“Mara.”He bent and looked directly into my eyes.“They will not go back until I am dead and they have you.You know this.”
I did.Gaz was persistent and dogged.He was like one of my father’s wolves when they caught the scent of something they wanted.Gaz did not give up.
“You must decide.”
“Decide?”
“I will not sleep next to a traitor.You either stay here and return with them or come with us and vow to fight them.”
My throat felt as though someone had gripped it tightly.Taio wanted me to choose between him and Gaz once and for all.Behind him, Omira, Yung, and Kintle stood watching me.They were loyal to Taio and now he was asking me for that same loyalty.
My first instinct was to cheer for joy.I finally had a way out of the Claiming Rite.Taio was giving me an escape.If I stayed here, Gaz and Nize would find me, and we could be back in Highcastle in days.Everything could return to the way it had been.
My gaze shifted to the pine boughs covering Finnrey.
Almost everything would be the same...except without Finnreynothingwould be the same.My best friend, my sister, was dead and growing cold.Gaz was to blame for that.If he hadn’t insisted on trying to kill Taio, the noise they made wouldn’t have attracted the Hollows.We would have stumbled on them anyway—or they on us—but we would have been alert and watchful.Gaz and Taio could have defended us instead of fighting each other.Finnrey wouldn’t have jumped to try and stop Gaz and been easy prey for the Hollow that bit her.
If I returned with Gaz, Finnrey died in vain.If I’d been a philosopher, I might have argued with that logic and found justification to go back with Gaz anyway.Being that I was the heir to the kingdom, I needed little justification.My people needed me.
But I’d been taught to push logic aside all my life and rely on my instincts and feelings.I knew how I felt.
IhatedGaz.I hated Gaz, and I hated Nize for being his weak-willed follower.They’d killed Finnrey with their thoughtless actions.And for what?I had accepted the Claiming Rite and my fate.Finnrey had told Gaz to put aside his vendetta against Taio.But he’d only thought about himself.Was it jealousy or nationalism or something else?
Who had told him to kill Taio and bring me home?
My belly tightened and nausea rose in my throat as possibilities rose in my mind.What if Gaz wasn’t the only thing I’d been wrong about?What if my logic hadn’t been faulty all these years, and it was Earsleh itself that didn’t measure up?What if everything I’d been taught and believed was a mirage?
I shook my head.I couldn’t contemplate that now.All I knew for certain was that Finnrey was dead, and I never wanted to see Gaz again.
And as much as I would have liked to return home and put all these fears to rest, I couldn’t.My destiny had been sealed like hot wax on a royal decree.The gods or fate or my own ineptitude in the arena had put me in this position for a reason.I owed it to myself and to Finnrey to see this through.
I owed it to Taio.He’d come all this way and fought for me.He’d risked everything.He must have a compelling reason, and I wouldn’t know that reason until we reached Zulen.
“I’ll fight them,” I said, louder than I’d meant to.I quickly lowered my voice.“Your enemies are my enemies, Taio of the First House of Zulen.I’d rather kill Gaz than go back to Highcastle with him.”I put my fist to my chest and knocked twice as I’d seen the Zulenii do.
Taio gave me a long look, his eyes dark in the fading light.Finally, he nodded.“You are one of us now,” he said and stepped aside.I cringed then because I thought the other Zulenii might embrace me, and I’d never really been comfortable with hugging people I didn’t know well.Instead, to my shock, Kintle lowered himself on one knee.Yung followed and then Omira.All three of them said something in their tongue.Taio leaned close to me and whispered, “They pledge their loyalty to you, Lady Mara of the First House of Zulen.”
My breath caught at my new title.We hadn’t yet spoken the marriage vows, but clearly Taio and his warriors considered me part of his family now.As though to underline this, Omira rose and held out a hand.Taio tapped my elbow, and I stuck my hand out too.She gripped my forearm.“You are my sister now, Mara of the First House.And I am yours.”
I couldn’t help but cut my gaze to Finnrey, wondering what she would think of this.And mayhap I looked away because my eyes stung, and I needed a moment to blink away tears.Omira was my sister now, and that meant more than she would ever know.
***
SLEEP DESCENDED ASsoon as I climbed into my bedroll and Taio put his coat over me.But I’d made the mistake of unfurling Finnrey’s bedroll beneath mine to soften the ground.Nothing of hers, except her body, had been left behind.She would have wanted me to use what was in her pack, just as I would have wanted her to take mine if our places were reversed.I had carefully transferred her belongings into my pack, placing the letters of introduction my father had entrusted to me at the bottom in a waterproof pocket.
Taio had taken the first watch at our new camp, and I’d fallen asleep.But I didn’t stay asleep.I woke with tears streaming down my face, clutching Finnrey’s bedroll because her scent clung to it.In sleep, I’d been dreaming about her.In the dream, we’d been children playing dress up in the castle.I’d been twisting Finnrey’s hair and pinning it up in what I thought was a beautiful style, but which later would take Mikta of Eastower an hour to untangle.The dream had felt so real.My hands had slid through Finnrey’s hair, and the scent that always clung to her—a pretty, floral scent—was so strong.When I opened my eyes in the darkness of the camp, the reality of her death crashed down on me again.I pushed my bedroll aside and buried my face in hers, inhaling the last of her scent that clung to it.
I didn’t realize Taio was nearby until I felt his hand on my back.I jumped.
“It’s me,” he said.
I raised my head and saw Omira walking the perimeter of our camp.Taio must have finished his watch and gone to sleep.But unlike last night, he hadn’t put his bedroll close to mine.He’d given me space.
I didn’t want that space now.I wanted to bury my face in his chest and weep like a toddler.I said his name, and in the next moment he was holding me against him.I wrapped my fingers around his tunic and cried silently.
If Finnrey could have seen me then she would have marveled at my great show of emotion.I’d cried more in the last twelve hours than I had in my entire life.
“I hate crying,” I said to Taio when I could speak again.“I hate feeling like this.”I wanted to shove all those feelings back down and lock them away and go back to feeling nothing.
