26. Zari
Chapter twenty-six
Zari
A s darkness settled, Yansin led them to a small glen, where feather-like ferns ringed ancient trees, their bright green fronds standing out against the shadowed forest floor.
A gentle stream meandered through the glen, winding around smooth stones.
The tree branches above filtered the moonlight into a soft, dappled glow, reflected in the waters.
“Good, my memory isn’t as bad as I feared it might be.” Yansin gestured at the stream. “That’s clean water, purified and safe for drinking.”
“How do you know?” Zari remained skeptical, given the biology textbooks she’d read. He’d also told her that his memories were fragmented from the war. The combination of the two made her hesitate.
Kneeling, Yansin cupped his hands in the stream. He lifted a handful of water to his mouth and drank deeply. “A fae mage carved sigils into a stone upstream from here. The purifying magic lives on, though…” his smile faltered. “Though the mage does not.”
“How can you be sure?”
“No fae mage survived the war.”
“But Tivre—”
“Is something both more powerful than a mage, and far less trained.”
Yansin had spoken as if he knew the white-haired fae. He was keeping secrets. Ones that she was becoming increasingly concerned about. “You said you fought in the war,” Zari began slowly. “Which side did you fight on? ”
His expression grew more solemn, darkening his hazel eyes. “Does it matter now?” he asked. “Or did it ever matter, when soldiers were tasked to do what their leaders commanded, and punished with death if their morals told them otherwise?”
A conviction carried in his words, a soft, banked fire of intensity, as if he would never yield to one he disagreed with, no matter the risks. “Yansin… did you desert?”
Glancing away from her, he nodded. “There was no side that I would not be asked to kill those who looked like my family.”
She thought of his agonized murmurs, the mention of blood, his fragmented memories, and realized how great a burden he carried. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered. “I can’t imagine.”
“Nor would I ever ask you to. I hope that war will never again burn through these lands. The stream is safe; its water purified. The greedy hearts of those in power… those are not so easily cleansed.”
When she drank from it, she marveled at how crisp the cool water tasted. With a yawn, she lay down, not minding the pine needles or grass beneath her. Just a moment’s rest, she told herself, and she’d wake back up.
Sunrise woke her. Shafts of dawn’s light filtered through the trees, dappling the pine needles and the grass where Zari sat, her chin resting on her knees, as Yansin tended the fire with quiet efficiency, his brow furrowed.
Onto the smoldering embers he added a dry stick of wood.
He’d pulled his hair back and rolled his sleeves up, focused on the task.
Zari watched, taking in every detail, how graceful his movements were, how the firelight caught in the gold flecks of his hazel eyes.
He’d told her he’d deserted, but she still couldn’t imagine him as a soldier.
He was too gentle, too sweet, too graceful to be anything but an artist.
“When did you come to the capital?” she asked.
“A few years ago,” he replied, still prodding at the fire.
“What did you do before then?”
He didn’t look up at her. “I believe I may have mentioned a few bouts of petite larceny. ”
A breeze swept through the glen. It was sharp and cold, carrying none of the spring warmth from earlier. The hairs on Zari’s arms prickled. The fire flickered violently, flames bending sideways as if sucked toward something unseen.
The smoke from the fire thickened, swirling in a slow spiral, unnaturally dark and heavy. Shimmering, it changed colors, morphing from ashy-white to purple.
“Yansin!” Panic crested in Zari’s voice. That was the same shade the smoke had been the night of the attack. Whatever had been summoned that terrible evening had returned, or worse, had followed them.
The smoke hovered, then dipped to the forest floor, writhing like a nest of snakes.
Tendrils shot out as if tasting the surrounding air.
It coalesced into a tangled mess of thick, smoky vines.
The thickest surged forward, whipping toward her, and caught her around the waist, lifting her from the ground like a doll.
Yansin shouted, but she couldn’t see him. The smoke pulled itself over her face, masking the world from view. Smoke clawed at her throat. She gasped, struggling, the world narrowing.
She kicked wildly, and the smoke threw her against the ground. Her shoulder slammed into the earth. She rolled, coughing, eyes stinging. Still. She was free. But where was Yansin? A flash of red hair caught her eye. She turned toward him.
A barrier of smoke rose up, as thick as a retaining wall, separating them from each other.
“Zari!” Yansin’s voice was distant, muffled by the thickening air.
She needed to fight back. Could anything cut through the smoke?
Another tendril wrapped around her ankle.
It jerked backward, slamming her to the ground.
With one hand, Zari reached desperately for the sword, which lay just out of reach.
Her fingers closed around the hilt, warmed from the sun.
She slashed at the smoke, desperately, but nothing she did had any effect.
Where was Yansin? She couldn’t see anything beyond the cloudy mass of purple .
She screamed as another tendril wrapped around her wrist. The sword twisted in her hand. She pulled back. The smoke tightened, cutting off circulation. Her fingers no longer obeyed her wishes. Gritting her teeth, she tried again to move her hand, to cut through the tendrils.
The smoke yanked at her arm, as if it knew her intentions, and the blade’s arc landed against Zari’s own left shoulder.
The blood bloomed for a second before the pain set in. Zari hissed, dropping the sword. A smoke tendril knocked it away. She lunged forward, trying to grasp the weapon, but fell onto her knees. Her balance was off, her head spinning from the wound. Without silverbane, it wouldn’t clot.
Panic set in. She was unarmed, dizzy, and the smoky tendrils seemed to be growing larger and stronger. She pushed herself to stand, desperate to try again, just as a hand closed on the dropped sword.
Yansin!
As soon as his fingers wrapped around the hilt, he sprang forward. With the first sweep of his arm, he sliced through the thickest tendril. Unlike her feeble attack, his cut through the smoke. The blade shimmered as he whirled, turning to feint and lunge again.
“Get to the fire!” he shouted to her. “Flames will chase it back.”
Understanding, Zari nodded and sprinted toward the campfire. She seized the largest branch. With a yank, she tugged it away from the others until it was free. As if it was a torch, she held it aloft, wincing as the sparks fell.
Yansin was already at her side. He was swift, far faster than any human she’d ever met, with steps so silent they seemed to never land fully on the ground. “Follow my attacks,” he told her. “That smoke will weaken with each cut.”
Together, they moved. Yansin first, the blade a bright shining beacon in his hands, and Zari, with the fiery torch behind him.
It was as if she followed his lead in a dance.
A deadly serious dance, where a wrong move might mean that same sword swinging directly into her body.
Tightening her grip on the burning stick, Zari kept her focus solely on Yansin, watching his every movement, mirroring his effortless slashes and dodges as best she could.
The smoke recoiled from their attacks .
“Keep it up,” Yansin whispered, his tone deadly serious.
All his languid grace, his playfulness, had vanished.
Instead, he moved with furious intention, every arc of his blade a perfect sweep, every lunge surely enough to fell a human…
or a fae. If he had been a soldier, he must have trained hard to fight as he did.
More tendrils of smoke fell to their attacks. Piece by piece, it diminished. Finally, only one thick vine of smoke remained. With a curt exhale, Yansin charged forward. He leapt, blade raised above his head, before bringing it down, cutting the vine in half.
The bits that remained fell to the forest floor like spilled ink, rippling away into the undergrowth.
Zari waited until it was entirely gone to drop her weapon. Only then did she allow herself to look at the wound, pulling away the sliced fabric with trembling fingers. It wasn’t deep. It didn’t matter. She had no silverbane. Overwhelmed, she sank to her knees, a single soft sob escaping her.
Yansin kneeled beside her. “You’re hurt.”
She nodded numbly. “My own sword,” she muttered.
“I am sorry for that. The magic in its forging must have made it easier for the smoke to control. No fae blade is ever truly safe for a human. Magic can always twist their will.” Yansin pulled a small flask from his coat and uncorked it, the sharp, herbal scent rising between them.
She’d come to love that sharp aroma for the magic it offered humans in need. “Is that what I think it is?” she asked, her eyes widening with hope.
“Yes. Distilled silverbane. Found it at the Lockwood manor.”
“But why would he…” Zari trailed off. If Lockwood had enough silverbane to be able to distill it, then clearly, the knowledge of the plant had been shared with others, and kept away from nurses like her.
“The distilled stuff’s a lot stronger but it will sting,” Yansin said, confirming her suspicions that soldiers, or former soldiers, seemed to know more about it than she did. “Hold still.”
Zari winced, teeth clenched as he poured it onto the wound. The cut sizzled, her skin tightening around the edges; already the bleeding had slowed. She stretched slowly, testing the pain. Manageable. “Thank you,” she told Yansin.
He didn’t respond. He was staring down at the grass, where her blood had fallen and mingled with bits of ash from her makeshift torch. His jaw tightened, as if he was holding something back.
Zari spoke first. “You weren’t surprised by the smoke.”
“I had a sense that we were being followed by another fae. Not one of your friends, I don’t think. Whoever it was must be powerful, for that smoke spell is no easy charm.”
“Tivre’s magic is always green,” she said. “And Hazelle’s is pink. Does each fae have a color for their magic?” Puzzle pieces clicked together, assembling something that terrified her.
Yansin nodded, just once.
“So if that smoke is magic, and if it’s purple, just like it was in the capital… then there’s a pretty good chance it’s the same fae casting the spell?”
He didn’t answer, but the sharp look in his eyes told her that she’d guessed right.
“But why? The Accords. Shouldn’t they keep us safe?”
Yansin took a deep, steadying breath. “As I understand them, the Accords, like all fae things, have loopholes.”
“It wasn’t just the fae! My father would have never—”
“Your father?” he asked, his voice sharpening. An echo of that earlier Yansin, the one who had fought so ferociously, reappeared. “What do you mean?”
She’d never told him that her father was General Ankmetta, the man who had led the Rhydonian forces until his death. How would Yansin, a deserter, feel about that? Did she have any choice but to tell him? “He…” she began, “he was the leader of the Rhydonian delegation that signed the document.”
“I was unaware it was a delegation,” Yansin replied. “I was told the signing parties were quite small, hence the need for Rhydonia to vote on it. Because General Ankmetta was—”
“My father,” she finished for him.
The knot in her chest twisted tighter as Yansin’s expression closed off. “That explains a great deal about why the fae told you he was alive.”
Zari’s mouth tasted like ash, as if the smoke had crept into her very lungs.
What he’d said, the fae told you , implied that it wasn’t true.
Worse, that made far more sense than believing in a miracle.
Still. Tivre had her father’s pocket watch.
He’d give her his word. “The Accords,” she pressed the issue.
“They said that no fae will kill a human.”
“No Oathborn fae,” Yansin corrected, a strange heaviness in his tone. “That wording would allow other fae to do as they wish.”
“If that’s the case, why would my father, why would any Rhydonian, sign it?”
Yansin closed his eyes. “Who wouldn’t be desperate for peace by then, desperate enough to take any truce, no matter how flimsy.
Anything to stem the tide of bloodshed and loss.
Whoever is behind this smoke wants the Accords to break.
They are seeking to cause confusion, panic, and hatred. All things that bring about violence.”
She thought back to the men dead on the steps, the agony of those in the hospital, who would have perished if not for the silverbane. “The smoke is fanning the flames of war,” she said. “Giving Rhydonia a reason to attack.”
“Exactly.” He picked up Zari’s sword, looking down at his reflection in the gleaming blade. “The Accords are fragile. If a human kills a fae, and acts out of self-interest, not self-defense, the peace will shatter forever.”
“What if it’s a half-fae who dies?” Even saying the thought made a lump form in her throat.
“I do not know the answer to that, nor do I wish to.” His eyes held none of the usual warmth, only grief. “I fear that the longer I journey with you, the more you will become a target. I will not endanger you,” Yansin said. The words that followed left her chilled. “Not more than I already have.”