Chapter 29
Ididn’t know how much time had passed when we finally stopped, but the sun had long left the sky, and the horse was covered with a thick layer of sweat from having to run so hard with two people on its back. I slid off with care, reaching back to whisper my thanks.
My legs ached, shaking with my first few steps. I wished I’d had the salve I developed just for sore muscles like this, but with no other alternatives, I massaged the back of my thighs, trying to release the tension.
Otho moved as if in a trance, his moves slow but precise as he collected wood, lit a fire, and pulled rations from the pockets on his belt.
Not knowing what else to do, and having no skills to offer, I leaned back against the nearest tree, fighting to keep my eyes open as I wrapped my arms around myself to stay warm.
Once a fire was roaring, he sank down next to me. “We will head back to the front lines. We can stop and see a healer in Salheim on the way.”
The kindness in his words was obvious, but a healer wasn’t needed, and I told him as much. “He didn’t hurt me. You intervened before he could.”
He stood, the action so sudden I was instantly more confused, and started to pace. As his steps attempted to wear a path into the dirt, my apprehension rose.
“I was following you for a while.” He stopped his motions, his face contorting in a way I hadn’t seen before.
“I was both trying to gain intel, since I was there anyway, and trying to find the best time to steal you back. But the door was always guarded . . .” He trailed off, and though he hadn’t said the words yet, horror rose in my gut as I realized what he was about to say.
“I was outside the window. I saw . . .” His hands clenched into fists as he struggled to maintain his composure. “I saw that you . . . slept with him. And you didn’t take an anti-fertility potion, and I don’t think—”
I held up my hand, my heart breaking at watching the gruff general, who was everyone’s enemy, try to broach this topic with me. “There is no need. I sterilized myself before the Purge.”
He opened his mouth, probably planning to argue, but then he dropped to his knees on the ground, anguish marring his features, reaching for me before realizing what he was doing and pulling his hands back. “Wh-what?”
I frowned, though this topic had once been painful for me, I’d had a decade to come to terms with them.
“My parents . . . before the Purge.” I sighed.
“They knew something was coming. They didn’t know Adis’s father was coming for the adults, they thought—” I pinched my eyes shut.
“They thought perhaps something more nefarious would come, and they were so desperate to hide my gender . . . they had me sterilized.”
His mouth hung agape.
Nervous, I continued. “Men . . . are cruel. They were worried that I would be attacked, even as a male, and . . . the risk of pregnancy was just too great. I’ve .
. .” My lip turned up at the corner as I came to the part of the story I was proud of.
“I’ve always had an . . . affinity for potions, and I was able to adjust the fertility potion to be . . . permanent. It was my choice.”
His eyes searched my face, and I knew he didn’t know what to say. Collum hadn’t either when I had first swallowed the purple liquid, which had changed my life.
“But . . . you still bleed . . .”
“I know.” I shook my head at my parents’ stupidity.
“I’m great with potions, but I’m not a master.
While I still have the monthly bleed, everything else associated with having a child, all of the other symptoms that tell a woman she is fertile, they’re gone.
I am—was working on the potion to rid myself of the menses when Adis came to my home. ”
Otho appeared to be in a state of shock, shaking his head as he searched for words. He started too many sentences only to stop and shake his head.
Finally, I decided to put him out of his misery.
I set my hand on his arm. “It’s okay . .
. really. I never thought I would have children anyway—with the ruse and all.
Pregnancy isn’t something that can be explained, and .
. . I would have to remain in hiding for far too long—not that I would have been able to get to that point with a man with the ruse anyway.
I’ve known for a long time and it’s . . .
it’s part of me now. Instead, I can devote my gifts to where they really matter—like stopping this war. ”
He moved closer to me, the moons revealing the way his hands shook.
“Hey.” I laid my hands over his. “It’s okay, I promise.”
He leaned back against the tree, his eyes closed. “It’s just, your parents—”
“Did the best they could with the information they had.”
He ignored my comment. “—made so many bad decisions.”
“That may be,” I agreed. “But this one was on me. Sure, they brought it up, but I was never a girl who played with dolls. Rather, I played with my mom’s jars of preserves, mixing what I could to create something brilliant.
” The memory rose in the forefront of my mind and I laughed.
“While that was once strawberry, orange, moon flower jam, now I hope that I will be able to find cures for more serious ailments—the ones healers haven’t solved yet. ”
He said nothing, allowing the soft evening sounds of the forest to take over the tension between us, and neither of us spoke for so long that I was sure he had fallen asleep.
Though I knew I should ask about the rations he had brought, I didn’t feel a shred of hunger, anger at Leif still my prominent emotion.
Memories of the laundry room surfaced in my mind.
“Otho?”
“Hm?” His voice was quiet, reserved, not his usual tone.
“Why did you keep my secret? You know since you . . . saw . . .” I didn’t know how else to reference the incident.
“I . . .” His voice vibrated and my magic read the shame coming from him. “It . . . I mean, you being a woman, didn’t affect me. There was no reason for me to reveal the truth to Adis.”
I’d grown adept at listening between the words he was saying. “But you would have if it came to it.”
He released a deep sigh. “At first . . . yeah, you’re right.
But then I started to get to know you and—” He glanced around at the trees, as if he just remembered where we were.
“I don’t have many supplies on me.” Otho frowned.
“But I have some jerky and that should get us through until we reach the front lines tomorrow.”
He held out a single slice of jerky in my direction, but I pushed it away. I wanted answers. “How did you find me in Malheim?”
He tore a bite of the jerky off, chewing and swallowing, his throat bobbing.
“I’m the general of the army. If you don’t think I can track a few horses through the woods you’re delusional.
” He reached forward to toss another log on the fire.
“Next time, when someone tries to kidnap you at night, scream. I don’t care who you wake. ”
I couldn’t stop my eyes from widening. He knew so much about me, but it wasn’t that simple. “There were so many of them. I didn’t want you or Cal to be hurt.”
He grabbed my hand so suddenly it nearly made me jump out of my skin. “Listen here, Runa. Don’t you ever sacrifice yourself for me or anyone in my family, okay? You matter too. I know Cal wasn’t the friendliest at dinner, but he would have fought for you too.”
“But Cal—”
He tilted my chin so our eyes were connected, and the emotion I saw in their depths scared me. “Cal is an idiot. He is anti-war—always has been. But the thing is, him promoting peace and preaching against the war won’t save us. Being neutral is the same as letting them win.”
The night air instantly grew colder as I absorbed the full meaning behind his words. “But you told me that you are fighting this war for you.”
“I am,” he clarified, steel in his gaze. “My parents were killed in the Purge too.”
The final missing piece of the mystery that was Otho slid into place. This was how he knew about magic. This was why he was so against it. Like me, he had been orphaned because of what they thought our parents represented.
“I had wanted to pursue this war without magic, mostly because it is my job, and because I was afraid of the persecution our kind faced before, but . . . it is becoming clear to me that we don’t have a choice, especially since Adis plans to use magic no matter what.
And now Hansen too. It’s just the two provinces now, but I fear that this is the beginning of something bigger. ”
My mouth was dry. “Can you . . . can you read?”
His chin dipped. “Almost all Seid who are above the age of fifteen can. Our parents knew much more than they let on I think and channeled a lot of their energy into teaching us at a young age. Yours and mine both.”
My mind flashed back to the night when I had lost my parents, and I pushed the memory away before it could consume me. “But they couldn’t foresee their own death.”
He shook his head. “I disagree. I think they did.” I scrunched my eyebrows in confusion.
“I think they knew there was no way for them to avoid the Purge. They knew the only thing they could do was teach their children to read, and hope that those with the seeker affinity would find the books and find each other and—”
“And fight,” I finished for him, my gaze fixed on the flames that were flickering.
When I had first been taken from my home, I had been so against joining the war, so ready to die.
But in that moment, I realized that dying was the easy way out.
It was time for me to fight for what was right.
For too long, the Seid had hidden in the shadows, tossed aside, and purged from society.
Though there was dark magic that could lead to problems, ignoring the existence of that magic, or using it only for personal gain, wouldn’t make it go away.
It would only lead to that power falling into the wrong hands.
“Tomorrow we will return to the front lines.” Otho faced me, and somehow I already knew what he was about to say.
“Runa, you deserve freedom, you have already given so much of yourself for this war. If you don’t want to continue with me, I understand, and I can leave you to create a life in Salheim. ”
The feeling that had circulated in my chest, the one that had been birthed from sadness but had now transitioned into something else, bloomed. I was done being dragged from place to place, ripped from everything the moment I was comfortable. I was done being lied to.
I was done doing what I was told.
“I want to fight.” The words were resolute.
I would never forgive myself if I just sat in a cabin in the woods and didn’t work to become part of the change I wanted to see.
Especially after how I had allowed Leif to deceive me.
It was time for me to stop being complacent.
I was the Reader. I was in control here, and it was time I showed them.
It was time I showed everyone.
His lips quirked up in one corner. “I was hoping you would say that.”
He settled back down next to me. “Tomorrow we can come up with a plan, but for now, let’s get some sleep.”
I nodded, but I didn’t plan on sleeping anytime soon. Rather, I stayed awake, staring at the flames. Remembering the dark night that my entire life had changed . . .
I opened my eyes into the dream world I recognized all too well.
The wooden floors of my childhood home echoed, the only sound breaking the silence were boots as they stomped across the floor.
They had knocked on our door, and Collum had dragged me here, the two of us lying side by side on our stomachs beneath my bed, holding our breath, hopeful they wouldn’t bend down.
The back of Milo’s legs blocked our view as he sat on the mattress above our heads. I didn’t need to see his face to know that he would be wringing his hands in the way he always did when he was nervous.
The guards had broken in and demanded he watch.
But they didn’t realize he wasn’t the only child here.
I heard my mother’s high-pitched voice pleading in a voice similar to my own first, then my father’s deeper, more subtle tone. But it was no use. They had told us what was to come, and Collum and I were to remain beneath the bed no matter what.
We’d been eating when the neighbor had pounded on our door. We didn’t know him well, but he’d come anyway. Come to say that the guards were coming.
Anyone over fifteen who was Seid would die tonight.
Collum and I had dove beneath the bed, while my parents hid all signs of us.
My father argued some more, asking how this was right.
The soldiers didn’t even bother to argue back, and I heard the sound of steel on steel, like the knives I had been taught to sharpen.
“Turn your head to the side,” Collum whispered, her voice barely audible as she turned her own head to the side, leaving me to look at her blond locks.
I held the position momentarily, but then I turned my head back, unable to look away from the shadows that danced on the wall. I knew I shouldn’t watch, but I also knew I couldn’t turn away.
I needed to see the last moments of my parents’ lives.
Milo’s legs shook, and he released a gasp.
Then there was blood, spreading across the floor toward our hiding place . . .
I wished I had turned my head.
I jolted awake, gasping for air. My hand came up of its own accord to grasp the dress that restrained my chest.
“Nightmares?” Otho’s voice was soft from his place next to me.
It took a moment, for me to catch my breath enough to speak, and even then I could only utter a single word, “Memories.”