Chapter 33
Revna
I paced across the wooden floorboards of the inn, restless as ever. My fingers drummed against Aloisa’s hilt. S?ren, who somehow managed to lounge on the bed, said, “You’re thinking too loud.”
I tensed. “I’m worried. What if—”
“If today is different?” He sat up, brushing hair out of his face. Dark circles had taken up residence beneath his eyes. He could argue with me about my anxieties all he wanted. I knew he wasn’t sleeping through the night either. “Maybe it will be. But we’re working on a plan.”
“It’s not enough.” I tugged at the ends of my hair, looking anywhere but at his face.
After the disastrous events of the festival, S?ren and I had both awoken in the forest just outside the Kryllian palace.
The same place where he’d told me the truth about what happened with Frode.
Astrid had been in a panic. “I didn’t know where else to go,” she kept signing, the words repeating again and again as if it would give them substance.
I’d put my hands on her shoulders, which stopped the worst of her shaking.
Then I’d caught sight of S?ren, still unconscious in the grass.
My mind was nothing but white noise. “We need a safe place to stay,” I’d managed to sign back.
“I know where the village is. Help me carry S?ren.” Having a task had calmed her somewhat.
S?ren’s teeth chattered and he stirred into consciousness when I hauled him to his feet.
“My Lurae.” His voice was hoarse. “It’s gone. ”
“I know,” I’d said, holding back tears. The names of the people we’d left behind looped through my mind over and over again, along with the fate we’d likely sentenced them to. Freja. Volkan. Jac. Arne, even.
There were others, too. The girl we’d danced with all morning.
The seamstress who made my dress. The baker whose pastries I’d eaten only a few hours ago.
We pulled S?ren through the forest slowly.
Eventually, he’d managed to walk on his own.
Dark circles clung beneath his eyes. “There’s an inn,” he told Astrid.
“Nilurae and Lurae are both welcome there. Can you secure us a room and then come back and teleport us?”
She’d chewed her lip. “Will they understand my signing?”
“Probably not, but they shouldn’t be rude about it.” S?ren pulled from some inner strength to reassure her—a strength I lacked. Inside me there was nothing but a gaping hole. “They’ll offer you a pen and paper to write on.”
Astrid departed without another word. Only once she was gone did I collapse to my knees, my own shock and devastation catching up with me. In my dream with the Tapestry, I’d been totally coherent and calm. I did not have the same luxury now.
S?ren had sat down, leaning back against the trunk of a tree.
I’d crawled on my hands and knees until I reached him, curling up beneath his arm and pressing my head against his chest. He let out a laugh, but there was no humor in it.
“Did you know this forest is full of ghosts?” he said.
“I can’t see them anymore. Can’t hear them. They’re just…gone.”
Now a knock sounded. The inn wasn’t crowded, but it wasn’t empty of patrons either.
A perfect balance for us to remain hidden as long as we obscured our most defining features with the hoods of our cloaks.
Astrid came and went as she pleased, and no one had bothered to stop her.
I wasn’t sure whether news of our escape hadn’t yet reached Kryllian or if the queen had chosen to forget about us.
I turned away from S?ren, who leaned on one of the bedposts, and rushed to open the door.
Astrid slipped in soundlessly, putting down her hood once the door was closed and locked behind her.
“What news?” I demanded.
She shook her head. “The same as yesterday and the day before. Freja, Volkan, and Jac are all being held in Bhorglid’s prison, but they haven’t been harmed. I presume Jac and Volkan have had their Lurae taken, like the others being held with them. The place is still swarming with silencers.”
Relief fell over me like a waterfall, and I was suddenly exhausted. I sat down on the bed next to S?ren, who grabbed my hand and squeezed it. “Did you go into town at all?” he asked.
“I didn’t get far before I was forced to come back here,” she said, grimacing. “There are priests everywhere. No real citizens out and about, except for a few Lurae who seem thrilled with the change in leadership. I wasn’t able to speak with any of the prisoners either.”
“We need to go rescue them,” I said.
Astrid and S?ren exchanged a look.
“We’ve waited too long,” I argued. “Callum and Arraya could kill them at any moment. If we want to have any chance of defeating these false gods, then we have to get our friends out.”
Astrid shook her head. “I want that more than anyone. But it isn’t possible. Not with only three of us. There are three prisoners, and we’d have to get them all quite far from the prison before I could teleport them away. If a single silencer chases after us far enough, then we’re fucked.”
“The sword then,” I said, refusing to think about every other time we’d had this argument, every other time we’d run these scenarios through over the past three days. “We go in, steal the sword, kill Callum and Arraya.”
“Revna.” S?ren’s voice was gentle and I hated it. I pulled my hand from his and crossed my arms. “You already know the answer. If we messed anything up, your friends would be killed to punish us. Are you willing to risk that?”
Tears burned in my eyes and I shook my head. “I feel so helpless. I want to be doing something. If it’s numbers we need, then let’s go find more people to join us.”
“I’ve been looking for Nilurae, whenever I go to Bhorglid,” Astrid said quietly.
“To see if they have interest in joining our cause. I haven’t been able to find anyone yet, but maybe when I travel there tomorrow I’ll spend more time in the city proper.
If Freja, Volkan, and Jac haven’t been killed or slated for public execution by this point, then I think the queen plans to keep them alive—if only to use as bait for you two. ”
“We can start looking for people sympathetic to our cause here, in Kryllian,” S?ren chimed in. “But we’ll need to be incredibly discreet about it. Otherwise, word of our location might get back to Arraya.”
“Word is going to get back to her either way. I don’t exactly blend in,” I said, gesturing to the scars on my face.
I’d barely left the room since we arrived.
Mira and S?ren brought me any meals, and the one time I had gone out, desperate for a sight besides the plain walls, I’d crept out the window and scaled down the side of the building. Just in case.
“Revna is right,” S?ren said wearily. “It’s time to form a better plan. We can’t hide away forever.”
I cleared my throat. “Go rest,” I signed to Astrid. She was swaying on her feet, the effort of so much teleportation wearing on her. “We can meet again once you’ve gotten some sleep and some food. Hopefully by then we’ll be able to come up with a plan.”
Astrid didn’t argue. She closed the door quietly behind her and I locked it, then leaned my forehead against the wood and let out a groan.
S?ren came up behind me and wrapped his arms around my waist. I allowed it, despite my begrudging mood. The work of rescuing my friends was slow—and all the more tainted by the knowledge that I had caused it this time.
They likely didn’t even want me to save them.
He laid his chin against the top of my head. For a long, blissful moment, I simply basked in his warmth, allowing my nerves to settle. He’d given me the space I needed over the last few days, remaining close enough to offer comfort if I went to him.
I knew the loss of his Lurae was affecting him deeply. Neither of us was sleeping well, and I’d caught him staring at his palms and flexing his fingers with a furrowed brow more than once.
We’d also been visited by the Tapestry every night, shown visions of the past until we could barely keep them straight.
Arraya, meeting in secret with the priests after I won the Trials, coordinating them for when Callum rose again.
They’d been hiding out in the hills near the prison, and she’d been traveling there to visit and speak with them on a near-daily basis ever since.
We’d also seen Aloisa and her sons becoming gods to the priests after she defeated Callum with the Soulcleaver—the original Holy Order taking to heart Callum’s doctrine that “the strongest deserve the most power.”
The priests had been desperate for someone to worship once their original leader was killed.
Aloisa had gone into hiding, and her sons had eventually relocated to Kryllian and Faste.
But Bhorglid had held on to a warped idea of them all, using their fiction to create a reality where the Nilurae suffered.
Watching it all had been exhausting. Even though I recognized the importance of understanding what had happened in the past, it made me dread sleeping. Especially thinking of how such terrible things might happen again—all because of me.
“How are you doing?” I murmured, letting myself relax against him. S?ren. My anchor, my rock.
“Surviving,” he murmured. “Astrid is trying to be strong for us, but she’s just as worried as we are.”
Guilt dug into me like a blade. “I know. She’s thinking of Freja, I’m sure.”
“I don’t blame her. I’d be rampaging into the prison alone if it were you.”
Despite our situation, I couldn’t help a fond smile. Of course you love him, I thought. He is the only one who has seen all of you and never turned away, no matter the cost.
He adjusted his position, lips moving to brush against my ear as he murmured, “What do you want to do when this is all over?”
“What do you mean?”