Page 161 of The Last One

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I wairr eyalra irruis naedh, nirr llasialn.

Yes, I will. Until everyone responsible for this day is dead, and until the gift of fire has been taken from me.

“We’re still heading to Caburh,” I say, reaching for my satchel.

“Will the innkeeper talk with us?” Philia asks. “What if Separi thinkswekilled Veril?”

“The Lady of the Verdant Realm would do no such thing, Philia.” Jadon snorts as he rearranges items in his pack.

I know he’s joking, but his sarcastic tone pricks at me. “The Lady says, ‘Fuck you, Jadon Ealdrehrt, whose fake sister is the reason we’re here in the first place.’ You know so much, maybe you should’ve taught Olivia to keep her hands—”

“Kai?” Philia whispers. “Your eyes.”

They’re burning holes into Jadon’s.

“What do you want me to do, Kai?” Jadon’s fists ball at his sides. “We’re here now, and I’m sorry, okay? Yes, she stole from you. Yes, if she hadn’t, Veril would still be alive, and maybe you’d be in a better place than where you are right now.”

He crouches and hides his face behind his hands. Then, with both hands, he tugs his hair. His face so weary, his eyes so soft and filled with pain. “I’m sorry for shouting, and the last thing I want right now is for you to be pissed at me. I know—this situation is just…just…” He shakes his head and looks up to the sky. He closes his eyes and pulls in a deep breath. Then he drops his head and pushes that air to the ground.

He touches Veril’s satchel set between us. “I can’t do anything with ‘shouldn’t have.’ Only ‘should,’ and we should head to Caburh. We should still find Separi and plead with her for help and maybe, just maybe, something will fall in our favor. Okay?” His eyes search mine, and he whispers, “I’m so sorry.”

My tears make him blurry, and I can manage to say only, “Mmhmm,” before opening Veril’s satchel.

Vials of tonics. Small pots. The mortar and pestle. Bread, ham, and cheese. Dried lentils and leeks. Honeycakes. Crabapples. Rum. Map. Dried plants. A small, jeweled dagger. A leather-bound journal and glass pot filled with black ink. A small quill pen. Soap. Fife.

Philia wants the dagger, and Jadon, the fife.

I claim everything else, along with Warruin and the fox amulet that had hung around his neck. Will either work for me, or is their magic tied solely to their wielder, now buried beneath a cinnamon tree? If I wear it, will the amulet hurt me, since it isn’t mine, even if I didn’t steal it? I wrap it around my left gloved hand, with the fox pendant snug beneath my middle knuckle.

I tend to Philia’s injured ankle as I take in our surroundings—stunted trees and wild grass, crags and roots creeping across vine—choked earth and gritty sand. I don’t need to study a map because I can feel that tug in my gut, that satin string pulling me in the direction we’d planned to take. Toward Caburh.

A silvery-blue moth lands on the fox pendant beneath my knuckles and stays there, not flapping her wings, just sitting there like she’s staring at me. “Come, Lady.”She’s real.

I whisper, “Okay,” relieved that I haven’t lost my ability to hear her voice.

I hope that I’ll gain some of the attributes of Veril’s fox—intelligence, cunning and agility. I’ll need each power to survive whatever—or whoever—comes at me next.

49

Black smoke rolling from the fires covers the daystar, and if there wasn’t the glow of orange embers, we wouldn’t know earth from sky. We walk quickly, Philia leading us, pink-skinned and tight-mouthed, her fists gripping the shoulder straps of her satchel.

Jadon walks to my left, his eyes tired, his face marked with scratches and bruises. “You’re making this worse for us,” he whispers. “They were just doing their jobs, following their commander. He ordered them to turn around, so they did.”

“I don’t know where you’re from,” I snap, “but even the glued-together fragmented memory of wherever the fuck I’m from tells me that we don’t kill Renrians.”

Eyes wide, Jadon says, “So youkillthe emperor’sson?”

“Is there any evidence that I did?” I ask, incredulous.

Jadon’s eyes narrow. “No. You burned everything down, and then you burned it again.”

And I’d go back to do it again, but I have no time or desire to move backward, not when there is a colorful string tugging at me, not when there’s a moth fluttering around my head every now and then, telling me,“Come, Lady.”

Every time that happens, Jadon sees me nod to the moth and whisper, “Thank you.” A few times, our eyes meet, and even though he’s angry with me, his open demeanor suggests he believes that I’m communicating with something, that we’re not walking aimlessly around Vallendor, that Olivia just may be at the end of this tugging and these moth-guides.

Nothing stands out in the world around us. Brown. Dry. Dead. Old bird nests, toppled and caught in between branches. Gopher holes pock the dirt road, no gopher’s head poking from them. The sky is the color of foamy dirt, and on the side of the road, boulders the same—

A raven.