Cleo looks at my rune with a smile on her lips. “This will do,” she says. Her eyes go hard and serious. “After you have drawn it on him, there is one final thing you must do.”
I pale when she tells me. And when she presses the tool into my hand I feel nauseous. “I can’t,” I say, voice trembling.
“You can, and you must,” Cleo says sharply. “It’s the only way.”
“What if it doesn’t work?” I protest. “What if I’ve done it wrong?”
Her pale blue eyes are cold, unfeeling. “That’s a risk you will have to take.”
I understand now how Cleo could send me away, not knowing if I would be taken care of. I understand how she could linger in the shadows for a thousand years, waiting for the opportune moment to challenge the two people she hated most in the world. I press my lips into a thin line and clutch at the rune in my hand. I don’t want to be like her, but I admire her strength.
“I found dinner,” we hear Erzur drawl as she steps into the light. She holds up a bundle of rats tied together by their tails and smirks. “Who wants to skin them? Verity?”
My fingers curl around an imaginary neck. I open my mouth to speak but Cleo retorts first. Her eyes are narrowed like slits, shooting daggers at Erzur. I feel a thread of fear in my chest at the sight. “I thought you and your sun soldiers at animals raw, fur and all?” She sniffs haughtily. “How disappointing.”
Erzur curls her lip in disgust. “You Bloodbane should have never been allowed to exist,” She spits. “You’re an abomination.”
The old Bloodbane witch appears behind Erzur, moving silently across the sand. She wears a sweet smile, but I sense her cunning. “Come, Queen Erzur, let me help you skin the creatures. I’ll tell you your fortune in their innards.”
The Bloodbane leads Erzur away, despite the ebony woman’s protests. I smirk after her, imagining the gore that awaits her. Though I don’t doubt Erzur finds some pleasure in blood and slaughter.
Cleo eyes me. “You should never be duped by that woman’s poor attempts to make you doubt yourself,” she says softly.
I shift uncomfortably. I’m not looking for any motherly advice. “I know,” I say finally.
“When Maaz and I became Bloodbane, I thought I was special,” Cleo murmurs, looking off into the distance. “I only made the oath for the power, but then I met Sadal. He was intoxicating and charming. He made me feel like I was the only woman in the entire realm who mattered to him. I felt so lucky.”
Her words strike a chord in me. My thoughts flash back to my days with Sadal in Altair’s palace, when I thought he cared for me more than anyone else. I felt drunk on his affections. It makes my heart twist angrily now.
“But then there came a day when Sadal showed me his true colors. He showed me he could never care for anyone truly.” Cleo cuts her eyes towards the building where Sadal is chained and a cruel smirk pricks at her lips. “He was with Maaz, flaunting in front of me. I spent a few hundred years chasing him after that. What a fool I was.”
I laugh softly. “Every woman has done that at least once.”
“Then I met your father.”
I freeze, lips clamped shut, eyes wide. I feel as if someone has thrown me into an ice-cold lake. Not now, I plead silently, not here. I don’t want to know of this. As if she can sense my trepidation, Cleo clears her throat.
“I tell you this because some men are not worth your time and your sorrow.” Her gaze drifts towards Altair, only now returning to camp. “I’m not sure the same is true of Altair.”
Before I can respond, Cleo rises smoothly and drifts away towards the old witch. I bite my lip, eyes on Altair. His hair is mussed, clothes rumpled and loose. There are bags under his eyes and sorrow in his hazel irises that I've never seen. I bury my hands in the cool sand, dislodging Serus momentarily. He hisses half-heartedly before returning to his vigil of the night. I spent the better part of an hour crying after seeing what he had done with Erzur, only Thal could draw me out of it. But I wonder if it’s weighed on Altair just as much.
I glance down at the runes on the paper in my fist. I can feel my heart aching to be with him, to just speak a few words with him. But I still feel the pain, as fresh as it was before the sun set. He and I can’t be together, I remind myself fiercely. I need to remember that before I let myself fall back into old habits. Even if it makes my heart ache. Even if it feels like I’m tearing off one of my own limbs. I have to let him go.
I push myself to my feet, brushing the sand from my trousers. Squaring my shoulders, I take a deep breath and remind myself that he and I are nothing. We have nothing between us. No baggage, I lie. He sees me coming, and his eyes light up for an instant before growing sorrowful again. I bite the inside of my lip, wishing I hadn’t met his gaze.
“Verity,” he says hoarsely. His hands hang limply at his sides, as if he isn’t sure what to do with them.
I can feel Erzur’s