We made it out while the cabin was still standing, shutters splintering against Sen's shoulder as she gathered me in her arms and fought her way out. Smoke coiled in my lungs and I coughed out phlegm, clinging to Sen's arm like an avalanche in motion. She wanted water, cared nothing for what she'd inhaled, and I scrambled after her, ripping out what rattled within her.
The cabin blazed within, flames filling the windows like all the burning, hate-filled eyes that had been turned towards me over the past few days. Smoke seeped out between logs, so thick and heavy it ought to have spilt across the ground, and the neighbouring pane hadn't wasted any time at the first sign of trouble.
They came with buckets and pitchers, anything they could find, causing the fire to do little more than hiss. The supports creaked and twisted with the heat, tumbling in on themselves and taking the roof along with them. The cabins had been built with space in between them, but if the wind chose to pick up on a whim, the flames would spread beyond our control, eating the city of a felled forest within minutes.
“Don't just stand there!” I called out. The humans still awake hadn't missed the flames rising in the distance, and as the pane rushed between the crumbling cabin and the wells, onlookers gathered to gasp and clutch at each other's arms. “At least get out of the way!”
I threw myself against the crowd, forcing them to part, and my vision flashed between the flames and the dark. Some of the pane were throwing all the pans and buckets they owned from their windows, but barely enough people were rushing forward to help. I made a grab for one, but couldn't put myself to use.
“Sen!” I called out. “Sen, where are you?”
I caught a glimpse of her long red hair, vanishing around the side of the burning cabin.
“Sen!”
I charged off after her, bucket thumping against the ground behind me. The fire turned the air around it against me, scorching my skin though I'd yet to touch a flame, and I called out her name over and over, hearing the birds squawk in the garden. I turned the corner and found her kneeling, cloth covering her mouth, fumbling with the front of a chicken coop.
“Sen! You've got to go, it's about to come down,” I yelled over the roar of the flames, the pathetic hiss of water.
“My birds...” she choked, gathering them in her arms, losing two for every one she picked up.
I grabbed her shoulder, unable to move a pane even with all the back-breaking work I'd done in Canth, and said, “Go, go! I'll get as many of them as I can. I can do it.”
“R-Rowan—”
“Rip it out of the ground and run!”
Without taking her eyes off me, Sen wrapped an arm around the coup, and tore the struts clean out of the dirt. I didn't know what I was doing, why I'd offered myself up to the pyre her house had become, but it was my fault. No one was trying to hurt Sen. No one could ever want to hurt Sen. It was me they were after, and I had to fix this.
Had I not been a necromancer, I don't know what would've happened to me. I forced the ravens' cages open, steel bars hot to the touch, and pulled the young birds into my arms, frightening them as much as the fire did. The front wall came down with terrible thud, flames letting out a hungry gasp, and though I wasn't in the building, wasn't beneath the fallen walls, tears dried in my eyes as quickly as they formed.
I pulled out the front of my shirt to cradle the ravens and ran, healing the birds as I went, tearing smoke from my lungs like a length of old, sodden hair that had twisted all the way down my throat and deeper still.
The ground scraped the skin from my knees as I collapsed by Sen, making sure she was alright over and over. It occurred to the humans who'd come to gawk at the spectacle that if the fire spread to the pane district, it wouldn't take long for it to reach their own homes, and all gathered did what they could to fight the fire back, spurred on by concern for their families.
Keeping the birds close, Sen and I watched as the flames conceded to a death by drowning, having taken what they'd come for. There was nothing but a pile of charred wood left, smouldering with sated hunger.
“We have to go to Claire. We have to tell her what's happened,” I said, shaking Sen's arm and failing to tear her eyes from the wreckage. “... someone did this because of me. I'm so sorry, Sen. Please. Let's go to Claire. She'll know what to do.”
Trembling, Sen rested her forehead atop the chicken coop still in her arms, and I thought better of reaching out to her when a growl rumbled in the back of her throat in time with the jagged breaths she was taking.
With the fire gone, all eyes were on us.
“You saved them. You saved all of your birds, Sen. See, they're safe! Can you leave them with one of your neighbours? It won't be for long. We just really, really need to see Claire. Come on—we don't need all these people staring at us,” I said softly.
Unable to help but overhear, one of the pane came over and knelt in front of Sen. They held their hands out slowly, murmuring something about having always taken care of the birds, back in their tribe, and uneasily, Sen passed the coop over.
I rose to my feet, shirt still held out to carry the ravens. Sen glanced up, not seeing anything until her eyes finally focused on the scars scattered across my stomach. That was enough to make her move. She took half of the birds in her cupped palms and together, we followed her neighbour to their cabin, setting the birds down in the hallway.
I took her hand, knowing she was in no state to recall where the tower was. I'd taken the smoke from her lungs but it still masked her eyes, covering her thoughts in something thicker than a starless night sky. There were none awake in Orinhal who didn't know what had happened, none who didn't blame me for what had just unfolded; there wouldn't be any who counted me innocent, had I stood alone in a room.
With the threat of fire over, people turned to fearmongering of a new kind. What had once been used against necromancers suddenly became one of our tools, and the Orinhalians stepped back, as though I was about to burst into flames, not light.
“Excuse me,” said the one woman who dared to block my path. I came to a halt, burrowing the words out of her with my gaze, no longer content to let people push me around simply because they were scared. “My family and I – and a lot of our friends – we don't think this is right. What's happening to you. You're a nice woman. The Marshal likes you well enough, and even if she didn't, even if you were horrible, you still wouldn't deserve this. I know that probably doesn't mean anything, after what's happened, but I wanted you to know.”
The woman's words reached me like the sea against a cliff, wearing away the hardness, carving out something new. There were no flames to keep tears at bay, only ocean spray.
“No, that... it means something. It means everything,” I said, fingers tightening around Sen's. “Thank you. But you should go. If people see you talking to me, they'll get ideas.”
Realising I was right, the woman left with her best smile.
There were fewer people around the tower itself, though some had followed us from the pane district, and I stopped outside, waiting for Sen to unlock the door. She remained by my side as if waiting for something herself. Either that, or she thought we were still moving.
“Sen, have you got the key?”
“Ah...”
I spotted a ring of them hanging from her hip and I grabbed it, not expecting her to be in any state to answer as I resorted to trying each one, until the lock finally twisted open. I guided her inside, leaving her to sit on the bulkiest chair I could find as I rushed up to Claire's room.
A candle burnt low on the cabinet by her bed, book folded across her lap. The ruckus outside and our abrupt intrusion hadn't escaped her, and as I reached the upper floor, she was doing what she could to sit up against the pile of pillows that had been supporting her.
“Rowan? What's happening?"
I hadn't considered the state I must be in, sweat and soot smeared in equal measures across my skin.
“It's Sen,” I said, stepping forward to offer my arm out and help her sit up properly, “There was a fire. They burnt down her cabin, Claire. Someone was after me—they had to be. Why else would anyone ever want to hurt Sen?”
Claire had settled down into bed in a long nightshirt, and when she swung her legs over the side, the fact that I'd dared to speak of fire made my throat turn dry. Believing that the burns ended at the hems of her collar, her sleeves, was a kindness to no one but myself, and I saw, too clearly, how the bones didn't sit right in her leg.
Claire didn't look away, didn't pretend I hadn't seen all that had consumed her. The thought of harm coming to Sen outweighed the rage that would've become her had she heard that Rylan was at Orinhal's gate, and she reached for her cane and tilted her head towards her dresser. I brought the trousers folded over the back of the chair to her, neither looking at her nor looking away as she began to dress.
Frustrated, breathy sounds left her lips as she pulled them on, leaving most of the work to one hand, struggling to stand without the cane. I held out my arm and she leant against me, buttoning her trousers without a word, picking up her cane and taking the stairs down far too quickly.
Sen was where I'd left her, hunched over in the darkness. She trembled, face buried in her hands, and Claire took tentative steps towards her.
“Sen...” she whispered, placing a hand against her back.
“M-Marshal...” Sen said, rubbing her knuckles against silver eyes as she looked up. “They burnt my house, Marshal. They took my home.”
“I know, Sen,” Claire said with a heartbroken smile. “I won't let them get away with this.”
Claire laid her cane across the desk so she could wrap her arms around Sen's shoulders and draw her close. Sen balled her hands into fists, digging the heels of her palms against her knees, and Claire ran her fingers through her hair, gently murmuring much of nothing as she pressed her face to the top of her head.
There was no way for me to make this right. I couldn't bring back the home Sen had made, couldn't recreate the birds she'd put so much time and care into. All I could do was ensure it never happened again.
Claire stayed with Sen until she stopped shaking. Easing herself back, she said, “Go. Get some rest, Sen. You won't feel like it, but it'll be for the best. Take my bed. And before you object, consider it an order.”
But there was no energy left in Sen to argue with. She got to her feet without a word, shoulders hunched, and took the stairs up to Claire's room one at a time, feet thudding dully against them. For a long time, neither Claire nor I said anything. The floorboards creaked overhead and Sen dragged her feet across the floor, but soon enough, a soft thwump told us she had no intention of pacing back and forth.
Exhaling heavily, Claire claimed the chair Sen had been sitting in, not knowing how she ought to start dealing with any of this.
“I think I need to leave, Claire,” I said. The words had been pressed against the back of my teeth and there was no holding them in. “It's only going to get worse and worse.”
Claire turned to me, expression settling into something that couldn't quite grasp at anger.
“I shall put an end to this at once. I shall ensure the people know that they cannot get away with harming anyone within Orinhal.”
“You tried that,” I said. “You told the people about me, and they still did this. Even if most of them listen, there's always going to be people determined to be rid of me. And the ones that don't act are only going to resent you for it. I've barely been here for a few weeks and look at all these problems I've caused.”
Claire furrowed her brow, unable to counter me. She knew I was right. I should've gone to her, should've put my arms around her and told her I didn't want to leave her side again, but I could only stand there, head full of flames.
“If... that is how it must be,” Claire said, nodding slowly. “I only regret that I could not do more to ensure your safety.”
Darkly resigned to what had to be done, Claire returned her attention to her desk, eyes darting around to find a document that may well have not existed.
“I don't want to leave you, Claire,” I said, taking a single step closer. “I've just found you after all this time, and... if it was just you and me, if we didn't have a whole city to worry about, I'd say we needed each other. But I can't stay here. Everyone knows what I am, and that won't be the last fire they light for me, Claire. I can get someone to help me to write to you. I'm sure one of the pane will be willing to help me. It doesn't have to be forever, right?”
My words got through to Claire. Instead of raising her shoulders and defensively digging through the never ending pile of work strewn across her desk, she turned to me, holding out a hand.
“I don't want you to go, Rowan. I truly don't,” she said, taking my hand in hers once I was close enough. “I thought that if I found you again – if you had survived – I should never let you out of my sight. But things have changed for both of us. We are not the people we were two years ago, and that cuts deeper than anything else.”
I wrapped my arms around her shoulders, letting her pull me close.
“We're not,” I mumbled into the top of her head. “But that doesn't have to be a bad thing, does it?”
Her fingers tightened in the back of my shirt, and my heart sank deeper with every second she held her silence.
“The world has been cruel to us both. I neither wish to hold you back nor force you to endure it alone,” Claire said, “I am not... I shall be here, for as long as you need me. I do not know if your letters will reach me, but write. I shall certainly do the same, even if I have to wait until next we meet to read them to you.”
Taking her face between my hands, I leant back, knowing there was still so much for me to say. Too much. I reined it back in, remembering what Claire had told me: bit by bit, and when we were both ready.
“Can I kiss you?” I asked, trying to smile as I used up the last of my courage.
“Kiss me...” Claire repeated dryly, as though it was the most ridiculous notion she'd ever heard and couldn't fathom why I'd ask such a thing.
“You're beautiful, Claire,” I said, proving myself wrong and dragging up the last few dregs of bravery. “You've always been beautiful, and you always will be.”
Her knee-jerk reaction to scoff was buried beneath a smile. She glanced to the side, nodded shallowly, and I didn't waste a moment. I bowed my head and pressed my lips to hers. I breathed in as she did. The shape of her mouth had been forever altered, the edges of her lips made rough, but there hadn't been a single moment scattered across the past two years where I felt so wholly at peace.
Claire lifted her hands, holding my face as I held hers, and I cursed everything that conspired to keep us apart. I looked at her and didn't believe she'd been forged by fire and force and fear.
“... you'll go to Kyrindval?” Claire asked, not breaking her lips from mine. I nodded, foreheads coming together, and she said, “The way there ought to be safe. If you encounter any Felheimish soldiers on the way, they'll genuinely wish to aid you. Let them help and they shan't cause you any trouble.”
Before I could stand back up straight, Claire brought a hand to the back of my head and kissed my forehead.
I couldn't say anything more to her. Couldn't give her the goodbye she deserved without reducing myself to tears. Desperate to spare us both from that, I fled the tower before I could change my mind, and rushed out into the open where the air wasn't cool enough to soothe me.
There wasn't much I could take with me. Claire's dragon-bone knife was in my pocket but would've survived the fire regardless, and I'd have to worry about finding food on the way. I needed to collect Charley and head north before the entirety of Orinhal knew what happened and decided to retaliate against the threat of fire; but even more than that, there was something else demanding my attention.
Ash wasn't hard to find. She was doing her best to calm the humans taking it upon themselves to feel personally targeted by a fire in the pane district and came running over at the sight of me.
“Rowan! Rowan, hey,” she called out, as though I'd wandered across her by chance. “Listen, you've gotta talk to the Marshal for me. All of this trouble with the necromancer thing, you know I didn't mean for any of it to happen. Thing is, I took that stag you offed back to the butcher, and he wanted to know how it'd been killed without leaving a mark on it, an—”
“I don't care. I don't care what you said, or to who. People have been saying things about me my whole life, and it always ends up like this,” I said, determined to not let her get another word in. “I need to know where Katja is. Take me to her.”
“You know the Marshal didn't want m—”
“But you still know where she is. You owe me, Ash. You owe me twice.”
Swearing under her breath, Ash cringed and set off without another word. There was a chance I could've found Katja myself, had I wandered down every street and felt for her presence, but there was no telling whether she'd be hiding from me or not.
The cabin Ash led me to did nothing to stand out. The guards watching over Katja were stationed inside, and from the street, I could've convinced myself that a family like any other lived in there. Curtains were pulled across the windows but candlelight ebbed gently through them. It was as though she'd been waiting for me, I thought.
“C'mon, Rowan, if you could say something to—”
I headed into the cabin and closed the door before Ash could finish her sentence.
The guards within leapt to their feet, causing me to break my stride.
“What do you think you're doing?” one of them demanded, and I had no answer for them.
I didn't know what I was doing there, or why I thought I could face Katja. Being in the same room as her earlier had reduced me to a trembling mess, and I couldn't speak for the forces that had driven me to seek her out. The guards had made themselves comfortable, playing cards and drinking at a table, but that wasn't to say they weren't taking Claire's orders seriously. They were ready to throw me out onto the street in a heartbeat.
It was Katja who saved me.
“Goodness. Is that Rowan, come to visit already?” she asked, not sounding half as pleased as I'd expected her to. With a sigh, she said, “Oh, do let her in. I'm entitled to some entertainment beyond these dreary books, aren't I?”
The guards didn't look pleased about it, but they relented, letting me pass. Already under her command.
Like the guards, Katja had made herself comfortable. She was sat in a high-backed armchair, blanket draped across her lap and knees tucked up beneath her, and half a dozen books were carelessly dropped on the low table in front of her. She'd flicked through them all and settled for the least dull, which clearly wasn't bringing her much joy.
Despite all that, she took no pleasure in seeing me. I braced myself for her reaction, did all I could to steel myself against what she'd say about Claire, but all she said was, “It's terribly late, dear. Do you think you might give notice, next time?”
If there was no fear within her then I wouldn't let her draw it out of me.
Gripping the back of the armchair, I towered over her, aching to make her lose her calm façade and sink into the cushions.
“You can act like this all you want. You can pretend that you're... that you're better, that you only want to help, but I know what you are. Claire knows what you are. So do Kouris and Atthis and Akela,” I said slowly, words chipping my grit teeth. “If you even go near Claire, just remember: I can kill you with a thought.”
“And I can kill you with a knife,” Katja replied blithely, snapping her book shut. “I wonder. Which one of us is more likely to go through with our threat, hm?”
My nails dug into the back of the sofa. I could've wiped the smile off her face for good. I could've wrapped my fingers around her throat, beat my fists against her face; I could've done a lot of things, if only I could've moved.
“Let me ask you, dear. What did you see when you slipped away from Bosma?” she asked, eyes searching my face for an answer she already had. Bringing her hands up, she wrapped her fingers around the collar of my shirt and pulled me close. “I was gone for mere moments, but goodness, I remember it so clearly: the boughs of a great tree, warming me with its shadow. I was sorry to have been brought back to this troubled world.”
I'd seen nothing when I died and she knew it. There'd been darkness within the darkness and silence beyond all that.
It was the only thing I'd been able to hear.
With a shaking hand, I ripped my shirt clean out of her grasp but couldn't bring myself to move away.
“Really, Rowan. I want nothing more than to help these lands. I honestly am feeling so much more like myself, now that I have something to focus on. What happened to you was... unfortunate, that much I'll say. Had you only been more cooperative, darling. I wanted so much for you to be better, to be all I saw in you.” She heaved a long-suffering sigh, teeth worrying into her lower lip. “But that's all behind me. You ought to do the same. All this wallowing can't be healthy. You were a worthy enough distraction, down in Canth, but that was half a world away. I'm only sorry it can't mean as much to me as it obviously does to you.”
I pushed myself away from her. I stormed out of the house quicker than I'd forced my way inside, knowing it was stupid, stupid, stupid to have confronted her. I hadn't known what I'd wanted to say; I'd just wanted to see her, as pathetic as it was, to know that she was really there. As close to imprisoned as could be until she lashed out at me again. I almost wanted her to lose control and follow through on any twisted, impromptu plans that swarmed inside her skull, all so she'd be locked away, key thrown out.
I'd survived her once. I didn't know if I could do it again, but I knew I couldn't be nothing to her.
“Hey!” Ash called out after me. “Talk to the Marshal next time you see her, yeah?”
Maybe I nodded. Maybe I kept on charging down the street. Either way, Ash didn't follow, and I found myself at one of the supply units, shoving what food I could grab into an enormous canvas bag. I should say goodbye to Goblin, to Atthis, to Sen, I though. No, no. I should go. I should go, before anything else burns down around me. I marched through the streets, only breaking my gait when Charley met me with all the resistance and stubbornness he could muster.
He saw the bag slung over my shoulder, smelled the food within and clopped his hooves against the floor of the stable, shaking his head every time I went to put the reins on.
“Come on,” I hissed, one arm slung around his neck. “You'll get to see Claire again later, okay? For now we've got to get back to Kyrindval. You remember the way, don't you?”
I saddled him up, got the reins on and tugged on them; nothing. I promised him apples, carrots, all the pears on the planet; nothing.
Exasperated, I scrubbed at my face, stomping a foot against the floor. “Gods! Charley, we've got to go. Claire's going to be alright. You'll see her before you know it, you'll...”
I didn't realise I was crying until Charley bumped his forehead against my chest. My palm was slick with tears and my nose kept running, no matter how much force I put into sniffing, and Charley kept nudging me back, as if his disobedience had made a blubbering mess out of me. I laughed through the tears, scratched him behind the ear, then led him out of Orinhal.
A handful of people caught sight of me as I left. Everyone would've heard the rumours by the next morning; the necromancer had done one decent thing, had packed up and left. They'd feel justified in it, no doubt. They'd reassure themselves that chasing me out had been the right thing to do; after all, who was to say how far the next fire would spread? Who was to say I didn't have at least a little to do with it?
With the bridge no longer crossing the ravine, the journey was almost a full day longer than it otherwise would've been. Avoiding villages and towns this time didn't lead to the zigzagging across Kastelir it had before. There was a noticeable dearth of them. The wind howled where buildings had once stood, and a chill crept up my spine as Charley galloped over the closest things to graves those people had been given.
I watched as ravens flew overhead, and waited for Felheimish soldiers to shoot them down.
One landmark I couldn't avoid was Isin. It had been home to hundreds of thousands of people and even in ruins, the city stretched from one side of the horizon to the other. I saw what remained from the hills; saw the trampled buildings and the shattered wall, the charred ground around it; saw birds swoop in, squawking, building their nests amidst the decay and couldn't imagine a castle once standing in the centre; and even then, I was too close.
I'd imagined dragons would still crawl through the wreckage they'd created, would blaze trails of fire across the sky as they circled the city they'd destroyed, possessive over much of nothing, but the stillness, the finality of it all, was worse than all that. Isin had fallen.
I did what I could to not linger. The mountains began their steady ascent from the horizon within a matter of days, and the taller they became, the less lonely I felt in the wilderness that had once been Kastelir. I started to see people. There were Felheimish soldiers and former Kastelirians alike; the Felheimish army were nowhere near the mountains but soldiers were scattered along the roads in groups of three or four, nodding to me as I passed, offering directions whenever I scowled at the map.
The citizens attended to life around their villages and towns as though they'd never been given a reason to cower in the past. I passed a settlement by the name of Isos and found the town was thriving, in spite of all else. Felheim's dragons never went near the mountains, lest the dragons living there were given reason to lash out against them. It was strange to think that only dragons were keeping them safe from, well—dragons.
“Can I help you, miss?” a soldier asked as I approached the foot of the mountains. A small hut had been built at the opening of the road leading to Kyrindval, and she sat outside it with another soldier, some years her junior. She greeted me with a smile, spear rested against the hut a few yards away.
“It's fine, thank you,” I said, bemused by the disconnect between the Felheimish soldiers that were spoken of in Orinhal and the ones I'd met on the road thus far. “I'm heading to Kyrindval, and I know the way.”
I gestured to the crumpled map in my hand and the soldier furrowed her brow. She took the map from me, glanced at it, and murmured, “Looks solid enough.” Handing it back, she made an effort to frown. More at the situation than at me. “What brings you to Kyrindval, anyway? Not too many Kastelirians are all that eager to get closer to the dragons.”
I'd had my story worked out for days.
“My brother's up there. He's been... studying the pane,” I said. It was true, for all intents and purposes, but I patronised the pane more than I would've liked to; anything to make it seem like my goal was to meet up with my brother, location entirely incidental. “I'd been living in Yastin, but I'd heard there might be trouble with the rebels...”
Yastin had been in fine shape when I passed it two days ago, but the mention of rebels was enough to earn the soldier's sympathy.
“Go ahead,” she said. “I'm on duty until sundown. If you need anything, come back this way.”
I thanked her and went on my way, trying not to hurry. I'd done it. I'd got past the Felheimish checkpoint with a simple lie, and all that remained was to wind my way up to Kyrindval. The thought of scaling the mountain wasn't so daunting, now that I'd strolled past the soldiers, and I couldn't wipe the grin off my face at the thought of seeing my brother. The thought of seeing Michael was actually making me smile. For the first twenty-three years of my life I'd seen him almost every day without fail. I never imagined a time would come where we'd be parted long enough for me to miss him.
Charley and I made our way up the mountain at a slow, steady pace. When the path began to narrow, I hopped off his back and lead him by the reins for as long as I was confident I could keep him safe. I left him in a small clearing when his hooves started to slip against the steep terrain, and scattered what remained of the food in the grass around him.
“Won't be for long, boy,” I promised. “I'll get the pane to come down and help you up as soon as I reach Kyrindval.”
More interested in chomping down on an apple than hearing me out, Charley let me leave without complaint.
I plastered my hands against the mountain face as I continued on my way, able to feel how high up I was. I didn't have to look down; the wind felt different here, somehow older and wiser, and each step I took pushed Bosma further from me. It was by no means an enjoyable process, but my heart didn't leap into my throat in the same way it had the first time I'd visited Kyrindval. Perhaps I had more faith in my abilities. Perhaps climbing a mountain was nothing compared to what I'd been through. Either way, within an hour I'd made considerable progress.
It was around then that voices drifted down to me. I couldn't have been far from Kyrindval itself, but I knew a pane when I heard one, and I wasn't about to walk into anyone with horns.
I caught one man saying, “... hate this part. Always feel like I'm gonna tumble off the edge.”
Another man grunted.
“Waste of time. The pane are always oblivious to everything going on. Why we trusting anything that comes outta Orinhal, anyway?”
I glanced around, working out what my options were. I had a handful of seconds before our paths crossed and nowhere to go but forward; if I rushed down the mountain I'd do just what the man – a soldier, no doubt – feared, and the side was too steep to scale. It'd be alright. It'd be no different that the run-in I'd had with the soldier at the foot of the mountain. I braced myself, hand on the mountainside, waiting for the soldiers to turn the corner.
There were five of them, and at least three started when they near-enough marched into me. I pressed myself flat against the mountain, gesturing for them to pass, but only one did. Their leader, the man who'd been grumbling about the downward descent from the sound of his voice, said, “On your way to Kyrindval, are you?”
“I am,” I said.
Nothing to worry about, nothing to worry about.
“Got a name, lass?” he asked. One of the soldiers seemed grateful for any manner of break, but the others fixed narrowed gazes upon me, passing a strip of parchment between themselves.
“Varn Southsea,” I replied a second too late.
The soldier nodded, reclaiming the parchment and tucking it back into his pocket. “It's her,” he said, hand going to the hilt of his blade as the other soldiers' rang out in the air in unison. “Don't make direct contact with it.”
“Wha—” I began, only to have a sword jabbed towards me. It stopped inches from my throat, wavering in the air at the mercy of an unsteady hand. I pushed my back harder against the mountainside, trying to become part of the stone itself.
“I think there's been a mistake,” I tried again, voice hoarse.
“Rowan... Rowan—it didn't say what your last name was,” the leader of the soldiers continued, and I knew what had happened. Of course I wasn't safe, just because I'd left Orinhal. Of course information was bound to spread further than the city limits. “We're to escort you to His Highness Prince Rylan's camp. Might as well make this easy for yourself.”
I glanced around, searching for an escape. The soldiers' stances weren't strong; they were uncertain of what I'd do, and they weren't quite standing shoulder-to-shoulder. The blade was no longer threatening to spear through my throat. I could push myself off the mountainside and barge between them, but then what? I probably wouldn't be able to skid to a stop before bolting off the mountainside, let alone turn towards Kyrindval and outrun them.
Trying to buy time for myself, as though it'd make a difference, I asked, “Why?”
“Why?” a different soldier repeated. “The crime of necromancy.”
A tumult of sickness washed through me, as though Katja herself were there. I did the only thing I could think to. I held my hand out and the soldiers flinched, as if I'd struck them. They were as ignorant as Gavern had been, as everyone always was; they thought they were safe so long as I didn't touch them, and they raised their swords higher, thinking that would save them.
It'd be easy. It'd be too easy. All I had to do was push my thoughts out towards them. It wouldn't have to last for more than a minute. I could tie them up and run, I could get to Kyrindval before their legs were steady again, and yet my fingers were trembling.
Katja had been right. She was always right about me. I couldn't just kill them. No matter what I told myself, I'd never go through with it. These soldiers thought they were doing the right thing. They thought they were taking in a murderous necromancer. I was the villain here.
“How did you find me?” I asked, yet again stalling for time. My hand was still outstretched, like I was going to drown them in death.
“Prince Rylan has ears everywhere. Orinhal most of all. Couple days ago, we got word that a necromancer was fleeing the city, along with a few helpful suggestions as to where you might head,” the soldier said. “Come quietly and it'll be easier for you. His Highness is a lenient man. Might even find a use for you.”
My hands were grasping at nothing, death not rushing forth at my command. Katja remained right. Of course I wasn't going to kill them.
But I wasn't going to let them take me, either. I couldn't. I remembered the chains around my wrists, binding me to the stove. I couldn't be imprisoned again. Couldn't, couldn't, couldn't.
And so I did the only other thing I could.
I charged forward.
Swords swung out towards me, slicing the air, the back of my shoulder. I barrelled into one of the soldiers, hoping the impact would negate the force I'd pushed off with, but it was all for nothing. I rushed right off the edge of the mountain, and for a moment – for a single, all-consuming moment – I didn't fall. I hung in the air, free, fearless, and the ground roared beneath me, like a hungry maw.
The mountains blurred and the sky slipped away. I told myself that I might die, but I wasn't going to stay dead; it was going to hurt, but I'd been hurt before. I could gather my broken bones and cracked skull back together. This was my choice, I was doing this. I had control here.
But the mountain sloped. I didn't just hit the ground; the rocks rushed out towards me and I crashed into them. Everything darkened more than once, and I healed in the time it took for me to slam into another rock. After that, I tumbled through the swirling darkness, bile in my throat as I prepared for impact, heart giving out and beating itself back into a shallow rhythm over and over.
I hit the ground, disappearing in a cloud of dust.
There was pain, there was darkness, and there was little else.
For a time, there was nothing.
The pain and darkness crept back to me for seconds at a time as my body tried to heal; it would fade away, and I'd return for a flash of a moment, stronger, more determined. My fingers—I could flex my fingers. My hands were still under my control. And my elbows, I could use those.
Where did it hurt?
I tried to think, but thoughts split my skull from the inside.
Darkness. Darkness.
Pain.
Pain in my chest, gathering there.
I reached out but it wasn't my chest. Something hard, slick under my palms.
Nothing.
Nothing.
My eyes rolled open. The world was bright and grey, upside down.
I was caught on something. Pinned to the ground to stop me falling into the sky.
I put my hands out again, bleary gaze following my touch.
Rock.
Rock where my chest should be, rising up, up. Skin and sinew pulsing around it, thrumming through the ground, trying to repair.
Splattered organs smeared, torn from me.
Ribs twisting, cracking back into shape.
All of it failing.
Nothing.
My ears worked. There was something sliding, squelching. Hands on my shoulders, tugging, tugging. I opened my eyes, tried to see, but—
Silence. Silence, silence, silence.
It wasn't nothing, it was—
I was thrown into the dirt. My shoulder hit the ground and the hole in my chest healed, closed over, and I gasped for breath. Alive. I was alive. My body ached with it, light seeping from every pore, and I screwed my eyes shut, forehead pressed to the dirt. I gripped at my chest, rocking on my knees, not throwing up, not throwing up.
I wasn't healed over, not completely, but those same hands that had pried me off the rock took hold of my shoulders and forced me onto my back. My eyes flashed open, thick with colourless fire, and I saw a boot at my throat, a dragon-bone spear poised to split my head in two.
And at the very end of the weapon, covered in my blood and gore, stood Kidira, eyes hard.