But many are not. Bodies of the other recruits litter the ground, as do a few of the Crusaders who came in to defend us.
Not us, I realize. The necro-ink.
“Did they take any of it?” Alphonse bellows, a vein bulging down the side of his neck.
“I would have to check,” the Spirit Keep says from the back of the room. She hobbles closer before she speaks again, the Crusaders clearing out of the way as she approaches. “It doesn’t appear so, though. None from in here, anyway.”
“They took two of the dead,” one of the Crusaders informs him. “They retreated to the Shadowthorn before we could stop them.”
With slow lethality, Alphonse turns to face the man, his teeth pressed tight together. “And did you not think to go after them?”
The Crusader stammers, “I—we were under attack, sir. I didn’t think it wise to abandon—”
Our general curses in a terrifying rage. He presses his fists to his forehead as he paces the small place on the floor where bodies haven’t amassed.
After a few moments, he flattens the stray, frayed tendrils of hair, moving them behind his ears, and addresses the recruits. “You will be escorted back to your wards. It is unsafe to have novices about. You’re merely a distraction and you’ll get yourselves killed. The rest of you, ready yourselves. We will retrieve our dead.”
One of the Crusaders, a dopey-looking woman who seems more terrified than any of us, leads us back through the catacombs and to our rooms. Just before we reach the women’s ward, something pierces my heart. A tinge of sorrow, of loss, of heartbreak, call it what you will, but I reach up to soothe the ache in my chest only to find that I touch nothing but my armor.
My necklace, the vial of necro-ink, it’s gone.
Hunger
Female Dormitory, Castle of Nigh, Arcathain
Silver undresses silently in the corner of the room. As she removes her blood-drenched layers, her gaze always wanders back to the door, like she’s expecting someone to knock. Or hoping for them to.
I saw the way she came to Güthric’s side. I’ve seen the way they are together. If she’s found happiness with someone, even after all she’s lost, I hope she knows to embrace it. I’m sure, like most of us though, she’s too fearful to even admit it. It’s a feeling I used to understand, but now I know life is too short, especially for us.
Fox throws herself atop one of the empty cots without even removing her dripping boots.
“What a morning,” she says, arms folded behind her head. “Do you think they’ll be all right?”
“Hmm?” I ask.
“The general and the Crusaders he’s taking to chase down the demons who stole the necro-ink. What’s that about anyway? Why steal ink? They’re demons. They don’t need it.”
My hand floats to my chest, to the empty space where the vial should be.
Fox scoots up to her elbows. “No,” she breathes, and then repeats herself, even more irate now, “what in the Eyve would demons want with necro-ink?”
Not just demons, I think, and I have to bite my lips before I accidentally say it out loud. The very idea of a half-demon is unheard of. To suggest it, I’d be considered mad, maybe even possessed by one of the demonic creatures themselves. Besides, Fox already believes I’m a mage. I don’t need her thinking that I can also see half-demons too.
But it has me wondering…if such things as half-demons do exist, why would they travel with full demons? By most accounts, the man I saw seemed more human than shadowcreature. Surely, any demon would devour him before thinking twice about it.
“It is a reckless mission, one that will only cost more lives,” Silver huffs, buttoning her nightgown. When she turns around, she stares only at her bed and then lies on top of it without bothering to get under the covers.
I remember then that it’s still only morning, not even time for lunch yet. I wonder how long we’ll be left in here, if we’d get in trouble for leaving—
“Reckless, sure,” Fox replies. “But we can’t let them win. We can’t let them think they can just come here, kill us, and then steal our supply of necro-ink. They need to be taught a lesson.”
If Silver hears her, she doesn’t make it known. I can feel the tension in the room, see the collision of their perspectives as if they were storm clouds rolling above us.
I want to change the subject, but I can’t think of what to say. My eyes, like Silver’s, keep drifting to the door. I didn’t have much of a chance to talk to Dimitri after the attack. I can at least take comfort in knowing he’s all right, that he’ll live—a precious gift known not to all of us today—but I still worry. I want to know how he’s feeling, what he saw; I want to hear how he survived, and I want to tell him that I am so unbelievably grateful that he survived.
“Go,” Fox says, settling back onto the pillow. “None of us will stop you.”
I screw my brow at her. “Go? What do you mean—”
She snorts. “Don’t play that innocent game with me. It’s obvious who you’re thinking about, who you’re worrying that pretty, silvery head of yours over. Just go. See if Dimitri’s okay. It’ll spare us from having to watch you moon over the door.”
“I’m not mooning over the door,” I argue, my voice higher in pitch than I mean for it to go. I swivel my lips, aware I’ve been caught. “But what about what Alphonse said? We’re supposed to stay in our dorms until they’ve deemed the grounds safe.”
“Don’t be such a mage,” she teases. “He’s gone, remember? And he’ll likely be gone for the rest of the day, so if you were going to go roaming the halls, now would be the time.”
A smile curves my lips. I spring up from where I’m leaning on a bed across from her, but I stop short when I notice something off about her. Her eyes, they’re glistening.
I slow and take a step toward her. “Are you all right?”
Fox sniffles and rubs her face with the whole of her arm. “Me? You don’t gotta worry about me. I’m good. I’m great.”
She rolls onto her side, turning her back toward me and effectively preventing me from reading her face. Not that I need to. By now, I know her well enough to know when she’s hiding something that’s bothering her.
Before I can press her about it, she clears her throat. “Don’t worry about me. Just go. Find that exasperating man of yours. I’ll be here when you’re done.”
Doubt wiggles its way into me, and I am torn between staying and going. On the one hand, I don’t believe a word she’s saying. I’ve never seen her shed a single tear, which means if she’s doing so now, something is not okay. But I also know her well enough by now to know that she views this as a show of weakness, and that she will now do everything in her power to deny she’s hurting, even if I were to stay. The thing she wants most right now is to be left alone.
And so, I do as she suggests, and I leave our dorm to find Dimitri, my heart hammering beneath my ribs.
But as I swing our bedroom door open, I come face to face with the very man I was prepared to go searching for.