TWENTY-ONE
My legs go numb, but I don’t move. The fire burns down to embers. The smoke thins, and the forest settles into an uneasy quiet, broken only by the distant rush of the sea and the low crackle of smoldering branches.
Bishop lies in my arms, his body too heavy. The pale patterns mapped on his skin darken like the magic has been poisoned and died with him.
I ran. I thought I had to for Kieren—and for me. I thought it was the right thing to do. I thought Bishop was a monster.
Instead, he came for me. He saved me.
He found that letter—
And now he’s dead.
They’re both dead.
Kieren’s hand was warm when he squeezed mine at the crossroads.
Now it’s bloody and still in the mud beside me.
My tears run dry before the fire goes out. I can’t summon another sob even when I try, as though my body has decided this is as much as it can survive.
I can’t keep looking at them. If I do, I’ll start screaming again.
So, I tilt my head back. Smoke drifts across the sky in pale ribbons, briefly smudging the constellations before the wind tears them apart.
The stars look the same as they always have, except for the Night’s Scar gaping above me, that single star blazing inside it like an accusation.
Everything I touch dies.
The thought presses in and won’t retreat. My parents. My home. Kieren. Bishop.
I squeeze my eyes shut, but the truth won’t go away any more than that fucking star will.
A faint vibration hums against my palm, startling my attention back to Bishop. The buzz grows insistent, and I slip my hand into the pocket of his pants and find his astrolabe.
Its faint light pulses weakly, as if echoing a heartbeat that no longer exists, then gutters out.
Bishop planned for this.
Of course he did. He planned for everything. Except for dying and leaving me with the aftermath.
The realization barely registers. I don’t have the strength to care who he contacted or why. Instead, I let the astrolabe slip from my fingers and fall into the mud beside us.
Nothing matters now.
My gaze drifts to the dagger lying near my knee. The blade is dark with blood, and a quiet dawning slips in—an ending is within reach.
I pick up the dagger and turn it over with deliberation, watching how the light slides along its stained edge. My grip tightens once, then loosens. Blood has dried into the lines of my palm, cracking when I flex my fingers. Kieren trusted me. Bishop saved me. They’re gone, but the dagger is here.
Branches snap somewhere behind me—too loud, too sudden in the quiet—and instinct flares.
If more people are coming to kill the harbinger, so be it.
But it’s Taliesin’s voice that breaks the night. “Arden.”
Taliesin barrels into the clearing like he expects to find a brawl and a punch line, but he stops short.
The hand on the hilt of his sword slackens and drops to his side as he turns, taking in the full scene.
His gaze lands on me, on the body in my arms and the one beside me, and his throat slides.
Without a word, he bends, lifting my fallen cloak from the ground, and drapes it carefully over Kieren’s body.
I should have done that.
I left him uncovered, like I left him to die.
“May the Stars welcome you,” he murmurs over my best friend, “and may the night be kinder to you than this world was.”
He lingers for a moment like he’s adding another private prayer before he turns to me, but I don’t look up.
It’s as though I can’t, as though something heavy weighs my eyes to the dirt that’s still soaking up Bishop’s blood. I can’t look at Bishop.
I can’t look at Kieren—not when looking would mean admitting that he’s gone.
Taliesin kneels in front of me and reaches for the knife. My fingers lock around the hilt like it’s the only solid thing left in the world.
“Easy,” he says in a low voice. “You don’t need that.”
He pries it from my hand slowly as if afraid I might shatter if he handles me too roughly.
Light bobs in the trees, and Vessica steps into view a heartbeat later, sword already in hand. Her eyes sweep the clearing, cataloging the damage.
“What the fuck happened?” she demands.
Taliesin shoots her a look. “Not now.”
She follows his gaze to me, then to Bishop’s body, and her breath leaves her in a single, sharp exhale.
“Stars above,” she mutters. “Of course.” Her eyes sweep the bodies like a battlefield report.
But when they land on me—on Bishop—something hard strains in her jaw. She doesn’t say anything.
Somehow, that’s worse.
Taliesin straightens, squaring his shoulders. “Get her back to Miradores.”
I shouldn’t go back there. Not after I ran from it.
But Vessica doesn’t move as she asks, “What about … you?”
“I’ll handle this,” he says more seriously than I’ve ever heard him, whatever mask he usually wears replaced by grim determination.
Maybe they’re used to this as soldiers, accustomed to watching their friends fall and not get back up. Maybe death is a fact they’ve learned to live with.
She nods, sheathing her sword. Stepping forward, she crouches down so that we’re face-to-face. “You need to get up.”
I tighten my arms around Bishop’s body.
“I can’t leave,” I whisper. “I never should have left.”
That’s how this all started. I can’t let it end that way, too. Because if I let go of Bishop, this becomes real. If it’s real, then Kieren is gone, too.
Her jaw clenches. “We’re leaving. Now.”
I sink closer to the ground.
“This is where I belong. With them.” The words come out flat and distant, sounding like they belong to someone else.
Vessica’s gaze darts to the cloaked body at my side and narrows with recognition. Her expression shifts slightly. It’s not quite pity, but the edge of her annoyance dulls. “You can’t help them. Now get up.”
I stare at her for a long moment, searching for something—some mercy or reassurance that I can cling to.
There’s none.
My arms loosen inch by inch, like I’m lowering something fragile instead of letting go. The cold rushes in, erasing the last traces of his warmth on my skin. Vessica holds out a hand, and I clasp it, allowing her to haul me onto my feet. Instantly, pain ricochets up my legs, and I stagger a step.
Vessica catches me before I collapse. “Be careful. You’re burned,” she says, glancing down at my boots and the blackened hem.
Her gaze travels up to my torn-open clothing and exposed skin above the deep vee in Bishop’s tunic, and anger flashes across her face.
Her grip locks, like she’s imagining throats under her blade. “We’ll deal with that later.”
I look down to discover my pants scorched and half melted, the skin beneath raw and oozing.
“I’m okay,” I mumble, trying to pull away from her.
But Vessica doesn’t release me.
“Just let me help you,” she says too smoothly. Even now, she is fury packed into a tight, disciplined shape.
She keeps one arm locked around my waist but reaches out to pull Bishop’s tunic closed. Her hold on me is a vise grip as we move through the trees as though she’s afraid I might dissolve if she loosens it.
I stumble more than walk, each step more agonizing than the last.
Vessica notices. “We can slow down,” she offers, “or take a break.”
I don’t deserve a break. I deserve to be lying dead back in that clearing.
“No.” I grit my teeth and push on. “What is he going to do with the …”
I can’t bring myself to say the word bodies, but it echoes in my brain like the men’s chant. Another fact of life that I can’t escape any more than the raven-mark on my chest.
“He’ll take care of it.” She shifts her hold on me, trying to support more of my weight.
“Kieren.” My heart cracks when I say his name. “Can we bury him?”
“We don’t leave our dead in the dirt. I’ll talk to Bishop—” She flinches, realizing her mistake. “I’m sure something can be arranged.”
I don’t press for more. She has her own grief to manage—her own body to bury.
Trees give way to the road. We’ve cut through the forest at an angle, and the bridge to the estate looms ahead, a heavy mist blanketing it. Beyond, Miradores rises like a gravestone out of the fog.
The door flies open before we reach it. Lenora stands in her nightclothes on the threshold, and her face crumples the instant she sees me.
“Stars preserve us,” she whispers. “What—”
“Get Hadrian,” Vessica orders, already steering me inside. “Now.”
Lenora doesn’t argue. She gives me one more horrified look and disappears to fetch him from his chambers off the library.
Vessica leads me upstairs and deposits me on the edge of my bed. I suck in a deep breath, relieved to be off my feet. Right now, even my bones ache from trying to hold myself together. She lifts my left leg gingerly, and I wince.
“Sorry,” she mutters as she examines it. “You’re lucky. These will heal, but you need treatment.”
Luck had nothing to do with it. I’m cursed.
“I’ll send for a healer.” She starts to leave.
I grab her hand to stop her. “No.”
“No?” she repeats like she heard me wrong.
“I don’t want a stranger …” The words bottle up in my throat and refuse to come out. Just the thought of someone touching me, assessing me, knowing what happened—I can’t bear it.
Vessica exhales through her teeth, clearly fighting the urge to argue. “Fine. The Bellatorum will have something. For now,” she adds pointedly. “I’ll get it myself. Don’t move.”
As if I could.
She closes the door behind her, and I sit very still, staring at the place where Bishop’s blood dried on my hands. My fingers open and close as if they’re still searching for someone to hold.
When Lenora returns, she has a basin of water, cloths, and fresh clothes folded over her arm. She moves carefully, watching me with concerned eyes.
“Let’s clean you up,” she suggests, placing the basin beside the bed and the other items on the mattress.
I don’t respond.
She eases Bishop’s tunic above my shoulders and hesitates when she sees my torn clothes underneath. Her lips press into a thin line as she surveys the rest of me.
“Let’s get you in something clean,” she says, easing the ripped sweater off my shoulders. She tugs a sleeping gown over my head, then hesitates. “We need to get those breeches off you, too.”
I nod, reaching under the gown’s hem to unbutton them. Grabbing the waist, I ease them off, wincing with every inch. Lenora takes the scorched pants and drops them on the ground.
I glance down and shiver.
There are angry, red wounds along my calves, some seeping, others blistering. Lenora swallows and begins cleaning the dirt and blood from my skin like she’s done this a hundred times.
She probably has for Bishop and his family, but after tonight …
“What will you do now?” I ask suddenly, the words slipping out before I can stop them.
Lenora pauses, her eyebrows furrowing. Maybe in all the chaos, Vessica didn’t tell her. She resumes blotting soot from my skin with a damp cloth. “We’ll take care of you.”
She doesn’t know. I have to tell her. Not just what happened but what I did.
“Bishop is dead.” The words feel impossible in my mouth, like I’m speaking a language that shouldn’t exist. “I tried to run away. They killed my friend Kieren. Bishop died trying to save me.”
All this loss reduced to those simple facts. But the words sound wrong out loud, like I’m listing events from someone else’s life.
She stills, the rag in her hand dripping onto the floor.
“Sometimes,” she murmurs, “the Stars ask more of us than we’re ready to give. You’ll understand—”
“No.” I shake my head. “Don’t say that. Don’t tell me this was meant to be.”
She considers for a second, searching my face like she might find the right thing to say. She settles on, “All right then.”
Lenora helps me out of the ruined clothes without further comment, sliding fabric away from burned skin with painstaking care. She wraps a blanket around my shoulders, tucking it close like it might keep me from falling apart. “He’ll explain when he arrives.”
“Hadrian?” I shake my head. “I don’t want to see him.”
I can’t face anyone else tonight.
But she rises, ignoring my protest, and throws the dirty clothes in the basin. “I’ll bring you something to drink. All that smoke … Your throat must be raw.”
I manage a nod, and she leaves me with my thoughts. I drift to the window without realizing I’ve moved, my reflection a pale ghost in the glass. The burns smarting my skin are the only proof that I’m not dead.
Moonlight washes over the garden, and in the branches of the nearest willow, a dark shape perches, barely visible against the night. I press a hand to the glass like I can summon it. The oscen cranes its head and stares toward the house. But it doesn’t fly away; it begins to sing.
The song is low and strange—unlike any birdsong I’ve heard before. The thin, aching melody rises and falls and finally settles deep in my bones.
I rest my forehead against the glass as the door opens again behind me.
“Have you come to tell me this isn’t my fault, too, Hadrian?” I ask without turning.
But it isn’t Hadrian who answers.
“No, I haven’t. Because we both know that’s not true.”
I whip toward the familiar voice, and the world tilts under me.
His shirt is clean, but his pants are burned and bloodstained. He’s holding a jar of salve in one hand and a book in the other.
Bishop.
Standing in the doorway.
Talking to me.
Alive.