CHAPTER 32

The Dead Were All He Saw

After the battle, Archer dreamed of Versil—the slack jaw, splatters of rain on his white patches of skin—and of Kaito—the lightning in his green eyes, the anger, the betrayal, how his expression changed once Archer drew his gun.

The fear. The complete lack of surprise.

“He didn’t look surprised,” Archer said once, staring across the tent at Sefia, curled up on Kaito’s cot. “Everyone looks surprised. But not him.”

At first, when he nightmared, she tried to comfort him, tried to curl around him and stroke his hair, but he’d pull away. He’d turn his back. So now, night after night, she watched him dream from the other side of the tent. Watched him thrash and wake and dream again.

He dreamed of the fountain of blood and the way Kaito’s head went back.

“How many times can you kill your brother?”

Sefia said nothing. They both knew the answer—five, ten, twenty, as many times as it took for the sun to rise, to chase the dreams away.

And she stayed with him, in Kaito’s cot, hoping her presence was enough to let him know that he was not alone.

In the morning, the rain returned, sweeping over the grasslands in gentle, even strokes.

In subdued silence, the bloodletters built their pyres of wood and blackrock. Sefia collected flowers for Frey, who circled the four bodies they’d wrapped in white linen, weaving clover and thistles into the kindling.

Archer stood beneath the arms of an oak tree, his features distorted by his injuries. Water dripped from his hair and the tips of his ears, and his sodden clothes seemed as ill-fitting as the ones Sefia had stolen for him back in Oxscini.

He was no longer the lost boy from the crate, but he seemed lost without Kaito, without his brother.

When it was time for the funeral, Aljan appeared from his tent with two white spots of paint above the corners of his eyes.

The bloodletters gathered beneath the tree, listening to the whisper of rain on the leaves, the hiss and crackle of the smoking torches.

They patted Aljan on the back. They embraced him and said the comforting words, but when they were done they scuttled away again, their gazes sloughing off their bereaved brother like water.

It was funny, Sefia thought, how your grief could isolate you when it united everyone else. Like tragedy was an explosion, and the closer you were to it, the hotter and whiter you burned, until no one could look directly at you without the risk of being burned themselves.

They didn’t look at Archer either.

Whether it was out of respect or fear or discomfort, Sefia didn’t know.

The bloodletters took turns speaking of Versil’s bravery, his laughter, his jokes. Griegi told them how when they were prisoners, Versil had fed them stories: “Sometimes he’d talk all night. He’d tell us jokes, nursery rhymes, anything to give us something to hold on to, something to nourish us . . .”

They talked about Kaito too—his ferocity, his loyalty, his leadership—and when it seemed like no one else had anything to add, they all turned to Archer.

At first he said nothing. His face, bruised and patched as it was, remained impassive.

Sefia almost stepped forward, but after a moment he straightened. His gaze traveled over the bloodletters, the corpses on the funeral biers, finally coming to rest on Kaito—or what had once been Kaito.

“He was my brother, and I loved him.” Archer’s voice splintered. “Even at the end.”

Sefia found his hand, tracing the bandages, the scabbed knuckles.

Aljan stepped forward. Drops of water ran down his forehead, over the white paint at the corners of his brows, as he pulled a sheet of paper from his pocket.

Sefia caught a glimpse of black marks, maybe an S, but Aljan didn’t read the letter. Leaning across the top of the bier, he tucked the piece of paper into the folds of cloth that swaddled his brother’s body—a painting, a message, a secret.

Taking a torch, the mapmaker touched the flame to the funeral pyre.

“We were dead,” Frey said, “but now we rise.”

As if on some unspoken signal, the bloodletters crossed their arms and bowed their heads.

Archer did not.

He wandered over the cliffs toward the sea, where he stood on the edge with his hands in his pockets, watching the Artax rock gently at its mooring.

Sefia joined him a short time later. “We can’t keep hunting impressors, not after this,” she said.

“What else can we do?” His voice was raw.

“Run.”

“Where?”

“I don’t know. Anywhere. Roku, maybe.” With its sulfurous volcanic shores, the littlest of the island kingdoms, in the deep south, might be remote enough. The Guard might take years to find them there.

Archer glanced at her. “You once told me no one goes to Roku.”

“We could be the first.” She managed a faint smile. “No one’s stopping us. The others could come with us, if they wanted.”

A journey to Roku wasn’t what the Book had shown her. But the Book was a fickle oracle, and couldn’t be trusted.

Maybe there was a reason they weren’t together in the future. Maybe violence and revenge were the glowing core of their relationship, and when that was scooped out, everything they had built together would collapse.

She’d been over Archer’s future again and again, but she couldn’t be sure exactly when he’d return to Jocoxa. Maybe he’d return home in a few years, not a few weeks.

And maybe the him the Book had told her to let go of wasn’t Archer at all. Maybe it was someone else.

Maybe once they parted, they’d find each other again.

“Roku, huh?” Archer said, interrupting her thoughts. He seemed so tired. Maybe he, like her, was tired of fighting too.

“Why not?”

His fingers found the crystal at his neck. “Roku it is, then,” he murmured.

•   •   •

It was a strange time in camp.

Despite their victories, there was less an air of celebration than of sadness and uncertainty. Archer gave instructions to Scarza, his new second-in-command, to deliver the prisoners to the nearest town, and most of the bloodletters, needing something to occupy them, went along.

“When are you going to tell them we’re stopping?” Sefia asked.

“Soon,” was all Archer said.

At night, he dreamed. He woke. He looked for her in the darkness. He dreamed. He woke. He said little.

“I wish I was someone else,” he whispered once. “Someone better. If I was someone else, maybe Kaito would still be alive.”

Turning to face him, Sefia tucked her hands beneath her cheek. “I don’t want anyone else.”

During the day, Archer began to work on the Artax, preparing for the voyage south. His first move was to toss the whips and weapons of Serakeen’s pirates overboard, where their instruments of torture sank into the sea.

Sefia joined him. It was nice to work beside him again, like they used to do on the Current of Faith. Together they washed the decks, scouring the bloodstains until the brushes turned red.

Once Archer scrubbed so hard, he wore the bristles down to nubs. Sefia had to take the brush out of his quivering hands and straighten his fingers, one at a time, from their gnarled positions.

“I’m sorry,” he mumbled.

“Don’t be.”

Every so often, when he was working, Archer sat up and looked around. Then his eyes would harden, and he’d return to the work again.

Although he didn’t say so, Sefia suspected he kept forgetting Kaito was dead, kept looking for him, kept having to remind himself.

He’d killed Kaito.

When Scarza returned from town with the rest of the bloodletters, they took up the work too. They painted the Artax, obliterating Serakeen’s yellow-and-black with a pattern of red and white.

Aljan renamed the ship the Brother.

“You’ve got to tell them we’re finished with the mission,” Sefia kept telling Archer.

But all he’d say was, “Soon.”

Sefia didn’t consult the Book. After Versil’s and Kaito’s deaths, it remained sealed inside her pack, beneath Kaito’s cot, where it couldn’t mislead her again. The past had caused her nothing but confusion. The future had given her nothing but grief.

For now, the present—and the promise of freedom—was enough.

One evening, she found Archer sitting in the crow’s nest, watching the sun melt into the water. Scaling the rigging, she dropped down beside him, leaning against the rail.

A cold breeze tousled Archer’s hair, tugging at his sleeves and the legs of his trousers. His bruises were beginning to fade, but the purplish-green shadows of his sleepless, grief-stricken nights remained.

“Did you know Versil wanted to see Roku too?” she asked. “He wanted to go dragon-hunting. Not to kill them. Just to see them with his own two eyes, to prove to himself they weren’t ex—”

“I can’t go to Roku,” Archer said abruptly.

Sefia leaned back. A deep sense of foreboding opened inside her. “Why not?”

Behind him, the water turned gold and amber in the sunset. His face was in shadow, except for his eyes, which had the predatory glint of a hunting cat. “Oxscini’s closer,” he said. “And we already know we can find impressors there.”

Hatchet was in Oxscini. Annabel was in Oxscini.

“I thought you were done,” Sefia said. “I thought we were done.”

“How can we be done when there are still boys to save? With you and the Book, we can—” She shook her head, but he kept going. “We won’t rely on the Book this time, if that’s what you’re afraid of. We just need you to locate the impressors. We’ll make quick work of the rest.”

“Stop. Stop, Archer. You can’t. Not after what happened to Versil, to Kaito—”

“I’m doing this for Kaito. Don’t you see? This is how I make it up to him. This is how I honor him. This is what he’d do for me, if I was dead and he was still here.”

“But it’s supposed to be over!”

His eyes flashed, and for a second it was like he was Kaito. “It’ll never be over,” Archer said. The words were almost a growl.

Sefia could see it now. He and the bloodletters would tear through Oxscini—killing impressors, amassing followers—and then they’d move on to Liccaro, or Everica, or Roku. They’d lose some boys along the way, of course, but every time it would hurt a little less, would take a little less out of them, because there’d be less and less to take.

Eventually, the boy she knew would be gone. He might still be called Archer, but he’d be someone else. Someone with an army.

And a bloody destiny.

“Are you with me?” He reached for her hand.

Sefia pulled out of his grasp, searching his face for signs of doubt, for some indication that she could talk to him, reason with him, change his mind.

But all she saw was grief and grim resolve.

Archer had been right.

He couldn’t stop.

He was the boy from the legends, the boy the Guard wanted for the Red War.

That night, he outlined his plan for the bloodletters and told them to give him their decisions in the morning. Doubt flickered in some of their faces, but it was like most of them had already known they would follow him wherever he went. He was their chief, after all.

While he slept, she dragged out her pack. Inside, the Book was just as she’d left it, swathed in its waterproof wrapping.

Folding back the leather casing, she traced the on the cover: Two curves for her parents. One for Nin. The straight line for herself. The circle for what she had to do.

Except there was only one thing she had to do now.

“Tell me how to stop him,” she whispered. “Tell me how to keep him safe.”

She opened the Book, and there she found her answer. Not in the future, but in the past.

A past she hadn’t known existed.

A past that had been erased.