Page 95 of Oracle of Ruin

The stitches are crude, but I am done soon enough and cleaning the wound with the cleanest patch of snow I can find. I think back to Emi placing snow on my injured hand by a small fire like this. Laying her head in my lap.

I squeeze my eyes shut, taking a deep breath. “How’re you doing over there?”

No response.

“You know, it was either that monster or me. I can’t say I’m in a position to dole out any moral awards at the moment, but if it counts for anything… thank you.”

Nothing. Not even the tiniest flicker of emotion crosses his face.

I’ve seen this in soldiers who have just returned from war, saw it in Blaine’s face when he lost the duel against Lucius. It is the look of a man haunted by what he had to do to survive. The one who kills a bit of the humanity in himself for the first time. That would have been me all those months ago if Rowan hadn’t been there to keep me grounded.

I settle on the ground beside him, ignoring the barking pain in my leg. I try to situate myself in a position that hurts the least, and that winds up being cross-legged and leaning into the mechanic for support. My head rests in the crook of his shoulder and I can feel each breath he takes, shallow and quick.

“You know, the first time I killed something, it was a person. A boy, maybe sixteen years old. He was a rebel and—”

“Vera, I am going to need you to shut up.” Derrín’s voice is gravelly and mechanical, no hint of the heart I know is breaking within him.

I close my mouth and just sit there, having used all my energy to settle beside him.

The Bone Wood is a red and white smear on the horizon, a stain on the map just far enough to be safe but close enough to see. We’ve left a trail of bodies where we’ve been so far—the Ricor’s victims, then the Ricor itself, now a dozen or more Infected. Derrín can’t even touch raw meat since it looks too much like the animal it used to be. He can hardly look at it until it is cooked and arranged beyond resemblance. This must be killing him.

He finally speaks again after some time. Six words that streak pain through the cavity of my chest like an arrow: “I was able to do it.”

He was able to kill something. Realization washes over me in horror. It is not guilt for the Infected that he feels, but his true sister. The one he wasn’t able to kill for when it mattered. But he was able to kill now, for me, and that just proves he was capable all along. He just didn’t when it mattered.

His head lolls to the side and his cheek plops against the top of my head. His breath rattles in my ear and my hand finds his, squeezing tightly. Three times.It’s okay. It’s okay. It’s okay.

“Your sister is going to flip her shit when she sees the scars we come home with,” I finally say after the silence becomes too heavy.

Derrín’s breathing hitches and he stares down at his unwrapped fingers then laughs, the sound splitting the dead air. “She’s going to kill us both,” he agrees.

I nudge his shoulder with my own. “It’s not too late to go back into the Bone Wood.”

“Remind me that I had that choice when we see her again.”

A slight shuffle later and Derrín is standing, offering me his hand once more. He pulls me to my feet and loops my arm over his shoulder. I lean heavily against him, unapologetically grunting at each step. Derrín tells me I sound like an old man and I threaten to burn his ass to a crisp.

Our camp and rest forgotten, we plow forward into the night towards that incessant tug of darkness.

“What do you think this place will look like?” he asks after a while. “More monsters, spiders?”

“Yes, lots of spiders, Derrín.”

“I knew it. We hadn’t seen any yet and I thought we were too lucky.”

I snort at that. Luck is surely something that must exist in this universe, but it doesn’t give a damn about us. “Maybe the Kijova ate them all.”

“That’s stupid.”

“You’restupid.”

Derrín raises a single brow as if questioning my choice of comeback. I will admit it was not my finest, but not my worst. I stick my tongue out at him. Maybe not my worst, but definitely my most childish of responses.

He reaches up and yanks on my tongue, an action I wasn’t expecting.

I yelp and lean away, falling on my ass. “You’re fucking weird, man.” I spit on the ground and he laughs, this time, a hearty sound. It warms my heart enough that I can forget the pain in my leg and ass where I just slammed onto the cold ground.

I pull myself to my feet this time, too stubborn to accept his help. My wounds may keep me slow, but I grit my teeth and walk on my own anyway, even as tears prick the corners of my eyes. Derrín fishes through our packs, having elected himself mandatory bag holder given my condition, and produces a few strips of dried fruit and bread, passing me one of each. I gratefully accept and eat in silence, trying to ignore my whirling mind.

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