CHAPTER 7
Asehria continued burning long after the trees concealed it. The light followed them into the forest. It moved between the trunks and painted the underside of the leaves in shades of red. Whenever the ground rose, Atyas caught glimpses of smoke spreading across the stars.
Alaria did not look back.
She moved with one hand pressed against her side. Blood had soaked through the cloth beneath her armour and now ran in a dark line down her leg. The cut across her thigh shortened every other step. Alaria, who had always cleared a doorway before Atyas realised she had moved, now had to lift one boot clear of the roots. Her braid had come loose against her neck. Atyas followed because she had told him to. He could think of no other reason. His mother’s blood had dried across his hands. He kept rubbing his fingers together, feeling it crack against his skin. Alaria stopped beside a narrow stream.
“Into the water.”
Atyas stared at her.
“Why?”
“We’re leaving blood behind us.”
He looked down. Drops marked the leaves beside Alaria’s boots.
“Can they follow that in the dark?”
“Yes.”
She stepped into the stream. The water reached her knees. The current pulled at her wounded leg, and for a moment her balance failed. Atyas caught her arm. Alaria pushed herself upright.
“I’m fine.”
“No, you’re not.”
“I’m moving.”
“That isn’t the same thing.”
She looked at him. It was something Isolde might have said.
Neither of them acknowledged it.
They followed the stream west until the glow of the city disappeared behind the rising ground. Alaria led them beneath an overhang where roots from an ancient tree had torn through the stone. The hollow beyond was barely large enough for both of them.
“We stop here,” she said.
“You said they were following us.”
“If I keep bleeding, they won’t need to follow. They can wait for me to die.”
Alaria sat against the rock.
She tried to unfasten her armour.
Her hands shook too badly.
“Help me.”
Atyas did not move.
“Atyas.”
He stared at the blood beneath her fingers. For an instant, he was back in the nursery corridor. His hands were pressed against his mother’s wound. Isolde was trying to speak. Her blood was warm between his fingers.
“Look at me,” Alaria said.
He could not.
She struck the stone beside his foot with the tip of her scabbard. The sound pulled him back into the hollow.
“This is not that corridor,” she said. “I am not your—”
Her voice caught upon the word. Alaria closed her eyes, forced them open again and pressed harder against the wound.
“I am not dead,” she said. “But I will be if you do nothing.”
Anger broke through the numbness.
“You dragged me away from her.”
“Yes.”
“I told you I hated you.”
“I heard you.”
“I still do.”
Alaria leaned her head against the rock.
“Then hate me while you remove the armour.”
Atyas knelt. The first buckle was slick with blood. He wiped it against his coat and tried again. Piece by piece, he removed the damaged plates from Alaria’s shoulder and side. The wound beneath her ribs was longer than his hand. The spear had cut through the cloth and opened the flesh beneath it, but it had not entered deeply enough to reach her chest. He tried to hold on to that while blood gathered along the cut.
Alaria removed a small leather roll from her belt. Inside were a curved needle, thread, strips of clean cloth and a metal flask.
She handed him the flask.
“Pour it over the wound.”
Atyas removed the stopper and smelled strong spirits.
“This is going to hurt.”
“Yes.”
“A lot.”
“Atyas.”
He poured.
Alaria’s body locked. Her hand closed around a root until her knuckles turned white, but she made no sound.
“Again,” she said.
He cleaned the wound until the blood no longer concealed its edges. Alaria threaded the needle and tried to close the first stitch herself. Her hand missed the wound.
She offered the needle to Atyas.
He stepped back.
“No.”
“The cut must be closed.”
“I can’t.”
“Then I continue bleeding.”
“You do it.”
“I cannot feel two of my fingers.”
“I don’t know how.”
“Push the needle through one edge. Bring it out through the other. Pull until the skin meets, then tie it.”
“That’s your entire explanation?”
“We are short on time.”
Atyas looked at the needle. He thought of Nela Ar, the first name he had copied into the royal ledger when he was six. His hand had shaken then too. His father had told him to begin with one.
So Atyas made one stitch.
Then another.
Alaria’s breathing became uneven, but she never told him to stop. When the wound was closed, he wrapped the cloth around her ribs as tightly as he could. The cut on her thigh was shallower. He cleaned and bound it without being told. Only then did Alaria examine his forearm.
“You’ll keep that scar,” she said.
“Will you?”
“Several.”
Atyas sat opposite her. His hands were covered in fresh blood now.
Alaria’s, not Isolde’s.
It made little difference.
“Why did they want me alive?” he asked.
“I don’t know.”
“You always say that.”
“Would you prefer a comforting lie?”
“Yes.”
Alaria almost smiled.
“Your father may still be alive.”
Atyas looked towards the mouth of the hollow.
“That wasn’t comforting.”
“No.”
“It just makes me want to go back.”
“It makes me want to go back too.”
He reached for his sword. Alaria’s hand closed around his wrist. Despite her wounds, her grip remained strong.
“No.”
“You said he might be alive.”
“And returning will not help him.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I know the Keh’Dia were ordered to take you alive. If you return, you give them what they want.”
“Maybe they’ll stop attacking if they have me.”
“They murdered your mother while trying to reach you.”
Alaria released him.
“People willing to do that will not become merciful because you surrender.”
Atyas turned away from her. They sat in silence while the distant city burned.
They rested for less than an hour.
The sound of dogs woke Alaria.
Her eyes opened, and she was moving before Atyas understood what he had heard.
“Up.”
He listened. Barking echoed through the trees east of them.
“How did they find us?”
“They haven’t yet.”
Alaria pulled the damaged armour back over her bandages. Her face tightened as the metal pressed against the stitches.
“Back into the stream.”
They moved west through the water.
The barking grew louder.
At a bend in the stream, Alaria climbed onto a shelf of exposed stone. She led Atyas across the rocks, then doubled back above their own path until they reached a ridge overlooking the southern road.
Below them, the population of Asehria was fleeing. Torches filled the road from one horizon to the other. Families pushed carts piled with everything they had been able to carry. Injured soldiers moved among them, some still wearing pieces of armour. Children cried for parents lost somewhere within the crowd. There were more people than Atyas could count.
“We should go to them,” he said.
“No.”
“They’re my people.”
“And the Keh’Dia will search every refugee column for you.”
“We can warn them.”
“About what? They already know the city is burning.”
“We can help.”
Alaria looked down at the endless road.
“If they recognise you, some will try to protect you. Others will trade you for safe passage, food or the promise that their families will be spared.”
“They wouldn’t.”
“Most would not.”
“But some would?”
“Fear changes what people believe they are capable of.”
The dogs barked again.
Closer now.
Alaria turned away from the road.
“We stay in the forest.”
The pursuit forced them deeper among the trees. Alaria no longer tried to hide that she was struggling. She used her sword as a walking staff on the steep ground and stopped whenever her breathing became too loud. The trained reserve beneath her movements had gone. Blood loss left the current uneven: a brief steadiness in one step, nothing beneath the next. Reaching harder would only take strength from a body already failing to replace it. Atyas listened for the dogs. He heard voices instead.
“The prince cannot have gone far.”
Men moved through the trees below them.
“Search the water. Check every hollow.”
Alaria pulled Atyas beneath the roots of a fallen tree. Wet earth pressed against his back. She lay beside him with one hand over the wound in her side.
Five Keh’Dia soldiers entered the clearing.
They looked like men. Atyas did not know why that surprised him. Their armour was mismatched. One wore part of a Silvercrest uniform beneath a dark cloak. Another could not have been much older than Seraphina’s youngest recruits. Mud covered their boots. One complained about the cold. No shadows moved inside their skin. No darkness poured from their eyes.
They were tired men carrying weapons.
One of them held the leash of a hunting dog. The animal pulled towards the fallen tree. Alaria slowly drew her dagger.
“They said the King is dead,” one soldier said.
“They say many things.”
“What about the Queen?”
The man in the stolen Silvercrest armour laughed.
“Dead. The palace is ours.”
Atyas moved before he realised it. Alaria caught his coat and pulled him back into the earth.
The dog barked.
Its handler looked towards the roots.
“There.”
Alaria rose from hiding. Her dagger struck the handler in the chest. She caught the leash before it fell and pulled the dog past her, releasing it into the forest. The remaining soldiers drew their weapons. Alaria attacked before they could spread out. Wounded, she could no longer fight as she had inside the palace. Her circular steps had become shorter. She redirected the first sword but lacked the strength to complete the turn. The soldier struck her with his shoulder and sent her against a tree. She recovered and opened his throat. Another Keh’Dia came from her injured side.
“Right!” Atyas shouted.
Alaria moved, but not quickly enough. The blade cut across the bandage beneath her armour.
Her knees struck the ground.
The soldier in Silvercrest armour kicked her sword beyond her reach.
He raised his weapon.
Atyas drew the road sword Alaria had placed in his hands before the palace fell.
He remembered Seraphina’s voice.
Watch the shoulders.
He remembered Isolde’s.
Do not let this decide who you become.
He remembered the man driving a blade into his mother.
Atyas ran forward.
He reached for the current Seraphina had taught him to recognise. Fear found it faster than training ever had. Strength struck through his arms without balance or direction. He drove his sword into the soldier’s side. The blade stopped halfway. The man turned. He looked surprised. His mouth worked around a breath that would not come. His hand closed around Atyas’s shoulder. Atyas pushed harder.
The blade entered deeper.
Warm blood ran across his hands.
The soldier fell. Atyas remained standing above him with both hands wrapped around the sword. His fingers had locked around the hilt. The current had vanished as abruptly as it came, leaving his forearms trembling and his stomach folding against itself.
The man tried to breathe.
Then he stopped. Alaria retrieved her weapon and forced herself upright. The final two Keh’Dia hesitated when they saw her.
That saved her life.
She stepped around the first attack and cut the inside of the man’s thigh. As he fell, she struck the second across the throat. The first tried to crawl away. Alaria ended it with one thrust. Silence returned to the clearing. Atyas looked at the dead soldier before him. His hands would not release the sword.
Alaria placed one hand over his.
“Let go.”
He could not.
“Atyas.”
She loosened his fingers one at a time and pulled the blade free. Blood followed it. Atyas turned away and vomited beside the roots.
They moved the bodies into the stream. Alaria claimed the stream would delay anyone searching for them. Atyas did not ask how she knew. He washed Alaria’s old sword until the water around it ran clear.
It did not feel clean.
“I killed him,” he said.
Alaria was repairing the bandage around her side. Fresh blood had already soaked through it.
“Yes.”
“You said I wasn’t ready.”
“You weren’t.”
“Then why did I do it?”
“Because he was going to kill me.”
Alaria stared at the blood beneath her hands.
“I don’t know how to make what happened good.”
“Seraphina always had an answer.”
“Seraphina had time to find one before she spoke.”
Atyas stared into the stream.
“He looked normal.”
“He was.”
“But he was Keh’Dia.”
“I don’t know what that word means yet.”
“They killed Mother.”
Alaria flinched.
She looked east, towards the smoke that still marked the sky.
“I know what they did.”
“People don’t do that.”
Alaria pulled the knot too hard. The bandage darkened beneath it.
“They do,” she said. “I wish they didn’t.”
Atyas scrubbed at a mark beside the guard of the sword. It was only a notch in the metal.
“I already hate them.”
“Yes.”
“Don’t you?”
The answer came too quickly. Alaria looked down at her sword as though it belonged to someone else.
“Enough that I am not the person who should teach you what to do with it tonight.”
Atyas thought of his promise to Isolde.
“I don’t know what I’m supposed to feel.”
“Neither do I.”
“What if killing him already decided for me?”
Alaria was silent for so long that Atyas thought she would not answer.
“If one terrified choice decides an entire life,” she said at last, “then mine was decided years ago. I can’t believe that. Not for you. Not for me.”
Alaria tried to stand. Her wounded leg failed.
Atyas caught her before she reached the ground. For several seconds, they remained that way: a wounded soldier leaning upon a child who still had another man’s blood beneath his nails. “Don’t die too,” Atyas said.
Alaria placed one arm across his shoulders.
“I’m trying not to.”
“You don’t sound certain.”
“I’m not certain.”
Together, they faced west.
The road to Feenix lay somewhere beyond the forest, but neither of them could reach it as they were. First they needed shelter, food and enough distance to survive the next search. Atyas adjusted Alaria’s weight across his shoulders.
“Which way?” he asked.
She pointed between the trees.
“West.”
They began walking. Each time Alaria stumbled, Atyas stopped until she found her footing.
End of chapter