“Go back,” Ryker yelled to me.
He must’ve felt it too. But I couldn’t go back. Not with them stuck on the other side. If I could just get to Burn, we could torch the chewers like we had our other attackers.
I watched as Burn held a flame up, trying to get Ruck on his shoulders while still keeping the chewers at bay. Sinsy was behind Sneak.
And then the current kicked up. I’d barely made it the first time, and we must have been getting to high tide.
I slipped and went under. When my head bobbed back up, I was a good ten feet farther down the stream and Ryker had changed directions, heading toward me.
“Help them,” I tried to yell, but I went under again. I tried to inch toward the shore with everything I had, the water becoming uncomfortably warm. I didn’t know if I was going to drown or boil to death first.
A strong arm pulled me up, heaving me along. We crashed to the shore, the skin on my legs stinging.
When Ryker didn’t rush back in, I knew I wasn’t going to like what I saw. I glanced upstream to see Burn and Ruck standing there, bent over and clearly exhausted. Sneak was just coming out of the water, and my stomach knotted at the anguished expression he had.
There was no Sinsy. I scoured the water and didn’t see her, but I saw the pack of chewers on the other side, all gathered around, a limp hand extended out. They were eating her.
I got to my feet and would’ve run right back into the water if Ryker hadn’t latched on to my wrist.
“She’s already dead,” Ryker said. “It’s too late.”
He was right. There wasn’t even a moan or a twitch of her limb.
He let go of me and I fell to my knees, emptying my breakfast. It wasn’t that I was a stranger to death, or even killing. But this was Sinsy, my family. She was like a sister to me. She’d only come because of me.
“Why did you come back for me? I was fine. I could’ve made it.” And even if I hadn’t, maybe Sinsy would still be here. I couldn’t seem to get up. Just stayed there, kneeling with my palms flat on the ground.
“No, you wouldn’t have.”
“I’m half dead anyway. Even if I can break Bedlam’s ward, the Debt Collector might kill me anyway. You saved me because of Bedlam.”
His eyes narrowed, and I wasn’t sure why that hit a nerve, but I’d finally riled him. “You want to rage against me because your friend died, go ahead. I’d make the same choice another fifty times.”
He walked away.
Sneak made his way to the bank and collapsed to his knees.
Ryker stopped in front of him and laid a hand on his shoulder, and I heard Sneak say, “I lost sight of her for one second and they had her. I couldn’t get them off her. They ripped her throat out.” The last sentence was gravelly, as if it tore at his insides.
“It’s not your fault.”
Sneak’s head dropped, and he stayed like that. I turned away when I couldn’t bear seeing his pain anymore. Coupled with mine, it was too much to bear.
I was leaning against a tree when Ruck walked over and sat beside me, taking my hand in his and gripping it hard. The pain he was feeling, the agony he held back, was in the strength of that grip.
I wasn’t going to cry. No. Even if I wanted to curl up in a ball and wail for days. I’d let her down. I should’ve refused to go once Ruck and Sinsy decided to come along. But I hadn’t. Deep down, I’d been happy to have my people with me.
“It’s not your fault. It’s not his, either. Sinsy made her own choices.”
I didn’t say anything because I couldn’t. If I let loose right now, I might explode, and I didn’t know what I’d say or do. I was barely holding it together.
His eyes went to my ankles. “What happened to your legs?”
I ran a hand over the blisters. By the time we’d taken our last steps out, the water had felt like it was boiling. “Apparently magic only keeps the water cool for so long.”
Chapter 27
We walked in silence. Ryker kept his distance and didn’t bother me about practice. Didn’t say much of anything. No one did. We all settled down for sleep early.
Sleep didn’t come for me, and I was grateful. I knew I’d dream of Sinsy if I did. I lay awake instead, rethinking every moment before her death. If she’d gone before me, if I’d asked the worm, if I’d gone across a little faster, would she have already been in the water when the chewers came? Every possible variable ran through my head. Would she still be alive if even one of those things had happened?
I heard Ryker, Burn, and Sneak getting up. I squinted and watched them leave the area, probably to go hunt breakfast.
Five minutes wouldn’t put a ton of distance between us and them, but it was all we had. I jumped to my feet and shook Ruck. “We’re leaving.”
“We’re breaking camp already?” Ruck asked, eyes barely open as he looked around. “Where’s Ryker and—”
“They’re close by and we have to leave.” I tried to pull him to his feet.
“You mean leave without them?”
“Yes.”
He pulled away from me. “No. You’ll die.”
“And if we go with them, you’ll die.”
“We’re not leaving. I could die. You definitely will. It’s a death sentence for you.”
“We don’t have time for this. Get up.” I grabbed Ruck’s arm again and tried to drag him to his feet. He wouldn’t get up, and he was too strong to force.
He pulled his arm free. “No. I won’t leave knowing this is your only chance.”
“I can’t see you die.” Why didn’t he understand? He had to leave.
Ruck tilted his head back, his stare intense. “You are the strongest person I’ve ever met. You are going to do this, and then Ryker is going to help you fix this with the Debt collector. You’re not the only one who gets to try and save people.”
I heard a noise and knew it was Ryker because of the wave of magic that was also heading our way. Great, our opportunity was lost.
We’d stopped to make camp for the night, and I watched Ruck eating roasted meat in between Sneak and Burn. He wouldn’t leave and now he was avoiding me, so he didn’t have to hear me tell him how he should go.
He thought he was saving me by staying. He wasn’t. Even if we made it out of the forest alive, if Ruck came with us, he would be dead, just like Sinsy. Why couldn’t he see this? If I ever made it back to the Valley, I didn’t know how I’d tell Marra her sister was gone. And then I’d watch the rest of my crew die in the war that would follow. There was only one option left.
I walked over to where Ryker was standing beside Burn, eating dinner. The two of them looked like they were in the midst of a strategy session, which they probably were. Ryker wasn’t the small-talk kind, and I doubted he was gabbing about some local fauna.
I stopped in front of Ryker, took the dagger that hung from my hip, and threw it into the dirt between us, the handle wobbling a moment.
He looked down and then met my stare. “What do you think you’re doing?”
He knew exactly what I was doing. I was calling him out. There wasn’t a person in this world that didn’t know what throwing a knife down in front of someone meant. The silence that swept through our little group proved it. All you heard were the crickets.
“No.” The word sounded like thunder clapping down between us. He took his time turning toward Burn, giving me his back.
He couldn’t turn down a challenge. No Wyrd Blood could. You didn’t walk away from a challenge unless you were a coward, which Ryker was not. “I threw my knife in between us.”
I stood, staring at his back as he spoke to Burn. It was more of a monologue, as Burn was having a hard time keeping his concentration, splitting it between the two of us.
“I issued a challenge,” I said.
I felt a hand tugging my arm and saw that Ruck had snuck up on me. “What are you doing?”
I shrugged it off and forced myself in between Ryker and Burn, giving Burn my back. It wasn’t much of a fight, as Burn stepped back, eager to stay out of what was about to go down.
“I issued you a challenge. You have no choice.”