Page 11 of Song of Night

Fog roils like a nest of serpents in all directions save for the narrow path, no more than twenty feet wide, made by the explosion of wild magic. I don’t know why the mist hasn’t moved back in to fill the void… it’s walled up on either side of the gap, almost perfectly vertical as if held in place by invisible hands.

It’s unnerving to say the least.

And I’m about to travel into the heart of it.

Asher and I are mounted, him on his gray gelding, me on a black mare. Behind us, an entourage of warriors is there to bid us farewell. Ellielle, Malara, Helios, and several dozen others, everyone coming here at first dawn to see us off. There’s a morbid quality to it, an air of despair. No one thinks we’re actually going to make it back alive.

I know from snatches of conversation I’d caught this morning that they spent most of the night finishing plans for the defense of Night against Vyrin’s armies. Battle strategies and weapons inventory and contingency plans. We are a people well accustomed to war. The thing that’s different this time is we’re not battling each other.

I had not attended those meetings, of course, but spent the night locked in a tiny room at the top of the tower. Asher hadn’t said a word to me after he’d fed. He’d simply walked from the room without a backward glance and left his betrothed to deal with me. Kieran hadn’t shown his face either, though at one point I’d heard him and Ellielle arguing outside my room about the fact that she’d stolen me away from him. She of course pointed out that I’d already escaped when her angel collected me.

Which probably explains why he’s conspicuously absent from the farewell gathering.

“I wish you swift travels,” Ellielle calls from where she stands a few feet away, black hair blowing in the breeze. “The fate of our city lies in your hands. May the dark goddess be with you.”

Murmurs of farewell shift over the crowd. I turn my gaze forward again, down the eerie path ahead, and urge my horse into the Waste, Asher at my heels. I cast no final glance at the city I grew up in, the city I love. And I cast no final glance at the people standing there, because I have no one.

We ride in silence for two hours, until Night can no longer be seen behind us.

It’s strangely quiet, which only increases the sense of foreboding that creeps into my bones. I glance up occasionally at the walls of shifting fog on either side of us, which rise a couple hundred feet into the air. The ground beneath my horse’s hooves is gray and dry and cracked. There is no evidence of anything that was once here: not a tree stump, not a dwelling, not a hill or a riverbed.

But I suppose nothing is better than something, when those somethings are rumored to be ravenous monsters. I’d grown up hearing tales of them, but it seems maybe we’ve gotten lucky. Or maybe the monsters can’t come near the rift created by the explosion, repelled from it somehow as the mist is. Repelled by the lingering magic that hangs in the air.

It doesn’t even smell like anything here, not even earth.

Every time I cast my eyes over to Asher he is staring steadfastly ahead, jaw tight, eyes full of anger. Even his posture is rigid in the saddle, his hands gripping the reins too tightly. If I had ventured a hope that maybe the night before had changed anything, I was clearly foolish. His body may have reacted to me, but his mind and his heart clearly do not align.

I make it another hour before my resolve breaks.

“You didn’t even give me a chance to explain myself,” I say, my voice low and controlled, but loud enough to carry the three feet that separates our horses.

Asher doesn’t respond and doesn’t look at me, but I know he heard by the way his jaw rolls.

“I was assigned to spy on you. That is true,” I continue. “But then things changed.”

The silence between us is deafening, as if a great wind were slicing down into the rift.

“Kieran told me you killed my sister when I was first captured by the Animus, after the prison camp. I wanted revenge on you for the last decade, ever since that moment. And then you killed Lyri. I was very justified in my feelings.” I swallow and keep going. “But when I found out Kieran was your brother, I knew he’d been keeping things from me. And that’s when everything began to unravel.”

Asher’s gaze cuts to mine with such force it feels like a physical blow. “Do you or did you ever have feelings for my brother? Do you love him?”

I know the truth is going to anger him, but I won’t back away from it. I want him to know everything. Swallowing, I meet his eyes. “Once I… I thought I did. But—”

“That’s all I need to know, Zara,” Asher growls. “Nothing else matters to me.” He pivots his gaze forward again.

“That was before I met you,” I snap, anger rushing through me at his dismissal. “I realized then that my feelings for Kieran were nothing but a schoolgirl’s admiration. I realized how depthless they were, compared to—”

“Compared to what?” Asher doesn’t turn his eyes back to me. “I offered you a spot by my side, to rule Night with me, and you did not accept. Do not try to win me over now because everything was stripped away from you.”

“That’s not why,” I growl.

But Asher spurs his horse into a gallop and leaves me behind in a swirl of dust.

Chapter Eight

ASHER

If Zara knew how close I am to losing control, completely and irrevocably, she wouldn’t risk following me. She’d turn around and head back to Night, or take her chances escaping through the Waste.

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