When I finally blink back into reality, all eyes are fixed on me and I feel the pity in the room like an odious smog. The contents of my stomach threaten me, but it’s my rage that sends me bursting for the door like a ravaging tornado. Rhet does nothing to stop me. He only steps aside.
As I race into the blinding light of day, I am bombarded by more scrutinizing eyes. Everywhere I turn, more stare back.
My legs are heavy with lead, but they propel me back toward the wood. Distantly, I hear my name being shouted from behind me, but I don’t stop, and I never look back. I can’t take any more unraveling today. I just want to be back in the peace and quiet of the woods, some place where I can think.
As I cross the invisible boundary, I feel a surge of power course through me and I find the relief I was searching for. Death lingers beneath my skin once more like a welcomed friend. It is the calm chill that I so desperately needed.
I suck in a few ragged breathes and rub my hands over my face.
But in the same moment that I find relief in its presence, I am also struck by the loneliness it carries. Being a Reaper again means my touch will kill. No more grazes of skin, no more holding hands. The intimacy I was starting to learn about in the healer’s hut is ripped from my reality.
I look back over my shoulder. Now, out from the confines of the camp, all I see are trees. Once again a Reaper, the bandit camp evades me, even if I know it lays just beyond the disguise. I reach my hand out, afraid I might not actually be able to return, even if I wanted to.
Caw!
I freeze. Every hair on my body stiffens. My breathing becomes ragged again as I rotate so slowly back around to find Crow on a branch at eye level. It croaks again, and this time I actually flinch.
Not it, I realize, catching myself. He.
For someone who hasn’t felt much of anything for the past three years, I recognize all nine thousand emotions as they trample me.
He was my abuser.
He was supposed to be dead.
He has been at my side all this time doing everything in his power to make my life as miserable as possible.
He.
Still.
Controls.
Me.
But I can’t scream, or cry, or laugh, or do whatever it is the emotions inside of me are roaring to do, because a gray haze builds around me like a ring of fire. The fumes lift up and over me until I am enveloped in a cocoon of black smoke.
They have come for me. The Councilspirits are summoning me back to Veltuur.
22
A Life in the Balance
Acari
My eyes are peeled open with horror as Sinisa bolts from the healer’s hut. Her crow. Her actual crow… I can’t even pretend to understand how she must be feeling right now, but I know it’s got to be horrible. She’s spent the last three years with that thing with her the whole time, the man she thought she escaped that night she finally killed him and became a Reaper.
Aulow doesn’t know what she’s asking of Sinisa…
Gem scoots from my lap to the edge of the bed and blinks up at me. Her life flashes before me, the one where she is stuck inside this small camp for the rest of her life because Reapers are after her, never able to visit the mountaintops of Ghamaya, the deserts of Marágros, or the beaches of the Coast of Dreams. I know it’s selfish and unappreciative to want more for her after we’ve found safety and her life has been spared, at least for now, but I can’t help it. I do want more for her. I never wanted her to live all of her days in a tower, and being trapped here will be almost the same.
If we can’t convince Sinisa she’s strong enough to forgive her past, then Gem’s future is condemned. And maybe Sinisa is strong enough. What other thirteen-year-old girl has done what she’s done and had no regrets? What other young woman has faced off with a pack of wolves and lived to tell the tale?
My smile is lopsided as I nod at Gem one last time before springing from the cot.
The hut tilts one way, then the other, so that I feel as if I’m being carried out to sea on bobbing waves. Before I fall, Aulow steadies me. Despite the throbbing in my shoulder, I lean into her hold until everything settles, before making my way to the door.
With an audible thud, Rhet’s hand grasps my good shoulder within his mighty grip. “If she isn’t willing, then your sister is only safe here with us.”
“You don’t know that she’s not willing,” I protest. “You just don’t know what you’re asking of her.”
A dark shadow rolls over him like a cloud, but I push through the door before he can explain what he knows. There will be time for that later. I just need to get Sinisa back here. She is Gem’s only hope, and honestly, I guess I just don’t want her to leave. Not like this.
“Sinisa!” I yell, incidentally drawing everyone’s attention outside.
My name becomes a hushed murmur among them. It’s only been a day or more and somehow I’ve already forgotten that I am—was a prince, and therefore known by all. As I swivel my head searching for signs of Sinisa’s path, I’m surrounded by doting and wishful faces, some with scars, some with birthmarks, some missing limbs, and some with none of those. A mixture of Prophets and Guardians, I realize.
Before I get distracted by marveling at just how many of them there are, my hands float up in the air. Surely someone here saw her.
“Uh,” I stammer, addressing the crowd. “A girl just
