he’ll be able to see them clearly.
His eyes never leave me, anyway. “I guess that explains the blood. Sorry.”
“Are you? I know you need your vengeance, but this is bigger than you. It’s bigger than all of us.”
Jade’s clawed hand tightens at his side, but then it’s moving. He drives the sharp point of a single claw into the man’s exposed chest and drags it through the skin in a curved shape. And then he does it again and again and fuck , he’s writing .
The cries and pleas that pour from the Guardian’s mouth do nothing to deter the dragon. When he’s done, a single word wet with scarlet shines back at me in the blazing light.
Stalker.
“I should thank you,” Jade says to the trembling man before driving a claw deep into his left thigh. Blood spurts from the wound, but it’s not enough to kill him quickly. This injury is meant to incapacitate. “You helped me remember something else.” He lets the man slide down the wall in a careless heap before taking a step towards me. He unsheathes one of the daggers around my waist and holds it out. “Finish him off for me.”
“Why?”
Jade’s wings stretch out wide behind him as if he plans to take to the sky. “Because the only reason he never reported me was because he, too, was watching you. I thought I wanted him dead because of what he did to me, but I think it’s always been because of you.”
I look down at the knife. “If that were true, he’d already be dead.” Jade— the old Jade —would have made sure of that. Unless he couldn’t. I think back to the one Guardian who touched me and the memory of one of these very same blades twisting into his heart. Jade would have stopped him too, if he could. “You were ordered not to kill the Guardians.”
“Merrick and his rules.” He flaps his wings, sending gusts of hot air blowing my hair back as he hovers a few feet above me. “I’ll get those women to the tunnels and make sure no one else gets left behind. I suggest you get out while you still can.”
And then he’s gone.
The sound of scrabbling across stone draws my gaze back to the Guardian. I hadn’t noticed it before, but now that it’s just the two of us, his wheezing becomes apparent. Jade must have broken a rib or two when he slammed him against the wall.
“Tell me why you deserve to live.” I don’t want to kill him, so if he can give me just one reason why I shouldn’t, that’ll be enough.
He laughs, though it sounds wrong with the damage to his chest. “You’re not going to kill me.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“Do you even know how to use that knife? You should drop it before I take it from you and slit your fucking throat.”
“I’d like to see you try.” A single step forward gives me all the momentum I need to drive it straight into his chest between the letters ‘A’ and ‘L’ before he can even move to stop me. He gasps, though this time it has nothing to do with his broken ribs. I could pull it free and end his suffering sooner, but I have places to be. “You can keep that one. I have more.”
“Fucking bitch,” he spits as he grips the hilt and pulls my knife free. He knows what this means as well as I do. He’s chosen the quicker death, but it’ll take minutes at least.
I don’t bother to reclaim my blade as I turn towards the palace. He’ll need it more than I do. “Watch out for the pigs. They’re hungry.”