The pressure around my mind increased, my vision falling to blackness. When I blinked my eyes open again, I didn’t even pause to take in our surroundings. I set my eyes upon Calder and shoved at Fjor until he let me down. I ran across slippery rock, launching myself into Calder. He caught me easily, though he was still as he held me against him.
“That’s enough.” Fjor walked towards us.
Calder projected a warning sound, gravelly and low. It echoed all around us, and a tight ball of heat rose from his chest, nestled against mine, slowly swelling between us. He grabbed one of my legs and repositioned me to sit across his forearm. This way, he could run while carrying me, or drop me behind him—whatever the situation called for.
“Calder.” Fjor wasn’t using his Fated name. He was speaking to my Blodsjel—not a rational Sentinel. “You need to put the girl down and release her to me. She made a deal.”
We were in a cave of some kind. The light was at my back, reflecting off the damp, uneven walls. It smelled musty, with a rising undertone of sharpness. Frey, Bjern, Sig, and Hella were all behind Calder, facing me as I peered over his shoulder. They looked afraid—even Sig, who had his arm held out, stopping the others from coming any closer. He knew Calder’s reputation better than any of them, being a Vold.
I felt a rumble from the man holding me and turned my face, examining the side of his profile. His jaw held so much tension I could see the little tendons jumping beneath his skin. I touched his cheek, and his head snapped to mine. For a moment, I didn’t recognise him. He was wild, violent anger. A beast on the inside and the outside—except the one on the inside was tearing him apart, desperate to join with the animal taking over his features, to take control of him entirely, to turn him into nothing more than savage, barbaric outburst.
“We chose this fate,” I whispered to him, low enough that the others may not be able to hear. “This is who you are, Calder.”
His blue eye burned with conflicting emotions. We had fought side by side and sacrificed for each other, and that bled something like sentiment into his heart—but there was something more arid there too. It cut through the closeness that we might have had and turned it more toward hatred. He pulled his face from my grip, but I pulled it back, ignoring his sound of warning.
He had known what I was as soon as he touched me. He could have walked away from me then. He would have been able to disappear and never see me again. He could have let me face the Darkness on my own, hoping I would win rather than watching me die, as he had the last Fjorn.
He chose this life of endless sacrifice. He chose to stay, to let our bond develop, to take up his sword against the Darkness one more time. To walk blindly back into an impossible battlefield, knowing I would walk with him, knowing I would always be in danger and he would always be tortured by it.
He couldn’t back out now.
We had gone too far, sacrificed too much. The Blodsjel bond was all-consuming now.
He would never be able to walk away.
He set me down, slowly, mournfully. I stared up at him with a heavy pain in my chest, an ache that doubled as I turned from him, and tripled as I walked to Fjor. He was silhouetted in the entrance to the cave, the steep curve of a familiar mountain range behind him. I had seen many paintings of the Widow’s Range bordering Edelsten town. I stepped up to Fjor, pausing there with my eyes on the town. Smoke rose from it in strong billows. The mountains where we stood weren’t quaking, but I could see the paths of destruction where a few landslides had occurred. The sun was still growing and sinking, like a great big ball of fire on a course of collision with our world.
“Stop punishing him.” My voice was quiet, my agony clear. “He’s not part of your game.”
“Everyone is part of our game.” Fjor looked down at me, the velvet darkness in his eyes mocking.
I gripped his arm, using it to rise up and speak closer to his ear. “I never promised to be a good wife. This game between us is only going to get harder, Fjor. You’re going to have your hands full, so you might as well leave everyone else alone.”
“Is that a decision?” his head whipped to the side, lowering until our noses were almost brushing. “You’ve made your choice?”
“Maybe,” I lied, falling back to the balls of my feet. “Why are we in a cave?”
“I thought about creating another ring for you, but then I decided to surprise you with something even better.” He gestured into the deep of the cave.
I followed the direction of his hand, squinting at the dimness. I couldn’t see a thing. I edged away from him, and Calder immediately fell into step beside me. Fjor had forced him to hand me over in a moment of vulnerability—a move designed to torment us both—but that was clearly a manipulation to prove a point, to cause us pain. He had no interest in forcing us to separate permanently. That would be taking out a major piece in the game he used to torture me, and he couldn’t have that.
I was bound to Calder, but I would soon be bound to one of the masters—Fjor was making it clear that whoever I chose would have all the power. They would own me. He was painting a hierarchy and forcing us to take our designated places.
Here, this is what your torture will look like, come inside and make yourselves comfortable.
I began to feel the darkness of the cave wrapping around me, that sharp and musty smell sinking into my pores, making my skin feel oily. I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was walking through copious webs, though I could never brush them from my arms and face. I could hear the others behind us, but it wasn’t until I saw the flicker of firelight up ahead that I made the connection.
“The Spider,” I whispered, my skin prickling in a mix of trepidation and anger.
How had Fjor known?
I walked toward the flicker of firelight, careful of my steps against the damp rock. I could hear the scuttling of invisible things along the wall, and the slow whine of a woman in pain, humming to the crackle of the fire. She was wrapped in blankets, her eyes closed, a whisper of a plea on her lips that she repeated over and over.
“Leave me alone. Leave me alone. Leave me alone.”
I stepped into the ring of light, Calder beside me, the others just behind us. A quick glance over my shoulder revealed that Fjor had followed us but was hanging back. He almost seemed uninterested in what was going on. I took another step forward, but the Spider still didn’t stop pleading, or open her eyes. There was a flash of movement along one of the curved walls and my entire body tensed as I realised it was a person, swathed in a black cloak, only the unbroken blue of his eyes visible as he stared at me.
Vale.
I followed the line of the wall in the darkness, spotting the shadowy silhouettes of the other three great masters, all of them wrapped in dark cloaks. Helki smiled when I met his eyes—his expression one of savage anticipation. They were coming to witness my actions … which meant there were many strings of fate branching from this moment. I had to be very careful about which one of them I chose—if the great masters were here, then my choice had the potential to change everything. I turned around, scanning the four standing behind me until I found Sig. I shook my head slightly, and he seemed to understand.
No interference.
I didn’t want Sig jumping in after I had used him to threaten the Spider. If I was going to make the wrong choice, I could at least walk away knowing I was the only one who contributed to it.