~~~
I charge through the forest, tripping on tree roots and slapping away branches that lash at my face like whips. Tonight there’s more evil afoot than what lurks in the forest.
Even from a distance, I’m surprised to find the camp quiet and black. There are no Soakers brandishing torches and swords, burning and killing. No one at all. What evil is this?
As I approach the edge of the camp, voices murmur from within. Tired voices. Surprised voices. The screams woke my people.
Where are the guards, the border watchmen I saw earlier? I freeze when I see them.
Two black lumps block my path between the tents. One of them groans and rolls over, his stomach slick with blood. The other’s not moving.
Gard appears behind the fallen guards, his black robe thrown back from his face. A half-dozen other Riders trail behind him. The war leader pulls up short when he sees me. His eyes travel down to the guards, back to me. “Sadie?”
“They need help,” I say, my voice coming out as croaky as a frog. “Hurry.”
“Healers!” Gard yells. “We need Healers!”
As the Riders spring into action, securing the area, scouring it for intruders, for clues, making room for the Healers, who arrive with bandages and herbs and steel in their eyes, I wonder to myself: Was it the Evil from the forest? Was it me?
A heavy hand on my shoulder startles me away from my thoughts. Gard looks down at me. “Sadie. What did you see?”
“Nothing,” I say. “I saw nothing.”
~~~
“What were you doing out so late?” Gard asks, and despite his forced-light tone there’s a heavy weight behind his question.
“I was…” What? Talking to my dead father? Discussing matters of vengeance and retribution and ssslicing and ssslashing with the Evil in the forest, the Evil who claims to be me? “…uh.”
Thankfully, Gard’s wife hands me a hot cup of some kind of herbal tea. “Thank you,” I say, cupping my hands around the warm pot. She nods and busies herself with pouring tea for Gard.
“Her father died today,” Remy says. “She was probably having trouble sleeping.”
My head jerks around. Under Gard’s scrutiny, I’d almost forgotten his son was still here, sitting silently in the corner. When Gard had brought me in, our eyes had met, and for a moment—just a bare, silent moment—I could tell we both had the same memory: holding hands as they burned my father’s body.
“Yes,” I say nodding my thanks to Remy. “My tent was so…empty.”
“And you saw nothing?” Gard asks. “You were watching them die.” Heavy words, heavy tone.
“What? No! I mean, yes, but I had just arrived, just found them…it’s not like I was standing there doing nothing.”
“Hmm,” Gard says. Does he believe me? He has to believe me! “Tell me everything.”
I only tell him what’s important to what happened. How I passed them in the night, how I went to the forest to think, how I heard the screams and came running, same as him. Nothing more.
“Are they…dead?” I ask. I am life and death.
“One was dead when we arrived. Sword wound through the heart. He was probably the first to be attacked, too surprised to defend himself; his sword was still in his scabbard. The other was luckier, but not by much. He might’ve had time to deflect the kill stroke—his blade was on the ground, spotted with blood—which sent it through his gut. It’s deep and messy, but the Healers still have a chance to save him.”
“They must!” I exclaim. Gard’s eyebrows jump up, surprised at my sudden outburst. “Because he’ll be able to tell us what…I mean, who did this to them.”
“I hope so, Sadie. I hope so. The Healers have instructions to come to me as soon as his condition changes, for better or for worse.”
“You’ll sleep here tonight,” Gard’s wife says, handing me a blanket.
“No, I’m fine back in my—”
“You shouldn’t be alone,” she says. At the edge of my vision I see Remy watching me.
“Just tonight,” I say.
Are they unwittingly inviting Evil into their tent?
“We’ll see,” she says.
A sudden yawn captures the whole of my face as weariness overcomes me. Can I sleep?
I stand and move to an area of empty space furthest from where Remy sits, spreading out my blanket like a mat. When I lie down I face away from him. I remember his hand curled around mine, so warm, so rough, so there.
No sooner than I think of Remy, my thoughts from before return, taking over my restless mind. Am I evil? Did I somehow let something loose in the forest, my anger and lust for revenge unlocking a beast that’s been hidden for years? And if so, how do I stop it?
You don’t, the voice says.
Everything falls away.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Huck
The anchors go up before I can speak to Admiral Jones again.
What did he want to tell me about my mother’s death? Did he want to mock me, berate me, tear down any semblance of foolish pride I’ve managed to muster over the short time I’ve been a lieutenant? Remind me how I failed her, how I failed him?
I have to know. I have to.
I have so many questions I feel like I’m going to burst if I don’t talk to someone about them. But who? Jade’s out of the question, at least until Hobbs goes back to The Merman’s Daughter. I haven’t talked to Cain in what seems like forever—he led the landing party in storm country today, so I didn’t even have a chance to speak to him.
Someone knocks on my cabin door. Barney.
“May I come in, sir?” he says.
“Why not,” I say.
He bumbles in carrying a tray with a steaming pot and several hard biscuits. “I thought you might like something to nibble on before bed.”
Gratefully, I take the tray. It’s exactly what I need. I pick up one of the biscuits, right away noticing something strange. “Barney, why are there bite marks on this one? Wait a minute,” I say, “all of them have bite marks!”
Barney clears his throat. “I had to, ahem, check to make sure they weren’t poisoned.”
I stare at him and he shifts back and forth uncomfortably. “All of them?” I say, laughing.
“I, um, I take my job very seriously.”
“I can see that. You know, you could have broken off a piece from each one, rather than…biting directly into them,” I point out.
“They don’t taste as good that way,” Barney says, looking sheepish.
“Don’t they? You’re eating the same thing.”
“Just the same, I prefer them the other way.”
“Well, I suppose I should say thank you. Are you sure it was necessary?”
“You never know, sir. You can never be too careful these days.”
“These days? Has there been a threat on my life?” I ask, crunching the corner of one of the biscuits, as far away from Barney’s teeth marks as possible.
Barney shifts again, but then rests crookedly on one foot. “Well, no, not directly. But ever since Webb went missing, some of his friends have been stirring the pot, talking about how suspicious it is that he was your biggest critic and then disappeared. Some of them have noticed the time you’re spending with…up on the mast.”
A question I’ve been meaning to ask for a long time slips off my tongue. “Barney, why didn’t you tell the truth about what the…what she did to me? With the scrub brush?”
“You mean how she knocked you flat out, sir?” he says, smirking.
“I wouldn’t say she—”
“Whack! Right to the forehead, and you went down like a sack o’—”
“Thank you, Barney, I get the picture. Why didn’t you tell anyone?” I ask, breaking off another piece of biscuit and popping it in my mouth.