“What for?”
Or maybe they could.
Lux huffed. “I told you all I’m willing to. Now get this arrow out of my cloak. If you want him revived, I have twelve hours to do it, and none if we don’t find those eyes.”
She directed her demand to Sven, the only one who seemed to be truly in mourning. The man needed no further push; he scrambled forward and yanked the arrow free.
“What!” shouted the youngest of the three.
“Shut your fat mouth, Lars! Did you hear what she said? She’ll bring him back for us! If it were your family lying here, you’d do the same.” Sven reached out and gripped Lux’s forearm, hauling her to her feet. “We shouldn’t be going after children, anyway. Viktar’s been getting too desperate.”
Lux didn’t bother arguing over being called a child. So long as they didn’t shoot her full of arrows and stealTheRisen, they could think of her as a toad. Sneering at the two holes marring her cloak, she looked up to catch the woman staring at her with a thoughtful tilt to her head.
“I know where to get you the eyes you need,” the woman said. “We’ll take you to Verity.”
“Verity!” whined Lars, a second before he doubled over from an elbow to the gut.
“I’m Magda.” The woman held out her hand, and Lux looked from it to her wrinkled hazel eyes and back again. “The coast, you say? Let’s get you there.”
Lux put her hand in the woman’s.
It wasn’t cold.
But it wasn’t warm, either.
Chapter five
Ravenwoodforestsmelledperpetuallywet. It was a different sort than what Lux had grown up with. She breathed in the scents of bark and dirt and did not lament the absence of Ghadra’s underlying hint of marsh mud.Here,she thought,I would tolerate the rain.
According to her reluctant company, they’d at least a few hours more to reach the forest town of Verity.
“Unusual,”Magda had called it.
“The people love the trees more than each other”,had griped Lars.
Lux could see why. She’d been too desperate in her fleeing to pay attention to the details of the wood, but now that she walked a steady road, she admired the striated trunks and lofty heights. The canopy was thick, and the leaves were lush. She reached upward and dragged a finger along one, slowing to a stop when it unfurled.
Drops of captured water dripped onto her palm.
“They’re like little clenched fists,” said Sven, passing her by.
Sven and Lars carried Viktar between them, and every so often, Lars would walk too quickly, folding the dead man up like a book until his bottom dragged on the ground. Sven hated this and would shout so loudly each time, Lux had to block her ears. She watched them move on ahead. She didn’t know how these four had ended up together, and she didn’t care. So long as they saw her safely to the town as promised and didn’t attempt a second robbery, she would be genuinely ecstatic to be rid of them.
Magda led their party. Short and grim, with greying hair and harsh hands, she seemed their leader. Which irritated Lux more that the woman hadn’t reined Viktar in when he’d gone after her. Maybe it’d actually been Magda’s idea.
She admonished herself harshly over her predicament.Twenty-eight days you’ve not gotten into trouble. Now here you are one less fingernail and following a dead man.
She glanced at the body ahead of her and rolled her eyes before hurrying to catch up.
Four weeks. It’d been only four weeks since she’d left the shattered city of Ghadra to make out on her own. And while the towns and cities had felt like a blink, here in a different forest, it felt like a decade gone. Already, she’d seen landscapes she’d only dreamt of.
Lux groaned over her aching finger. She’d aggravated it while clawing at Viktar’s face.If only Riselda were here, she would—
Lux scrunched her eyes closed, disgusted with herself. Where had that thought even come from? Of course she shouldn’t wish for Riselda, the woman who’d brought a plague upon Ghadra only to immorally revive those fallen and set them against the living. Her proclaimedauntmay have been a healer, but she was mostly a monster.
Lux lifted her left hand, examining the pointed nails she kept filed into miniature daggers, and to the one appendage now left bereft and reddened. The botanist had applied a salve. When he’d wiped it clean a moment later, it’d come away easily—the salve and the fingernail both. She shouldn’t have refused his bandage. Her attempt had been amateurish and was now lost.
Her fits of pride didn’t often benefit her. Maybe someday she’d learn.
