“Then I’ll pray on your behalf. Safe travels, Sir Cameron.”
“Thankyou. We are traveling to my murder, but by God, let’s do it safely.” I dropped my bagged possessions, freeing my hands, and evaluated the pack of men before me.
Glenda moved to backhand me, but the Elder stopped her with a wave. “Not inside the church.”
This wasn’t like my taunting of the chancellor. I was no longer under the sorcerer’s protection. But what could they do, kill me?
As a pair of knights rounded on me, gripping my arms above the elbows, I heard my own hysterical laughter. They pushed me down the church aisle, kicking at the backs of my legs whenever I threatened to crumple, until we exited into blinding sunlight.
Why today? If they’d struck even an hour earlier, Merulo might have returned to see my unpacked belongings and wondered after me. It’s as though they knew the precise minute to best grab me, as if . . . Oh.
I really hated magic.
War-unicorns waited patiently along a hitching post, dapples and duns and shiny bays. I didn’t recognize our location, but assumed it was one of the satellite towns bordering the sorcerer’s territory, close enough to the prophesied killing ground that it made an acceptable detour.
With the prickle of swords surrounding me, I followed grunted directions, approaching a white mare with a curling beard. She was far shorter than the equine construct, so I couldat least clamber into her saddle without much humiliation.
Secure in my seat, I slammed my heels into the unicorn’s sides, and shouted, “GO, GO!”
The knight holding her bridle regarded me with embarrassment. A couple of the men laughed, but most looked serious. Behind me, a slim figure slipped onto the mare and twisted my arms back painfully with inhuman strength, securing my wrists with a twining cloth. While I struggled and yelped, the knight stroked the unicorn’s muzzle, whispering soothing words. More respect given to the animal than to the man astride it! Somewhere inside me, that last lingering thread of comradery snapped.
Seeing that I was properly secured, the knight handed the reins to the slim blue arms reaching around me on either side. I wondered, idly, if I could ratchet my head back with enough force to break Glenda’s nose.
“Were the Elders angry after you shot me?” I twisted around to look at her. “You nearly did me in, which would have meant no more prophecy.”
“Prophesies always come true, one way or another,” Glenda replied coldly. “I should have told you that from the start. It might have saved us all some trouble.”
That couldn’t possibly be true. I felt disconnected, as if I hovered outside my own body. But it didn’t have to be today, that wasn’t specified. I didn’t have to die today.
“Glenda,” I tried again, as the unicorn trotted into motion. Knights on sleek steeds fanned in formation around us, forming a cage. “We used to be close. But the way you’re acting now, it’s like talking to a stranger. Did I ever really know you? I mean, which version is real, then or now?”
The light fell in leaf-filtered dapples as we left the church grounds, following the remains of an ancient road. Glenda’s sigh blew the hairs on the back of my neck. “Do you really want to know?”
“Well, er. Yes?” If I could perhaps engineer a fall from the unicorn . . . I couldn’t outrun them all—but again, I was buying time. Better still would be a plunge into a river or down some crevice.
I craned my neck every which way, but the forest floor rolled out even and unchanging, no handy cliffs presenting themselves. Fixated on escape, I nearly missed Glenda’s reply. “I don’t feel things, Cameron. It’s like there’s something frozen in me, something that thaws at birth in everyone else. That’s why I take the Passionweed.”
“The . . . what?” Against my better judgement, I found myself softening. I considered sharing my own debilitation, the Fear, in a last-ditch bonding effort.
“Passionweed. It’s harmless, really. You chew it before a boring play to better connect with the actors’ performances, or at a party, to wind up the intensity of things. People experiment, and they move on. They grow up. But for me . . . it thaws me.” Her voice took on a dreamy quality. “And not just to a normal level. I can surpass normal, feel more than anyone else.”
It sounded exceedingly unpleasant to me, like scraping off a layer of skin to better feel the breeze. Then again, her natural state was what I longed for—to be calm, collected, without the Fear astride me.
“I wish you’d told me,” I said. “Back when we were friends. There’s nothing wrong with . . . feeling things differently.Or whatever it is you said. But there’sabsolutelysomething wrong with shooting me full of arrows and—and kidnapping me, and tying me up, and—and plotting my murder, and I don’t see what that has to do with personality quirks or drugs. Glenda . . .” I was pleading now. “We don’t choose who we are, but you can choose to act differently.”
“Oh, like you chose to smash my skull in with your sword? To betray the forces of good and order? That sort of choice?” Her hands tightened on the reins in front of me, knuckles prominent through her blue skin.
“Ehrm . . .” Around us I saw sideways glances, the closest knights listening in. Maybe I could use this distraction to subtly steer the unicorn, directing us into an overhanging branch. I’d duck, of course, leaving it to smack Glenda in the face.
“You don’t care about anyone else, Cameron. So long asyoustay safe, you’d let this whole world burn.”
It was completely true. “Glenda, that’s not true! I just think we’ve, uh . . .misjudgedthe mad sorcerer, you know?” The unicorn snorted, ignoring the coded instructions I was squeezing through my legs. “There’s stuff he’s told me, about the pre-Descent world. We’ve lost a lot, and Merulo’s just trying to restore it.”
“The prophecy doesn’t require you to have a tongue,” Glenda warned, and I shut up. She, however, carried on. “You dare to bring up what we’ve lost. Do you have any idea how manymenwe’ve lost, in the weeks since yourbetrayal? It’s a lot, Cameron. If you’d died back then—back when we would’ve hailed you as a hero—they would all be alive. How many lives are you worth, huh? All those families withoutsons and fathers. Is it worth it, just for you? You know it isn’t. You can’t even pretend otherwise. So why?”
“I didn’t want to die,” I said miserably, before remembering that my tongue was at stake. I tucked it deep into my mouth, as if I could hide it from her, and tried to slouch in a dejected, placatory way, so that she’d be surprised when I burst into action.
And when would that be? At what point would I launch my grand escape? We continued to not pass any ditches, gullies, or rivers, and the unicorn only tossed her head at my increasingly desperate squeezes and kicks. I waited for a chance, and a chance never came, and then we were there.
