Page 26 of A Fate Unwoven
Lena frowned, her pulse quickening. The way he said her mother’s name made her wonder if he knew she was hiding things, too. But she was in too deep to stop now.
“It isn’t safe here for people like me. The emperor’s hunters chase down and punish anyone who doesn’t believe in their precious goddess, and I …” She thought of the raid on Rekavyrg. Of the worry on Finæn’s face the night she’d left Forvyrg. “I don’t want to keep putting the people I love in danger.”
Lena swallowed, looking anywhere but at the dim silver threads surrounding the smuggler. She hadn’t told him the whole truth, but she’d revealed more than she’d expected to, and with his gaze upon her, she felt uncomfortably exposed.
A heartbeat passed before Casimir spoke, so softly he was almost whispering, “Alright, then. Let’s get you out of here.” He reached for the cloak hanging on the back of the door. “I came to tell you that most of our supplies have been secured. I just need to finalize one thing, and then we can go.”
The thought of being cooped up in the smuggler’s house for much longer made Lena’s stomach churn. She still wasn’t entirely sure she trusted him, but going out in broad daylight was a risk she wasn’t stupid enough to take.
Still, it took everything in her to make herself nod. “Fine.”
Casimir watched her for a heartbeat longer, dark eyes considering.
You can’t trust him,the ancient voice in her mind whispered.You can’t trust anyone.
Lena clenched her hands into fists.Shut up.
“I’ll be back before nightfall,” the smuggler said, and as he turned away from her toward the hallway, Lena tried to focus on anything but the silver threads dancing around him, glowing brighter with every second that passed.
TEN
LENA
By the time the sun had started to set, Lena was no closer to interpreting the tome she’d found in Casimir’s desk drawer.
Her limited knowledge of old Wyrecian had enabled her to translate one or two words before she’d slammed the book down in frustration, the pain behind her eyelids now bad enough that even the dim light streaming through Casimir’s window made her want to throw up. She’d spent most of the day alternating between trying to breathe through the pain and pacing the smuggler’s office, searching for anything to distract her from the growing whispers in her mind. More than once she found herself hovering at the front door, hand reaching for the rusty iron latch, the urge to run into the forest pulsing through her veins.
It was how Casimir found her. One second she was staring at the wooden door, her hood drawn, her bow a familiar weight at her back, and the next she was looking into the startled eyes of the Raven.
The shock lasted barely a heartbeat before it was replaced with something like understanding.
“Ready?” he asked, as if he hadn’t just found her about to flee his home without a word.
“Yes.”
Her heart was a thunderous thing in her chest, so loud it was a wonder Casimir couldn’t hear it. His threads flickered around him like silver flames in the wind, distracting and mesmerizing all at once.
“The festival of the first Fateweaver begins tonight,” the smuggler said as she followed him out of the house and into the streets beyond. “Most of the townsfolk will be at the market square to celebrate, so we should be able to slip out without being seen.”
“And the guards at the gates?”
Lena had gotten past them easily enough on her way into town thanks to those arriving for the celebrations, but she doubted there’d be many people leaving tonight.
“If I had to use the main gates to get out of the city every time I wanted to leave I’d have been caught years ago. The northern gate is easily scalable, and the guards posted there have been … distracted.” Lena couldn’t see his face beneath his hood, but she could practically hear the smirk in his voice. “Once we’re clear of Deyecia, it’ll take us a good three days to reach the Frozen Wastes.”
Three days. Sisters knew how overwhelming the urge to use the Fateweaver’s power to manipulate someone’s threads would be by then. It would be faster to travel by horse, but that would mean sticking to the main roads. It was too risky, even if it would cut their journey in half.
“That long?”
Casimir turned down another side street, the wooden houses on either side of them shielding them from the wind. Every now and then, Lena would catch sight of a totem in one of the windows, the wood carved into the shape of a former Fateweaver. Something inside of her tingled at the sight of them. Would these people one day carve totems of her? Or, like the Furybringer, would her memory exist only in cautionary tales whispered at children’s bedsides?
Lena clenched her hands into fists, willing her racing heart to calm. She’d come too far to fall apart now.
“The patrol around the mountain range changes every few days,” said Casimir, his voice barely a whisper above the humming in her head. “If we leave now, we should arrive just before the change is due; the guards will be tired, less alert.”
Lena thought back to the lists of guard schedules she’d found in Casimir’s desk. “How do you know all of this?” she asked.
Casimir turned to face her, his eyes dark beneath his hood. “I can’t reveal all of my secrets now, can I?”
