Chapter 9 #2
Serenya gave him a small smile and then quickly turned her eyes back to the crowd around us.
Brannick sighed the sigh of a male who'd had this conversation before. "He's harmless."
"I am profoundly harmful," Maxx corrected. "I'm just selective about it."
We passed through a narrow corridor, the stone walls slick with moisture and carved with symbols I didn't recognize. Probably warnings. Probably something useful. Another thing no one thought to explain to the fugitive they'd just recruited.
At the edge of the next chamber, two veiled figures sat motionless, their hands moving in eerie synchrony—carving bone tokens into runes without ever looking down.
The Seer Twins.
No one introduced them. No one needed to.
I'd heard the stories—everyone had. The Frozen North's infamous exiles. Aerys and Nyra had committed the one sin their homeland couldn't forgive: they'd changed a prophecy. Reached into the frozen certainty of tomorrow and bent it.
In a land that punished crimes before they were committed, that was more than heresy. It was an unraveling. If the future could be changed, then every law carved in ice was a lie. Every execution for a crime not yet committed was murder.
They veiled their faces, the stories said, not from shame but for mercy. Their unveiled eyes showed you which death walked closest today.
Looking at them now—bone tokens in hand, movements synchronized in that eerie, automated way—I believed every word.
One whispered, "The scar walks."
The other murmured, "Or the wound dreams."
They didn't break rhythm. Just kept carving, their voices threading together like a song sung slightly out of time.
"Ignore them," Maxx said, too cheerfully. "They do that. Last week they told me I'd 'drown in a river of my own making.' Very dramatic. Very unhelpful. I don't even like swimming."
Serenya's brow furrowed. "What did you do?"
"Nothing yet. That's the problem with prophecy—it's all spoilers, no context." He gestured ahead with a flourish. "Moving on before they say something about you and ruin the mystery."
But I glanced back. One of the twins had lifted her head, her veiled face turned toward me. I couldn't see her eyes. I felt them anyway.
Serenya had stopped, too. But she wasn't looking at the Twins. Her attention was locked on the alcove behind them—where shelves had been carved directly into the rock, stuffed with rotting scrolls and leather-bound tomes.
Her fingers twitched at her side, an itch I knew well. The hunger of a scholar starving for ink.
"Come on," I murmured, nudging her. "Book club with creepy twins later. Survival now."
She tore her eyes away, but the look on her face shifted. She wasn't just a refugee anymore. She was a priestess who had just found a goldmine.
The next chamber opened wider, and a figure stepped from the shadows like he'd been cut from them. Enormous. Still. His skin was etched with dragon tattoos that seemed to move, ancient ink shifting beneath the surface.
"Dreadscale," Brannick said. His grin was still there but the wattage had dropped. "Skal'Varin. Dragonborn. He'll be working with your Shadowmark." He glanced at Dreadscale again and added, quieter, "If you make it that far."
I eyed him curiously. I'd never met a Dragonborn. They were rare enough to be myth in most parts of the realm—recluses from the volcanic reaches who kept their own counsel and their own secrets. My eyes fell to his open tunic, Shadowmarked. The only one I’d seen in the stronghold so far.
The only one who might actually understand what I carried.
He didn't greet us. Didn't smile. But he stepped closer, his gaze a brutal, unblinking weight that peeled back my layers like he was searching for a nerve.
"You're flinching already," he said.
I stiffened. "I'm not—"
"Fighting what's meant to free you." He closed the distance between us. I held my ground through sheer spite. His eyes seemed to map my Shadowmark, even through my robe, reading a script I couldn't see.
"You've been taught it's corruption. Something to tame."
"It is something to tame." The words bit more than I intended.
"No." He bridged the space between us. His hand reached out, and gently moved my robe aside—and then he…
touched my Shadowmark. No one had ever touched my Shadowmark.
No one dared. But his fingers traced the outline like it was an icon instead of something shameful.
My breath hitched and I stood perfectly still.
"Pain," he said quietly, "is the ink your shadow writes in. Stop trying to blot out the page."
The silence that followed was suffocating.
Maxx cleared his throat. "And that's Dreadscale. He's fun at parties. Really knows how to lighten a room."
Dreadscale didn't acknowledge him. Just bore into me for one more breath, then stepped back and melted into the shadows like he'd never been there at all.
I exhaled, my fingers curling into tight, bloodless fists at my sides.
"You okay?" Serenya whispered at my shoulder.
"Fine," I lied.
Maxx leaned in. "For what it's worth," he said, quieter than before, "the creepy ones are usually right. It's the friendly ones you have to watch out for."
He shot Brannick a look.
Brannick just sighed again.
Serenya touched Brannick's arm before he could launch into another tour of the stronghold's many fascinating corners.
"Sleeping quarters," she said. "Please. Before she falls over."
I wanted to argue, but my legs were shaking and the room kept doubling on me. Brannick's expression shifted—that relentless warmth dimming into concern.
"Right. Yeah, of course." He led us down a narrow corridor, torchlight catching on wet stone.
Behind the hanging cloths that served as doors, the murmur of voices drifted out—a child fussing, the scrape of a pot on a cook-fire.
Dried herbs hung from the ceiling; the scent of sage and wild chicory almost masked the smell of damp underground.
People had built lives down here. Real ones.
The kind I'd stopped believing in somewhere between my second city and my third knife.
"This one's got two cots, clean blankets. There's a water basin in the corner, and if you need anything—"
"We'll holler," I said, forcing a smile that felt like cracked plaster. "Thank you."
He hesitated, like he wanted to say something else — probably something warm and encouraging that I'd have to find a way to ruin. Then he nodded and disappeared down the hall.
Serenya was already moving toward the nearest cot, fingers working at the clasp of her cloak. "Gods, I don't think I've ever been this—"
"Let's go."
She froze. "What?"
I was already scanning the room—one entrance, no windows, a cloth door that any child with a knife could slip through. "We're not sleeping where they told us to sleep. It's like giving them the thumbs up to murder us."
"Amaria." She turned, exhaustion and exasperation warring on her face. "They just took us in. They're not going to—"
"Everyone's friendly until they're not." I grabbed my satchel, jerked my head toward the doorway. "Come on. I'll find us a safer spot. I'll take first watch."
"No."
Serenya crossed her arms, and I recognized that look—the one that meant I'd hit the wall of her patience and she wasn't moving. "We are both sleeping. Now. In the same place. At the same time."
"That's how you get your throat slit in your sleep."
"That's how you survive longer than a week without your body giving out." She stepped closer, voice dropping. "You're shaking, Amaria. You've been shaking for hours. Your marks almost killed you today—twice—and you haven't eaten since that damned cinnamon bun this morning."
I started to argue.
"No." Her hand closed around my wrist—gentle, but immovable.
"One night. We both sleep. Tomorrow, we can take turns.
Tomorrow, you can build us a fortress out of paranoia and pointed objects.
But tonight, you rest, or I swear to every god who's stopped listening, I will knock you unconscious myself. "
She meant it. It was there in her eyes—that quiet steel she so rarely showed.
"Fine," I bit out. "But tomorrow—"
"Tomorrow, we adapt. Tonight, we survive." She tugged me toward the far cot, the one pushed against the corner where I could at least see the entrance. A concession. She knew me too well.
I grabbed the blankets off both cots and jerked my head toward the door. "Come on. We can both sleep, but not here."
Serenya groaned but didn't argue. We slipped back into the corridor, my eyes adjusting to the dim light as I scanned for options.
Three turns later, I found it: a storage alcove half-hidden behind a stack of empty crates.
Barely big enough for two bodies, crammed with forgotten brooms and dust that hadn't been disturbed in months. Perfect.
I shoved the crates aside just enough for us to squeeze through, then pulled them back into place behind us. The space smelled like mildew and old wood, but no one would think to look here. No one would know.
I barely recognized myself. Out in the streets I'd been all teeth and fire—snarling, striking, refusing to go down quiet. In here I'd gone still. Not calm. The difference mattered. A cornered animal and a caged animal fight differently. I was learning which one I was.
Serenya settled against the wall with a groan, pulling the thin blanket up to her chin. "You know, some people just lock their doors."
"Some people end up dead." I wedged myself into the corner, back against the stone, eyes fixed on the gap between the crates. "Close your eyes, Serenya."
"Only if you close yours."
"I'm just going to rest them for a minute."
"Mm-hmm."
I leaned back against the wall, keeping my gaze fixed on the doorway. I'd give her an hour. Maybe two. Then I'd find us a real hiding spot, somewhere no one would think to look, somewhere I could—
I woke to the sound of chewing—and the smell of food.