Page 112 of In Her Own Rite

“You didn’t catch all of us.”

“I know. We caught Laurent the other day, when he passed Keist.”

“No.” She shakes her head. “There were two others. Laurent, and Janus.”

My blood runs cold and I stand up. “Janus Stenberg?”

She nods and reaches out a hand to me, trying to keep me in place.

“Please, listen to me,” she says, her eyes wide. “He was the one who brought us here. The others, the young men, they had their own agenda. For Janus, it was personal. He was the one who ordered we go after Gabe, the son of the woman he says betrayed him. He was the one who forced me to attack.”

I shake my head. “So he’s somewhere on the island.”

“Kieran, he’sat the cliffs. He hung back from each attack because he didn’t want his scent in the air, and this time Laurent stayed with him because he was injured at the common house. He told us several times that the eastern shore caves were the most remote place on the island, except the cliffs. That the cliffs were only ever used for the rite, a few times per year in the winter. If you found the caves, there’s only one other place he’d go to hide.”

I shake my head.

“But you’ve been in custody for weeks,” I say. “There’s not enough food up there for him to survive.”

“We had brought food reserves. Not enough for this whole time, probably, but I wouldn’t put it past him to find a way. If no boats have been stolen, if no one’s left the island in the night, he’s still here.”

“Ayagaayuni,” I say. “Em. She’s going up there.”

“Emerson? His daughter?” she asks.

“Yes his fucking daughter,” I snap. “But you knew that, didn’t you? Wasn’t that always part of the plan? Isn’t that what you taunted me with, when I was first here? That you hope she’s alright?”

She shakes her head again, her eyes wide. “He had no plans to see her. I only knew her name because he spoke of her once. I said it so you thought I knew something, in case it would spur you to speak with the council. The fact that you knew her was a lucky guess.”

I’m barely listening, my mind doing the math. How long ago did Em leave? Could she have reached the ring already? Is there any way to stop her before she gets there?

“I’m sorry,” she says, her voice panicked. “I would have told you before, if I’d known. I only heard from Ivo today that someone was doing the rite. Last I’d heard anything about it, you had said that Gabe couldn’t do it anymore. I thought it was safe.”

“Takka,” I say, walking for the door.

“Kieran,” she calls, as I reach the front door of the marshal’s office.

I turn and give her a quick glance.

“Please. I told you this for my conscience, not for a deal. But please, don’t forget about Nomi and me. Now that I’ve betrayed the others, if you don’t let us stay—”

I shake my head and run out of the door.

40

EMERSON

Iground myself in my fighting stance, and the memory behind my father fades away, replaced just with the vibrancy of thekiyyulitsurrounding me and my father.

Not my real father, I tell myself, studying his face. Just the image of him. It’s not real. It’s not real. It can’t be real.

I let out a long, slow breath, and then he pounces.

His body hits me in seconds, slamming me into the ground, and in a jolt of adrenaline, my muscle memory takes over. There’s no time to think, and the combinations I learned from Quinn just come out of me. I slam one foot into his left hip at the same time I crash my forearm into his throat. I see my arm crush the wind out of him, and as his hips turns inward on the side I hit, I use my arm on his throat and the power from my legs to get him off of me, pushing him onto his back into the ground on my left.

His legs are powerful enough to get me off of him, so I avoid them like Quinn taught and go straight for his exposed stomach. In one clean slice, I cut through his torso from chest to stomach, and then scramble back ten, twenty feet, waiting, regrouping. There’s blood in the snow, on my hands, in the air. I wipe my hands on my pants, waiting, but he doesn’t move.

This was too easy, I think.It’s not over. This isn’t the real test.

---