I am lying on a bed of splintered wood. Parts of the obliterated wagon litter the ground all around me, most no longer than the length of my forearm. The wind is gone; only the faintest whisper of a breeze stirs the blades of grass that line the perimeter ofthe road. Grappling with the familiar exhaustion that comes whenever I expend my powers, I haul myself into a sitting position. It takes a long time to get my limbs to cooperate. They seem made of jelly, even after a full night of sleep.
I suppose I should feel lucky no one came across me while I was unconscious. But it is hard to feel anything except horror as my gaze sweeps the site, taking in the full scope of the wreckage for the first time. Several pine trees are toppled, ripped out by the roots, their trunks resting against the snow-dappled earth. One has fallen directly atop what must have at one point been a guard post. It is naught but a pile of kindling now.
I try not to look at the bodies scattered beneath the detritus. The slain guards. Three of them, young and strapping, with sightless eyes fixed skyward. Their blades sit uselessly in the dirt beside them.
A muffled moan makes my head whip around. The sudden movement triggers a dizzy spell that takes several hard blinks to clear. When I am once again capable of focusing, I spot the source of the agonized whimpers. Gower. He is flat on his back in the road twenty paces from me, twitching occasionally. His hands clutch at his midsection—at the shard of wood that speared through him when the wagon exploded.
Skies.
I drag my way to him through the wreckage, fighting my fatigued muscles with every inch of ground I gain. Exhaustion batters at my temples, a relentless ache, but I banish it from my mind. I was asleep for hours. Since twilight. For a man to linger so long with such an injury…
I cannot fathom how much pain he is in.
It would have been a mercy to die right away, in the blast. Six inches higher, the spear would have pierced his heart and killed him instantly. But by some cruel twist of fate, it skewered thefleshy planes of his stomach instead, leaving him to a drawn-out death I would not wish upon my worst enemy.
“Gower,” I whisper through parched lips, peering down into his face. “Gower, can you hear me?”
His eyelids flicker but do not open. He does not answer except to moan—a low, anguished mewl. He is pale from the blood loss. The earth around his body is saturated with red.
“Gower?”
“M-mercy,” he gasps, the word garbled. “Mercy.”
His head falls listlessly to the side, as though the effort of just that one plea is more than he can endure. His hand is wan and clammy when I take it in my shaky ones and squeeze with as much strength as I can muster. He does not squeeze back. I doubt he would even if he had the ability.
I’ve killed him, after all.
The lance in his abdomen is thicker than my fist. The finest healers in Anwyvn could not stitch him up. And even if they could, he would never survive the fever that followed. Not when his body is already so weak, his immunity so damaged by the cancer that gnaws at his insides.
Anyone who spends time around the dead or dying learns quickly—there is a scent to death. A particular aroma that plagues battlefields and sick bays alike. Not only blood or bile but something else. A grim harbinger of what is to come.
I smell it now. Pull it into my lungs like deathly perfume as I hold the hand of the man who would have passed me over to Efnysien without so much as a backward glance, all too happy to trade his life for mine.
Mercy.
He asked me for it. Begged me for it. His final request—for salvation from his agony, for deliverance from this lingering punishment. But why should I grant him such a thing? He had shownme none. He had all but condemned me to death at the hands of a power-hungry madman.
As I watch his chest rise and fall in shuddering, excruciating gasps, I feel no sympathy. Or so I tell myself, as my eyes smart with unshed tears and my throat thickens with grief. This is no more than he deserves: a direct consequence of his own self-serving choices. Traitors do not warrant an honorable passing of soul into aether.
This is the fate he has earned.
Still, I cannot stop from setting his hand down by his side. Nor from reaching down into his boot, where the familiar hilt of a blade pokes out, shining in the weak morning sunlight—my dagger, stolen back on the streets of Caeldera. For a moment, I trace the glyphs carved into its handle, wondering not for the first time what they mean. And then, with a steadiness honed by years of healing, I palm the blade firmly and lift it to Gower’s throat.
Beneath the thin skin, I watch his pulse pound in the vein. It is thready. Weak. Unlike mine, which is racing at twice its normal speed as I adjust the angle of my dagger to rest beneath the hollow of his ear, where his neck joins his jaw.
“Your life for mine,” I whisper, recalling the words he’d spoken earlier. “A fair trade if I ever heard one.”
In one clean jerk, I slit his throat.
I do notknow how long I sit there in the dirt beside Gower’s dead body, staring at the blood on my hands. Long enough for the sun to drift high into the sky. Long enough for the pain in my temples to subside from a blinding ache to a distant throb. Long enough for some of the power I spent in last night’s outburst to re-form at the center of my chest, a faint furl of wind wrapped directly around my heart.
As the exhaustion begins to ebb, I take stock of my situation. I have no idea where I am. Moreover, I have no idea where I might go from here. Back to Caeldera? At the moment, that seems like the worst idea possible. It would be one thing if Penn were there…but he is not, and it may be days before he returns. Gods only know if anyone else will believe my story.
Kidnapped by a member of the esteemed Ember Guild. Forced to kill him to escape. And as for the matter of the slain guards and wind-blasted tower…
My head shakes, a slow rejection. I do not trust anyone in the capital to shield me from the repercussions of my actions. I certainly cannot expect any support from Queen Vanora or the members of her court. They already hate me. They are eager for any excuse to see me brought low or banished altogether. I would not be shocked to find myself thrown into the palace dungeons to rot.
Carys will stand by you, a small voice pipes up.So would Farley. And Teagan. And Keda…