I peered into the room where my little sister slept, knowing it might be the last time I saw her sweet face. I always liked to see her when she slept, because it was the only time she wasn’t in pain.
She was twelve, and the doctors were sure she wouldn’t see thirteen.
Unless I did something about it.
I had a plan. The ship would leave tomorrow, and there were already whispers about what we would find when we made port.
The panaceum. The cure to any ailment. Just what Kayra needed to survive.
I was going to find it. I was going to steal it for myself. I was going to keep my family together.
And I wouldn’t let anyone get in my way.
I know the memory isn’t mine, but I’m transfixed by it all the same. The determination and love of the owner fills my whole being. It’s akin to the warmth I remember feeling with my own family. That sensation of belonging gathers under my skin. It moves toward my chest, as though all the warmth within my veins is pulled to the very center of me, leaving my limbs numb from the lack of it.
Everything that I am, everything that I have—it’s all contained where my heart is.
And then it moves upward, a gentle tugging that I barely recognize, until there’s a pressure at my lips.
I wrench away so forcefully that I nearly drop my knife as it pulls free from the man’s skin. My eyes shoot open to find him sitting up now, and his lips were—
They were on mine.
My free hand wipes at my mouth while the one gripping the dagger prepares for another strike. Except that the last time that happened …
I halt the attack and instead back up from the tomb and the being now standing free from it.
“Sorinda, what is going on in there?” Kearan sounds exasperated, as though he’s been calling my name for quite some time. I hear ice cracking, and I think he’s trying to force his way down the tunnel, but I dare not take my eyes off the threat to check.
“Lourech nem construnun mzchen nuow.”
The words should mean nothing to me. I know they’re in a language I do not speak, but my mind offers the translation: Thank you for freeing me.
“Get out of my way,” I say in Manerian. No, not Manerian. The world is Maneria, and it is far larger than we ever even imagined. I am of the Seventeen Isles, so I suppose I speak Islander.
The being’s gaze lands on my mouth. His eyes constrict, his pupils growing a darker blue, and he says, this time in my language, “You taste like hope.”
“The hell?” Kearan asks, his voice echoing lightly in the cavern.
I want to repeat Kearan’s question, but the being in front of me is looking me up and down in a very uncomfortable way.
“I said move,” I say.
“My name is Threydan,” he says instead of moving. “We’re going to do amazing things together, Sorinda.”
“The actual hell?” Kearan says, “Sorinda, get out of there. What are you waiting for?”
Threydan eyes the tunnel over his shoulder, and I take the chance to attempt leaping around him, but he moves with me, keeping himself between me and the exit.
“He’s in my way!” I call back to Kearan.
“Then gut him!”
The man called Threydan says, “Yes, gut me.”
If I was hesitant before, I’m now determined to do no such thing again. I don’t feel right. It’s almost like being sick, with every limb weakened from the body’s fight with the disease.
Except, instead of feeling weak, I feel nothing.
Something is very wrong, and it happened after I stabbed him. What would become of me if I did it again?
I pull out another dagger, just so my free hand can have something to hold.
“You have nothing to fear from me, Sorinda,” the being, Threydan, says. He tries to approach me, and I bring my daggers together in an X to ward him off. He halts. “Tell me your heart’s greatest desire, and I swear to let you pass.”
The hair on my arms stands on end, and I am overcome with the need to get out of this room now.
“I’m looking for some missing people,” I say, because what else can I possibly do? I’ve never had a situation I couldn’t get out of with something sharp.
Threydan steps away from me until his back hits the ice wall, leaving the exit clear. “I will help you find them. Then you will help me exact my revenge. I have it on good authority you excel at that.”
Horror seizes me in place for a full second as I realize he must have seen one of my memories just as I saw one of his. “What did you see?” I ask, tightening my grip on my daggers.
“You were so little, yet you dealt death so beautifully.”
My breathing picks up. I want to kill. I envision knives sticking through his skin. Blood dripping from a dozen cuts. His look of agony just before his eyes go blank …
A morsel of sense wheedles its way through my murderous thoughts. I start to inch my way toward the exit, taking careful steps, ready to back away should Threydan prove to be a dishonorable liar.
When I reach the tunnel entrance, Threydan moves as if he means to follow, and I raise my knives higher.
“I’m not about to stay in here,” he says, looking around. “It’s all right, Sora.”
That nickname coming from his lips almost makes me double over. I haven’t heard it in over a decade. I didn’t give him permission to use it.
Consequences be damned, I raise one of my knives and fling it. It lands square in his throat.
But Threydan doesn’t choke.
Doesn’t fall.
Doesn’t die.
He pulls out the knife and examines it.
Kearan’s cursing comes from behind me. And I inch back another step.
The sound of cracking ice thunders around me, and there is a rumbling above my head. Threydan and I both look at the ceiling. I register the ice above us crumbling, just as I realize I must have stepped on another pressure plate I missed the first time around.
A large shard of ice tumbles down, shattering against Threydan’s head and sending him toppling to the ground. At the same time, hands grip my hips fiercely and pull me backward.
Kearan hauls me out of the tunnel. When we reach the cavern on the other side, he shoves me ahead of him and yells, “Run!”
Just this once, I obey.
I slip onto my arse three different times as I try to make my escape back through the rooms of frozen skeletons. Kearan is not so quiet as he keeps up with me, just a step behind, though he sometimes manages to keep his feet better than I do.
Because I’m still reeling from the encounter. I saw things I shouldn’t have. I was distracted enough by them that he was able to kiss me. And I don’t feel right in my skin anymore.
I can’t feel the freezing temperature around me. There is nothing except my heart, which feels too hot within my chest. I would swear it has its own sentience. Pounding and turning and writhing with heat. It isn’t painful exactly, but it’s impossible to ignore.
And then I remember the moment my dagger pierced his heart. The way it changed me. The way it was drawing some sort of essence out of me. My stomach turns.