Again, the emotions threatened to well up inside him, and again Cutter forced them down, swallowing them back. “Maybe not,” he growled, his voice harsh with emotion. “But he will live. And how long, you ask me, Maeve?” he said. “I do not know, and I do not care. The boy will live. That is all that matters. If I must make my soul black, if I must twist and torture it, if I must give it up entire, I will do so, if it means the boy lives. I will do anything to make sure he lives. And if that makes my soul black then so be it.”
“I know,” she said sadly, a lone tear gliding its way down her face. “I know, Prince, for you do it even now.”
He let out an angry growl, turning to the others. “Come on, we—”
He cut off, his eyes going wide, feeling a powerful, sharp stab of fear as he looked at the boy. Matt was not standing and weeping now, or at least, not as he had been. He still stood, and his face was still covered with tears, but now he held something in his hand, a knife, and the blade of it was poised at his own throat.
“What are you doing?” Cutter said, taking a step forward before the boy brought the knife closer, less than an inch away from his neck. Cutter froze.
“I-I won’t do this,” the boy said. “I-I can’t. T-these people….it isn’t…it isn’t right. They’re going to die because of us and I won’t…” He was shaking his head desperately, so desperately that Cutter feared the blade would do its work without him meaning it.
“Stop fucking around,” he growled. “There’s no time for this, boy. They’ll be here any minute and—”
“No,” the boy said, and Cutter was surprised by the strength in his words. “No. I have followed you, Cutter, have trusted you. I trusted you when you said we had to leave Brighton, trusted you when you said it was the only way. Well, now I need you to trust me. I will go back and help them, and if you try to stop me, I will kill myself. I swear to you that I will.”
Cutter’s hands clenched and unclenched into fists at his sides, and he glanced at Maeve and Chall, both of them looking as shocked as he felt. But was there something else in their gazes, something lurking behind that surprise. Was it relief? Was it joy?”
“Damnit, boy,” he said, trying again, “don’t be a fool. You don’t even know how to fight, for the gods’ sake. You’ll be butchered and for what? What good will it do?”
“I don’t know, and I don’t care,” he said. “And you’re right—I don’t know how to fight, but neither do the villagers. They’re farmers and workmen not soldiers. And if I die…well, better to be dead than to become…this. To become you.”
That hurt him, hurt him more than he thought anything could, and Cutter found himself recoiling back a step at the youth’s words. He looked again to Maeve and Chall, but it was clear that there would be no help from that quarter, for they only watched him with baited breath, waiting for what he would say, what he would do.
He was fast, yes, and he was strong, but he knew that he was not fast enough to cover the intervening feet between him and the boy before he did what he threatened, and his strength would not serve to reknit skin broken by a knife’s edge. He hesitated, wanting to call the boy on his bluff. The problem, though, was that he knew he was not bluffing, that he meant every word of it. Trust me, the boy had said. And he did.
His chest heaved with anger, but at who, he could not have guessed. At the boy? At the woman and the mage who remained silent? Or, perhaps, at himself. He did not know, and it did not matter. All that mattered was that the boy was in danger, and that, no matter how he might wish not to, he believed him.
Still, he had one last tack to try, one last, desperate effort. “You will die, then, but not alone. You will kill Maeve and Chall as well with your foolishness. You will kill me. Do you hate us all so much, boy, that you would sentence us to death because the world is not the way you wish it was?”
“Yes,” the boy said, the tears flowing freely once more. “You’re r-right, Cutter. The world isn’t how I wish it was, but it’ll never change if we ignore it. Someone has to stand up, has to do something. It isn’t going to fix itself.”
“And you think you’re that someone?” Cutter demanded. “You who have never wielded a blade in anger, you who, less than three years gone, sat playing with tin soldiers in the dirt with your friends?”
“No,” the boy said, his face growing hard, determined. “I don’t think I’m that person. Maybe I am just a dumb kid, maybe I am useless. But I’m going to go back, and I’m going to help them. And if I can’t,” he went on, overriding Cutter as he began to retort, “then I’ll die with them. If that’s all I can do for them, then that’s what I’ll do.”
“You’re a fool then,” Cutter barked.
“Maybe,” the boy agreed, nodding his head. Then he met his eyes. “Thank you, Cutter. For saving me. I’m leaving now. Don’t try to stop me. I still have the knife, and if you do, I swear I’ll use it.”
And with that, the boy backed away slowly, watching him, as if he thought he might lunge forward at any moment and
