“Here’s the fake. Take that thread off the real scroll and put it on this one so it looks more authentic.”
Sikras’s stomach sank when Helspira’s voice followed. “Banneret, are you absolutely sure there’s no other—”
“I’ve had years to reflect on this, sentinel. Do not question me. If that skeleton can’t kill Vessik, hemustdie by his hand. This is the only way.”
Familiar numbness invaded Sikras’s core. Not from the chilling wind, no. The last time a nauseating emotion had gripped him so tightly, he had been looming over Benjamin’s fresh corpse while Imri’s undead body fled with Vessik, like a walking shadow. Somehow he convinced his legs to step closer, closer; he needed to confirm it, to verify it with his own eyes. Surely this was all a trick of the mind. Nothing more than a hallucination induced by a years-long festering mental crisis. After all, Helspira would never—
When her pink hair, pointed ears, and leather armor flashed into his view, all opportunities to deny the inevitable vanished in the wailing wind.
“Shh, stop talking,” Helspira snapped at the banneret. “It’s hard to tell through the wind, but I think I hear—”
She spun, locking eyes with Sikras.
“... someone,” she whispered.
Sikras stood, limbs stiff. “Lucky me,” he managed, forcing an exaggerated, inauthentic grin. “I’m one of the elite who snuck up on a demon.”
Helspira’s expression was one of horror. Fear. “How much did you hear?”
“Oh, not much. Just the emotionally devastating, backstabby part.”
Helspira stepped forward, one hand outstretched. “Sikras, please, it’s not—”
“Vessik knows we’re here.”
Rowan shoved past Helspira, brows furrowed. “What did you say?”
If looks could’ve killed, the banneret would’ve burst into flame when Sikras’s gaze landed on him. Once upon a time, his looks could’ve killed when coupled with a whispered spell. How lucky Rowan was that he could no longer pull off incantations of that power without risking death to himself. “Vessik. Knows. We’re here.”
A muscle twitched beneath Rowan’s eye, and his fingers bunched into fists. “How much time do we have?”
Accosted by a sudden headache, Sikras pinched the bridge of his nose. “I don’t know, Rowan. All I got was a cryptic note on a mostly dead bird.”
The banneret stood in stiff, skeptical silence, attention on Sikras, as if he awaited some sort of retaliation.
Sikras stared back, shoulders tight. Maybe heshould’veretaliated. Maybe he should’ve punched Rowan in his fucking face. Instead, his shoulders slumped, and he sighed.
When Sikras made no move to attack, Rowan bolted past him, shouting something into the air—rallying his soldiers for the impending attack most likely. It sounded like nothing more than a flurry of distorted far-off echoes.
Helspira took a tentative step forward, both scrolls clutched in her hands. “Sikras—” Her voice was strained, tight. “I ...”
Whatever she had planned to say, it never came. Sikras waited patiently, hopefully, but when no additional words left her lips, he invited them. “This is the part where you tell me it’s all a misunderstanding. And I’ll believe you when you say it, too, because I’m wrong about a lot of things, Hels, but I’m not wrong about people. I wasn’t wrong about you.”
Silence. Unshed tears glistened on the surface of her organic eye. “I—I don’t know what to tell you. I don’t know what to tell myself. So many people are dying. Nyllmas’s people. I just wanted to be a hero for my kingdom, for my home.”
Her admission met his ears but failed to sink in. “Were you really going to risk sending Benjamin to his death?”
His query was a quiet whisper, not a loud demand, and yet it looked as if it deafened her to a point of physical agony. “No. Yes? I—I don’t know.”
“Really?” Severing eye contact, Sikras focused on the snow. The single word faded into oblivion, more an emotionless statement than an outcry of disbelief. That was that then. Great. Okay. “I guess you were right. Maybe I’m not as good at reading people as I thought.”
The numbness deepened, expanding outward from his chest toward his fingertips. He turned and walked away.
“Sikras, please—”
Her plea sounded so far away. So foreign. He kept walking.
Helspira charged forward and shouted, “I’m not like you. I can’t just choose one or two lives over an entire kingdom as easily as I choose what meal to have for dinner. We’re talking about families—families like mine—and he’skillingthem. You can’t blame me for being torn!”
