Page 3 of Oracle of Ruin

“That’s not true. There were some,” I argue, pleading with Amír to let me have this hope.Iwas the one who ran and left Torin in that palace while I escaped.Ileft Tanja there to die.Ilet Seb hold the first Kijova off while I ran.Ileft them all there to rot.Laei, please don’t let him be dead. Don’t let his blood be on my hands as well.

You run like a coward, that rebel boy said months ago, right before I killed him for it. He was right.

Amír, as always, refuses to give me such satisfaction or peace. “And they all succumbed to their injuries days later.”

My gaze locks on the gunslinger’s, two warring energies fighting for dominance in the battle of will. Her emerald eyes hold my blue ones, refusing to back down. Her anger radiates through the room, thickening the air with tension.

Just as Rowan is about to interfere, the scent of smoking meat wafts into the tent and Emilie calls for us to come eat breakfast. Nausea roils in my stomach and I press the back of my hand to my mouth as I start to dry heave. I haven’t been able to stomach any food or many scents recently, let alone meat. The image of Raiko and his skin falling from his skull, raw meat hanging on his bones, flashes through my mind. Another retch rocks my form.

Rowan’s palm presses against the small of my back, tracing soothing circles until the feeling subsides. My stomach uncoils and I hold my tunic over my nose, covering most of the scent.

Amír watches this all with something like pity before she sighs. “I’m sorry you lost them, Vera, I promise I am. But we’re going to lose so many more if this continues. We have enemies on all fronts! The rebels have taken over more than half of our territories to draw you out, Ophelus and his damned beasts are breathing down our necks every waking second, and meanwhile, Mavis is unrelenting in her search for you two. My hands are tied, and you two aren’t helping by running off at your first chance!” She throws her hands in the air for emphasis, suddenly looking much older than her twenty-two years.

While half of her accusations may be unfair, they aren’t exactly unfounded. Despite Rowan being the leader of the Nightwalkers, Amír is the one who has taken on the brunt of the work in an attempt to hold our small group together. We’ve been cut off from contact with the underlings of Rowan’s mercenary kingdom, so for now, we’re on our own. No allies, and enemies on all sides.

The soft susurration of a golden breeze caresses the back of our necks as Kya emerges from the shadows. All of us are used to the assassin coming and going as she pleases, and at this point, know that she could be there at any given moment. Privacy is a privilege not a right with the wraith of the Nightwalkers living only a tent over.

The Vari woman floats towards her lover. Her skilled hands make quick work of the muscle knots and tensions in the other woman’s shoulders while she hums softly. Amír sighs into her touch and lets her jaw unclench. Kya is one of my dearest friends and the only one able to assuage Amír. On the outside, it is strange to consider the sweet woman could ever be with someone as hotheaded as Amír, but now knowing the lovers, it is impossible to picture them apart. Kya whispers something in Amír’s ear while lifting her gaze to us.Go.

I nod gratefully, tugging Rowan with me through the flaps of the gunslinger’s tent. The scratching fabric brushes across my forearms and I jump. Rowan settles his hands on my shoulders, both steadying and steering me towards Blaine, Emilie, and now Derrín, who has chosen to join them around the fire.

Blaine drops his gaze and takes another small sip from a cup in his hand. His motions are sluggish and his pupils dilated. In half a second, I have snatched the cup from his hand and raised it to my nose, gagging at the assault of the smell of cheap alcohol.

Guilt mingles with anger even as my friend and former love lifts his hands to request his cup back. I am to blame for his addiction and the thought haunts my every waking moment. Add it to the list of things to be guilty for. He turned to the substance to avoid his shame after he was bested by my fiancé in a duel for my hand in marriage in an attempt to win my freedom. Amír likes to remind me to be grateful he is a happy drunk rather than a violent one, or we would have a new slew of problems to deal with. My scathing response is always that there is nothing to be grateful for as I debate shooting the gunslinger with her own pistol.

Before I can say anything, the former captain turns his attention upon Rowan, who stands behind me, close enough that I can feel when he breathes. The Vari man sighs like a forlorn sweetheart. “I love you.”

Without missing a beat, Rowan takes the cup from my hands and tosses its contents to the ground. “Say it when you’re sober.”

“Who let him drink this?” I seethe. “We don’t even have alcohol at the camp. Where did he get this?”

Blaine’s drinking habit would be problematic if we were still back at the palace, let alone on the run. With the Kijova tracking our every move, we are packing up camp and moving at least once a week. The thought of him being drunk during an attack… That foreboding sense of dread returns.

Not to mention the sight of him now, the way he slurs his words and stumbles, choosing oblivion over pain. PainIcaused him.Iam the reason he left his only home.Iam the reason his closest friends are dead. While it is not my fault I no longer love him, I suppose I can’t blame him if he chooses to hold that over my head as well.

Derrín shrugs while Emilie stares at Blaine in disappointment. The disgraced captain doesn’t bother to lift his gaze. Conveniently enough, a specific blade of grass has caught his attention rather than my ire.

“He said it was water.”

“And you believed him?”

Derrín has the decency to look ashamed as I sigh.

“I don’t know who I am more disappointed in.”

Rowan shoots me a dry look of warning, but no one else makes any motion. The air around us hangs dry despite the moisture that clings to the grass and our boots. The silence permeates everything—my skin, my bones, my soul.

My lips purse when no one responds and my muscles groan as I sink to the wet ground. The morning dew seeps through my thin, cotton blouse, the garment courtesy of someone’s laundry line a few towns ago. When I escaped the palace, I was wearing only a thin slip nightgown, which not only did nothing for my modesty, but did not protect my skin from the elements. I would’ve had frostbite by the first cold autumn night had Amír not loaned me a pair of trousers and a blouse. But supplies were sparse as we had to travel light. I have instead taken to raiding abandoned homes, noting the village and address of places we steal from in a journal gifted by Derrín so that one day, I can repay them.

I am especially grateful for the thick pair of pants I wear now that we have entered the wet season. Krycolis’s extreme weather knows no bounds, and while it may be the end of summer, those withering heats barely reach us here in the Hills of Siva. Isolated by the coast at the northernmost tip of our kingdom, we receive the chill of the mountains and the wet wind of the ocean—a most “wonderful” combination. Besides, autumn only lasts a week or two here before the dead cold of winter sets in. In the mountains, autumn seems to skip over us entirely and go straight to winter.

Rowan settles beside me, an arm open for me to burrow into his side. I accept the invitation, letting my eyes drift closed for a moment.

Five months ago, Ophelus released his Kijova into the world in order to chase Emilie and Rowan. The aftermath of unleashing that kind of power was devastating. The palace cracked in half from the tremors, the splitting earth reaching all throughout the kingdom. Countless lives were lost from the earthquakes alone, and that was just the beginning.

The Kijova were born of human sacrifice, their first taste of the world being the metallic one of blood. This causes them to crave human blood, and the longer they go without it, the more rabid they become.

The fact that the six we faced earlier hesitated at all before attacking told me they had eaten recently. Bile crawls up my throat. The village we saw last night… the bodies…

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