The larger blade clashes against my smaller one and it’s a testament to Calloway’s blade crafting skill that the dagger doesn’t snap under the pressure.
“You,” Shivhai snarls, his face so close to mine that I feel the heat of his breath. I struggle against his weight, my mind reaching for any way to disarm him, but my thoughts come in disparate clouds, thin and insubstantial. My arms shake. I spit out a curse as Shivhai bears down, his mottled face slick with exertion. Blood, his and mine, seeps into the ground. It’s only a matter of time before my strength gives out completely. I know this in my bones—in my arms that are so, so tired. Even my fire has faltered, the chasm inside me hollow and silent.
“You,”he says again. A smartass retort sits on my lips, but my mouth has gone dry, and my tongue feels too thick to speak. “You’re the little urchin that murdered my brother. Nine years ago, you bled him dry like a pig at slaughter. Feral little thing, skin and bones, but it wasyou.”
Oh.Oh.
Shivhai isn’t coming after me because I stole a Similian girl from him. He isn’t even coming after me from some vague sense of loyalty to the Praeceptor. It is something squirmy and rancid that drives him. Something that has festered for years until it melded with his soul. It is vengeance and there is nothing more personal than that. Even if I can somehow manage to cut off both his arms, the vengeance will drive him. He will never stop coming for me.
I stare hard into the bottomless pits of his eyes—the hatred, the malevolence surely a mirror into my own soul. I deserve to die here, pooled in a reflection of my own misery. My own sins.
I’ve fought all my life. I have thieved and lied and killed and then clawed my way out of the depths, only to find myself free falling into them once more. My body hums with anticipation, the only thing left inside me to feel. The last ember of the fire that has kept me alive all these years drains into the mud along with my blood and suddenly, I feel tired. So very tired. As if my body is a thousand years old.
Shivhai’s blade gleams, taunting me with the reprieve it will grant. To finally deliver what I am owed—death. It won’t be enough, will never be enough, to repay the atrocities I’ve wreaked on the world. Whatever is left of my blood will never be able to wash away the stain of darkness my life will leave. But it’s all I have left to give.
And so, I let my arm drop.
ChapterEighteen
Shaw
The world slows and speeds up at all once. I watch the surprise flash across Shivhai’s face at my surrender, followed by the glow of victory. I feel the cool blade pressed against my throat. But the punishment I so desperately deserve is not to be mine, for in the same instant, I see a flash of familiar chestnut curls behind Shivhai.
She came back. The stupid, stupid girl came back.
Panic courses through me.
She isn’t safe. And you’re too weak to save her.
I grit my teeth and throw my arms back up with some reserve of strength I didn’t realize existed. The chant pounds through my head, a harrowing benediction.Protect, protect, protect.
But it grants me no reprieve. No way to keep Shivhai’s blade from my neck and then hers.
Shivhai lets out a strangled cry of fury at my renewed fight, slicing at my arm. The cut is shallow, but my arm trembles wildly as we struggle. With horrified deference, I watch as Mirren creeps up behind him.Leave me!I want to scream at her, to beg her, but no sound comes.
My eyes widen as she jumps onto Shivhai’s back and digs a knife,myknife, into his neck. Shivhai drops the sword, clutching at his throat as blood blooms around it like a horrible sort of necklace. Mirren stumbles back. Shivhai gurgles and I throw him off me with a snarl. I haul myself to my feet, grabbing the sword Shivhai dropped in his distraction. I knock the butt of it roughly against his head and he crumples at my feet, blood pooling beneath him.
Mirren’s eyes are wide and glassy as she stares at his prone body. Something like panic flashes across her face. “Is he…did I…”
“No,” I say quickly, watching as her shoulders relax and her breathing slows. “You missed his arteries and his brain stem. As long as he gets medical attention, he’ll make it.” He probably won’t be able to speak properly again, but I don’t consider that much of a loss. It’s all I have to offer her, the freedom from the weight of someone else’s life. It is a heavy one and she doesn’t need to bear it any longer than necessary.
I stare openmouthed at her, unable to make sense of her being here, of her saving me, ofher.Her cheeks are flushed, her full lips open and panting with exertion. Her hair blows in a wild halo around her face and blood wells at a wound on her forehead, running crimson lines over her brows and lashes. The emerald of her eyes burns even in the dim moonlight, and I wonder how I ever thought her weak. She looks nothing like a lemming. She looks like a warrior.
As if her appearance clears the fog from my senses, everything sharpens around me. We need to move. Now. And I need to somehow not bleed out on the way.
I tug my shirt over my head and Mirren’s cheeks flame a luscious shade of red I don’t have time to fully appreciate. I tear the shirt ruthlessly into strips and then wrap my shoulder. “Tie this as tight as you can.”
I sense it’s only her shock that keeps her moving as her hands work in robotic motions and my sense of urgency increases. We need to get out of this camp before the trauma renders her immobile.
Despite trembling fingers, her knot is firm. I grit my teeth against the wave of pain that comes with it. Shouts sound in the distance, other soldiers alerted to the disappearance of the slaves. We’ll never be able to make it across camp to join them in the cave system. Our only hope is to head south and hope we can make it across the Breelyn plain before they find us.
I throw the remaining shreds of the shirt over my head. Threading my fingers through Mirren’s, I pull her inside the stable. The horses, used to the cacophony of battle, pay us no mind. I sneak to the side of a bay mare, running my hands reassuringly over her flanks. “There’s a good girl,” I murmur. She lifts her head and gives me an appraising stare.
I look to Mirren. She nods her permission and without waiting, I circle my hands around her hips and shove her unceremoniously onto the horse. I throw a leg up behind her, a fresh wave of agony radiating from my shoulder. I breathe hard against the nausea, focusing instead on nestling Mirren securely between my legs. “You’re going to need to hold the reins,” I manage to bite out. There’s no way I’ll be able to manage the horse. Even lifting my uninjured arm causes the slash across my stomach to burn bitterly.
She turns to me, eyes wide in alarm. “I don’t know how,” she whispers frantically. I can feel her panic growing in the tense coil of her muscles, the labored breaths that gasp from her lips.
“You’ve already done more than you ever thought yourself capable of,” I whisper at her ear. “You can do this.”
