“Is everything okay?” I ask him, sensing something is off. He takes a moment to answer, his face tightening as he fights back the sadness threatening to break through.
“Thomas is gone. He was the first one,” he says, his voice numb of any emotion. I can see the hurt behind his eyes, but he hides it so well now. “Griffiths is next,” he whispers.
Oh, my god.
Thomas.
While I’ve been sitting here, making zero progress, my failures led to the murder of the poor knight I once thought of as a friend.
“I’m so sorry, Rowan,” I say, but it changes nothing. Doesn’t bring back his fallen comrades. Murdered comrades. And by the hands of the person whom they swore to follow.
“There’s nothing more we can do,” is all he says, but his shoulders look heavier as he doesn’t meet my eyes. Anger hits me all at once.
“Why can’t you kill him? Why can’t the knights just overturn him? I know you said it doesn’t work like that, but why?” I ask, rising from the bed and facing him. He looks to Bryn, who simply shakes her head.
“We are oath bound, Elodie. The oath is rune-bound.” He pulls up the material of his top, revealing a faint ink mark on his wrist. “We cannot bring harm to the crown, even if we want to.”
This kingdom just gets worse the more I learn about it.
“So you’re all just… trapped?” I whisper, the anger in my chest curdling into a cold, hollow dread. “Even as he lines them up? As he takes Griffiths next?”
“The oath doesn’t just stop my hand, Elodie,” Rowan’s voice cracks, and it’s a vulnerability I never thought I’d get from him. “It stops the heart.” Bryn reaches out, her hand landing on Rowan's arm. The silence between them is old, filled with ghosts of the people they have both lost. She turns back to her sketches, grabbing the illustration from before.
“Well, we made progress on the incantation. I know how to remove the bind, but we can’t do it without this,” she holds the page out to Rowan, whose brows knit together in concentration. I move next to Rowan, looking down at the drawing. Something about the way the artist had drawn the light reflecting off the stones’ edges pulls at a memory I’d forgotten I even had.
“Wait. I know what this is.” They both turn to look at me. “Sam used to use this all the time back home. He said it was his ‘good luck’ charm. I thought it was a load of crap, but he said it was ‘Black Heel Flint’.” I pull the drawing closer, checking the writing when I realise it’s not black hall at all. It says Black Heel. “Here, look, Black Heel,” Bryn gasps.
“Elodie, you’re right!” she shouts, showing Rowan, who lets out a soft, vibrating huff, his eyes finding mine instantly. “Did Sam ever tell you where he got it from?” she says.
“No, but if it’s anything like the flint I know back home, it’s rare. You can find it by riverbeds, or if you want a guarantee, anything that cuts deep into the earth is like a literal wound that just bleeds flint.” Bryn lets out a long groan at my response, sinking onto the edge of her bed. “What? What is it?” I ask.
“It means we need to go to the Maw,” Rowan says, his jaw clenching.
“What’s the Maw?”
“It’s where we send the dead. It’s heavily guarded, highly dangerous. An open pit in the centre of the forest where the land itself has fractured.”
Chapter 22
Elodie
Rowan insisted we wait until nightfall, when we were less likely to be spotted. Of course, venturing out into the forest in the dark was bad enough, but we had to find a giant crack in the earth without being spotted by any guards too. He asked me to hide at Mara’s, but after a minor argument, Bryn agreed I should come with them. Rowan wasn’t able to use the hearthstone to contact the castle either, as it would alert them of our location.
I’m guessing the king missing his High Warden and the girl working on finding his cure has likely raised some alarms already. Rowan thinks guards will be at Mara’s by the evening sun, searching for us.
So that leaves us here, walking towards the edge of the forest where night has already settled. The trees turn into silhouettes as the path, which is normally manageable in daylight, is now a ribbon of pale dirt, barely visible beneath the shadows of the trees. The forest is almost silent. Only the soft sounds of rustling and animal noises break it apart. Rowan is walking close to my side, his hand on his sword since we left Mara’s. His other hand hovers near the small of my back every time the ground turns uneven.
“Stay on the path, Hawthorne,” he whispers next to me.
“I am,” I reply.
“You drift.”
“I don’t.”
“You do.”
“Well, unfortunately I wasn’t trained to move through forests in the dark so I —” I’m cut off when my foot catches on a loose root, sending me flying forward. I don’t even have time to gasp before Rowan’s arm lashes out, catching me across the ribs. He hauls me back against his chest, lifting me back onto my clumsy feet as he leans down into my neck.
