CHAPTER 40

A little girl who won’t have a mother.

Derowen looked so much kinder in death, but tension ticked along Wick’s jaw. The shouts and screams of battle were everywhere. Vex couldn’t tell if he’d heard every word or he had been lost in thought while he softly combed Derowen’s hair around her face, but when she walked closer, he immediately got to his feet and turned to her. “Dera did this.” A flat statement. A question he couldn’t ask.

“We fought. That’s how all of this started. We fought and Aswin walked in, and she was upset. She called the walkers.” Vex tried to find the right words. “For what it’s worth, I don’t think she meant to do this. Not today.”

“But other days?” he asked.

She couldn’t deny that. She could only be relieved that he didn’t know, and that relief hurt too. “She did what her brother told her to do.”

“May I see the ring?” Wick sounded defeated and worn.

When she placed it in his palm, he curled his hand into a fist around it. He closed his eyes and when he opened them again, something inside his gaze had shattered. He didn’t meet Vex’s look of concern but instead snapped his fingers, and when the remaining guards turned to him, he cleared his throat. “Double the guard near Aswin’s room, immediately. I won’t have her accidentally wander in here or out to the town square again.” He pointed at Thorn and Vax. “And aid them. Whatever they need.”

He held out the ring to Vex once more. “I don’t know if I can make this right. I don’t even know if I can make it better. But I can try. Will you let me help you?”

She shook her head. She needed to give him the chance. “You should be the one to use it. I don’t know if I can.”

“I’d rather not even touch it,” Wick admitted with a wince.

Vex looked at him, and for a moment it felt like she saw every side of him. The anger and defensiveness when she’d appeared on the palisades. The gentleness when he walked around town. And his utter loss now. He still towered over her, but he looked so much smaller.

She grabbed the ring and gestured toward the square. “How then? We need to put an end to this fight.”

“We can’t push through the palisades, but there’s another option. Follow me.”

She expected him to go back to the square. Instead he led her deeper into the Shade Hall, with all its bright colors. The carmine-and-silver drapes that ran along the staircase seemed to mock them as they climbed the stairs to the second floor. The paintings that hung in the hallways taunted them when Wick led Vex to a meeting room that overlooked the square, the ash walkers, the guards, the carnage. Despite the Shademaster’s death, the fight hadn’t lessened. The guards and townspeople who were wounded and dying were still wounded and dying, and the dead tore into their adversaries. There was so much needless bloodshed.

“The fight in the mines was cruel,” Vex said. “And so is this. Cruel and pointless.”

“Jorenn looked like this when we arrived here,” Wick admitted. “And when the first ash walkers came, they wouldn’t be stopped by palisades or guards. There’d be fighting in the streets too. We tried to make it better. I truly believed we did.”

Wick shuddered. He pushed open a double set of doors that led to a narrow balcony. From here, Vex could see everyone fight, from guard to doll maker. From broken ash walkers to desperate survivors.

“When you came, the people you hunted and killed still had a home here,” she said quietly, remembering Thorn’s words.

Wick shrank at that. He nodded at the silver ring she rolled between her fingers. “I never asked questions about that bloody ring when Culwen first showed up with it. Derowen asked me not to, because she thought it would offend her brother. Just like she told me not to rise to his shitty comments, and I did my best to protect her from his ire. She told me he always came to her aid, and that was what mattered. Besides, she knew what the magic did, so why fuss about it?” He stared out at the town. “I didn’t. I should have, and I didn’t. I trusted her when she told me it was meant to protect us. I failed her when I promised to protect her—even if it meant protecting her from herself. I failed them too.” He nodded at the battle below.

Vex didn’t say anything to that, because there was nothing to say. She couldn’t absolve him from his pain or his guilt. “We will help now,” she said, empathetically.

She placed the ring on her palm. It was strange to look at it. A simple piece of jewelry, woven into the very fabric of the town itself, and with it the fates of too many people. A simple piece of jewelry with stones that had once been part of a curse or part of fractured wards that kept ashen creatures at bay. A casual heist. It had never been anything of the sort. “What do I do with this? I don’t think it protects, but it does control.”

“How fitting then that Culwen was the one to bring it here,” Wick said. Something ugly and painful flitted across his face, and he pushed it away before he followed Vex out onto the balcony. He rubbed his eyes before he unhooked his warhammer from his belt. When he spoke again, his voice was soft and neutral. “Derowen always preferred a place where she could see the whole battlefield.”

She nodded. He waited for her to find a good lookout position. Somewhere where she could survey the whole square, while shouts and screams echoed around them.

As soon as she found the right spot, Wick took up position behind her, his warhammer loosely in his hands, to be able to protect her if the need arose. The staunchest of guardians. “Now focus on it.”

“How?” Vex rolled the ring between her fingers. “Derowen must have summoned them when we were fighting. She was out of sorts and frightened. But she knew what she was doing, and I don’t.”

Wick closed his eyes and swallowed hard. “You’re an archer. Focus on it like you would a target. Nothing else but you and the target.”

“And the bow and arrow,” she supplied.

He shrugged. “Like that, except with a ring.”

Vex picked up the ring and slowly slipped it on.

Gems the color of thunderstorms, that’s how Thorn had described the gems his sister had found in the depths of the mines before the ash walkers. Cloudy, stormy gems that had kept the cursed dead in the dark below, before they crawled out and tore through towns, upended families, killed travelers.

Vex didn’t have experience with magical artifacts beyond the theoretical, beyond what her teachers in Syngorn taught her. She barely had experience with magic, beyond the slightest of powers that she felt in the nature around her. It was a kernel. A seed, nothing more. Some days in the wild, when she lost herself in the tracks she followed and in foraging what flourished around her, she felt an awareness of the magic of nature.

But she did know storms and the mines. She did know the feel of rocks and gems and raw power. She understood what death was supposed to be; she was a hunter, after all.

And she had experience with protecting people. She’d come to disagree with Derowen on so many things, but she didn’t disagree with her on this: she wanted this strange, complicated town to thrive. She wanted Aswin to belong and be safe. Like Derowen had deserved to be safe.

She thumbed the ring. If Vax told her he believed in her, she knew she could do this.

“We’ll talk when this is all over,” she promised Wick before she turned her attention to the square outside. “I’ll tell you everything we found out about Derowen and Culwen.”

She twisted the ring around her finger and focused on the scene in front of her. Ash walkers crawled across the square and the wind rustled, blowing up clouds of dust and sand around them. The Shadewatch tried to push them back. The children in the inn had found or been given slingshots, which they used with abandon. The cursed dead fought hard, and the townspeople fought harder.

The rolling ash reminded Vex of the first night on the palisades, where she’d shot side by side with Culwen without even knowing who he was. Of Aswin, hiding out in the guard post to be closer to her mother. And of her own despair at the thought of Vax being a fight, a night, and a magic barrier away.

But he was here now, and this had to end.

She focused on the ring. The silver, warm to the touch. The clouds inside the gems that almost seemed alive. She stopped twisting it around and felt the warmth of the ring spread through her.

The air shimmered around her, and the wind picked up.

On the square below, some of the creatures stumbled and hesitated. A dwarven guard with a large ax hacked into one of them while Beryl took out another with her magic bolts.

Vex breathed in deeply and let the warmth of the ring spread through her. She felt the wind swirl around her, and she zeroed in on one of the walkers in the center, like she would if she were drawing her bow. She kicked her feet wider. She needed to ground herself well. She needed to be able to pull her weight.

Vex breathed until there was nothing left but her and the target. She breathed and released, targeting the ring’s magic like she’d loosen an arrow. Like a bolt of lightning that she could send through the sky with unerring accuracy, because while she may struggle to hold a sword too heavy for her, this was how she fought. Hard, fast, true.

She aimed for one of the walkers, and it stopped dead in its tracks while the others around it continued to fight the guard tooth and claw. Right behind it, an ashen skeleton tore into one of the townspeople, while a young guard helplessly tried to hack away at it.

Vex shuddered. Fuck, she didn’t need an arrow. She needed to find a way to push them all back.

She released the creature, and it went sprawling to the ground. She focused her attention on the ring instead, the shimmering of the stones. The storm, and a degree of power that took her breath away. She pushed. Away from Aswin, who’d tried to fight them all with a bow too large for her. Away from the miners’ children, who’d gone from seeing their small group of survivors torn apart to ashen corpses attacking. Away from Beryl, who’d been kind to her for no other reason than that she could. Away from this fucking Shade Hall with all its fucking heartache.

Vex felt the tide turn. The ash walkers might prowl and attack everyone who got too close, but they were no match for an entire town fighting together. They were no match for her.

She imagined a barrier, and she waited for it to spring into life with lightning and thunder.

It didn’t.

There was no flash in the sky. No bright, shimmering barrier that circled the palisades or spread out from the town square. No wave of magic that told the townspeople they were safe, or that eradicated all the cursed dead.

She panicked, at first. Certain she’d done something wrong. She could feel the connection with the dead, the ash, the silver, the tunnels that meandered through the depths below.

She pushed out again, hard.

Still, there was no flash. No grand gesture. Instead, there was simply quiet. There was the wind that tousled her hair.

The ash walkers stopped.

One by one, they began to disengage and retreat. A handful of them skittered in the direction of the miners’ gate, back to the hills. The guards circled another group, working together to dispatch them with the help of townspeople armed with spades, shovels, and even a few slingshots. The cursed corpses pulled away from the Shade Hall. Away from Vex. She pushed harder—and before the guard could regroup and overwhelm them, they fled.

AND THE TOWN WAS SILENT.

The wind that cascaded around them picked up the ash that remained and scattered it far beyond the town. Back to the hills, until it re-formed again.

A breath, before members of the Shadewatch spread across the square to pick up their fallen comrades and help the wounded inside. A breath, before the townspeople disappeared back into their houses. A breath, while the children in the inn carefully celebrated, because someone had to.

It was the same potent sense of relief that Vex had felt that first night, and at the same time it was nothing like that. It was exhaustion and pain and grief.

And silence.

“Thank you,” Wick said simply, because there was nothing else to say.

Vex took a step and stumbled. She sagged down to the floor, her back against the wall, while across the room Vax leaned against the wall, apparently having found his way to them. His wounds were bandaged and his pride was palpable. He mouthed an I told you so. She exhaustedly flipped him off.

She stared up at Wick instead. His light-gray skin was even paler, and the mourning lines around his face were so sharp they might as well have been cut with a knife. She twisted the ring around and around her finger, and with a rough voice that echoed against the emptiness outside, she told him everything she knew. From uncovering the notebook to her disastrous conversation with Derowen and everything she’d learned about Thorn and his miners. The survivors on the ledge. The stories Vax told her. The list of names.

Wick sat down next to her, and she told him about Culwen and Derowen’s fear. The coin that the Shademaster had stolen on behalf of her brother, with the town and Wick being none the wiser.

“I trusted every single word Derowen told me,” Wick said. He tried to elaborate and his jaw worked, but no words made it past his lips. Her heart went out to him. Despite everything, she couldn’t be certain that he had nothing to do with this. But she believed he didn’t. Some people are more important to me than my own life, Wick, though neither of us would freely admit that.

“She cared so much about you,” she said. “You were her truest friend, and maybe that’s why she wanted to protect you from what Culwen did to her.”

“Besides, he threatened to hurt Aswin if she didn’t comply,” Vax added softly. “She wasn’t blameless in this, but she was the victim too.”

Wick didn’t say anything. He turned toward the balcony, hands clasped behind his back. His shoulders trembled.

“I thought we were doing better. I thought we could be better. Derowen had such visions for Jorenn …” His voice trailed off, and his pain was so raw.

“She told me,” Vex said, though she had to push the words past her lips, Derowen’s other words still ringing in her ears. It’s how you tell the story that counts. “And she succeeded too, in some ways. I’ve seen how much the people in this town care for one another. I see how at home Aswin feels here. None of that is a lie.”

She recalled Thorn’s words. “But it was also only ever true for some people.”

Wick flinched but he didn’t deny it. She reached for his hand and squeezed hard, and before she could stop herself, she pressed the ring into his fingers. “You know we came to steal it,” she admitted. She glanced at Vax, who’d listened quietly and nodded. “We came to steal it because of what she did and who she got entangled with. But I think … you should keep Fracture here. Use it or find someone who will. Keep the ash walkers away permanently and finish what you started. For both of you.”

Because if they did, this town was something worth fighting for.

Wick looked down at the ring. “I would give it to you in a heartbeat, but I don’t know how to tell the people of Jorenn that they’ve lost both their Shademaster and the one thing that kept them safe.”

“It wasn’t entirely what kept them safe,” she said.

“No,” he admitted. He grimaced. “They believed her stories too.”

“And the barrier. However she made it.” She mulled it over. The flash and the theater were the tale she told too. Her visible power. They all served the same purpose of trying to distract people from what was really going on.

“Another one of Culwen’s strange finds?” Wick tucked the ring into his shirt pocket. “I’ll figure it out.”

She looked out over the town square, where blood marred the dusty ground and the innkeeper’s son was running around collecting arrows, while the Shadewatch healers were already busy with those too wounded to be carried in.

Perhaps she believed a few too many of Derowen’s stories too. She understood wanting to cling to them, when reality amidst these hills was harsh and unyielding. “You’ll have to tell them someday.”

“At least this is a harmless lie.” Wick sighed and got to his feet. “What do I do, Vex? I can make decisions, but I’m no leader. Not like Derowen was. I don’t know how we can stay. I don’t know where else to go. And this is all the home Aswin has ever known.”

Vex swallowed hard, and she righted herself. She swung her bow over her shoulder and tugged her hair behind her ears, where she could feel her feathers. “Then you make it into the home that she would want it to be. You owe it to that little girl, and you owe it to the people who died to make it a haven for Derowen’s schemes, when it should have been their haven all along. You tell them the truth.”

AND VEX HAD TO TELL the truth too.

When the town square was scrubbed clean and the wounded were patched up by the healers, when the dead were counted and when the fight left the town, when Trinket finally found his way back to the twins, Vex went looking for Aswin.

Jorenn Village should have been a haven for a brave little girl too, but Vex knew it had been turned into a nightmare. And she knew she had to tell Aswin the truth.

Vex found her curled up in one of the chairs in Derowen’s sitting room, two very uncomfortable guards standing outside. Aswin was staring at the wall with a forlorn expression on her face. It was equal parts confusion and grief, like she was aware something awful had transpired around her, but her brain refused the overwhelming horror of the situation.

Vex knelt down in front of her. “Aswin.”

The girl didn’t reply. She bit on the nail of her thumb.

“Darling,” Vex tried.

The girl slowly turned to her, her large green eyes older than they had been. It made Vex want to scream her own rage. It hurt to see her like this. It was unfair. But she knew fair had very little to do with the choices people made and the consequences others suffered. She just wanted Aswin to survive and make it through to the other side without losing too much of herself. Not like she sometimes felt she had.

When Vex reached out to take Aswin’s hand, she inadvertently flinched back. Vex simply grabbed onto the armrest of the chair and kept a space between them.

“It hurts,” the girl muttered.

“I know it does,” Vex said softly. “And I’m sorry.”

“I want my mama to wake up.” Aswin wiped at the silent tears running down her cheeks and nose. Earlier that day, she’d screamed and sobbed but even in her exhaustion she couldn’t stop crying.

Vex wanted to brush her tears away too. She wanted to hold her and tell her everything would be all right, but instead she breathed in deeply. “Remember what I told you? Remember what you told me out on the square?”

“If you just keep fighting, no matter how scary they are, the monsters can never win,” Aswin mumbled.

“Exactly.” Vex swallowed. “I was wrong, darling. The truth is, sometimes the monsters do win. Sometimes, no matter how hard you fight, it won’t be enough. And it hurts, and it makes it real hard to be brave.”

“I don’t want to be brave today.” Aswin curled up further, her knees pulled up all the way to her chin.

“Then you don’t have to be. No one knows how to be brave all the time. But do you know what?”

“What?”

“Even if the monsters won today, they won’t win every day. And maybe it feels almost impossible to be brave now, but you’re not alone here, darling. When you’re scared or sad, Wick can help you, just like you can help him too, because sometimes it’s easier to be brave together. When you think you can’t, you can still try. And then, I promise you, one day the monsters won’t win. Because even though daylight doesn’t stop dragons, someday someone will, as long as we fight for it.”

“And ash walkers too?” Aswin asked with a small voice.

“And ash walkers too,” Vex said softly. She lifted the chain with the small copper bear figurine over her head, and slowly placed it around Aswin’s neck instead. Aswin grabbed the bear. Her emerald eyes scarcely focused on it, as she turned it this way and that, and eventually, she wrapped her small fingers around the chain and held it close.

“Will you be brave too?” she asked, looking up at Vex. “When you’re scared?”

Vex didn’t quite meet her eyes, but she stared at the copper bear instead, at the way it bounced against Aswin’s hand, and every single facet and maker’s mark as it caught the light, and in it she saw a little girl on a bear with a bow that was far too tall for her, a talented craftsperson with curious eyes, and two young half-elven twins fighting monsters in a horrible poachers’ camp. And she smiled.

“Of course I will,” Vex promised. She could try to be, at least.