Chapter 60
My entire body is numb, as if it has shut off all emotions, because to feel the ones that are raging through me right now would be too much for anyone to handle. It is. It is too much.
What the hell will I tell Kyor?
He said nothing I learned would change things between us … but this? My Gods. How will he forgive me this?
Little Raven, Fen’s voice is full of hesitation. Little Raven. You’re here.
I am. I did it, I say. I did it.
A pause precedes his response. What is it? What did you learn?
I can’t speak of it. My shame burns bright. Not right now. We need to go. We need to gather the armies. We need to travel all night to get to Galreck.
Of course.
Even as I climb aboard his back, aware of the golden light that streams upwards to mark my completion of the Rite of the Veil, I struggle to feel anything in the stone that has stolen the place of my heart.
What was that line in the prophecy?
The secrets crowned, a dark sin,
Shall test the hearts that dwell within.
I don’t think I remembered the wording exactly, but I understand it now.
It was a choice. She chose to take that life – those lives. But why? Surely there has to be a reason. There must be. And I know who has the answer. Dinah. She will be my first port of call once I have destroyed these Rottings.
‘Rose!’ Kyor comes racing towards me on Elska.
My clamped heart constricts further still, but not for me. All the guilt he has held for so long for falsely accusing my mother, for acting out of spite because he wanted someone to suffer for his loss…
I despised him for it. Wanted him dead for it.
But Kyor has always been the wronged one in this relationship, not me. He’s the one whose family was torn apart because of mine, not the other way around. Kyor lost his mother and his sibling. He suffered the fate I believed was cast upon me, and we never even knew it.
He’s still several feet away, with Elska still moving, when he leaps from her and covers the last stretch on foot.
‘Benny saw you coming. You did it. You completed the Veil?’ He glances down at my arms. The black marks have been replaced by white ones.
They are true Issen markings now, and I didn’t even notice them.
‘I did.’ The words leave me like flat weights, dropping from my mouth and landing with a thud. I can’t even pretend to sound pleased.
‘Thorn, what happened? What did you learn?’
He rests his fingers beneath my chin and tilts my head upwards, but I squeeze my eyes shut. I don’t want to look into his icy eyes. Not now that I know the truth. Brown. That’s what they should be. Deep mahogany brown. Not blue. He should never have needed to change them.
‘I’m so sorry.’ I force my eyes open, blinking through the tears. ‘I am so sorry for all the times I didn’t believe you.’
‘What?’
‘I’m sorry I thought you lied. That I doubted you for what you saw.’
I’m trying to push him away, but he draws me close. Holding me. Comforting me. It makes me cry even harder.
‘Rose, my love, it’s okay. Calm down. Tell me what you saw. I meant what I said. It won’t change anything, not between us. I promise you.’
Tears tumble free as my breaths grow more and more shallow. ‘You can’t say that because you don’t know,’ I keen. ‘You don’t know the truth.’
‘Then tell me, please. I swear, Rose, there is nothing in the world that could change the way I feel about you. You understand? I am with you to the end. No matter what.’ He forces my gaze to meet his again, and this time I let it.
I can’t lie to him, not about this.
And so I draw a breath, unsure where to begin, yet knowing I have to.
But as I open my mouth, the world slips away from me, thrusting me into the air.
No! Not now!
The words are only in my head, but I scream them with as much force as I can as I squeeze my eyes closed, trying to anchor myself back in my body rather than this raven one.
I need to get the armies together. I need to fight the Rottings. And I need to tell Kyor the truth about his mother and mine. What I don’t need is to be slipping somewhere else.
My eyes blink open, a squeak of anger and frustration raw in my throat, yet before I can release it, a different sound reaches my ears.
‘Help! Someone, help! You can’t do this to me! You can’t do this!’
My blood runs cold.
It’s a voice I know. A voice I already love so dearly and one I have not heard for far too long. William.
With one sweep around me, I realise I’m standing outside the house I was taken to before.
But I’m not at a bedroom window or even at the ground floor.
Instead, I stand in front of a basement window.
The glass is barely two feet high and covered in thick bars that obscure the view.
I desperately squeeze myself between them, a cry escaping my throat.
‘Did you hear me? You will not get away with this! My family will not let you get away with this!’
William.
He’s there, hammering against the door, the thick metal bolted shut. He’s trapped.
He’s trapped, and he’s shirtless, his upper body bare and the Issen lace patterns exposed.
Cold floods me, a wash of pure panic so deep it steals my breath from me. My Gods. They know. Someone, whoever has him, knows what he is.
The moment the thought enters my mind, I am snapped back into my human body, and I want to howl with frustration.
‘Rose?’ Kyor is behind me, holding me upright as Fen carries us to the city. ‘Was it the Rottings?’
I shake my head. ‘No.’ My voice quavers. ‘It was William.’
‘William?’
I nod, the words struggling to escape. ‘He’s in danger, Kyor. Someone’s got him. Kidnapped him. He’s trapped.’
‘Where? In Wrohelm?’
‘Yes, and they know, Kyor. They know he’s Issen. He had no shirt on, and the markings … they show what he is. They’ll … they’ll kill him. Your father will kill him.’
‘No,’ Kyor says, his expression set. ‘That’s not happening. I won’t let it. We go back. Now. We ride through the night and find a priestess who can portate us straight to William. We’ll save him.’
He sounds so certain. So sure there’s still a path where my little brother is fine.
I feel my chin offer a trembling nod. ‘Yes, a priestess. We should be able to find one. We’ll just need to head to Rowell—’
The city’s name slides into the air along with every ounce of breath that filled my lungs. Rowell and Dorain. They are the two closest cities. The two places we could go to find a priestess who would send us directly back to Wrohelm to save William.
But what of Galreck?
Galreck was why I went through the Veil in the first place.
To save it from the horde of Rottings that is besieging the city.
To save those children in the slums who were scrambling for ways to escape from the massive swarm of undead reaching for them with mottled hands.
I need to save Galreck and get the dagger.
Fuck. The dagger. I have to get the dagger before Mila has a second one, because if that’s the one she needs … if that’s the one that frees Sanrott…
My whole body deflates, but Kyor’s there, holding me.
‘Rose, tell me, what is it?’
My lungs can barely draw in a breath, and the pounding of my heart against my ribs is harder than the pound of any fist.
Yet again I face an impossible choice.
My brother or thousands of strangers and a magical dagger that might already be in the priestess’s hands.
William.
Galreck.
I can’t reach them both.
I can’t save them both.
I have to choose.