Page 31 of A Fate Unwoven
Silah must have identified her assailants to Casimir before Lena had arrived. Even if Silah hadn’t, it would have been an easy guess; inall Lena’s years of life, she had only known one group responsible for such brutality.
Finæn’s grim face flashed before her as he’d told her of the recent raid on Rekavyrg.They were searching for heretics. The people there were forced to dig twice as many graves when theFistfinally left.
A flood of anger went through Lena, so fierce she found herself gripping her bow tight enough to hurt.Nothing will ever change,she thought.Not for people like us.
No,the ancient voice replied, the anger in her voice a mirror to Lena’s own.Unless we make it so.
“She didn’t deserve this,” Casimir said, his dark gaze rising to meet Lena’s. It was the most unsure she’d seen him look during their short time together.
“This wasn’t your fault,” Lena whispered.
Casimir shook his head. “The Fist have been on the Raven’s trail for years. I’ve managed to keep my identity hidden so far, but if they somehow found out Silah was helping me …” He trailed off, his features twisting with pain, and the threads around him wavered with what Lena thought might have been uncertainty. “I don’t know how much information the Fist have. If they know about the mountain route, it might be safer if we—”
“No.” Lena shook her head. “They don’t get to scare us into submission. They don’t get towin.”
She was breathing hard now, and the pain in her wrist was almost a welcome sensation. If this was what the Fist did to someone for associating with the Raven, what would they do if they discovered Finæn and Maia had let the empire’s next Fateweaver escape? She’d thought she’d been protecting them by running away, but …
But nothing,her mind argued, the voice entirely her own this time.The empire can’t use you against them if you’re not here; they’re safer with you gone.
Casimir nodded once, a single, determined action. “They don’t get to win.” He sucked in a breath, closed his eyes. When he opened themagain, they shone with a determination fierce enough to match Lena’s own. “The storm is too bad to find anywhere else to stay for the night. We’ll … we’ll stay in the outbuilding, like we planned.”
“And if the Fist come back?” Lena asked, eyeing the door warily. It was doubtful, given the storm, but life in the Wilds had taught her to never be too careful.
The smuggler sent a final glance to the space where Silah had once stood. “Then they’ll wish they hadn’t,” he said, and with one final, whispered goodbye, Casimir strode out of the trader’s home.
Lena allowed herself a moment to linger. To look back at the bloody puddle on the ground and utter her own worthless apology.
Perhaps one day, if the Lost Sisters returned and freed the Fateweaver from the empire’s control, the power inside of Lena might be used for something good. But until that day came, all Lena could do was keep running.
THIRTEEN
LENA
The outbuilding was a small storage hut filled with a variety of tanned leathers, bedrolls, and jars of what Lena could only assume were different herbal tinctures. Compared to the mess in the main building, the hunters had left this place surprisingly intact. The only signs that the Fist had been here were the tomes tossed to the ground and the broken lock on the door. Casimir had set up the sleeping rolls he’d packed whilst Lena had loosely hung a glass jar around the door handle, an alarm that would fall and shatter should anyone attempt to enter. It was a technique Lena had used once or twice during the times she’d been forced to stay in inns closer to the main cities, one she’d expected Casimir to question, but the smuggler had remained unnervingly quiet.
He wasstillquiet now, as they lay side by side on their bedrolls, their elbows nearly touching in the small space. Any other time, Lena would have welcomed the silence, but after what had happened with the trader, her mind was a storm of unanswered questions. What had Silah told the hunters about Casimir? What would they do if they reallydid know about the mountain trail? And, the most pressing question of all: Why hadn’t Casimir seemed surprised to see his friend turn into akorupted?
They were all part of the smuggler’s story, a story Lena found herself increasingly eager to hear. And perhaps it was the exhaustion muddying her mind, or perhaps it was the need to talk tosomeoneabout her discovery that thekoruptedwere real that had Lena asking into the darkness, “You’ve seen one before, haven’t you?” She paused. “Akorupted.”
Silence. The shuffling of fabric. And then. “Yes.” Another pause. “So have you.”
It wasn’t a question. Neither of them had been surprised at what they’d seen earlier that night. Horrified, yes. Angry.
But not surprised.
Lena stared up at the wooden planks of the ceiling, too afraid that if she turned to look at the smuggler, the walls she’d gotten so used to putting up around people would slam back down. “How long have you known?”
“That they’re real? Since I was a child.” There was a note of something like grief in his voice. “You?”
“Not long.” He was still too much a stranger to tell him the whole story, but … “A storyteller used to come to my village when I was younger,” she continued, choosing her words carefully. “She always told us about thekorupted,to be careful of wandering alone in the Wilds after dark, but I never thought they werereal…” Lena trailed off, her cheeks flushing at her rambling. Sisters, she reallymustbe tired.
“There’s a lot about this empire people don’t know.” Casimir shifted again. “A lot they don’twantpeople to know.”
Lena thought of the old tales. If thekoruptedwere real, what else from her mother’s stories might be true?
It was a dangerous road to go down, and so Lena didn’t. Instead, she pushed the spark of curiosity from her mind, closed her eyes, and waited for darkness to claim her.
Lena awoke to a searing pain in her wrist.
