Quinn’s fingers dropped from her shoulder as she stepped around her and continued onward. Her field of vision kept track of the six of them regardless of where she was. She used that to her advantage as she quickly overhauled the front of the group and started to take a better look at her surroundings.
They’d made it off the coast and into the mountains, but they hadn’t escaped the never-ending N’skaran winter just yet. Snow still dotted the forest floor and many of the creatures that lived here were either burrowed or dead.
She needed to find somewhere dry and flat, ideally. Sleeping in the slush was only going to make those who were sick, sicker. Quinn tempered her own frustration while casting her fear net wider. The inky black tendrils crawled along the rocks and slithered over the trees.
“That’ll do,” she breathed.
“Do you feel them too?” a voice asked beside her. She turned to look over her shoulder.
It was the boy. One that was different, though she hadn’t figured out how just yet. She hadn’t made a point to learn any other names after Trissa, but for some reason, he was set aside in her mind as other. Somehow.
“Feel what?” she asked him.
He looked away and didn’t answer. Quinn narrowed her eyes, but the pants and soft crying behind her took precedence over her curiosity. At least for the moment.
“Listen up,” she said, pivoting on her borrowed boot to address them. “I think there are some caves not far from here. We’ll stop there for the night. The faster we get there, the more time off your feet you have.”
A couple of nods were the best she got in terms of responses, but that was good enough for Quinn. Seconds ticked by, turning to minutes as they continued and only the sounds of desperation trailed them. The boy kept up beside her, holding pace despite his shorter legs, but still not speaking.
The sky darkened further, and it was only Leviathan’s eye and the snow on the ground that illuminated the way as Quinn followed what the tendrils had shown her.
The clearing was small, but dry. The snow stopped just short of the cave entrance and soft snoring could be heard from within.
Quinn lifted her hand in silent command for them to wait, but as she stepped forward, she wasn’t alone.
The boy was there.
Quinn frowned. “Go back with the others,” she said quietly, as she approached the front of the cave.
“He is old,” the child said. “Tired. He wants to sleep and not be alone anymore.”
Quinn paused. Is he . . .
“How do you know that?” Quinn asked.
“I feel it.”
Feel. Not hear. That was an important distinction, though Quinn didn’t know why.
He stepped forward in his boots that were too small and too worn. His cloak billowed in the wind. His youthful face was . . . expressionless. It wasn’t as serene as her sister appeared when she approached an animal. It was without any emotion at all.
She should have stopped him. She easily could have, but her curiosity got the better of her. Her desire to know if her hunch was right outweighed any risk.
The little boy lifted his hand.
The snoring stopped, and from her vantage point, two glowing red eyes opened in the dark.
The beast moved. It couldn’t spread its wings, but that didn’t stop it from standing and then crouching as the child walked into the cave alone.
“What are you doing?” another voice asked her. It was Trissa.
“Shh,” she chided, not looking away from the scene in front of her.
“He’s going to—”
She never finished the sentence because the beast opened its jaws and let out a roar. The ground quaked and small pebbles tumbled from the rocky mountain side above.
But the little boy . . .
He didn’t cower or run.
Quinn couldn’t see his face, but she didn’t need to.
The beast charged, and just when she was starting to ask herself if she should have stopped him, the impossible happened.
He touched the firedrake.
And it died.
The creature collapsed to the side. The ruby color of its eyes dulling instantly. And the little boy, he spoke.
“Shhhh,” he whispered. “I’m here now. I’ll be your friend.”
Except he wasn’t talking to the dead monster. He was talking to the one that slipped into his skin.
When the little boy turned back, his pale blue eyes were a fraction darker. A flash of scales rippled over his fingertips before disappearing beneath the tattered remains of his robe.
Now she knew why he seemed familiar.
There was a darkness in him.
Like calls to like, she thought to herself as he stepped out of the cave.
It wasn’t a child that stared back at her, but a soul eater.
Chapter 14
Wavering Resolve
“Where does it stop when the lines between right and wrong are already blurred? At what point do the lies we tell ourselves catch up?”
— Draeven Adelmar, rage thief, left-hand to the mad King of Norcasta, guilty liar
“You look like piss,” Dominicus said.
Draeven let his hand fall away from the tent flap as he stepped inside, his face grim and without amusement. “I feel like it,” Draeven replied, sitting on the dusty cushion next to the weapons master. “You might too if you weren’t sleeping.”
“Whose fault is that?” Lorraine commented without looking at him. She stood with her back to both of them. In her hand, two dead rats hung by their tails.
Draeven fought the urge to gag as he glanced between her and the pot of stew to her left.
“They’re for the basilisk,” Dominicus said, nodding toward Neiss. The other man’s lips curled upward in mild amusement at seeing Draeven’s disgust.
“Why is she feeding the beast?” Draeven asked. “And where’s our food? The soldiers have already eaten—”
“Then you should have eaten with them. I don’t have the time to feed you two specially when there’s a whole camp that must eat,” Lorraine cut in, still not looking at either of them. “And as for why I’m feeding him. Quinn doesn’t want her presence known. Lazarus can scent and taste magic. If Neiss is off hunting in the wilds, there are decent odds His Grace will find him.”
Draeven closed his eyes, wishing for the hundredth time that he hadn’t taken that letter. That he hadn’t let Lorraine in. He should have gone straight to Lazarus when Quinn came to him.
“We should tell him—” Draeven started.
“No,” the stewardess replied. Her voice was ice cold, so similar to another woman that used to sit among them. “We’ve been over this.”
“He’s already half-mad, Lorraine. Maybe if he knew Quinn was back—”
“But she’s not,” she said, feeding the basilisk another rat. “At least not yet. Furthermore, she asked for you not to tell him.”
“Last I checked, Quinn isn’t who you serve,” Draeven snapped, regretting the words immediately. “Lorraine, I—”
“Who invited that Norcastan whore into our court? Which hand told Lazarus to give peace and not war? Which hand urged him to bring the very people who led to her death into our home?”