That was it. That was how the ghosts were trapping us into believing that their version of the night was real. They were preying on our deepest fears, on the actions and decisions that twisted our souls. For Devyn it was the guilt that had skewered him since the day I was stolen. And that, having found me, he had lost me again. That his promise to keep me safe was as broken as his father’s to my murdered mother. It was a promise I knew he would gladly give his life to keep. He had given up everything to find me. His home. His family. He had spent years on the outside of my life waiting for proof that I was the girl he was looking for. Each day he had spent in the city, he had risked his life for the tiny hope that he was right, that I hadn’t been killed on that road with my mother. Losing me again was his worst nightmare.
I looked around me. This, this endless glade of bodies dying of the illness that had swept the city, this was Marcus’s nightmare. He bowed his head in defeat. The city’s prince… All that charm and promise utterly broken on the forest floor. I remembered him as he had been when we had first started to get to know each other properly at the beginning of summer – his health and vigour, a young man aware of his good fortune and generous to all around him. Vital and joyful, his easy smile and golden aura had meant that none begrudged him any of the gifts that luck and genetics had bestowed. Despite his social status, he had chosen medicine, and trying to help others had nearly broken him. His early successes in treating the illness had turned his colleagues against him. His later awareness that it was magic that allowed him to do so meant that he had to hide his true self from the prying eyes of those who wondered how he did it. I had been so caught up in my own stuff – by which I meant the boy I had rejected Marcus for – that Marcus had been left alone. My gaze drifted across the glade. I could hear the cries and moans of those lying beyond what I was able to make out in the darkness. It was endless… So many sick. So many for one man to heal.
I dropped to my knees in front of Marcus, cupping his cold cheek.
“They’re not real.”
He nodded, his head bowed. Talking to Otho had done the trick. He knew Otho was dead. Otho’s death had hit him hard, and no matter how far gone he had been, that unassailable fact had remained true.
“I know.” His voice was so quiet that I had to lean in to hear him, until we were leaning against each other, foreheads touching.
“It’s not your fault,” I added, wanting to give him comfort beyond this moment, wanting to give him words to soothe the pain he must have been feeling for weeks while he had to decide over and over who to save and who he had to walk away from. “You can’t save everyone.”
His empty eyes looked up at me, utterly drained, but aware.
“I can try.”
“No, no. Their deaths are not your fault; you’ve saved so many.” He had to see all the good he had done. Not just the ones he had walked away from.
“Sure.” He pulled away from me and wearily levered himself up. “We need to keep moving. Find Devyn.”
I knew he didn’t want comfort from me, but his rejection smarted all the same. I scanned the dim clearing while we pulled ourselves together. Otho and the carpet of ill people had faded away, hopefully gone back to wherever they had come from, never to return.
“Devyn went that way.” I pointed in the direction I had last seen him go. It was as good an idea as any and was still in the same general direction that we had been moving all day. Even though we should have been nearer to our destination by now than we were.
In Devyn’s absence, I felt hyper-alert, my eyes and ears on the lookout for the next threat. We hadn’t taken more than a few steps when Marcus stumbled; he looked a wreck. The magic had sucked out whatever strength he had left. I couldn’t do this. This was not what I’d been trained to do. I could host a party or shop for an entire outfit for any occasion at short notice. Dragging a six-foot man through a dark and incredibly creepy forest with who knew what waiting around the corner was not something I could do on my own. I squashed down the rising panic, taking a deep breath. Devyn was out there being led a merry dance because his fear was causing him to lose me again. If it was the last thing I did, I would drag our sorry arses through this nightmare and find him.
“Come on,” I said, wrapping an arm around Marcus, sharing my living warmth with him and encouraging him to lean on me. “We’ve got to move. We can’t stay here. Procedite, centurion.”
The old-school command to advance raised a glimmer of a smile and he put one foot in front of the other. We could do this. We had to do this.
I tried to keep our path as direct as possible in the direction Devyn had taken. Devyn had feared we were going in circles before he had left us. What hope two bedraggled, ignorant city-dwellers had of
