Luminous, page 24
Darius nodded, as if he could sense I was close to the answer.
“They...illuminate.”
He smiled as though he was proud of me for figuring it out on my own. “That’s right. When someone touches you, they see the answer.”
“To what?”
“To their question. To the question. To the thing that keeps them up at night, that drives everything they do.”
I nodded, finally beginning to understand. When Evran touched me, he’d seen himself putting out my light. But what was his question? Whether or not we could be together? What our powers meant?
Thick branches obscured the rest of our party from view. Darius and I were pressed so close together our legs were almost touching. I pulled back on the reins, halting my mare.
Darius yanked on his own reins, wheeling his stallion around to face me. A cold wind picked up, blowing the snow off the trees, blurring everything around us. How far back were the others? Had we lost them somehow? Darius’s eyes were like two glowing embers, the only part of his face I could see through the snow.
I didn’t want to ask the question, didn’t want the answer I was afraid he would give. But I swallowed back my fear. “What do you see when you touch me?”
For a moment, the wind stopped, and the forest went still. Darius’s eyes burned into mine, and deep inside, I felt something respond. Something small but unignorable, something that saw itself reflected back.
“I see you, Liora. I see you.”
TWENTY-SIX
The storm picked up that afternoon, and by nightfall, we were desperate for shelter. I hadn’t spoken to Darius again, Evran and the others having caught up to us just moments later. Since then, I’d talked to Jean about what happened, but I wasn’t sure if she’d shared it with the others. Knowing what Darius saw when he touched me, without knowing his question, was no kind of answer. But it was that strange sensation I’d felt inside, like an eye blinking open for the first time, that terrified me most of all.
Finally, Darius spotted a cave a little way from the trail. It was too small for the horses, so we gathered fallen branches and made a rough snow break for them, removed their tack, and crowded into the cave. There was barely enough room for all of us, and the cave floor was hard and pitted. I did my best to fill in the biggest holes with the toes of my boots so we’d have a smoother surface to sleep on while Jean arranged our bedrolls. It would be tight, with all of us pressed up close together, but at least we would be warm.
The hounds had curled up at the back of the cave, but when Darius whistled to them, they joined him near the entrance.
“Where are you going?” Evran called after him.
“To see if there are any signs of the Lusiri nearby. By morning, their tracks will be completely concealed by the snow.”
Jean and I shared a glance. If Darius found a void, we were done for.
“I’ll go,” Evran said. “I have better vision in the dark.”
To my surprise, Darius nodded. “Take one of the hounds with you, just in case you find any prey. Otherwise we’ll be eating cold meat and bread for dinner.”
I set my pack down. “I’ll go with him.”
“No.” Darius’s tone was sharp, but he busied himself laying out his own bedroll. “We need you to heat the cave. There’s no dry kindling nearby.”
Evran went out into the storm while Jean and Cyril dug through their packs, as if by some miracle they might turn up fresh provisions. Darius removed a bottle of amber liquid from his saddlebag and took a long drink.
“Here,” he said, passing it to Jean. “It will help warm you.”
She eyed him skeptically but took a sip, then passed it to Cyril, who passed it to me.
With the revelations of this afternoon, I was finding it harder to summon my warmth. Or perhaps I was just afraid of what might happen to me if I did. The glow from my skin was enough to light the small cave, and it was certainly warmer than it would be without me, but I took the whiskey anyway. I figured I could use all the help I could get.
The liquor burned its way down my throat, but I forced myself to take another sip, afraid I wouldn’t sleep otherwise. Darius had placed his bedroll at the back of the cave, where the two remaining dogs had curled up to sleep, and I found a spot between Evran and Cyril. At any point in my life before now, I wouldn’t have even considered sleeping between two men. But now, all I could think of was getting warm.
I passed the whiskey back to Darius, who took another long drink and replaced the lid. I kept my eyes down to avoid his. There was obviously more to his story, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear it.
Evran returned a short while later without food, his cheeks red from the wind and cold. “It’s impossible to see out there,” he said, rubbing his arms briskly. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s all right,” I said. “We have enough to eat. Any sign of the Lusiri?”
He shook his head as he crawled onto his bedroll next to me. “No.”
The whiskey was warming me already, and I found myself remembering our kiss beneath the willow tree, how happy we’d been in that moment. I wished I could call it back as easily as I could summon my light.
“Where’s my hound?” Darius asked suddenly.
“What? I—” Evran glanced toward the mouth of the cave. “It was right behind me.”
Darius moved to stand, but Evran shook his head. “The storm has gotten worse. The dog will find its way back when things calm down. He probably took shelter somewhere.”
“It’s not just a dog,” Darius grumbled. The other two hounds raised their heads from their paws and looked at him, lowering their muzzles when he at last resettled onto his bedroll.
We ate our rations in silence, once again passing around the bottle of whiskey as the storm raged outside the cave. I worried for the horses, but there was nothing we could do for them. Hopefully the Lusiri were far ahead of us by now. I doubted even wolves would brave this weather.
We didn’t bother to change our clothes as we all settled in to sleep; we would lose too much body heat in the process, and all of our clothing was equally filthy by now anyhow. I watched Evran in the glow from my skin, the soft fringe of dark lashes on his wind-burned cheeks, the rise and fall of his chest. He opened his eyes once and smiled sleepily, and I silently willed him to stay awake, to assure me he loved me again. But then his eyelids dropped, and it felt like a door closing.
At some point I drifted off, too, only to startle awake from another dream about the Lusiri. This time they’d been together, feasting on the body of an animal in the woods nearby.
I crept to the edge of the cave and listened. The wind had died down, and in the glow from my skin I couldn’t see any snow falling. One of the horses nickered softly. I pulled on my boots and went around the side of the cave to check on them, only to find them huddled together behind the makeshift hedge, their ears pricked forward, dark eyes watchful. There was definitely something out there.
I pulled my blanket around myself and walked back to the trail, afraid but unable to deny the invisible tug at my feet. I walked slowly, carefully, praying I’d be able make my way back in the dark.
I felt it before I saw it.
The void was by far the largest we’d seen yet. It had crept over the roots of a tree—or where the roots should have been. That horrible nothingness was moving slowly up the trunk. I stepped back a few feet, looking around for signs of whatever the Lusiri had eaten, but it had already been swallowed up by the hole. I thought of the hound and shuddered. It had probably run into the void without seeing it.
The nothingness moved slowly along the ground like an invisible mist, eating everything in its path. And it was heading straight for our cave. If I hadn’t woken, what would have happened? How could Evran have missed this?
I gathered my light and aimed it at the void, watching as it slowly shrank. But just when it seemed I’d gained an inch, it swelled and stretched, growing two more. I thought of the beasts the trappers had spoken of; this one must have been enormous to leave such a huge hole behind. But that didn’t explain why it was getting harder to close up. Unless the Lusiri were getting stronger.
I had been proud of myself for gaining better control of my power, for not needing to resort to emotions to wield it. But perhaps I needed them now. I closed my eyes and thought of Mina, how frightened she must be; Margana’s tears as she told me about the tapestry; Evran’s burrow and his knife made from his dog’s bone; and Cyril and Helen, who had both lost friends in the fire at The Crystal Gazer.
But try as I might not to think about him, Darius’s face was among the people who had suffered because of his magic. Was this the price of power, I wondered, no matter who you were? If it hadn’t been Darius, would someone else have done something to hurt the people I loved?
I groaned in frustration. Sympathy wasn’t going to close up the void. However Darius had been hurt, whatever regret he felt now over his actions, I could not deny that he was at the center of all our pain and loss. He couldn’t buy my forgiveness with diamonds or coerce me into feeling sorry for him. I wouldn’t let him. My anger rose up in me like a brewing storm, and I let it come, let it build in me until I thought I might burst. I felt more than powerful; I felt deadly.
I opened my eyes, relieved to see the void had shrunk by half. I took another step forward, and another, mud and decaying leaves appearing at my feet as I melted away the snow. The hole began to shrink faster the smaller it got, until it was only a foot in diameter. It resisted for a moment, and I pushed harder with my light, until at last it let go and vanished.
I kneeled down to be sure the job was finished. On the other side of where the hole had been lay a furry body, the Lusiri’s prey. It was indeed massive, even sucked dry, something bearlike but with an impressive set of antlers.
But even closer to me was a much smaller corpse, curled in on itself: the carcass of the hound. I felt a stab of pity for the creature before I remembered what it had done. The world was better off without it. I was turning to leave when I saw something move out of the corner of my eye.
I looked back toward the hound. It was limp and motionless on the damp ground, but it was oddly full, not just a hollow shell like the Lusiri’s prey. Suddenly, in one swift, jerky motion, the hound lifted its head and looked directly at me.
I gasped and stumbled backward. The creature had always been grotesque, but now its eyes were vacant black pools, so dark they swallowed even my light. It opened its mouth as it lurched to its feet, its movements strange and unnatural. Long strings of saliva hung suspended between its black fangs. Even its tongue was black.
Just like the Lusiri’s.
I tripped over a root and landed in the mud, but I kept my eyes on the hound as it took a step forward. I had wrongly assumed that once something went into the void it was lost forever, but whatever it was, the hound was definitely not dead. I could only hope nothing else had fallen into the voids left behind by the Lusiri and that we hadn’t missed any holes.
The hound was getting closer. I rose to my feet, pushing down my fear as I brought my light back, but the dog moved faster than I could. I was afraid to turn my back on it, but I could see no other choice. Though my legs felt impossibly heavy, I ran.
The dog snarled behind me as I bolted deeper into the woods, knowing I couldn’t bring this thing back to the cave.
The blanket was suddenly torn from my shoulders. I risked a quick glance behind me to see the hound shredding the flannel to pieces. Almost immediately, it realized its mistake and resumed the hunt. I could hear it panting behind me. The snow was getting thicker here, slowing us both down, but I would tire far faster.
“Liora!”
I ran in the direction of the voice, my muscles burning as I struggled through the snow that was now knee-deep. I turned just as the hound leaped for me, colliding with my chest and sending me flying back into the snow. I screamed as the hound sank its fangs into the thick sleeve of my wool sweater.
Fear is a useful tool. Darius’s voice filled my head, as clearly as if Jean was talking to me. He’d meant other people’s fear, not my own, but I had nothing else to use right now. Try as I might, I could not seem to conjure anything resembling anger.
The sharp tips of the hound’s fangs broke through my sweater. I screamed again, struggling to shove the hound off of me, but it was pure muscle and sinew, and it pinned me to the ground with its powerful claws. If I died, there would be no one to save Mina, no one to clean up after the Lusiri, no one to stop Darius. If I died, I would never get to know Evran outside of all this mess, never fully experience who I was meant to be. I couldn’t die now. I wasn’t even close to ready.
I placed my hands on the hound’s chest and it yelped in pain, leaping away from me just long enough for me to scramble to my feet and reach for a thick branch on the ground. I hefted it to my shoulder and waited for the dog to attack again.
“Stop!”
I froze, thinking Darius’s command was directed at me, but the hound also froze, some part of its mind apparently still under Darius’s control.
He strode forward, clad in only his tunic and breeches, a curved saber like the ones hanging from the doors in Iverna in his right hand. I turned away just as he brought the sword down, severing the hound’s head from its body.
When I looked back, Darius’s chest was heaving as he caught his breath. The hound’s blood ran black over the snow, but there was no movement.
Darius lowered the sword and turned to me. “You’re hurt.”
I followed his gaze to my torn sleeve. “It didn’t break the skin.”
“We still need to disinfect it.” He took a step closer to me. “What happened?”
I sifted through possible explanations. Perhaps now that he’d seen the evidence of what the void did, he wouldn’t be so inclined to finish the tapestry. But what if he was undeterred? What if this was what he wanted? I didn’t know who he was or how I could possibly trust him.
I settled for a version of the truth. “Something woke me. I came out here to see what it was. I thought the hound was dead, but then it attacked me.”
“Were the Lusiri here?”
I shook my head no. “Just the hound.”
He swiped at his brow with the back of the hand still holding the sword. Black blood dripped from the blade. “Let me see your arm.”
I pushed back the torn wool. There were two red marks on my skin, but there was no blood. “It’s all right.”
“Let me see it.”
I held it out to him hesitantly. “Is Evran here?”
“No.” He dropped the saber and took my sleeve, gently pulling my arm toward him.
Foolishly, I had assumed Evran was the one calling my name. But he would have no reason to think I was in danger. “How did you know where I was?”
“The hounds in the cave woke me. They must have realized something was happening to their brother. And then I noticed you were missing.” He pressed his fingers gingerly to the skin surrounding the bite marks. “You were lucky. The whiskey will have to do for now. I think there are some clean bandages in one of the saddlebags. We’ll need to keep a close eye on it for infection.” He scrubbed at his hair. “I just don’t understand how this could have happened.”
My eyes flicked up to his. His fingers were still pressed to my skin. Part of me wanted to run back to the safety of the cave and forget this night entirely. But I needed to know how his story ended. “Please, tell me what happened. What did you do to become...like you?”
“You want to discuss this here, now?”
My eyes wandered to the snow swirling around us. The storm had subsided a little, but it was still bitterly cold in the wind. “Do you prefer to discuss it in the cave with the others?”
He wiped his sword clean in the snow and offered me his arm. When I didn’t take it, he sighed and started to walk back toward camp. I trudged along after him, unconsciously maintaining a safe distance between us.
For a moment I thought he wouldn’t answer, but then he began to speak. “I didn’t realize it for a long time, but my mentor, Bastian, was using me to answer his ultimate question—how could he become as powerful as the king? He eventually manipulated the king into hiring him on as an advisor.”
I wondered if he saw the irony in this; it was exactly what Darius would do to King Clement, eventually.
“Once I knew what Bastian was doing, I was torn. My mentor was selfish, but he’d also helped get me to court. I fell in love with a young lady there. I would have done anything for Bastian, if it meant being close to her. But as much as I loved her, it was also difficult for me to open up to her. I couldn’t make sense of my past, of how my happy childhood memories conflicted with what my parents had done. One day we kissed, and she saw the answer to her question—what had happened to me to close me off, and would I ever love her completely?”
I winced. I understood all too well how she felt. “And she saw what Bastian had done to your memories?”
He nodded, his brows drawn together. “Yes. I was furious. Angrier than I’d ever been. I went to find him and demanded he tell me the truth. And what he told me was even worse than I’d imagined.” He swallowed thickly. “He’d kidnapped me. Taken me from my family in the middle of the night after meeting me in town. All I’d done was shake his hand, and he had seen what I could do for him. So he took me. But worse still, he altered my parents’ memories so that they believed I’d run away.”
“I’m so sorry.” That, at least, wasn’t a lie. No one deserved such a horrible fate.
He was silent for a long time, and I feared we would reach the camp without him telling me the end of the story. I needed to know what had become of him, what could become of me. “Finish. Please.”
In the darkness of the forest, his eyes were like two smoldering coals. “I tried to find my parents, but they were gone,” he said. “They left Sylvan with my little brother, and I never saw them again. I knew I needed to strengthen my mind against Bastian if I was going to get my revenge. So I found another mentalist. She helped me practice, every day for months. Finally, when I was strong enough, I told Bastian to meet me in the woods outside of the city. When mages duel, it’s with magic. With my mind steeled against him, I was ready to kill him for what he’d done to my family. And to me.
“They...illuminate.”
He smiled as though he was proud of me for figuring it out on my own. “That’s right. When someone touches you, they see the answer.”
“To what?”
“To their question. To the question. To the thing that keeps them up at night, that drives everything they do.”
I nodded, finally beginning to understand. When Evran touched me, he’d seen himself putting out my light. But what was his question? Whether or not we could be together? What our powers meant?
Thick branches obscured the rest of our party from view. Darius and I were pressed so close together our legs were almost touching. I pulled back on the reins, halting my mare.
Darius yanked on his own reins, wheeling his stallion around to face me. A cold wind picked up, blowing the snow off the trees, blurring everything around us. How far back were the others? Had we lost them somehow? Darius’s eyes were like two glowing embers, the only part of his face I could see through the snow.
I didn’t want to ask the question, didn’t want the answer I was afraid he would give. But I swallowed back my fear. “What do you see when you touch me?”
For a moment, the wind stopped, and the forest went still. Darius’s eyes burned into mine, and deep inside, I felt something respond. Something small but unignorable, something that saw itself reflected back.
“I see you, Liora. I see you.”
TWENTY-SIX
The storm picked up that afternoon, and by nightfall, we were desperate for shelter. I hadn’t spoken to Darius again, Evran and the others having caught up to us just moments later. Since then, I’d talked to Jean about what happened, but I wasn’t sure if she’d shared it with the others. Knowing what Darius saw when he touched me, without knowing his question, was no kind of answer. But it was that strange sensation I’d felt inside, like an eye blinking open for the first time, that terrified me most of all.
Finally, Darius spotted a cave a little way from the trail. It was too small for the horses, so we gathered fallen branches and made a rough snow break for them, removed their tack, and crowded into the cave. There was barely enough room for all of us, and the cave floor was hard and pitted. I did my best to fill in the biggest holes with the toes of my boots so we’d have a smoother surface to sleep on while Jean arranged our bedrolls. It would be tight, with all of us pressed up close together, but at least we would be warm.
The hounds had curled up at the back of the cave, but when Darius whistled to them, they joined him near the entrance.
“Where are you going?” Evran called after him.
“To see if there are any signs of the Lusiri nearby. By morning, their tracks will be completely concealed by the snow.”
Jean and I shared a glance. If Darius found a void, we were done for.
“I’ll go,” Evran said. “I have better vision in the dark.”
To my surprise, Darius nodded. “Take one of the hounds with you, just in case you find any prey. Otherwise we’ll be eating cold meat and bread for dinner.”
I set my pack down. “I’ll go with him.”
“No.” Darius’s tone was sharp, but he busied himself laying out his own bedroll. “We need you to heat the cave. There’s no dry kindling nearby.”
Evran went out into the storm while Jean and Cyril dug through their packs, as if by some miracle they might turn up fresh provisions. Darius removed a bottle of amber liquid from his saddlebag and took a long drink.
“Here,” he said, passing it to Jean. “It will help warm you.”
She eyed him skeptically but took a sip, then passed it to Cyril, who passed it to me.
With the revelations of this afternoon, I was finding it harder to summon my warmth. Or perhaps I was just afraid of what might happen to me if I did. The glow from my skin was enough to light the small cave, and it was certainly warmer than it would be without me, but I took the whiskey anyway. I figured I could use all the help I could get.
The liquor burned its way down my throat, but I forced myself to take another sip, afraid I wouldn’t sleep otherwise. Darius had placed his bedroll at the back of the cave, where the two remaining dogs had curled up to sleep, and I found a spot between Evran and Cyril. At any point in my life before now, I wouldn’t have even considered sleeping between two men. But now, all I could think of was getting warm.
I passed the whiskey back to Darius, who took another long drink and replaced the lid. I kept my eyes down to avoid his. There was obviously more to his story, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear it.
Evran returned a short while later without food, his cheeks red from the wind and cold. “It’s impossible to see out there,” he said, rubbing his arms briskly. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s all right,” I said. “We have enough to eat. Any sign of the Lusiri?”
He shook his head as he crawled onto his bedroll next to me. “No.”
The whiskey was warming me already, and I found myself remembering our kiss beneath the willow tree, how happy we’d been in that moment. I wished I could call it back as easily as I could summon my light.
“Where’s my hound?” Darius asked suddenly.
“What? I—” Evran glanced toward the mouth of the cave. “It was right behind me.”
Darius moved to stand, but Evran shook his head. “The storm has gotten worse. The dog will find its way back when things calm down. He probably took shelter somewhere.”
“It’s not just a dog,” Darius grumbled. The other two hounds raised their heads from their paws and looked at him, lowering their muzzles when he at last resettled onto his bedroll.
We ate our rations in silence, once again passing around the bottle of whiskey as the storm raged outside the cave. I worried for the horses, but there was nothing we could do for them. Hopefully the Lusiri were far ahead of us by now. I doubted even wolves would brave this weather.
We didn’t bother to change our clothes as we all settled in to sleep; we would lose too much body heat in the process, and all of our clothing was equally filthy by now anyhow. I watched Evran in the glow from my skin, the soft fringe of dark lashes on his wind-burned cheeks, the rise and fall of his chest. He opened his eyes once and smiled sleepily, and I silently willed him to stay awake, to assure me he loved me again. But then his eyelids dropped, and it felt like a door closing.
At some point I drifted off, too, only to startle awake from another dream about the Lusiri. This time they’d been together, feasting on the body of an animal in the woods nearby.
I crept to the edge of the cave and listened. The wind had died down, and in the glow from my skin I couldn’t see any snow falling. One of the horses nickered softly. I pulled on my boots and went around the side of the cave to check on them, only to find them huddled together behind the makeshift hedge, their ears pricked forward, dark eyes watchful. There was definitely something out there.
I pulled my blanket around myself and walked back to the trail, afraid but unable to deny the invisible tug at my feet. I walked slowly, carefully, praying I’d be able make my way back in the dark.
I felt it before I saw it.
The void was by far the largest we’d seen yet. It had crept over the roots of a tree—or where the roots should have been. That horrible nothingness was moving slowly up the trunk. I stepped back a few feet, looking around for signs of whatever the Lusiri had eaten, but it had already been swallowed up by the hole. I thought of the hound and shuddered. It had probably run into the void without seeing it.
The nothingness moved slowly along the ground like an invisible mist, eating everything in its path. And it was heading straight for our cave. If I hadn’t woken, what would have happened? How could Evran have missed this?
I gathered my light and aimed it at the void, watching as it slowly shrank. But just when it seemed I’d gained an inch, it swelled and stretched, growing two more. I thought of the beasts the trappers had spoken of; this one must have been enormous to leave such a huge hole behind. But that didn’t explain why it was getting harder to close up. Unless the Lusiri were getting stronger.
I had been proud of myself for gaining better control of my power, for not needing to resort to emotions to wield it. But perhaps I needed them now. I closed my eyes and thought of Mina, how frightened she must be; Margana’s tears as she told me about the tapestry; Evran’s burrow and his knife made from his dog’s bone; and Cyril and Helen, who had both lost friends in the fire at The Crystal Gazer.
But try as I might not to think about him, Darius’s face was among the people who had suffered because of his magic. Was this the price of power, I wondered, no matter who you were? If it hadn’t been Darius, would someone else have done something to hurt the people I loved?
I groaned in frustration. Sympathy wasn’t going to close up the void. However Darius had been hurt, whatever regret he felt now over his actions, I could not deny that he was at the center of all our pain and loss. He couldn’t buy my forgiveness with diamonds or coerce me into feeling sorry for him. I wouldn’t let him. My anger rose up in me like a brewing storm, and I let it come, let it build in me until I thought I might burst. I felt more than powerful; I felt deadly.
I opened my eyes, relieved to see the void had shrunk by half. I took another step forward, and another, mud and decaying leaves appearing at my feet as I melted away the snow. The hole began to shrink faster the smaller it got, until it was only a foot in diameter. It resisted for a moment, and I pushed harder with my light, until at last it let go and vanished.
I kneeled down to be sure the job was finished. On the other side of where the hole had been lay a furry body, the Lusiri’s prey. It was indeed massive, even sucked dry, something bearlike but with an impressive set of antlers.
But even closer to me was a much smaller corpse, curled in on itself: the carcass of the hound. I felt a stab of pity for the creature before I remembered what it had done. The world was better off without it. I was turning to leave when I saw something move out of the corner of my eye.
I looked back toward the hound. It was limp and motionless on the damp ground, but it was oddly full, not just a hollow shell like the Lusiri’s prey. Suddenly, in one swift, jerky motion, the hound lifted its head and looked directly at me.
I gasped and stumbled backward. The creature had always been grotesque, but now its eyes were vacant black pools, so dark they swallowed even my light. It opened its mouth as it lurched to its feet, its movements strange and unnatural. Long strings of saliva hung suspended between its black fangs. Even its tongue was black.
Just like the Lusiri’s.
I tripped over a root and landed in the mud, but I kept my eyes on the hound as it took a step forward. I had wrongly assumed that once something went into the void it was lost forever, but whatever it was, the hound was definitely not dead. I could only hope nothing else had fallen into the voids left behind by the Lusiri and that we hadn’t missed any holes.
The hound was getting closer. I rose to my feet, pushing down my fear as I brought my light back, but the dog moved faster than I could. I was afraid to turn my back on it, but I could see no other choice. Though my legs felt impossibly heavy, I ran.
The dog snarled behind me as I bolted deeper into the woods, knowing I couldn’t bring this thing back to the cave.
The blanket was suddenly torn from my shoulders. I risked a quick glance behind me to see the hound shredding the flannel to pieces. Almost immediately, it realized its mistake and resumed the hunt. I could hear it panting behind me. The snow was getting thicker here, slowing us both down, but I would tire far faster.
“Liora!”
I ran in the direction of the voice, my muscles burning as I struggled through the snow that was now knee-deep. I turned just as the hound leaped for me, colliding with my chest and sending me flying back into the snow. I screamed as the hound sank its fangs into the thick sleeve of my wool sweater.
Fear is a useful tool. Darius’s voice filled my head, as clearly as if Jean was talking to me. He’d meant other people’s fear, not my own, but I had nothing else to use right now. Try as I might, I could not seem to conjure anything resembling anger.
The sharp tips of the hound’s fangs broke through my sweater. I screamed again, struggling to shove the hound off of me, but it was pure muscle and sinew, and it pinned me to the ground with its powerful claws. If I died, there would be no one to save Mina, no one to clean up after the Lusiri, no one to stop Darius. If I died, I would never get to know Evran outside of all this mess, never fully experience who I was meant to be. I couldn’t die now. I wasn’t even close to ready.
I placed my hands on the hound’s chest and it yelped in pain, leaping away from me just long enough for me to scramble to my feet and reach for a thick branch on the ground. I hefted it to my shoulder and waited for the dog to attack again.
“Stop!”
I froze, thinking Darius’s command was directed at me, but the hound also froze, some part of its mind apparently still under Darius’s control.
He strode forward, clad in only his tunic and breeches, a curved saber like the ones hanging from the doors in Iverna in his right hand. I turned away just as he brought the sword down, severing the hound’s head from its body.
When I looked back, Darius’s chest was heaving as he caught his breath. The hound’s blood ran black over the snow, but there was no movement.
Darius lowered the sword and turned to me. “You’re hurt.”
I followed his gaze to my torn sleeve. “It didn’t break the skin.”
“We still need to disinfect it.” He took a step closer to me. “What happened?”
I sifted through possible explanations. Perhaps now that he’d seen the evidence of what the void did, he wouldn’t be so inclined to finish the tapestry. But what if he was undeterred? What if this was what he wanted? I didn’t know who he was or how I could possibly trust him.
I settled for a version of the truth. “Something woke me. I came out here to see what it was. I thought the hound was dead, but then it attacked me.”
“Were the Lusiri here?”
I shook my head no. “Just the hound.”
He swiped at his brow with the back of the hand still holding the sword. Black blood dripped from the blade. “Let me see your arm.”
I pushed back the torn wool. There were two red marks on my skin, but there was no blood. “It’s all right.”
“Let me see it.”
I held it out to him hesitantly. “Is Evran here?”
“No.” He dropped the saber and took my sleeve, gently pulling my arm toward him.
Foolishly, I had assumed Evran was the one calling my name. But he would have no reason to think I was in danger. “How did you know where I was?”
“The hounds in the cave woke me. They must have realized something was happening to their brother. And then I noticed you were missing.” He pressed his fingers gingerly to the skin surrounding the bite marks. “You were lucky. The whiskey will have to do for now. I think there are some clean bandages in one of the saddlebags. We’ll need to keep a close eye on it for infection.” He scrubbed at his hair. “I just don’t understand how this could have happened.”
My eyes flicked up to his. His fingers were still pressed to my skin. Part of me wanted to run back to the safety of the cave and forget this night entirely. But I needed to know how his story ended. “Please, tell me what happened. What did you do to become...like you?”
“You want to discuss this here, now?”
My eyes wandered to the snow swirling around us. The storm had subsided a little, but it was still bitterly cold in the wind. “Do you prefer to discuss it in the cave with the others?”
He wiped his sword clean in the snow and offered me his arm. When I didn’t take it, he sighed and started to walk back toward camp. I trudged along after him, unconsciously maintaining a safe distance between us.
For a moment I thought he wouldn’t answer, but then he began to speak. “I didn’t realize it for a long time, but my mentor, Bastian, was using me to answer his ultimate question—how could he become as powerful as the king? He eventually manipulated the king into hiring him on as an advisor.”
I wondered if he saw the irony in this; it was exactly what Darius would do to King Clement, eventually.
“Once I knew what Bastian was doing, I was torn. My mentor was selfish, but he’d also helped get me to court. I fell in love with a young lady there. I would have done anything for Bastian, if it meant being close to her. But as much as I loved her, it was also difficult for me to open up to her. I couldn’t make sense of my past, of how my happy childhood memories conflicted with what my parents had done. One day we kissed, and she saw the answer to her question—what had happened to me to close me off, and would I ever love her completely?”
I winced. I understood all too well how she felt. “And she saw what Bastian had done to your memories?”
He nodded, his brows drawn together. “Yes. I was furious. Angrier than I’d ever been. I went to find him and demanded he tell me the truth. And what he told me was even worse than I’d imagined.” He swallowed thickly. “He’d kidnapped me. Taken me from my family in the middle of the night after meeting me in town. All I’d done was shake his hand, and he had seen what I could do for him. So he took me. But worse still, he altered my parents’ memories so that they believed I’d run away.”
“I’m so sorry.” That, at least, wasn’t a lie. No one deserved such a horrible fate.
He was silent for a long time, and I feared we would reach the camp without him telling me the end of the story. I needed to know what had become of him, what could become of me. “Finish. Please.”
In the darkness of the forest, his eyes were like two smoldering coals. “I tried to find my parents, but they were gone,” he said. “They left Sylvan with my little brother, and I never saw them again. I knew I needed to strengthen my mind against Bastian if I was going to get my revenge. So I found another mentalist. She helped me practice, every day for months. Finally, when I was strong enough, I told Bastian to meet me in the woods outside of the city. When mages duel, it’s with magic. With my mind steeled against him, I was ready to kill him for what he’d done to my family. And to me.
