Shaw stabs the yarmardu once more and it rears up in agony. But instead of running, he takes the gun from its place on his hip. And points it at me.
His hair is wild, his cheeks streaked with blood and grime. His face is white with fury, and I remember that he is something to fear. He may be capable of love, but it only makes him more dangerous. “Don’t go with her! Please!” His voice breaks on the last word.
Heart in my throat, I run after the warlord’s soldier just as Shaw’s bullet grazes my cheek.
ChapterTwelve
Mirren
My heart pounds erratically as I urge my feet to move faster. They’ve already failed me once. This time, I won’t allow them to slow, not even for a second; not when Shaw’s presence still lingers in every part of this wood.
Maybe the yarmardu has finished him off. It was only cowed when I took off, not defeated, and Shaw was covered in blood. There’s no way he’ll be able to outrun it. I have no idea what it takes to kill that creature, but I imagine it’s something that not even Shaw possesses. At least not alone.
I refuse to let guilt overtake me, not when Shaw’s voice beats in my mind to the rhythm of my breaths.I do not miss, I do not miss, I do not miss.
In that moment just before the yamardu attacked, I believed something shifted inside of Shaw. As if he peeled back the layers of stone around him to reveal a beating heart inside. And not just a heart. A soul.
But then, faced with the loss of his prize, the stone slammed down around him once more. I shudder as I recall the terrifying fury that burned in his eyes as he raised the revolver. As he pulled the trigger, knowing he never misses. Because if he couldn’t have me, no one would.
I haven’t been in the Dark World long enough to wish him dead, but I’ve been here long enough to not feel sorry if he is.
“Come on, girl,” the soldier urges. Her gun is slung over her back, her blond hair clipped short against her skull. “Move faster. The quicker we reach camp, the better our chances of staying alive.”
I don’t know if she’s referring to the yamardu or Shaw, but I don’t argue. I only urge my feet forward, my mind whirling. She means to take me to the warlord’s camp.
I remember Shaw’s plea just before he lifted the revolver, the last word etched into my brain as thoroughly as a brand.Please.It’s the only time I’ve heard the word on his lips and though he abducted me, and hurt me and shot at me, the word gives me pause.
I hate that even now he inhabits my thoughts. That he still twists them and shapes them until I no longer know what’s real.
“What were you doing in the woods?” I ask the soldier as she pulls me along. The trees are thick here and I wonder briefly how she knows where she’s going. Howeveryoneseems to know where they’re going in this Covinus-forsaken country, except for me.
“Patrol.” Her answer is short. Perfunctory.
“For the warlord?”
At this, she turns to me, something glinting in her eyes. “Ah, so you’ve heard of the Praeceptor, have you?” she doesn’t wait for my answer. “Then you know that nothing will touch us once we’re inside camp. Yamardu or otherwise.”
She says this not as an opinion, but a fact. For some reason, it sets my teeth on edge. I have no wish to meet the infamous warlord, but if I want to avoid Shaw, the camp is my best bet. If Shaw manages to escape the yamardu, there’s no way he will follow me into this camp. Not when he refuses to even speak the Praeceptor’s name.
The sun has fallen well below the mountains when we reach the crest of the hill. I gasp, taking in the militia’s camp. It is a sprawling, living thing. Canvas tents spread in all directions. Loud voices ring out from soldiers clustered around fires and as we approach, the smell of cooking meat and unwashed bodies wafts lazily toward me.
Armed guards line the boundaries of the camp and two of them eye us warily as we approach, raising their large guns. My soldier holds her hands up, shifting her fingers in a sign that they must recognize because the guards immediately relax.
The first guard nods. “Retiring from patrol so early, Dumi?”
“Got someone for thelegatusto meet,” Dumi replies airily, but I barely hear her words. A gasp catches in my throat as I realize what towers above the entrance to the camp. A pole, as large as any tree, rises two stories high. And staked to it is a man.
Or what I can only assume used to be a man. His face is bruised and mottled beyond recognition and his stomach has been slashed. I cry out in alarm as a breath rattles through the man’s destroyed chest and Dumi’s eyes flick to me.
There is nothing in them. It’s the same deadened mask that adorns Shaw’s face, the one he briefly lifted just before the attack. “Don’t mind him. He’s not long for this world.” She doesn’t spare the dying man another glance as she moves past the guards.
Think like Shaw. It’s that man’s life or mine. His life or Easton’s.
I can do nothing for the man hanging, but I can still save Easton. The thought thoroughly wrecks me but I swallow down my nausea and follow Dumi with my head held high.
Dumi weaves through the various tents confidently, as if her feet have trodden this path thousands of times. I wait for the relief to settle in my bones, the knowledge that I’m now free of Shaw. One man would never be able to cut his way through this camp and then through the warlord himself. But relief doesn’t come. There is only a pricking sense of unease as we travel deeper through the tents.
We come to a small clearing in the heart of the camp. There are no tents here, only a smattering of soldiers gathered in a close circle. While the rest of the militia looked at ease, these soldiers are straightened and alert. Their fingers clasp high powered rifles and swords.
