13. Imprecation #3
The North was still starving, and she smiled at me like she believed I was going to save them all.
I can complete my quest.
“Please remember,” she said. “You don’t have to be perfect all of the time. You just have to be good.”
I will complete my quest—for her.
I nodded jerkily, pretending like my heart wasn’t separated from my body and beating on the cobblestones at her feet.
Please, old god, let me complete my quest.
Tarantula reappeared beside me, once again moving with eerie silence. If Mom’s spirit was pure light, then his was the gaping darkness between stars.
He bent low and lifted me beneath the knees. Squire hooted, wings flapping as he balanced atop my head. Closing my eyes midair, I tensed. Oh, it’s not an attack.
He held me cradled tenderly against his chest. Even more unsettling. He turned and began walking away.
“You better not hurt her!” Mom called as she stood on the street, face twisted with concern.
I waved back, trying not to give off I’m terrified right now energy, which I was, clearly. Hating how scared she looked, I said quickly, “He’s harmless once you get to know him.”
Tarantula made a choking sound.
“Practically docile,” I added just to annoy him.
From the way he missed a step, it had worked.
Mom tilted her head to the side as she watched us like she was studying something puzzling.
“Let me down. I can walk.” I squirmed. “You’re making me look weak in front of my mom,” I hissed with annoyance.
“How devastating, partner.” His arms felt like steel as they flexed, pinning me gently against him.
“Oh, shut it. I’m not your anything,” I whispered furiously. “Smile and pretend to be nice. I don’t want her to worry.”
He turned back to Mom, lowering his head in an imitation of a formal bow. “I will keep your daughter safe, I promise,” he said with gravitas.
Wait, what?
Mom arched an eyebrow, looking more intrigued by the second.
He turned to continue forward.
“I don’t need your protection,” I said. “Now she’s going to think I’m pathetic and need a man to save me.” I gagged dramatically at the ridiculous notion.
Rolling his eyes, he pointedly looked down at the dagger in my shoulder. “Cease fighting me, syxzal.”
“Tell me what that means.”
“I shan’t.”
“Cad,” I muttered.
“Spidery man very rude,” Squire chirped (helpful).
Tarantula’s jaw clenched, but he didn’t elucidate. The quiet was maddening, and I needed a distraction from the grief of leaving Mom. We were walking away from her when all I wanted to do was run toward her.
“Family traitor,” I spat, wiping at my eyes as I tried to get a reaction out of him.
“First thou condemn me for my loyalty to the Draconis Empire. Then thou slander me for protecting thee from them. Which is it, Ravenal?” He scowled as he easily carried me through the Commune, waiting for my answer.
“Both,” I said, not needing to think about it. “I hate you for both. Either you have loyalty to something or you have nothing. No character. Just cowardice.”
His lips pulled up, face hardening with hostility. “And what art thou loyal to?”
“The Emperor’s demise, the fall of the Draconis Empire, the freedom of Westmere, my mom.” I ticked off each item on my fingers. “Ella and Axel,” I added. My quest.
“Death to the Emperor,” Squire crooned in agreement (extremely helpful).
“Yes,” I said. “Exactly that.”
Squire chirped happily.
“Also, Squire.” I put down another finger. “Obviously.”
Tarantula’s warm breath fanned across my cheek. “I possess more fealty and devotion than thou could ever imagine in your wildest serf dreams.”
“Better a serf—” I held his gaze, refusing to let the word get to me “—than tyrannical scum.”
“Better a tyrant than oppressed.”
“Better to fight oppression than to revel in it. An autocrat always falls.”
“Art thou sure about that?”
“Those who kill for power,” I said, reciting one of Mom’s favorite speeches, “are already dead inside. There’s nothing left of them to save. Tyranny is an atypical state, and nature always corrects itself.”
Tarantula scoffed loudly, the sound vibrating through his chest. “A serf would say such to justify their inability to survive.”
“Careful,” I whispered. “You’re starting to sound like you believe in divine providence—in Aleksander and the Draconis Empire. Playing with other people’s lives is a mental illness.”
Squire cooed in agreement. “Bad, bad man.”
Tarantula snorted.
“The soul of a killer degrades with each murder; what is sowed is always afflicted back,” I whispered.
It was a line from one of my favorite poems, and my stomach ached because it also applied to me.
Hunting was a grisly endeavor, and no amount of self-awareness was going to save me from what I’d become.
Tarantula rolled his eyes, boots crunching through the glass-covered snow.
Wind howled louder, Mist swirling blue around the tree trunks as we stepped back out into the Barren Forest. “Ah, brat . . . that is what thou art not comprehending,” he said sotto voce.
“I have never once claimed to possess a soul. That is for your people.”
My people?
Dread crawled up my esophagus.