It ran a knobby finger along Seren’s bare throat, and she screamed with bloodcurdling urgency.
Seren tore herself from my side, launching at the wraith with brutal intent. Her sword cut through the air with a piercing whistle, catching purple dawn on its tilted face.
The wraith wailed as her blade sliced through bone, pairing the meat from its ribs. It stumbled back, growling an eerie rattle.
“Be gone!” I repeated, raising my own weapon with menace.
Wind whipped around us, tugging at my cloak and sending dark hair flying. It sucked at the Sziravit, drawing it further from us as I urged the breeze into a tempest.
I wrapped my arms around Seren, holding her close against the storm of my own creation. Her fingers closed around my neck, tight enough that I wondered for the briefest moment if she was merely holding on, or strangling the life from me.
The wraith could hold on no longer. It melted into the shadows of the slowly brightening woods. I heard the clicking of its claws—a scrape against bark and stone—long into the dark.
Seren breathed a gasping sigh of relief, allowing me to hold her for a moment longer before remembering herself and wrenching her chin from my grasp.
“Touch me again and find your fingers detached from your palm,” she spat, stomping across the clearing.
“Is it all Rázuri that you hate, or am I a special case?” I asked, dousing the dregs of the fire and gathering my things. My tone was teasing, yet I couldn’t help but think of how I had woken with her perched above me, weapon raised as if to sink it into my flesh.
“I despise all Rázuri for their crimes against me and my people.” Seren turned to face me, a cold smile on her face. “But, as it turns out, I hate you most of all.”
“Would now be a bad time to point out that theyaren’tyour people?” The reproach on her face was answer enough. “Right. We’ll broach that topic again later.”
Seren ignored me, pointedly. Her hands reached for Equinox, fingertips ghosting over the horse’s soft muzzle.
The mare, usually standoffish to everyone but me, leaned into Seren’s touch. Equinox snorted happily, letting Seren stroke her mane and tickle the bottom of her chin.
She seemed at ease for the first time since I had met her.
“Her name is Equinox. It seems she is quite taken with you.”
Seren ignored me, speaking to the horse instead. “Such a stately name for a sweet girl like you. Shall I call you Quin, then?”
I laughed humorlessly, annoyance rising unbidden. “Equinox has no need of a nickname.”
“What gave you the impression that I was talking to you?” Seren wore her mask of indifference once more. She did not look at me with the fury she had after I had used my mágik on her. She did not look at me with the vacancy I never desired to see upon her features again.
She looked at me, now, like I was nothing.
My traitorous heart skipped a single beat at the thought.
Seren pulled herself into the saddle, still murmuring sweetly to my horse.
“Right,” I grumbled.
Chapter fourteen
Seren
Sunshine and frost held a tentative alliance within the mágikal bounds of the Varázis Erva. The enchanted forest bore the discordant quality of holding both a looming and tranquil presence that grew more and more alive with otherness as we drew closer to its epicenter.
Distance and time did not seem to be truly connected in this place. In one breath, we might have traveled vast distances. In the next, we would appear to trudge in slow motion—as if trapped in quicksand.
Harkin and Equinox continued on, unperturbed, while my head pounded a dull, dizzying ache. My stomach clenched uncomfortably, and I leaned forward, resting my forehead against the rough ridge of Quin’s mane.
“I’m going to be sick,” I groaned, mouth watering and sourly acidic. “Goddesses, why do I feel this way?”
A hand pressed to my shoulder, and I shot up straight. My vision tilted, head spinning with dogged persistence.
