Page 16 of A Fate Unwoven
“He stays with us.”
Ioseph’s brow furrowed, but he kept his mouth shut, chin dipping in a barely perceptible nod.
“Æspen, stay close.”
Dimas didn’t wait to see if Finæn obeyed. Something inside him knew he would. Just like he knew that whatever awaited him at the front of this carriage was going to change everything.
He sucked in a breath of ice-cold air, letting the sensation calm his nerves. Overhead, the sky was growing increasingly darker with the impending storm, and flecks of snow had begun to settle on the strands of his hair.It’s now or never.
Dimas rounded the side of the carriage. For a heartbeat, everything looked exactly as he’d expect it to: Aldryn, the young soldier who’d been assigned to drive the carriage, was sitting upright in his chair, the reins of two ebony horses resting in his gloved hands. The horses themselves were neighing softly in distress, their hooves churning at the snow beneath their feet. There was something blocking their path. A rotting, gaunt tree trunk that had been sawed on one end.
An ambush?He thought of his father’s warnings about rebellion. Of groups of heretics banding together to fight back against the empire’s laws. Even though they’d chosen the simplest snow carriage for their journey, one that couldn’t be identified as belonging to the royal line, Dimas had revealed the truth of who he was back in Forvyrg. His desperation had made him careless, and for the son of Vesric Ehmar, carelessness could be as deadly as any blade.
But the Wilds were empty. Dimas scanned the quickly darkening horizon, searching for any signs of life. His brow furrowed. He turned to ask the driver of the carriage what he’d seen. To ask him why he hadn’t come to report the blockage as soon as he’d seen it, but as his gaze fell on the young soldier, the words died in his throat.
A single, crimson line ran across the width of his neck, as if someone had tied a ribbon around his throat. Blood coated the trim around his cloak, turning the once-light-gray fur a rusty shade of brown. But the worst part, the part that made bile rise in Dimas’s throat, was the bloody symbol that had been carefully carved into the soldier’s forehead. Three diamonds that formed a shape almost like a star, nestled in a large V-shape that tapered into a single line at its bottom.
It was a symbol he’d only ever seen in classified history books. One that was always accompanied by a brief but warning description of theHæsta,an ancient cult loyal to the Furybringer. The royal priests claimed they’d all vanished after her death, becoming as forgotten as the Corrupted the heretics believed had once dwelled within the shadows of Wyrecia.
But if they no longer existed, then why was their mark carved into this soldier’s flesh?
“It’s probably just heretics trying to scare us,” Ioseph said. He was standing close enough that Dimas could feel the warmth of him against his side, and for a second, the prince wanted nothing more than to lean into that heat and let it melt away the icy shards of his fear.
Instead, he made himself step away. “Probably,” Dimas said, because the only other option was one he wouldn’t let himself thinkabout. He couldn’t tear his gaze away from the soldier’s face, colorless except for the bloody mark upon his head. A mark that was only there because he had followed Dimas into the Wilds.
“What does it mean?” Finæn asked, voice barely a whisper above the icy winds.
“It’s … a symbol from old Wyrecian,” said Dimas. “It’s meant as a warning.” Not a lie, exactly, but not the whole truth, either.
After a few more seconds, Ioseph said, “We need to go. The storm will be here soon.” He placed a hand on Dimas’s shoulder, his fingers tightening just a fraction. “Get back inside. I’ll take us the rest of the way.”
Dimas shook his head. “ ’Seph, no. It isn’t safe—”
“Whoever did this is long gone. What matters now is getting out of this storm.”
Dimas glanced at the sky. The snow was falling heavier now, covering the ground with increasing speed. If they waited any longer, they’d be stuck.
“Alright.” He turned back toward the carriage, nausea rising in his throat at the sight of the deceased soldier still sitting in the driver’s seat. “What about Aldryn?”
Ioseph shifted uneasily on his feet. “We can’t take him with us. There’s no room inside the carriage, and if anyone sees him up front …”
“I doubt anyone will be out here with the storm coming, but … here”—Finæn took his cloak off, his teeth chattering against the cold—“use this to cover him, just in case.”
Gratitude washed over Dimas. He dipped his chin. “Thank you. ’Seph, are you … I can drive with him, if—”
“No,” Ioseph said, already climbing onto the bench next to the boy’s corpse. “I’ve got it.”
Dimas knew from experience there was little point in arguing. And so, with one final look at the darkening sky, he headed back to the carriage door, the bloody image of theHæsta’s symbol still fresh in his mind.
SIX
DIMAS
Dimas was no stranger to death. He’d sat at his mother’s bedside as the life had left her. Had watched his father grow frailer by the day, until only a shadow of his former self remained. And he’d listened in on his father’s meetings as hunters and soldiers recounted the number of heretics they’d killed during their raids. But this … this was different.
This was a message.
His father would tell him that it was just fate taking its course. That the guard had been destined to die in that brewing storm from the moment he’d been born. Dimas tried to tell himself the same thing, repeating the words over and over in his head in a desperate attempt to drown out the dark thoughts lingering at the edges of his mind. The ones that said this was his fault. That if he’d received his vision of his Fateweaver when he was meant to, if she’d already been by his side, the guard never would have been out in the Wilds in the first place.
