I shake my head. I didn’t, and I couldn’t have, but I know where this is going. The Eastlanders want Thamaos raised from the dead, by whatever means, and here am I, a woman who just saved her friend from death’s grasp.
Vexx will never believe me, no matter what I say, and already, I see his mind working behind his eyes, piecing together all the ways I might be of use. Nephele always said that the power living inside me makes me valuable.
And valuable things get locked away.
I force myself to my feet, wanting to run or head for Alexus, but I’m instantly caught by Rhonin and hauled around to face the general.
His thin lips lift into a slit of a smile. “Oh, am I ever going to be rewarded for this.” Vexx looks at Rhonin. “Bring her.”
The red-haired brute obeys, handling me like a child’s plaything. “What about the other one?” he asks as we head down the hill.
Vexx turns and takes me by the shoulders, sighing with irritation like Helena’s life is but an afterthought. “Get up there and slit her throat. I’m really fucking tired of people who won’t die.”
Rhonin doesn’t hesitate. I watch him march away, drawing his blade.
Gods, I want to fight! But the exhaustion of healing Helena blurs my vision, turning my limbs to water.
Vexx takes me toward Alexus. He sits crumpled on his knees, swaying like a tree in the wind, the heavy chains tethering him to the dry and wintry riverbed. Behind the links of his fetters, his tunic is torn open, the scarred body beneath now marked by a reddened welt shaped like a bursting star.
The general lets go of me, and finally, blessedly, I collapse in the snow, my legs too weak to hold me anymore as I battle the oblivion that will sweep me into utter darkness.
Vexx stands over me, blocking the sunlight, and nudges my chin with the toe of his boot. “Come, now. Surely you want to say goodbye.”
I meet Alexus’s gaze, tears rolling from my eyes.
“I will come for you,” he promises. “Trust me, Raina.”
General Vexx kneels between us, glancing from Alexus to me, unsheathing the God Knife. “Somehow,” he says, “I think he’s wrong.”
The last thing I see before oblivion takes me is Vexx, driving the God Knife into Alexus’s heart.
32
Helena
The man named Rhonin brings down his dagger and drives it into the ground beside my chest.
He does it again, for effect. He’s good at pretending. He pretended in the wood days ago, letting me run after I fled Vexx, precious God Knife in hand, as though he couldn’t catch me.
And he pretended in the cave. He knelt at my feet, willing to do as I bid him, save for what Vexx demanded—anything but that. He would not lift a hand against me, no matter what awaited us. I had to black my own eye with a rock. Bust my own lip. Scream to the top of my lungs and pretend to be the wounded victim the general wanted.
Discreetly, Rhonin slides his blade beneath the sleeve of his leathers and jerks it free. He grips the bend of his elbow and squeezes, letting red blood run over his hand and stain the snow. He glances over his shoulder, and when he turns back to me, his face is ashen, his eyes downcast. With his unwounded hand, he touches a key dangling from his neck and briefly closes his eyes.
“I hate leaving you alone,” he whispers, “on foot, no less. But I swear I’ll take care of your friend. Avoid Winter Road. Instead, stay north. Get to Winterhold some other way. You’ll find shelter there. It can’t be far. Maybe a day, day and a half to walk.”
He touches my brow with gentle fingers, and a certain sadness saturates his blue eyes, but then he walks away, leaving a crimson trail in his wake, as though the blood that drips from his blade is that of the Knife Thief.
That’s what General Vexx called me, earlier, but also in the wood, before the shadow wraith claimed me.
But I can’t linger on the thought. As Rhonin stalks away and the rest of the Eastlanders clear the ravine, my mind slips toward irresistible sleep, though I’m aware of an odd sensation brushing up against me.
An icy, silken wind.
And somewhere, a white wolf howls.
I’m alone in the ravine, staring at the black and purple sky as it ushers in rising dawn. I haven’t seen a real dawn in what seems like ages. I feel frozen in place, but I sit up, aching from sleeping on the frigid ground, my limbs stinging with chilly needles. Otherwise, I’m fine. I’m alive, thanks to Raina and Rhonin, and that’s all that matters right now.
Because I have to find her.
I wipe a layer of frost and snow from my face, hair, and leathers and shove to my feet. It takes a moment for my legs to work right and my sight to adjust, but soon I’m stumbling up the white riverbed.
Ahead, bodies lie in the snow. Four.
The first three are the Eastlanders Raina killed in the cave. Vexx didn’t grant them the respect of a burial, but worse, he didn’t even give them the respect of a deathbed. They lay piled together with limbs at odd angles, their eyes wide open.
I didn’t do this for anyone in the village, either. I’d been too distraught, but I’m not too distraught now.
Carefully, I drag the bodies to individual resting places and close their eyelids. I even offer a prayer for their souls.
But my heart isn’t in it, much as I wish it could be. War makes devils of people who would’ve never been devils otherwise, but they were devils to my village all the same.
Standing over the last body, I feel…stunned. His chains are gone, but it’s the Witch Collector.
Alexus Thibault. Un Drallag. The immortal man who carried Neri.
Are they both in the Shadow World now?
Willing myself not to cry, I bite the inside of my cheek. Though I didn’t truly know him, I mourn Alexus’s loss. I’m sure Vexx made Raina watch.
I’m certain he made her watch me die too.
I think of how I can bury the Witch Collector, but the boulders here are too large to carry to cover him, and I’ve nothing to dig a grave. With as much reverence as I can offer, I roll him to his back, cross his hands over his bloody chest, and sing an old Elikesh prayer for his soul, directing it not to Neri but to Loria and the rest of the Ancient Ones.
They’re the only gods I will pray to now.
I still don’t recall much of my time with the Collector in the wood, but I do know that he spent three hundred years protecting Tiressia from disaster, and for that, he deserves an eternity in the Empyreal Fields.
After my prayer, I scour the ravine for weapons, but best I can tell, in the dim light, nothing was left behind. Not here at least. I’ll need to move northward like Rhonin said, back toward their camp, and hope to find something there.
When I hear my name on the wind at my back, I’m sure I’m imagining things. I stop, tears building on my lashes. I’ve heard Finn’s voice so many times since the fire. When I was with the Eastlanders, I kept expecting my big brother to appear and save me, but he never came. I could hear him laughing at me, telling me to stop being a baby and get up and save myself.
And I tried. I think he would be proud that I’ve made it this far. I still miss him with my whole, broken heart. I miss my mother, my sisters.