Page 122 of Steel Heart Iron Claws

Of a family. Of a home.

They made me feel like Ibelonged.

But I can’t think about that right now. It’s not just Artain I’m running from. I have exactly one hour to put some distance between me and Basten, too. I don’t have a sliver of doubt that he’ll get himself killed to keep me out of Artain’s possession, if he can.

I know what he thinks of himself: A sinner. A street rat. Only good for his fists. But whatIsee is the heart of a king beneath the bruises, someone who would travel to the ends of the earth to keep me safe even if it means tipping himself head-first into the underrealm.

Once I’m far enough into the woods that I can no longer see the castle spires above the trees, I stop at a pine tree,catching myself against the rough bark, taking a second to find my breath.

Overhead, a crow caws.

Pressing my forehead against the bark, I murmur aloud, “Basten will do everything he can to catch me. I need to run. To hide. To confuse his senses.”

My mind stirs with a flicker of possibility. Slowly, I lift my head and squint at the crow. They’re always bringing me little tokens—acorns, shiny bits of metal, pretty rocks.

Friend, can you bring me something specific?

It tilts its head.What object, bird-talker?

I lick my lips, thinking of what could be close by.A quartz stone. And anything metal—iron or steel.

It caws again and flies away.

As I wait, every second stretches like a taut bowstring, and my panic fills the silence. My breath rasps. My pulse hammers. I want to crumple. To curl in the dirt like autumn leaves. To shatter into dust.

But Ican’t—the only way to keep Basten alive is to keep moving.

My head jerks up just in time to see the crow circling back. It drops two objects at my feet: A hunk of raw quartz and a rusty steel belt buckle that it must have scavenged from a soldier.

Moving fast, I arrange a handful of pine needles over twigs. My hands are shaking, but after a few strikes of the quartz on the metal buckle, I manage to get a spark.

Blast—it goes out.

Hunching over, I concentrate and get another spark. I breathe oxygen onto the spark until it catches and starts smoking. I stand up, fanning away the smoke, coughing as it spreads.

That will confuse him.

The crow flits its wings.Go left, bird-talker. To the river. The water will hide your sound.

I start moving again, veering toward the left. Soon, the ground slopes sharply downhill toward the Ramvik River valley. I can’t spot the river through the trees, but I can make out its shushing roar.

Will it be loud enough to mask me from Basten’s ears?

I start down the slope at a run, but after about twenty feet, my boots slip on damp leaves. I lose my balance, slamming onto my left hip, skidding downhill a few feet until I can grab ahold of a root. “Dammit!”

Damp, loamy earth stains the backside of my trousers, leaving my lower half clammy and cold. I push to a careful stand and brush the soil off my hands, frowning down at the skid marks my boots left behind. If Basten comes within a quarter mile of this slope, he’ll spot my tracks in a blink.

Still, the only way to the river is down.

So, I grab hold of twisting rhododendron branches for balance as I descend, trying to hop from rock to rock so I don’t leave prints. It’s painfully slow going, and I’m not even sure it’s effective. My boots leave damp prints on the rocks, just as they did the dirt. I might as well be painting a bright red blaze that says: SHE WENT THIS WAY.

I crouch down to unlace my boots, then knot the laces together and sling them around my neck so I can walk on dry sock feet.

It isn’t long before the rocky outcropping ends at a cliff. I dare a peek at the Ramvik River, fifteen feet below, its whitewater cascades sluicing down a canyon.

If it were the slow-moving Innis River back in Astagnon, I might risk jumping in. I could let the current carry medownstream, where hopefully Basten wouldn’t think to follow.

But the Ramvik River is a beast. Filled with rocky waterfalls, I wouldn’t make it twenty feet before falling over a cascade and crashing onto jagged rocks.

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