CHAPTER 18

WE RELEASE THE HORSES TO REST AND FEED while we make camp beneath the cold afternoon sky. Colin clears snow from the ground and I tug a breeze up to evict smoke from the air so we can sleep a few hours.

When we wake, the warboats are still in line of sight, ignited in burnished reds and oranges from the day’s dying sun.

What are they holding back for? Why haven’t they finished the assault with their airships?

It’s a strange feeling—seeing them and their smoldering horrors on one side, while the land I’ve slaved in for my whole life is on the other. And as much as I hate my former masters, I know it’s their servants and peasants who will suffer most when the bare cliffs two mountains away are breached. Looking out at the vessels, I give us a week, maybe less. And according to Adora, we have nothing to stop them except for Colin and me.

I wrap my cloak closer against the frigid air and look at Eogan.

Or maybe not.

“What about the other assassins?”

He glances up from the fire he’s building. “Who?”

“The other assassins you trained for Adora. What happened? Where are they?”

His eyes tighten as he bends to blow on the sparks, and Colin jogs up, arms full of branches. Warm breath puffs from his mouth.

“They’ve served their purpose,” Eogan says without looking up. “Some are dead. Some still around.”

“What do you mean ‘served their purpose’? Like they’re just done and wandering around now, and you have no interest in them anymore?” Is that what Colin and I will become to him? He’ll train us and then move us on?

“Don’t, Nym. You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Colin drops the wood. “What are we talkin’ about?”

“The other Uathúils he’s trained,” I say, watching Eogan. “Where are they, then?”

“Around. They don’t announce themselves, as you both should know.”

Colin plants himself near Eogan. “Wait a second. Yer answerin’ her? Do you know ’ow many times I’ve asked and you said nothin’?”

I ignore him. “Were any female?”

Eogan frowns and tips his head as if wondering why I’m asking. “One,” he answers slowly.

“Where is she?”

“She grew too cocky and got herself killed. She was a Terrene as well.”

Got herself killed by Adora? I almost ask.

Colin nods as if he, in fact, was aware of this. “So ’ow many other Uathúils are there?”

“In all five kingdoms? I’ve no idea. Your people revere Terrenes but rarely associate beyond Tulla’s borders, so it’s hard to say how many there are. Cashlin’s Luminescents rule their country, but their genetic line is sparse. The visiting Princess Rasha is one of only a few. However, they have other Uathúils, and they welcome all peace-seeking ones—as long as doing so doesn’t put them at odds with anyone. There are also hereditary anomalies every so often, and those are mostly the ones Adora finds. And Elementals, well . . .”

“Being Uathúil is hereditary?”

“Usually.” He glances at me, and I’m pretty certain we’re all thinking: Except for Nym, who’s a cursed fluke.

“So ’ow many are still alive?” Colin says. “Of the ones you’ve trained?”

“For Adora? Four. But there were more before I got involved.”

“Why do they stay hidden?”

“Not all do. But it’s definitely to their advantage to maintain the element of subtlety, especially in our current war climate where a sense of threat is already high.”

“Well, ’ow come they ’aven’t done more to stop the war?”

“They have. How do you think Faelen’s survived this long? But unfortunately, some haven’t been as strong. Others switched sides.”

“Switched sides?”

He blows on the coals and lets that uncomfortable thought sink in.

Colin looks at me, steam from his half-clothed body rising in the cool air. His face is suddenly very serious, and I think I know why. Because it’s rippling through my head too.

“So . . . if they couldn’t win the war after all these years,” he says cautiously, “what makes you think Nym and I have any chance in hulls?”

Eogan pushes a hand through his bangs and stares at the fire licking the kindling near his feet. His dark skin is beautiful against the snowy background. He glances at Colin.

Not at me though. He won’t look at me.

Another swipe through his bangs.

“Because Nym’s the most powerful Uathúil anyone’s ever seen,” he finally mutters, and turns to stride off.

It takes a few heartbeats for his words to sink in, but when they do, I don’t know whether to laugh at their absurdity or cry at the horror. Either way, I can’t handle thinking about it. So I busy myself with boiling potatoes for dinner.

We wait for him to return before eating in a silence broken only by the periodic sound of distant wolf howls. I stoke the fire higher while Colin cleans up from the meal and Eogan ties our food bags between three trees on the edge of the clearing. We layer our clothing to keep out the ice and snow, then drift off to sleep beneath a smoke-shattered moon.

Screaming.

I’m awakened by a child screaming.

Bloodcurdling and familiar. Memories of rot, and flesh, and limbs being torn from their sockets. I grab my knife and sit up as the sound tears across the mountain range.

It’s not a child. It’s a bolcrane.

The blood drains from my chest.

What is it doing this far from Litchfell?

The gutting cry erupts again—so eerie and disgusting in its perfect mimic of a child’s tortured screech. I pull my blankets around me and look for the nearest tree to climb. From the resounding echoes, the animal’s still a long way off, but how fast is it moving? And what in hulls is it doing? Bolcranes don’t travel out of Litchfell. Ever.

A wolf howl reverberates across the range, followed by three others. Is the bolcrane hunting the wolves? I roll over to shove more wood on the fire and meet Eogan doing the same. His eyes connect with mine. He leans in and his fingers are cupping my face and slipping down, down, down my skin until I gasp at the craving welling up within me. What’s he doing? Adora’s warning flares in my head, but I don’t give a blast because his touch is lightning, burning me alive and breaking me down.

My lips part.

His eyes flash and widen, and his breath catches when mine escapes.

Then he’s sliding his fingers farther, to my neck, on my pulse, and telling me to sleep. He’ll stand guard. I mumble that I don’t want to sleep because the bolcranes are coming, but suddenly I can’t remember what I’m saying or why I’m awake because I don’t remember his calming influence ever being so strong.

When my eyes open the next morning, my head feels foggy, but I have the distinct sensation I’ve slept deeply. Colin’s still snoring, but he’s squirmed over with his sleeping blankets and has his head resting against my arm. He moans and shifts his freckly face onto my elbow. I sit up and jerk away. Mortified.

A low chuckle draws my attention to Eogan. He’s sitting next to the fire, sharpening a pile of his handmade blades.

“I don’t see what’s so funny,” I mutter, and scramble out of my blankets to scoot as far from Colin as possible.

“What? He likes you.”

“He likes anything female.”

“Maybe, but he also respects you. And that’s harder to earn.”

The casual way he says it, as if it’s true, punctures holes in my attitude. I tug my fingers through my hair and unwind it from its waist-length braid. I frown at the fire. Do you respect me? I want to ask him.

“How about you? Do you have any love interests?” I say instead.

“You mean aside from Adora?”

He waits for me to look up before breaking into a laugh. “Only once. A long time ago.”

“What happened? She break your heart?”

He’s slow to answer. When he does, his voice is decidedly quiet. As if remembering. “You could say that.”

Oh.

“How about you? Anyone ever swept you away?”

“Nope.”

“Ever? I don’t believe you. You’re telling me there’s no one you’ve ever had an interest in? Even now?”

One of these days I swear my face will stop exploding in flames, but clearly today is not that day. I glance at my hands as my skin ripens to the color of a sunburn and try to focus on releasing the final strands of my hair to ripple in the icy breeze. All the while I’m praying he doesn’t notice that my heartbeat just turned into a blacksmith’s hammer.

“Sure it’s not him?” He tips his head toward the still-sleeping Colin.

“What? No.” Fresh heaps of coals pour from head to toe.

“And yet she blushes,” Eogan murmurs.

“I don’t. I’m serious. I swear . . .”

“Or someone from the past still haunting the present perhaps? Young love cut short?”

I open my mouth. But nothing comes out. Except possibly steam from the heat I’m exuding. I cringe. I’ve never been in love. Ever. The only crush I had at the age of eleven was, in fact, cut short. By the boy’s father. Most owners don’t want their sons or servants distracted by a slave girl. Especially when they have their own lustful interests in mind.

I clear my throat and straighten my shoulders as the chasm of shame in me shudders and enlarges the crevice in my heart.

I stand.

“Nymia—”

I hear him behind me. But I pick up my pace because I don’t want to break open in front of him. Maybe he knows this because he doesn’t follow. Or maybe he just doesn’t care.

When I return, half frozen with an armful of firewood, the sun is above the trees. Colin has returned from a quick run and Eogan is serving up breakfast. In my spot is a tiny leather belt with two simple metallic knife sheaths attached, from which two handles protrude. The blades Eogan had been sharpening.

I pick up the belt to discover it’s the size of my lower calf and the flat sheaths have some kind of lock to keep the blades secure. When I push the lock, it acts as a spring, pushing the knife handles up the tiniest bit for a quick grip.

“For inside your boot,” he says when I look up. He smirks. “Thought it better than that knife you’ve been tying beneath those dresses.”

I nod and notice Colin holding a set too.

“Thank you,” I whisper, before taking my food to sit alone. I don’t speak further to either of them. Because I can feel myself losing. The more time I spend with them, the more exposed and tender I feel. As if I’m under the blade of one of those knives, my skin’s becoming thinner, and I can’t keep it covered enough to avoid seeing how bare I am. I find myself admitting to things, experiencing things, feeling things I cannot allow. But I don’t know how to make it stop.

Mercifully, the rest of the day takes place in a hazy blur so I don’t have to admit to anything more than being nauseous. Eogan says it’s our bodies still adjusting to the high altitude. He has us drink ridiculous amounts of water before our first lesson, which is similar to the ones we’ve been practicing for the past week. Colin shifts rocks while I try to steal them with the wind, except I accidentally keep dusting us in snow every few minutes.

After lunch, Colin begs Eogan for us to start attacking the Bron ships, to which our trainer scoffs and just alters the lesson—having Colin fling the rocks at him while I try to whip them away before they connect. Not that Eogan’s block would allow the boulders to hit him anyway, but it still feels good to shield something rather than attack.

An hour into the routine, a wolf howls, and it’s definitely louder. Closer. My skin bristles the length of my back, and I brace for the bolcrane’s scream to follow. But it doesn’t. I turn to ask Eogan, but he cuts me off with a brisk, “Don’t worry about it. And don’t mention it to Colin. Poor guy has enough on his mind with having his skills foiled by a girl.”

I give him an arrogant smirk and go back to foiling.

Late afternoon is spent with Colin griping about us “seein’ the Bron ships but not doing anything,” while we work on perfecting the new defensive technique, and Eogan teaches me to create icicles out of frozen air. I notice that more and more, his touch isn’t just capable of calming my blood, but with it he’s been honing my abilities enough that I can specify between wind and rain and lightning. But even though I’m halfway decent at icicle-making, by the time night falls, I’m also uncomfortably aware of how small scale it is compared to what Colin and I are looking at on the southern horizon. I’m defending one person. But those ships will take out an entire civilization. I eat and fall into bed beneath a smoky moon. If I can’t get this down faster, Faelen is going to fall.

In the morning, after we’ve rinsed our plates and greasy fingers and I’ve washed my hair and shaken it out to dry with the sun, Eogan straps his broadsword on his back and takes us to another clearing four terrameters away.

It’s slightly lower on the glittering mountain range and facing a sheer stretch of ice and snow on the adjoining peak above. It also has a clearer view of the villages dotted down the craggy, forested sides. I can see the yellow rooftops of the little town we visited on our way up, where the small boy with the chubby hands lives. His flowers are still in my pocket back at camp.

“Please tell me yer havin’ us go after those Bron ships now?” Colin says with jittery excitement.

“Not exactly, mate.” Eogan tosses a water skin at me. “Ready?”

I catch it just as a wolf howl pierces the air in front of us. What the—? It’s followed by more howls all around as other wolves join in.

Colin recoils next to me. I shiver. “What in litches?” he mutters.

“They’ve been tracking us,” Eogan says.

The howling spreads out, and from the sound of it, the pack is surrounding the entire west end of the clearing with its snow-covered pine trees and rocky ledges. An enormous wolf emerges on one of the ridges in front of us and bares his teeth. Two more slink out behind him, like giants, easily as tall as Eogan, and shaggy. The leader’s long, gray coat is hanging off his bones, exaggerated by hunger-crazed eyes bulging above a thin, foamy snout.

Snow begins to fall, and the wind lashes my hair back as the thrum tweaks my blood. I sneak a glance at Eogan to ask what we’re to do, but the words dissolve with the swirling snowflakes flecking his black skin as he stares calmly at the animals. He knew they’d be here.

A deep growl, and the alpha on the ridge centers his attention. Colin retreats three slow steps and leans to the ground.

“Colin, don’t,” Eogan says. “Let Nym take care of them.”

Me? “What?”

“You need to know how to take down live, moving targets.”

This is a test? I back away and toss the water jug down, keeping my eyes on the leader as he tests the snowy gravel flanking the ridge. The two wolves with him whine and circle. How many more wait hidden? I shake my head, nausea rising in my stomach. I can’t. “I don’t want to kill anything.”

“I’m not asking what you want, Nym. Do it.”

The alpha slides down the gravel fifteen feet to land in the clearing. The animal’s growls become louder, vicious.

Colin bends low again. “It’s fine, Eogan. I’ll handle it.”

“I said this is Nym’s, mate.”

Why? To prove I can be the bigger monster? My insides are buckling. The other two wolves scamper down the slope, and suddenly more emerge all over the clearing. Five, ten, twenty. They’re growling and taking cues from their leader. They make their way toward us as the sky rumbles overhead. The falling snow feels like an inferno on my skin as the scent of smoke and salt in the air demands forth my curse. Eogan’s already beside me, ready to clench my arm if I don’t erupt, but it doesn’t matter. Because the lead wolf charges.

Colin’s gaze connects with mine.

The wolf jumps.