Chapter 22
Chapter Twenty-Two
One glimpse of those short, clipped raven’s feathers on the shaft and I know who hunts us.
I know.
Ruhle. And his seven.
I spring forward, slamming Soraya back to the floor as she struggles to rise, just as another arrow screams past.
And then they’re singing toward us like a flight of ravens. Rolling her, I manage to find cover under an overhang of rock for both of us.
“Get out of here!” Soraya screams, coughing blood.
Leaving her here is leaving her to our bastard brother’s mercy. “Not without you!”
Grabbing the arrow, she grits her teeth together as she snaps the shaft. “You stupid fool, you’ll only slow me down. The way you always do. The way you did the night of our final test. You’re not ruthless enough, Zemira. And you’re going to get us both killed.”
It’s an arrow to the chest.
Suddenly I’m back there, staring into her eyes as I see recognition slowly dawn there. She was reaching for my hand to haul me up the cliff until a sheet of glacial indifference came over her.
“You’re only slowing me down,” she’d whispered, her voice cutting through my chest like a rusty hacksaw. “You’re going to get us both killed.”
“Don’t leave me! We’ll do this together—”
But Soraya only shook her head, her eyes locking down tight and hard as if she was nailing the coffin shut on the love we’d once shared. “He was right. Father was right. You’re weak. And I have to be strong enough for both of us. Goodbye, Z.”
And then she turned and walked out of my life.
Forever.
“Maybe I am weaker than you are,” I snarl. “But that doesn’t mean I’m going to just walk away right now. I’m better than that.”
“Curse you, let me go—”
Grabbing two fistfuls of Soraya’s coat, I steel myself. I’ve done this before.
I can do it again.
“No! Don’t you dare!” she yells.
An arrow ricochets off the ledge.
“Come out, come out, little rats,” Ruhle whispers, his voice dipping into a laugh that echoes through the cavern.
One day soon, I am going to drown that skulking rodent, and I’m going to enjoy it.
But right now….
“Don’t move!” I hiss at Soraya, and then I plunge us both into the shadows.
We punch into darkness, but this time it feels like a weight keeps dragging me down. Flickering in and out of being, I move as fast as I can. Alighting on a ledge. Slamming into the tree outside the cavern. Toward the lake….
Every time we slam back into the world, Soraya’s scream rings out until I’m forced to clamp a hand over her mouth to stop her from giving away our position.
Speckles of shadow stream off me until the hem of my cloak is ragged and torn.
Somehow I’m losing particles of myself. Maybe I’m not strong enough to hold us both incorporeal for this long, but I knot my fists in Soraya’s shirt as though I can somehow hold her together physically.
It’s like falling through an endless chasm of darkness, screaming, screaming, until you finally hit rock bottom.
We slam into the waters of the lake.
I’m inside out. Blind. Breathless.
And it’s so cold here.
The darkness closes over me, and the last thing I think is how heavy my bones feel….
Slap.
Pain ricochets through me.
Water rushes past.
I cough out a lungful of water and try to get my bearings as someone drags me from the lake. The world is spinning, or maybe that’s just my eyes rolling back in my head.
Slap.
“You stupid bitch.” Someone’s rubbing heat into my hands. “Z, wake up.” A hand slaps my face, gripping my chin. “Wake up! Or I swear I’ll leave you here. I swear I will. Wake up!”
She breathes into my mouth, and heated air fills my lungs. It’s like swallowing light. Heat. My eyes pop wide, and then it feels like every ragged edge of my body suddenly melts into liquid.
Coughing again, I roll onto my side and spew out a cloud of darkness. It’s like I’m vomiting pure shadow, and Soraya thumps me between the shoulder blades even as that merciless heat eats its way through me.
What the fuck…?
“What’d… you do?” I rasp, finding myself on the banks of the lake.
Soraya wilts over me, barely holding herself up.
Her skin’s the color of ash, her lips blue and her skin shivering. Somehow she’s aged a year in a single moment.
“What did you do?” I whisper, because I feel like I could leap a small mountain right now.
And she looks like she can barely lift her head.
Soraya staggers to her feet, hauling me with her. “You don’t know everything about me, Z. And it’s going to stay that way.” She trips against me, her body shaking. Weak. “You should have left me there.”
“Never.” Why can’t she see it? Why doesn’t she understand? “Do you remember when you had nightmares and I used to crawl into bed with you and hug them away? Do you remember what I promised you then?”
“We were seven,” she snaps. “We were children. We knew nothing of the world.”
I slide a hand through her hair, forcing her to meet my eyes. “I will guard your back,” I whisper. “I will shield you from the shadows. Always. Forever. Together. And I will never let you go.”
Soraya gives me a helpless look. “You’re going to get me killed.”
Tears prick at my eyes. I don’t cry. I never cry. And yet, there they are. “Are we even really living?”
It’s a confronting truth.
“Not for long.” Soraya claps a hand to her chest as she looks away. “Not if that prick finds us. Here. Where’s my knife? I need to cut this out.”
I dash away the tears. It’s not worth getting my hopes up. She doesn’t want to see it, and without her, I’m only half of what I once was. “Give me a look at it.”
“Don’t—” She tries to shy away, but I get a fistful of her shirt and tear it open. The arrow shaft is embedded just below her clavicle, but—
That’s when I see it.
The dark mottling that covers her chest.
Soraya grabs the shirt and whips it back over the wound, but it’s too late.
I sit back on my heels in shock. The Blight. She’s one of the unlucky few afflicted by the Blight. It feels like the world drops out from under me. No. No. “Why didn’t you say something?”
Soraya stiffly tears her shirt sleeve to pieces and uses it to blot the blood weeping from her wound. “What was I supposed to say?”
“How long have you known?” Shock makes my voice ring in my ears. “When did you first see it?”
Her jaw works. “A year ago.”
So she knew she was afflicted by the curse when we stole into the Court of Dreams to steal the relic. It wasn’t just her soul she was trying to save. She was staring her death in the eye—a brutal, violent, painful death.
This changes everything.
There’s only one way to fix this. The Blight is a cancerous twist on the curse that afflicts wraithenkind. Hundreds die from it each year, and we have no way of knowing who it’s going to strike next.
But if we break the curse….
Maybe she’ll have a chance.
My heart feels like a leaden weight in my chest.
Keir wants to keep the cauldron safe from those who’d use it for their own misdeeds, but I can’t simply let him have it now. And I wanted to. I wanted to… prove myself true for once.
I have my answer.
And I hate it.
“Don’t,” Soraya’s voice cuts through me. “Whatever you’re thinking, don’t. This is why I didn’t tell you. Because you’ll do something rash—something stupid—in order to save me.”
“I’m not going to do something rash.” My ears are ringing. “I’m going to do exactly what Father wants me to do. I’m going to bring him the horn. And then I’m going to bring him the cauldron.”
And afterward?
I promised myself there would be no war. I promised myself I’d do right by Keir, just this once.
I can steal the cauldron back.
After all, I’m the best thief in the north.
I can fix this. I can fix all of this.
Soraya’s eyes go shiny, and she turns her face away. “It’s almost painful to see how stupid you are. You’re going to get yourself killed. And for what? For me? Why?”
“Because you’re my sister.” My voice roughens.
“You’re my only sister. You’re all I have.
And maybe I’m stupid to trust you again…
.” My throat fills thick with unshed tears.
“But you’re the one warning me away time and again.
I have to believe that means something. I have to believe there’s even a single hint of love left in your heart. ”
Her gaze jerks to mine again.
Her jaw works.
But she can’t say it.
All I can see is the impossible pain in her eyes.
“Love will ruin you,” she finally says. “And leave nothing but ashes in its wake.”
“That’s what you always say.” I push to my feet, offering her a hand. “And I don’t care. Now are you going to give me the knife? We need to cut that out of you and get out of here. I have a cauldron to find.”
* * *
The first sign we have company comes when we’re half a mile from the lake.
Gravel rains down over us as we cut through a narrow ravine.
Soraya pales as she looks up. There’s no sign of anyone on the ridgeline above us, but there doesn’t have to be.
When our brother and his ravens are hunting someone, they’re rarely seen.
“Why is he here?” she gasps, sweat tracking rivulets through her hair. “What does Father want now?”
I think of the questing beast. “They’ve been there for a few days. The creature knew danger lurked within. They must have scared it off at some stage.”
“What in the Shadow Lands can scare a creature like that away?”
“Ruhle’s face,” I say with a grimace. “Maybe it knew he was the bigger monster.”
Our eyes meet. I managed to cut the arrow out of her chest, and her right arm is strapped to her body, but she’s still losing a lot of blood. Whatever she did to me cost her. And while my feet feel as light as air, I don’t dare try and Sift us both again.
“Run,” she says, shoving me in the back.
She’s right on my heels as we slip and slide down the shale-covered hillside. The forest is crawling with shadows, some of them keeping pace with us.
An arrow hisses through the air, and I shove Soraya ahead of me as it sinks into a nearby tree with a thunk.
Ripping it from the wood, I stash it behind my belt, and then follow her.