Rasia leaped the ladder and bolted through the maze of supplies in the underbelly. She knocked into the kindling supply, tumbling it over, and the dry foliage rattled behind her. She tore at the netting that held safe a shelf of dragonglass jars.
“Rasia, what are you doing?” Kai asked. He reached the last rung of the ladder and rolled on one of the fallen branches, sending wicker baskets of scorpion fangs and leather falling one after another. Rasia didn’t bother worrying about the mess.
“They test the kids after the Forging, Kai. We’ve got to get rid of this now.” Rasia lifted the glass jars to the thin rays of sunlight coming through the deckboards. She squinted at the contents.
Rasia wouldn’t have the chance to pay someone to cut it out of her. The moment the windship returned to the Grankull, they would march everyone to the healers for their annual medical exam. Rasia had planned to wash thoroughly beforehand, but how was she going to pass the piss test if she was actually fucking pregnant?
Rasia had done some dumb shit in her life, but she thought this time around, she had been careful. She and Kai only slipped up once. She should have taken Kai a lot more seriously when he claimed he had extremely bad luck. No shit. Lightning-strikes-the-same-place-twice type of bad luck. Rasia couldn’t believe this.
Rasia finally found the jar she was looking for. Couldn’t mistake gonda venom for anything else, the color was an unnatural green that reminded her of scarab beetles. Without hesitation, she popped open the lid and put it to her lips. The venom tasted even worse in its liquid form. Concentrated, it was all metallic bitterness. Rasia swallowed it down.
“Rasia!” Kai shouted. He dove forward and yanked the jar out of her hands. But it was empty now. Kai looked at it and sniffed. “What is this?”
“It’s fine. It’s gonda venom.”
“What?!” Kai exploded.
Rasia balked at Kai’s outburst. She’d never seen him this type of angry before, tinged with panic and fear. His irises whirled.
“Relax. It’s practically the same thing as gonom.”
“No, it’s not! Gonom is diluted with other stuff to make it less deadly!”
“I’ve been poisoned before, Kai. I have some resistance to it, and . . .” Rasia lifted the jar that sat right next to the venom on her poison shelf. “I have the antidote.”
Rasia loosened her pants and kicked them off. She settled back against the bunk with the antidote at her hip. Rasia glared between her legs and willed this seed to hurry and bleed out of her.
“Once the poison does what it needs to do, I’ll take the antidote. It’ll be fine. I know what I’m doing. Get above deck before we crash into something. Someone needs to watch the steer.”
“I’m stopping the windship.”
“Don’t you dare.”
Rasia hit her head back against the inner hull, annoyed. An odd sensation tingled through her legs and arms, and then—a sudden electric jolt. Her head tossed back, knocking against the hull as a seizure wracked her body.
She blinked, dazed, once it was over. Felt as if she had been ploughed down by a gonda. She shakily pulled herself up, where she had fallen cheek to the bunk, and looked between her legs.
No blood.
“Rasia, this is madness,” Kai said, pupils blown and terrified. Rasia startled, not knowing when Kai had rejoined her below deck. He crouched beside her with the antidote jar cradled in his hands. “You need to take the antidote.”
“No, not yet. Not until this thing is out of me.”
“What if you die, Rasia?”
“I’m not going to fucking die. I’ve survived the deadlands. I’ve survived the shadowcats. I’ve survived the fucking Lake of Yestermorrow, and I’m not going to die of some basic ass gonda venom. Besides . . .” Rasia rolled her head toward him. “If Kiba-ta finds out about this, I’ll be dead anyway.”
Rasia unknotted her wrap because it was getting harder to breathe. Sweat pooled in her cleavage as she shivered. It was so hot all of a sudden. She scrambled for Kai. “I can’t breathe. It’s too hot. Help me above deck.”
Kai dipped his shoulder under her arm and grabbed her about the waist. For a moment, his other hand brushed her stomach and he paused, glancing down at her abdomen. Rasia never would have known anything was there and wondered what it was like for him, to be able to sense it.
“What does it feel like?” Rasia asked, accepting she’d regret the knowing but too curious for her own good.
Kai supported her through the maze of mess they made in the underbelly. Both the question and physical exertion had him quiet for a while, until he finally said, “A firefly. So small it’s easy to miss, until it glows.”
Uncertain emotions welled in Rasia’s throat, and she swallowed them all down. Kai helped lift her up the ladder rungs and out onto the windship deck.
Kai laid her down in the same space where they first had sex. Then Rasia proceeded to immediately shit all over herself—the nasty, runny kind that pasted her bare backside to the deck. The name carved into the mast looked down at her with so much disappointment.
“I . . . umm . . . I’ll go get something to clean you,” Kai stammered.
“Wait, Kai, don’t—” Rasia grasped his hand, right as a seizure wracked through her limbs, twisting the top half of her body one way, and the bottom half another.
The pain hurt as much as when that shadowcat almost sliced her in half. Rasia gritted her teeth, dazed, and foggily searched for the blood.
Nothing.
“Please, Rasia,” Kai sobbed, still holding her hand. “Take the antidote. We’ll keep the baby. We’ll stay out here. We don’t have to return to the Grankull. You don’t have to do this, Rasia.”
Huh. That sounded pretty nice . . . and absolutely fucking insane.
Rasia was going to kill her ta-fucking dragon. She was going to earn her face, and her names, and nothing was going to stand in her way, not even this stubborn-as-fuck piece of her that refused to come out.
“No,” Rasia growled out. “I want my names.”
The next seizure struck, so blinding it knocked her unconscious. She woke to the whiff of a sweetly floral scent, and something pushed to her lips.
“It’s gone, Rasia. It’s gone. Drink, please.”
Rasia tried to focus the triple vision that swam through her eyes and locked onto the red that smeared her thighs and the windship deck. It was a smear of deep black, easily mistaken for the clumps of blood that comes out of her during her deathsblood. It didn’t look at all discernible to an actual baby from what Rasia could see. Just blood. She’d spilled so much of it in her lifetime.
Rasia fought for the strength to open her mouth. She swallowed the too-sweet antidote, then collapsed back into Kai’s lap, an utter mess, exhausted, and smug in the knowledge that Death hadn’t caught her today.
As soon as the thought crossed her mind, in vengeance, a seizure ripped through her body and squeezed out all her insides. Rasia vomited up acid and bile. More blood cramped past her thighs. Liquid leaked out her ears. Kai looked on with horrified eyes.
Something was wrong.
The symptoms weren’t abating, but growing in intensity. She had taken the antidote too late. Or she had taken too much poison to begin with. Somewhere close, Death was laughing at her.
This sucked.
Rasia was a star pinned high to the Hunter’s Cloak. She orbited a windship that belonged to a stupid, idiotic, dumb kid—a kid who thought themselves too skilled, too experienced, and too talented for Death to catch them. That dumb kid gazed up at her, as confused and terrified as a fallen star far from home. Tears fell, joining the mess of shit and blood, a sight so undignified the star felt embarrassed for her.
Kai, that shimmering wing-sail sunlight, cleaned the poor thing. He fanned her when sweat stuck to her skin. He poured water past her lips. He cried and held her while seizures ruined her body. Kai kissed her, and in a panic, the star realized this might be the last one. Ever.
The star hurled down from the sky in desperation, crash landing, exploding with pain all throughout Rasia’s body. No longer floating outside herself, Rasia pressed her lips to Kai and tasted snot and tears. But she was remembering the first one, and the second, and all the ones in between.
The kiss ended all too soon. Rasia was supposed to have a lifetime for more. Kai gripped her tightly into a hug, and Rasia sobbed into his skin. The words cracked hoarse and sour in her throat. “I was supposed to be invincible.”
This wasn’t how her story was supposed to end.
“Kai,” Rasia said with the last of her strength she could muster. She needed him to continue. She needed him to understand. “You better live with my death for the rest of your days. You live and see all the things I couldn’t see and do all the things I should’ve done. You kill my ta-fucking dragon. Eat well, and laugh loud, and cry for me. I am not sacrificing myself for you. This is not for free. My death has a price and I fully expect you to pay it. Continue my story, Kai.”
“Rasia,” Kai sobbed, holding her. “I can’t do this without you. I need you. You promised you weren’t going to die for me.”
Rasia blinked. “When the fuck did I say that?”
“At the gorge.”
“Well, I change my mind.”
“What if we turn around?” Kai begged. “Nico and the others are only a couple of days behind us.”
“No. Turning. Around.” What would be the point? Rasia wasn’t going to last that long. Might as well keep sailing on.
“But, Rasia—”
“Stop arguing with me. I’m dying. You messed up my cool last words.”
Kai’s eyes narrowed at her. “You die on me, and I’m telling everyone your last words were a dramatic confession of your secret flame for Nico.”
Rasia gasped. “You wouldn’t.”
“Don’t die.”
Rasia would laugh if she could, but it hurt too much. She smiled at him and regretted nothing. It was fun while it lasted.
“Thank you,” Rasia whispered. “I always thought I’d die alone.”
“Wait, Rasia. You promised what I wanted most in the whole world. I want you. I’ve changed my mind. I want you. Don’t you give up on me.”
Tears rained down on her cheeks. Rasia felt another seizure coming, and she thought this was the big one, for she felt no pain. She turned and saw the face of Death, waiting for her, like an old, patient friend.
All hunters are hunted.