TWENTY #4
“No!” I scream, my legs giving out. I sag to my knees, voice choking around the splintering pain in my wrist. “Help him. I’m the one you want. Please.”
The word please tastes like poison on my tongue.
Kieren drags himself another inch closer. His elbow collapses. He cries out, the sound so helpless that something inside my chest tears open.
One of the men nudges him with a boot.
This time, Kieren doesn’t move.
“Should have listened when he told you to run,” the man mocks.
I barely hear him as I stare at Kieren. His chest lifts, and air rushes back into my own lungs. He’s alive. Breathing. There’s still time.
I snarl, but the hand on my wrist tightens before I can dive toward him.
“Get her up,” another orders.
The bartender bends and unleashes the hounds. The dogs bound toward Kieren and sniff.
“Get home,” the bartender commands them. They back away, tails tucking between their legs, and then retreat into the woods.
The man releases my arm and heaves me to my feet, drags me toward a dead tree at the edge of the clearing.
Rope scrapes roughly against my skin, biting into my wrists as one pulls it into a tight loop.
Another man stoops to gather fallen branches, snapping them over his knee and piling them at the base of the trunk with slow, deliberate care.
The branches are green and wet; they won’t burn fast. The fire will take its time.
My heart slams against my ribs. There is no time. If Kieren doesn’t get help, if they wait for the fire to catch, it will be too late.
I look at the man binding me, trying to keep my lower lip from quivering and failing. “Please. He didn’t do anything. I came back. You have to help him.”
He won’t even meet my eyes.
“Tie her up proper,” his friend says. “We only get one chance.”
I blink at the man closest to me. “Why are you doing this?”
He grins, white teeth flashing in the night. “Burning the harbinger to appease the Stars.”
“And start a war,” the other adds with glee.
I sputter as it hits me. “That’s what you want, isn’t it?”
This isn’t about the raven-mark or superstitious paranoia.
The grin widens. “There’s money in war.”
They know exactly what they’re doing.
I was always going to die—one way or another.
And now Kieren will pay the price.
I sag under the truth’s weight. I should have let them execute me that night.
Two of the men force me against the tree, rope biting deeper as they raise my wrists over my head and tie the rope around the trunk. I struggle, twisting in vain, the bark scraping my skin raw.
“Kieren!” I cry again. “Please … please don’t leave him.”
But they don’t even look at him.
Kieren tries to lift his head one last time. His mouth moves, his lips trying to form a word and fumbling.
Fire blazes to life beneath me, branches crackling as they spark and ignite.
The flames creep closer, licking at the hem of my cloak as the smoke rises, stinging my eyes and lodging in my throat.
“Kieren,” I sob, coughing as my lungs fill with smoke. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
I can’t see him anymore, but I want him to know I’m here.
Flames lick my boots, and then—
Steel rings out.
A body hits the ground hard enough to shake the earth beneath me.
Another scream cuts short.
Through the haze, a dark figure surges forward. The flames throw his shadow long, stretching and warping it until it looks inhuman. Metal flashes in the firelight, and hope punches into my chest so hard it hurts.
“Bishop …” I rasp, but the rest burns away in my throat.
He moves like the fire isn’t there. Like the men aren’t there. Like the only thing that exists is me.
One of them charges him with his sword raised. Bishop sidesteps and drives his blade straight through the man’s chest. There’s no flourish, no hesitation—just the sickening certainty of the strike. The body collapses at Bishop’s feet.
His gaze darts to the flames climbing my legs, now calf-height, and his expression tenses.
He lifts his eyes up to mine, and for a second, everything disappears.
I don’t feel the icy lick of flames through my pants.
Don’t smell the sickening stench of burning flesh.
There’s only the determined glint in Bishop’s eyes.
My heart lurches as another man lunges at him. Bishop turns too late, distracted by me, and steel bites into his shoulder. He grunts as blood soaks his sleeve.
“Get him!”
Bishop answers by ripping the sword free and smashing the hilt into the man’s face. Bone cracks, and he staggers back as Bishop slashes his throat. He kicks the body aside and keeps moving toward me.
The bartender backs away, eyes widening. “You’re too late,” he shouts, trying to sound brave even as his voice shakes. Bishop doesn’t slow. The bartender holds up his hands. “It’s already—”
Bishop cuts him down mid-sentence.
The last man breaks and runs.
Bishop lets him.
Silence crashes down as suddenly as the violence erupted, broken only by the crackle of the fire and my ragged, desperate gasps for air. My eyes water as the acrid stench of burning fabric fills my nostrils. White-hot heat creeps up my legs. I yank at the ropes, but they hold.
“Arden.” Bishop rushes toward me.
I can’t answer. I can hardly see him through the smoke.
He shrugs off his tunic as he approaches, firelight illuminating his bare chest and the patterns mapped across his flesh. They glow faintly, lines intersecting and branching.
He steps into the pyre.
Flames curl around his boots and lick up his legs, snapping hungrily at his skin, but he doesn’t flinch. He just kicks at the burning logs, shoving them aside like unwanted guests.
“Bishop … I …” I cough, something wild flaring in my chest.
He reaches up and slices through the rope binding my wrists with one clean stroke. My arms collapse uselessly at my sides, and I sag forward. Bishop catches me before I fall into the fire.
“It’s all right,” he murmurs, pulling off my cloak and tossing it to the side. He guides my arms into his tunic, pulling it over my head to cover my ruined sweater. “I’ve got you.”
He lifts me, and I lock my arms around his neck, press my face into his chest, cling.
“Kieren,” I whisper. “Please. Kieren.”
Bishop stiffens. “In a moment.”
He carries me out of the fire, away from the tree, away from death. My vision clears just enough for me to see Kieren sprawled in the mud where they left him.
He lies on his back, eyes open and staring at nothing.
“No, no, no—”
We’re supposed to be on a boat. This was going to be an adventure.
Bishop lowers me beside him without a word and backs up a step. But only one step.
I scramble to Kieren’s side, pressing my hands to his chest, his neck, anywhere I can think to feel for life.
“Stay with me,” I whisper. “Please. I’m here. I didn’t leave.”
His skin is already cooling.
There’s no breath. No pulse.
He was still talking about Isidore an hour ago, like the future was a thing that could be bargained for. He can’t just be … gone.
I fold over him, a sound ripping out of me that comes from somewhere so deep inside I feel it in my bones. I can’t breathe.
I ran.
I turned back.
But I didn’t save him.
“Kieren.” I cup his face with both hands and cry. “I’m so sorry.”
The words aren’t enough, but it’s all I can manage as my throat closes.
Those men came for me, and he was in the way.
My vision blurs, tears mixing with ash. He’ll never see the Lost Continent.
Never cheat sailors at Liar’s Hand. There won’t be any adventures.
No new life in a new world. And he will never go back home to Damalis, fortune made.
This can’t be how it ends.
Something heavy thumps behind me, and I whirl toward the sound, expecting another ambush.
But it’s Bishop. He’s on one knee, blinking down at the hand holding his stomach.
But all I can see is the blood pouring through his fingers.
I’d only seen the one slice into his shoulder. This one is much, much worse.
“Bishop?” I croak.
He sways and drops to both knees in front of me.
Panic slams into me, and I lurch forward, pressing my hands over his bloody ones. I don’t know what to do, where to hold pressure. I just push like I can shove the wound back inside him. “I’m going to Wolf’s Keep.” I’m afraid to leave him, but what choice do I have? “To get a healer …”
“No … It’s too dangerous.” His voice is raspy, each word strained.
“There’s time.” I shake my head, even though something in me knows better. “I’ll bring help.”
I can’t let him die.
His fingers wrap around my wrist. “Arden.” He swallows. It takes effort. “Listen.”
I press harder against the wound. “Don’t say it.”
I can’t lose him, too.
I don’t care that he’s a heart collector. Don’t care what he’s done. All I see is the man who came for me. Saved me. And he’s bleeding out in front of me.
He tries to speak again but has to stop. Sucking in a reedy breath, he forces the words out. “There isn’t time.” He pauses, chest stuttering. “I won’t let them take you.”
His other hand fumbles for the blade at his thigh. Misses the strap. Tries again.
I grab the dagger and thrust it into his palm. “Here. Just … just hold on.”
His fingers close over mine, holding the knife between us. They’re warm and steady in a way that doesn’t make sense.
“It’s the only way,” he says.
“No,” I whisper, shaking my head violently. “No. Not like this. Not you, too.”
He smiles up at me with glassy eyes, and my chest aches. “You did what you could,” he mumbles. “Now trust me.”
He shifts his grip, guiding my hand before I understand what he’s doing.
And drives the blade into his own throat.
Cartilage splinters as it slides in, warm blood spilling on my hands.
His grip on mine loosens, and I fling the blade in the dirt.
The sound that tears out of me doesn’t belong to my body. It rips through the trees, reaching the stars as his weight settles fully against me.
And Bishop Marius dies in my arms.