With a heavy grunt, I managed to roll to my side, and then I hobbled over to the wooden chair set beneath the window, picking through the folded clothes heaped there. They were all similar to my size. Shirts and riding pants, just like I had been wearing. They were sectorian quality, a few bodysuits folded beneath them. I dressed with difficulty, pausing once I was done to notch a hand against the windowsill in an attempt to calm my rising nausea.
I stepped back into my boots, shuffling to the door before another wave of dizziness hit me. I stopped, hunching over, and the door swung open, a pair of long, muscled legs striding toward me.
“Stubborn girl,” a familiar voice muttered, lifting me up.
I found myself back on the bed, the boots tugged from my feet and tossed back to the ground. I stared at Calder as he avoided looking at me. I reached out, my hand trembling, and he caught my wrist, his eyes flashing to mine.
Brilliant gold, shivering blue.
“You almost died.” He was toneless, but his eyes narrowed, his grip tightening.
I winced, and he quickly dropped my hand.
“I’ll get food,” he said, quickly turning and leaving the room.
I tried to contain an eye-roll, but it broke free. I pulled myself up with a groan, slipping to the side of the bed. I pulled my boots back on and was just pushing to my feet as the door burst open and two people rushed into the room. I stared at them, and them at me. Bjern and Frey, my only friends, other than Calder. Frey’s beautiful, snow-white hair was loose, straight as a pin, framing her diamond-shaped face and white-blue eyes. Bjern’s dark hair had grown. It was a little more wind-swept than I remembered. His dapple-brown gaze shuttered, the dark slashes extending from the corners of his eyes making him look fierce, though there was a happy smile on his lips.
My answering smile had barely blossomed before he was striding across the room, wrapping me up in a hug, his touch gentle and careful. He set me down just as carefully, stepping aside for Frey, who only stepped forward uncertainly, tugging at her perfectly unwrinkled shirt.
“I’m so happy to see you, Ven.”
I held out a hand, and she clasped it, relief flicking across her face, along with something else. Apprehension.
“What’s happened?” I asked her, pushing away my happiness to see them both. “The midworld felt like it was burning.”
“You could feel it in Forsjaether,” she breathed, her eyes wide, before they flattened again, flicking to the window in wariness. “Earthquakes,” she answered. “And fires.”
I returned to the window, scanning the horizon. The sky was still pink-tinged, but I realised it also hung thick with smog, blanketing the mountains in the distance.
“It’s not so bad here.” Bjern joined me at the window, Frey appearing on my other side. “It looks like all the smoke is drifting down from Edelsten.”
“That makes sense.” I clasped the window ledge, my fingers turning white. “It’s where all the people are.”
“We saw a landslide down one of the mountains above the valley pass,” Frey added. “The pass you take to get to Edelsten. I think it’s really bad, Ven.”
“If the pass is blocked, we can’t get back there,” Bjern muttered. “We can’t help any of them.”
I touched the ring on my finger as the door opened again. Frey shifted away from me suddenly, and I glanced at her, seeing Calder’s hand on her shoulder, pulling her back. He released her and then dragged Bjern away from me, releasing him when he was several paces away. I stared at Calder, one of my eyebrows quirking. He stared back, as impassive as ever. In his free hand, he had a bowl of strawberries. He reached around me and set it on the window ledge but didn’t back off.
“Calder…” I glanced up at him, watching his jaw tic. “Are you guarding me from my friends?”
He eased back a step, but no further. “We brought as much food with us as we could, but we’ll run out soon.”
“Is it just you three?” I asked, finally realising how strange it was for them to all be in a house together.
“No, there are three others,” he answered. “Five of the most gifted young sectorians—one for each sector.”
“What’s your plan?” I asked him.
“You have five battles to overcome the Darkness.” He pointed at the bowl, a command in his eyes, and I picked it up, biting into one of the strawberries to appease him. “They’re going to help you train.”
“You really think some Vold is better able to train me than you are?” My eyebrows shot up.
“He’s here in case I die.” Calder spoke about the possibility of his death so matter-of-factly that I immediately scowled, my heart skipping several beats.
“Eat,” he muttered, his eyes softening the tiniest bit.
I did, and he watched. Frey and Bjern glanced at him nervously. It felt like a storm was brewing inside him, threatening to unleash on us all.
“What is it?” I eventually asked him, after consuming half the bowl under his careful scrutiny.
“The festival ended early.” He spoke carefully, choosing his words. “It seems the earthquakes have prevented anyone from travelling, so they’re still stuck in Edelsten … but there’s no way they can continue in these conditions. It must have been called off by now.”
He didn’t ask the question he wanted to, but I knew what he was leading to. The masters had given me until the end of the festival to choose between them. Calder didn’t know that they had amended the deal to last until I reached the tilrive tree in the midworld, but none of that mattered anymore.
“Skayld is a contradiction,” I told him. “It’s inconsistent. As much as it binds, it can unbind.”
“A Fated’s mark can only go one way,” he returned, shaking his head. “I may not be an Eloi, but that’s how it has always been.”
“Yes, but the mark itself is a contradiction,” I tried to explain. “It can mean two things. I marked them again, the same symbol reversed. A possibility and an impossibility. Two opposing forces that cancel each other out. They can’t force me to do anything and I can’t take anything from them.”
He stepped forward, his eyes still closed-off to me, tension still etched into every angle of his face. He raised his fist beneath my chin—that familiar hover beneath my skin that tilted my face up without him needing to touch me.
“Brilliant.” His voice wrapped around me, stern and course, a prickly hug that I wanted to rub up against like a cat against a tree.
Being near Calder was intoxicating. It made me feel drugged, desperate, but filled me with despair all the same. It was as overpowering as it was unnatural.
He dropped his hand. “Finish eating. It’s time to meet the others and formulate a plan.”
He turned to leave, but I caught his sleeve.
“The first battle is done,” I said. “For resilience of the body. It’s why the masters have been pressing so hard for me to choose one of them to marry. I’m one step closer.”
He examined me, processing the information with a spark of something in his blue eye. “The Darkness has realised,” he finally said, coming to the same conclusion as the masters. “It knows that you completed the first task, and it’s going to try and make it impossible for you to complete the second.”