“I can kill him before you kill me,” says the scraver. As if to prove it, her claws press tighter, and a sudden sting tells me she’s broken the skin. I gasp, and a warm drop of blood makes its way down my neck.
“You said you need my help,” says Callyn. “If you hurt him— if you hurt him atall— you won’t get it.”
At that, the scraver freezes. My heart is pounding, my head spinning. But then she abruptly shoves herself off my chest, taking to the air, landing in a tree twenty feet above. I’m left gasping in the dirt, choking on nothing, scrambling to right myself.
— We are not with the scravers who are attacking your people,she says from above.—Nakiis is trying to stop them.
I sit up, rubbing a hand against my throat. “I’m not sure I believe you.”— I do not care what you believe, human.
“I’m not sureIbelieve you,” says Callyn.
— You should. Without your help, Nakiis will die. Then there will be no one to stand against Xovaar.
“One less scraver?” I say. “I’m not sure what the problem is.”
She lets out a screech that’s so shrill I can’t help but cringe. Callyn drops the sword to press her hands over her ears.
But as I hear it, the sound triggers a memory. I was seventeen years old, and my sister was still alive. We were at a court dinner in the Crystal Palace, shortly after the former queen had vowed to help Grey take the throne in Emberfall.
Queen Karis Luran had trapped a scraver named Iisak, and she kept him on a chain. After dinner, she ordered him to eviscerate a guardsman who’d disappointed her.
That scraver made a sound just like that, then attacked.
It was the most horrific thing I’d ever seen. I remember wondering if my mother had been killed by a creature just like it.
I haven’t thought of that moment in years, and the memory makes me shudder. But at the time, I was startled because Lia Mara wasn’t afraid of the creature. She seemed to trust him, and in fact, once she took the throne, she granted the scraver his freedom. She called him an ally. Afriend.
I look up at Igaa through the branches. Her gray- and- purple coloring blends into the shadows of the branches, and as the screech dies out, I realize the sounds of the forest have gone absolutely silent. Animals hiding in the presence of a predator.
We should probably be doing the same thing. My heart won’t stop begging me to run.
But I’ve been afraid before. I know how to put away fear and move forward.
I look up at Igaa and keep my tone bored. “Are you done?”
She hisses at me.
Callyn hits me in the arm. “Alek.”
“You heard her. If she was going to hurt us, she would’ve done it already.”
I think.
But I must be right, because the scraver doesn’t move. Her claws are still embedded in the bark of the tree, her figure completely still, nearly lost among the foliage.
I expect her to screech at me again, but she doesn’t.
— Please,she says instead, and there’s a note of desperation in her silent voice.—I would have summoned Tycho instead, but he is too far. I cannot leave Nakiis for long.
I consider the purpose of our mission. The queen sent us to find information about the Truthbringers. We should be conversing with the other Royal Houses, but perhaps there’s another way.
My heart won’t stop thrumming with wild panic, but I ignore it and look at Callyn. “Do you want to help her?”
Surprise lights in her eyes, and she drops her voice to a whisper. “She helped me save Nora.” She pauses, then wets her lips. “But I don’t know if we can trust them.”
I study her, struck by the words— because I really don’t know if I can trusther.
As if she realizes the same thing, Callyn sighs. “I didn’t betray you, Alek.”
