17

Maybe I’m Not
Disposable

The first thing I see the next morning is Reven, and I stiffen on a spike of alarm. He’s not inside our hollow tree with me, but sitting in the doorway, back propped against the bark, one knee up and the other leg stretched out, head tipped back and eyes closed. His expression is a wearied crosshatch of lines that should never be found on a young man’s face.

He may be a monster, but at least he didn’t kill me while I slept.

I don’t think I moved or made any sound, but his eyes pop open to find me watching him. “We need to talk.”

“You think so?”

He looks at me, and I look at him. Everything about last night settles between us, and despite being terrified of what I saw, it feels like we’re bound more closely together.

That should not be my reaction.

The sound of a female voice in the woods breaks the silence, and I groan. “Not again.”

Reven jerks his finger to his mouth. What is it that he hears different? But then a severe kind of silence takes over the forest, and he goes rigid.

My skin starts to crawl.

Before either of us can do anything, a scream pierces the quiet. The sound launches a hundred snow-white birds into the air, visible through the scarred opening of the tree, followed by the indistinguishable shouts of several men near our hiding place.

Reven swears under his breath.

Immediately, we’re both on our feet, him crowding me into our semi-protected hollow tree, the light of day going black as he pulls shadow up and over us. His back to the entrance, he wraps his arms around me, pinning me between his hard body and the bark.

I don’t get a chance to react. Footsteps sound directly outside, so close. Too close. They crunch on by in the pine needles, clunky and not trying to be quiet at all. Part of me thinks I should scream, too. What if these are soldiers from Aryd sent by Tabra to find me? Maybe I’m not disposable after all.

But a small voice inside me scoffs. Of course she won’t send anyone, because Tabra does what is expected of her. Always. And in this situation, she’s been trained to do nothing. To let me make my sacrifice.

Another scream echoes through the forest, closer this time, and I flinch, but my mind also clears. I curl my hands into Reven’s shirt. “We have to do something,” I whisper. “Help her.”

Reven drops his gaze to mine, seeming to debate with himself, and I stare back steadily, willing him to do the right thing. He gives a small growling huff like he doesn’t like the outcome of the argument he’s having in his head. “Stay here.”

I startle—I expected him to say no—and he feels it, since I’m plastered against him. His mouth pulls down at the corners as if he doesn’t like my reaction.

I don’t like the way my belly wants to soften at his reaction, so I cover. “You should give me my knives.”

He snorts. “I’ve seen your aim, princess.”

There is absolutely no reason why, but that makes me want to laugh. I don’t, though.

He cups my jaw with one hand. “Don’t leave the tree. I can’t risk them finding you.”

A warning. An order.

“Okay.” He’s helping. For once I’ll do as I’m told.

He pauses at the entrance of our hiding spot and looks back at me with an odd sort of reluctance.

“Hells,” he mutters and steps out. But his shadows remain, protecting me.

Not ten seconds go by before I hear another rustle, even closer this time. A man steps into view. He pauses, and I hold my breath.

A Tyndran soldier.

Recognizable by the armor—white rather than the black or gray of Wildernyss or the sandy color of my own dominion, the shoulders are formed to look like the cragged Ynferno Mountain that sits at the heart of the icy dominion, as cold and unforgiving as diamonds.

The crest of King Eidolon is stamped in the center of his chest—the Revoker, the Devourer that tends to stay closest to Tyndra. Human-looking on one end, the other end is a long tail that splits into three. It is rumored to pull people who get too close to the water in and eat only their eyes, tongues, and feet, leaving them alive but floundering in the ocean. Very few have ever made it back to shore, from what I hear.

Eidolon is the only ruler to have a monster as the sigil of his house. I always wondered why that wasn’t a huge clue to every other ruler that this man was not to be trusted.

What the hells are Tyndran soldiers doing in the Devotion Mountains of Wildernyss? Could they be here for me? I don’t see how, but I don’t really believe in coincidence, either.

Another scream sounds, followed by raucous laughter, and the soldier grins and moves away. His compatriots must’ve caught whatever poor woman is running from them. The rustle of his feet in the undergrowth goes quiet, and all I can do is stand here, listen, and wonder.

I can hear the soldiers talking, more laughing. Nothing that sounds like a fight, though. What is Reven doing?

A flapping noise that sounds like someone whispering, “basa basa,” sounds overhead, and a different shadow penetrates the hollow tree from above.

Something is watching me.

Slowly, warily, I lift my head to stare straight into eerie bloodred eyes that match the elaborate coxcomb on top of its head. A basan, alive this time, and much, much larger. Clearly an adult, this one has blue hackles and claws, and green hackles and sickle feathers that stand out against its black body.

Merciful goddess. Did we eat its baby yesterday?

I swear whatever forces guide this world have it in for me. The fire rooster is eyeing me like I’m its worst enemy. Fire. I glance around the charred insides of the hollowed tree, and it occurs to me that I must be standing in its nest.

No one could have this much bad luck.

The thing lifts its wings out wide and rears its head back, making a hissing sound as it inhales, and I have no doubt what’s coming next. With no choice left to me, I stumble backward out of the tree, the veil of shadows disappearing as I fall on my ass on the forest floor. A brilliant crimson glow fills the tree’s insides, and smoke rises from the top. Except, instead of flames, the crackling almost sounds like ice.

For the second time today, I know I should run. But I can’t. The girl… Reven…

Before I can even get up, a rough hand grabs me by the scruff of my neck and yanks me to my feet. The Tyndran soldier from a moment ago shoves his face into mine, grinning with yellowed teeth and horrendous breath. “What have we here?”

“Rev—!”

He clamps a filthy hand around my mouth, cutting off my scream. “Can’t have that. Come on now.”

I find myself dragged through the woods, and with every step, I search for any sign of my previous kidnapper. Where is Reven?

But I don’t see any sign of him as the soldier forces me into a clearing full of other men dressed similarly. With a grunt, he throws me through the line of men to fall to my hands and knees next to a girl who I’d guess is around fifteen, sixteen at most, but small with it. She looks a lot like me, actually, with similar coloring and hair the same length caught up in a braid. She’s holding a sack that looks too heavy for her to heft.

This is who these bastards were hunting?

They’ve cornered her like bored hyenas toying with a desert mouse. Based on her clothing, I’m guessing she lives in these woods. She’s covered in dirt, blood pouring from her nose, but she’s not backing down, glaring at them. Ready.

“Try it again,” one of them snarls. He’s swinging a rope as if getting ready to lasso a prized heifer. He also has a nasty gash across his face. From her, I figure. I like her already.

Getting to my feet, I ready myself to protect her in whatever way I can. My knives would be helpful about now. I glance around me, hoping to see something, anything, that might give me a chance. I even briefly think about sand, but I can’t feel much in this soil. There’s nothing.

Which is when I lock eyes with Reven. He’s standing at the edge of the clearing, hidden by bushes. It’s impossible to deny the chilling anger etched into his face.

No shadows move around him, but at the same time I can feel them. Feel the darkness rising in him.

He shakes his head at me. Once. A silent command to not reveal his presence.

“Found another one,” the soldier who dragged me here says, pulling my focus away from Reven.

“Give us the food,” another soldier is saying to the girl, gesturing at the sack she carries.

Studying them more closely, I can see that under their armor they’re thin, not lean like soldiers usually are but underweight. They remind me of the people in Enora. Is Tyndra suffering, too? Or is Eidolon starving his army?

The soldier glances at me. “We’ll take whatever you have, too, missy. Then you’ll both be free to go.”

The bloody one shakes his head. “They’ll tell the authorities, and then we’ll really starve. I say we just take the food and kill the witnesses.”

A different one wipes his arm across his mouth, then points at me. “Agreed. I’ll deal with her. You kill the other one.”

I snort a laugh. Or more accurately, the sound escapes before I can stop it. But really? “That’s the best you can come up with?”

They actually pause and glance at one another.

I can almost hear Reven thinking at me to shut the hells up. But fear makes me say things, and I’m not dead yet, so… “Why don’t you scamper off, and we’ll all pretend this never happened? No harm, no foul.”

The leader’s expression hardens, and I know I took it a step too far. He takes a single menacing step toward me, reaching around his back to pull out a curved sword. The world seems to slow as I turn my head and meet Reven’s eyes. In them is a dread that matches my own.

Then a possessive sort of fury.

His face contorts a fraction of a second before shadow explodes from every crevice around us. Like a solid wall of sand in a massive dust storm, darkness slams through the clearing. The roar of it is so hideous, a scream rises out of my throat.

Instinct has me grabbing the girl and jerking her down to the ground, trying to cover her with my body.

But nothing touches us.

I yank my head up, daring to look. A violent swirl of shadows circles us, trees and boulders and debris all visible in the maelstrom. Everything is so loud, an overwhelming thunder of sound that I can feel in my bones, and yet the air hardly stirs around my body. I spot a flash of white armor in the debris. Then another. Attached to limp, broken bodies that are being pulverized by the onslaught.

Faster than it erupted, the tumult comes to a dead stop. The wreckage hangs, suspended in the air for a heartbeat before the shadows disappear and everything drops to the ground with a crash, dirt flying up from the impact. I squeeze the girl tighter, bracing against being struck.

But again, nothing touches us.

Then…silence.

Holy bloody hells. Reven had that in him all this time, and I was chucking tiny knives at his head. And missing. If he wanted to kill me, he could easily have done it before now. In an instant. In a heart-stopping blink. Instead…

He saved me.

“What was that?” the girl whispers.

“I—” I jerk my gaze to where I think Reven had been standing, but he’s gone, only heaps of rubble in his place. I spin, searching, waiting for him to come to us, but nothing stirs.

“Stay here,” I tell her and clamber over a rock that wasn’t there before.