“Go ahead. Tell me what I already suspect.” Asterious swallowed, clutching the clothing in his hands tightly.
Caramyn fidgeted with a piece of twine, staring at it as she formed the words slowly. “I didn’t steal your mother’s ring off dead bandits—I mean…Idid—but they weren’t already dead when I found them. I…I killed them.” It felt strange to say the words out loud, but Asterious seemed unshaken, as if she’d merely told him what she’d eaten for breakfast. “And before I killed them, I heard them talking. Saying that they’d stolen everything from a grave—a royal’s grave.”
She expected Asterious to be quiet. She expected him to struggle upon hearing it. But she didn’t expect him to stare ather with no indication of what he was thinking, unmoving. The silence stretched thin between them as she picked at her nail, unsure of what to say. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner,” she added.
Asterious looked away, his mouth drawing tight as his jaw worked beneath the strain. She couldn’t tell if it was anger or something closer to resignation. Until he finally spoke.
“I already knew,” he said quietly. “I just didn’t want to believe it.”
He unfolded the clothes before pulling the shirt over his head. “I didn’t want to give my father one last victory over me. But like everything else…” His voice hardened. “He took her from me too.”
There was nothing Caramyn could say that would soften the blow. She stepped closer anyway, lifting her hand toward his stone-cold face, aching to bridge the distance between them. But he pulled away, and something fragile inside her quietly caved in. Confused, and more hurt than she cared to admit, she let her hand fall.
This wasn’t the moment for questions. Whatever he was carrying, he needed to face it alone, and all she could do was give him the space he’d chosen, even as it carved out a hollow in her chest. He reached for the pants and rose to his feet, his lower half no longer obscured by the blankets that had covered him while on the cot.
Then Caramyn realized how long she’d been staring.
“Are you enjoying watching me dress?” He asked, a tinge of warmth returning to his voice, as if he had just taken the news of his mother’s death and stuffed it down as fast as possible, adding more confusion to Caramyn’s already muddled emotions.
“I was just leaving,” she snapped as blood rushed to her cheeks, thinking back to him lying fully naked in the snow. “Besides it’s not like I haven’t seen all of you already anyway.”
“I suppose we now both have that in common with each other.” Asterious’ words caught her like a sudden snowstorm as she blushed at the memory of standing in front of him, dripping shamelessly in the tub at Vaerwynd castle. Back then she had felt so bold, so careless for what he thought of her. But now, there was some invisible force between them that she couldn’t distinguish from a barrier or a bond. And because of that, she stepped out of the tent to join Zera and Narahbi.
“You care for him?” Zera nodded, her dark plum lips parting into a pearly grin.
“Why ask? You already know the answer.” Caramyn shook her head.
Zera tilted her head. “In nature, the raven and wolf are bound. The raven flies ahead and sees what the wolf cannot, warning of danger or prey. The wolf is her strength, hunting and fighting where the raven cannot. Alone, they endure. Together, they live.”
Caramyn kept her gaze fixed on the approaching dawn, enchanted at the sight of the aurora of colors sweeping over the stark white snow with the promise of morning. The promise of warmth after a long, cold night.
“What did you see when you touched his scars? What are they?” Caramyn asked.
“A countdown.” Zera said ominously.
“What do you mean? A countdown to what?”
“Until the beast takes him completely, and he’s trapped in that form forever. It feeds on darkness—on fear, pain, grief, but most of all, death. Each life he takes strengthens it, growing the veins, bit by bit, until eventually they reach his heart, overtake it, and he can no longer fight the darkness within himself.”
Something sinister gripped Caramyn’s own heart, a hopeless, broken feeling of dread and foreboding. The veins were so close to his heart. Mere inches away from completing their darkpurpose. She pressed her lips together, still hung on the weight of Zera’s words. “How…how many more times can he kill before—”
“One. Maybe two.”
Caramyn stared at her, her lips stammering, and her voice hoarse when it finally came. “Is there any way to stop it?”
“Itis a Blackheart—it’s what happens when Shadow magic is used in attempt to heal by someone who has no business using it. Someone powerful enough to do it, but foolish enough to try. Someone desperate enough to try pulling someone back from the edge of death. When a soul is already slipping beyond the reach of Light magic, the Blackheart binds to what remains, keeping the body alive while slowly devouring the soul. In time, it takes full control, until it permanently manifests as the deepest fears of the host.” Zera lifted her chin, her calloused eyes bleary. “And there is no way to be rid of it that I know of—except to pass it on to another dying soul, which may very well cost the host the life it was sustaining.”
“He was just a child…” Caramyn whispered, imagining the young Asterious, thrown to the mercy of a ravenous wolf, all for the mere hope of earning his father’s acceptance. Forced to become the very same bloodthirsty beast that sent him to this fate.
“Yes…he was.” The way Zera said the words made Caramyn glance twice at the woman.
“You speak as though you knew him.” Caramyn narrowed her eyes, as if trying to see beyond what was in front of her.
“Because I did know him.” Zera’s voice quaked. “I’m the one who cursed him with the Blackheart. And I’ve regretted it every day…I recognized him the moment I touched his scars. I knew exactly what they were. And I knew I was the one who caused them.”
Caramyn nearly choked on what she’d just heard. The air turned heavy. It took a few breaths too long for the meaning of Zera’s words to land, and when they did, it was like a dagger to the heart.
She thought she might suffocate. She stared at Zera, stunned, horrified, her mind spinning like a broken compass. As she searched for the words to demand an explanation, Zera seemed to already understand that one was owed, and offered up the rest without any prodding.
