11. Chapter 10
Chapter 10
Raven
Y ou will never be alone again, little bird, a voice said. It was as deep as the Crust itself, full of menacing kindness, and accompanied by emerald brightness that obliterated shape. The light invaded me. It slithered through my open, screaming mouth. It slipped up my nose and inside my ears, pooling inside my being.
My scream echoed around me, amplified by stone walls that climbed endlessly on every side. My head split open at the pitch of the scream.
The sensation of falling swept over me, along with the knowledge that I’d been falling since the first moment I remembered.
I jolted awake before I hit the ground.
The nightmare had haunted me since my earliest memories. It ended the same way every time, though today, it felt more visceral than usual. My heart was pounding.
My palms sought the ground to steady myself. I kept my eyes closed until the overwhelming emerald light faded to the pale Threadlines of the real world.
I was still in the plains, resting where I’d fallen. I could not see the Slayer who’d cut me down, or Tanead. For that, I’d have to open my eyes and I wanted a few moments to think first.
My Sight swept the land and noted safe paths off this island of glass. But in which direction should I flee?
I wondered about Asherah and my Sight flew to her. She had emerged from her shell and the fractured pieces had already been consumed by the lava on the mountainside. The hatchling waded through it, gaining strength from its heat.
She was hungry. Hungry for food and hungry for the blood of her Chosen.
She descended the mountain on shaky legs. Her wings were useless, sticky and delicate. As she grew, so would they.
For now, she crawled towards the call of Tanead’s blood. It was like music in the air to her. I could hear the song. A hum coming from the island where Tanead and I were captives together.
My Chosen, she called to him. But he would not hear her until they were Bonded, and I could only hear, and not answer. She was alone.
Should I help Tanead escape and return to her? He’d likely kill me for my efforts—unless I could find some way to earn back his trust. Safer to escape alone.
The fabric of my tunic was hard from my own dried blood. The gash across my stomach burned. I did not pretend to myself that I would win a fight with the Slayer now. Which was probably why he'd left my hands untied. Cocky asshole.
This is your rightful place, cruel doubts whispered. A captive of a Slayer. At his mercy. You try to stand against them but it is in your blood and your destiny to fall to them, just like your father did. You will never have your vengeance.
The words, which tasted so like truth, were bile on a tongue dried by sand. I tried to think past them but I only got tangled in them. I wanted to scream, to vent the rage out my mouth. Perhaps I could still attack the Slayer, push him into the deep sands and watch the Motherland swallow him up. But I wanted to kill this Slayer with my own hands. I wanted to soak the Crust with his blood and make the old gods roar with approval from their deep graves.
A magnetic pull like that within the Crust tugged me towards him, urging me to stay at his side and try until I succeeded. All my life I’d sought to fulfill the destiny my name had saddled me with and now I’d been given an unexpected chance. I would not waste it. I was the Slayer’s slave as surely as if he’d put a collar around my neck. My desire to see his blood run robbed me of my freedom to choose anything but him.
But what was freedom when I could have vengeance?
I opened my eyes.
The Slayer sat cross-legged beside me with his eagle atop his knee. He fed it strips of dried meat from his hand, as seemingly comfortable as if he were in his own palace. He’d lost his shirt while I was unconscious and wore his scale over bare skin. His forearms were calloused and laced with scars. He wore nothing on them to protect him from the claws of his bird, which was the largest one I'd ever seen. It was almost as tall as I was, with golden feathers the length of my forearm glinting in the light. Suddenly it was easy to imagine the battle between Calathan the Conqueror's Imperial Eagle and the last dragon, Archeon.
“You’re awake.”
The Slayer gazed down at me. A sheen of sweat glossed his arms and face. I wanted to sit up so he wouldn’t tower over me so much, but the wound he’d given me shot agony through my core when I tried. I used my elbows to push myself up and leaned into the pain that answered. It burned through me like a cleansing fire. I held myself still and the burn dissipated, leaving warmth behind like an embrace.
“There’s sand in your wound. It will fester if I don’t clean it,” the Slayer said.
“What do you care?” I tried to spit the words, but my voice was scratchy with disuse, my throat dried. When had I last sipped water?
The eagle hopped off the prince’s knee and onto the ground, responding to a silent command from his altayr. The Slayer rose and went to his alwashi. He retrieved a canteen and knelt down beside me, holding it out.
To take it would be to accept his mercy. Bile flooded my throat at the thought, but I reached for it anyway. I swallowed my pride back along with several glorious sips of water.
The Slayer waited until I was finished and took back his canteen. “Drink up, Touched. I still need your eyes. Lucky for you, the land is no friendlier now than when you fell. I’ll keep you alive if you guide me home.”
I considered the alternatives.
Tanead was unconscious on the alwashi's back. He was probably drugged and I couldn't see from here what wounds he'd taken in battle. If the Slayer planned to kill Tanead, he'd be dead already. Which meant he intended to take him back to Havard as a captive.
Where Tanead went, Asherah would follow. The demons would rally around the hatchling and roll behind Tanead like a wave towards the River of Madness. War would come to the Slayers' door.
I liked Tanead. He'd been fair to me. I had no particular wish to fuck him over and even less desire to betray Asherah. But my primary motivation was and always had been vengeance delivered with my own hands. "Helping" this Slayer find his way home would give me a chance to kill him. Tanead's freedom could wait.
But I must not appear to want to help. The Slayer would suspect my motivations, and rightfully so.
“I already told you I won’t help you,” I said.
“Caelan. My name is Caelan. What’s yours?”
I hesitated for a convincingly long time, glaring at him. Then begrudgingly said, “Eave Samaras.” It was the name my handler had told me to give, common to peasants from the Mouth. My mother really was from the Mouth and I found it funny to tell the Slayer something true. Like a game.
“You are a poor liar, Eave .” Caelan mocked the false name. “Tell me your true name.”
“My name is Eave Samaras.” I tried to sound offended that he didn’t believe me.
He let out a mirthless chuckle. “You told me our names were woven together like destiny. You told me I wouldn’t get to learn yours until I was ready to die. I doubt very much you have a peasant’s name.”
Fuck. I’d said that? I couldn’t remember everything I’d said as I was passing out, but it was impossible to imagine anything more reckless than speaking of my name.
Suddenly I craved the invisibility that had shrouded me for cycles in the Emperor’s Dungeon. I'd learned to hide from dangerous criminals in shadowed corners and spent days alone in my cell with only my father's memoir, The Traitor's Manifesto , to keep me company. I'd traveled the tunnels so often, no one even took note as I walked by. I was used to obscurity. It was terrible in its own way, but at least it was pressure-free. The prince’s questioning eyes were like a torturer’s blades, hazel with pinpricks of red in them. I feared the secrets they would make me tell.
“I meant Tajawl’s name, Prince. You and he are natural-born enemies. A slave has no name but her Master’s.”
“And yet you just gave me a very nice name,” he mocked. “Eave Samaras.” He leaned in. “Do you think that calling me ‘prince’ and pretending respect will lull me into idiocy?”
No, I shouldn’t have thought so. I thought quickly about what I could say to turn things around. He must forget to care what my true name was.
My eyes lingered on Tanead’s hands, which dangled alongside the alwashi’s stomach, tied together with a thin strip of ragged cloth. Tanead would burn through that in moments. After he killed the Slayer, he’d come for me.
“You should tie him with something stronger,” I advised.
The Slayer studied me. His features were blank, like a sculpture. His strong brow gave him a serious look. A shadow of brown stubble grew along his jawline. He retrieved leather straps from his pack and held them up with a raised brow.
“No better than cloth,” I said.
“Then what?”
“Metal.”
“Why?”
“Do you know why the Tajawl Dynasty ruled Vaharilar for generations before the coming of your family? Do you know why they are called the House of Dragons?
His shrug was disinterested. “They rode dragons.”
“All demons have some Dragonrider blood. It gives them their horns, their forked tongues, and their slitted irises. But the Tajawls have more potent Rider blood than any other house. Do you know what this blood gives them?”
He snorted. “A mistaken belief that they’re still meant to be kings?”
“It allows them to burn. That Heir you have strapped across your alwashi like a gazelle carcass could burn through the cloth that binds him in seconds.”
Now I had his interest. He stilled, staring at Tanead with refreshed respect. “But he can’t burn through metal?”
“That’s right,” I said. The best lies were always laced with truth. The only substance Tanead couldn’t burn through was dragonstone. He’d melt metal without issue…but it would take him more than a few seconds, and that would buy me time to determine the best course for me. Besides, I had to offer the Slayer something to redirect his attention from me back to Tanead.
The Slayer thought for another moment. Then he went to his alwashi’s snout to remove the metal scale that protected the beast’s nose. It wasn’t made of dragonstone, I saw with relief. It was ordinary steel. Perfect.
But he did not clasp Tanead’s hands with it as I expected. Instead, he lifted Tanead off his mount and lowered him onto the ground. I could see Tanead’s injuries a little better now. He’d taken a cut along the back of his calves, but it didn’t look too deep. His face was bruised and swollen. His armor and red clothes prevented me from seeing more.
The Slayer unbuckled the clasps that secured his dragonstone scale on his chest. The muscles of his shoulders rippled as he lifted it over his head. I gasped at the scar on his back. White and thick and perfectly rectangular, it started near his neck and continued down his shoulder blade to the small of his back. There was no doubt it was deliberate, but I'd never heard of anyone doing such a severe scarification for cultural or aesthetic reasons.
He had other scars, too, of course. He was warrior. His arms and torso were riddled with evidence of old slices. He'd endured a lot of pain, I begrudgingly admitted.
He laid his chest plate on his alwashi’s back, on top of a riding blanket.
“What are you doing?” I asked, suddenly unsure of myself. The scale was dragonstone and Tanead would not be able to burn through it. Had the Slayer seen through my lie? Perhaps he knew more of the powers of the Tajawls than he let on.
“What use is binding his hands if he kills my mount?” He glanced around at the empty island we were stranded on and huffed out a breath. “I should’ve stripped the bodies.”
I noticed for the first time that the dead who’d littered the glass when I’d arrived were gone. He must have thrown them into the sands while I slept.
It was a shame for him, I thought with pleasure. Jupe and Ksafa would eat him alive on the plains if he traveled like this. Perhaps he’d get sunstroke and go mad.
The Slayer tossed Tanead back onto his alwashi’s back. Though Tanead was not a small man, the Slayer made him look light as a bag of ground flax. Then he wrapped the metal scale from his mount’s snout around Tanead’s wrists. Though he tightened it with leather straps, he did it in such a way that nothing but metal touched Tanead’s skin.
He returned with his canteen. The hilt of a dagger stuck up from the top of his boot, not quite within reach. “Now, your wound.”
He’d wrapped it while I slept. I felt sick at the thought of his hands on me while I lay helpless. Yet here I was, still alive. He must really need my help navigating to the river.
My fingers played with the knot he’d made in the cloth. He’d pulled it tight. I had to use both hands, digging into the knot’s center to tease it loose. But that meant I couldn’t support myself on my hands, and my core muscles engaged to keep me off my back. The cut answered with the sensation of a spear point gouging my stomach.
I breathed deeply out and closed my eyes. The Slayer's hand touched mine and I gasped. My eyes flew open to find him crouched close. His palm was warm and the scent of him wafted into my nose. He smelled of iron.
I tugged my hand out from beneath his, trying not to let the movement betray how wildly uncomfortable I was with him touching me. Caelan worked the knot free, then unwound the wrap while I considered the dagger he’d brought within reach. Where were my daggers? A quick look around with my eyes closed told me he'd stowed them in his pack.
He wore no armor—not even a shirt to hide my target. But if I swiped the dagger from his boot, I’d have to plunge it into his heart on its very next beat. I had no delusions that I’d be given longer than that. The way his body was angled made such speed impossible. It was probably deliberate.
“We brought some salves and basic supplies to address injury, but they were on another mount. All I have here is clean water, and we can’t use much. Lie back.”
My heart screamed its denial. I would not lie down like a slain animal, defeated and broken, and allow this murderer to tend to me.
“Just hand me the water. I can do it myself.”
“No. It will be more effective if I—” He pressed his palm gently against my stomach.
Instinctively, I flinched away from his touch.
A slow grin climbed up his face. There was no mirth in it, only cruelty. “Ah, so you do still hate me. I wondered how a nap brought about such a transformation. So why reveal Tajawl’s secret?”
Damn it.
“It hurts to touch,” I tried.
“No, it doesn’t. At least, it’s not why you flinched.”
I flipped through a mental chest full of lies I might tell. It was always wisest to almost tell the truth.
“I do hate you. All Losians do. I’ve heard naught of you but that you’re violent and cruel and selfish rulers who murder gods as easily as peasants. But I need you right now. As you say, my wound will fester if not treated. And if Tanead wakes, he'll kill me.”
Caelan's eyes narrowed. “Why?"
"I was his priestess. He’ll blame me for his absence on the mountain during the birth of his dragon.”
"So the rumors I've heard are true. The dragon egg was found by Ead Tajawl. It will Bond her son."
"You think I will give up the secrets of the gods so easily?" I said stiffly.
Caelan snorted. "Tanead won't wake. I've drugged him. If he does, I'll kill him. Your life is in my hands now, Eave. I'll keep you safe from your former master if you bring me safely to the river.”
“I won’t do that,” I said, feeling excited. If Caelan was stupid enough to trust my guidance, it would be easy to send him to his death in the sands.
“You will. The way I see it, you have little choice.”
Little choice. For my entire life, I’d had little choice. I was raised in a prison, and escaped only to find myself in another one with tapestries on the walls and ornate carvings in the locked wooden doors.
I’d learned that there were always choices. Even in a life largely dictated by others, small choices existed everywhere. Over time, small choices could nudge a life in a new direction. Through such tiny moments of influence, I’d brought myself to Tanead’s side. I’d turned him from the mountain at a pivotal moment—for good or for ill. Now, I lay beside this Slayer with a skill he needed to use in order to get home. Though injured and alone, seemingly helpless, I had more power now than I’d ever had before. The fulfillment of my oldest wish hovered tantalizingly close.
“Fine,” I said, pretending the decision was not my own. I tried to sound defeated, and wince when I moved. “I’ll help you.”
He did not smile at his victory. If anything, his expression became more severe. He leaned in as if there were others nearby who might overhear. Perhaps it was a habit formed at court. “If you betray me , you will wish you’d died here.”
I nodded my understanding, though I was used to such threats, which meant little to me.
I prepared to stand. “I’ll show you the way.”
“We must dress your wound first.”
Oh yes. I’d forgotten, so eager I was to orchestrate his death in the hungry sands.
I stretched to open the wound, glimpsing its depth for the first time. It wasn't deep enough to damage anything internal, but it would leave a dramatic scar. That was if it didn’t get infected and fester, which was the true risk of such wounds, after blood loss was addressed.
The Slayer held up his canteen. It wasn’t more than half full. “This will hurt,” he said.
“Everything that matters hurts,” I answered with derision.
His eyes fixed on me with the ferocity of an eagle’s. His breath came faster. “That doesn’t make you afraid?” He didn’t pour the water.
“Fearing reality is not a useful thing. Far better to lean into it and play our role as required by destiny.”
“What does destiny have to do with accepting pain?” he asked.
“Everything.”
He bent over my stomach after that. One hand spread my wound open and the other poured a thin stream of water inside it.
I hissed, a long inhale. I closed my eyes, but didn’t squeeze them. I didn’t allow tension to overtake my face. The water felt like ice, though it must be warm. It seared me. Each sand particle scraped like sharp nails as it found its way out. My blood started to flow and I smelled iron. I opened and closed my fingers, breathing evenly.
“Clean,” the Slayer said. “Now I need fresh cloth to wrap it with.”
He hardly could provide it himself. He’d lost his shirt and armor and wore only loose pants with scale over his thighs above a pair of tall boots.
I dug beneath my loose tunic to the wrap that compressed my breasts. Bloody water trickled from my wound and down my stomach into the waistband of my pants as I tugged and twisted to pull the wrap free.
I felt very naked without it, and it didn't help that Prince Caelan's predatory eyes watched my movements so intently. They almost felt like fingers exploring my chest. A light breeze swept inside my ripped tunic and cooled my sticky skin, hardening my nipples. Caelan's jaw clenched as I placed the wrap over my wound and began to twist it around myself.
"Give it to me." His voice was rough and commanding.
“I can do it.”
He tugged it from my hands.
I thought of arguing. But the pain had lulled me into a more compliant state of mind. I must guard against that.
Caelan knotted the wrap tightly and stood up. His back cracked and his biceps clenched as he stretched. Lines of muscle stood out on his stomach and a thin trail of hair traveled from his navel into his trousers. “Let’s go. Show me where.”
I climbed slowly to my feet and he didn’t offer to help me. I glanced at him when I finally stood up. There was a light in his eyes and a small smile at the corner of his lips, as if he’d enjoyed watching me struggle.
I didn’t have to close my eyes to answer him. The land hadn’t shifted since I’d woken, and I did not intend to lead him astray right away. I’d have to earn a little of his trust before the right opportunity would present itself. “That way," I pointed. "There is a narrow path of glass that hides beneath the sand. If we stay on it, the sands will not swallow us."
Caelan peered over the edge. “It leads to that island there?”
“Yes.”
“Does it curve or run straight?”
“Mostly straight but it’s very narrow.”
Caelan picked up a glass rock and tossed it where I indicated. It landed with a small splash of sand but stayed visible.
“Where's the rest of my party?" Caelan asked.
I shrugged. “Ask your bird.”
“Tell me,” he said sharply.
“My Sight cannot see men.”
His eyes narrowed. “If you’re lying…”
“I’m not.” I glared up into his eyes. I had to tilt my head back.
Caelan sighed. “He’s seen nothing of them, so we proceed to the river alone. I’ll have to hope the others make it there as well.”
Marking Caelan’s decision, the bird lifted into the air and flapped east. Caelan went to his alwashi and retrieved the leather straps he’d nearly used to tie Tanead. He snapped them in his hands to test their strength, and the sound elicited a flutter in my stomach and a rush of memories.
The scent of leather in my nose as such a strap tightened around my neck. The crack as it slapped bare skin. I’d enjoyed these things.
But not this time. I refused to feel that way this time. There was nothing arousing about a leather strap in the hands of a Slayer. Not even one with rippling muscles who walked towards me with cold eyes and heavy steps.
Caelan’s hands snapped out and grabbed my wrists. I was so small inside his grip. I couldn’t struggle away now, not even if I wanted to. I tried anyway.
“Is that all you have left?” he mocked. “Where’s the woman I fought before?”
He almost sounded disappointed as the strap snaked around my wrists. He tugged it tight, making my fingers tingle. He knotted it in a big beefy leather knot, and then he tore a strip of fabric from my ripped tunic and he wrapped that going the other way, so that the knot was buried beneath more fabric.
“I assume you can’t burn,” he joked.
I glared at him.
He let out a chuckle and checked that the straps on his beast that secured Tanead and his pack. Then he whispered in the alwashi’s ear, patted his head, and spanked him.
The animal thundered suddenly into action. I gasped and threw myself out of his way as he charged me. With the grace of a desert fox, he leapt off the edge of the glass. I stared, disbelieving that Caelan would risk his mount like this—and his prize, Tanead, as well. But the animal landed with precision on the path I’d indicated. He shook his head and cantered easily through the sands to the next island of glass. There he paused and waited for his master as calmly as if he were tied off.
“You can talk to alwashi too?” I asked Caelan. “I’ve never heard of such a gift.”
“Of course I can’t. Ufuk is very well-trained. And alwashi have a natural sense of the land beneath them that men lack. Lucky for you, you told the truth and he wasn’t injured. I would’ve killed you if he had been. Now all that’s left is for us to join them.”
“Are we going to jump, too?” I mocked.
A little smile tugged up the corner of his mouth. He came close, grinning in sadistic pleasure as I leaned away. “No, we’re going to climb.”
I held up my bound hands to remind him. “Hard to climb like this.”
“Yes, it is. That’s why you’re going to ride me.”