He nodded at her as she approached. The area around the cabins was mostly deserted, except for Ivanna, who was on her knees in a patch of brown grass not far away. Her hands were pressed to the ground, her eyes closed and her lips moving in silent prayer.
“Let’s go,” Olivia said as she began walking. She’d cleared a few hunters away yesterday, but she’d yet to check the area south of them.
Ivanna opened her eyes and looked from Aren to Olivia as they passed her. “Where are you going?”
“Hunting,” Olivia said.
Disapproval flitted across Ivanna’s features, but she said nothing. Olivia glanced at her over her shoulder as they walked away. “Ungrateful,” she muttered.
“What?” Aren asked.
“She’s ungrateful. We’re keeping everyone safe and she just keeps complaining.”
“She didn’t say anything.”
“I can see it in her eyes.”
“Ivanna doesn’t think we should go out looking for trouble.”
“What, we should wait for it to come to us? Because that worked out so well for us before?”
Aren held up his hands in surrender. “I’m not saying I agree.”
She picked up her pace in an effort to leave the anger behind, but it followed her as they headed south. The Ruined didn’t respect her because she hadn’t done anything great yet. She was just an inept heir to a great queen, living in a pathetic little cabin. She couldn’t even give her people a good home, or enough food to eat. No wonder Ivanna looked at her with such disdain.
Aren shot his arm out, stopping Olivia in her tracks. He pointed straight ahead.
The trees around them were sparse and mostly bare, and she easily spotted the five men walking in their direction. Their clothes were wet and sticking to their bodies.
“Hunters,” Aren said quietly.
“How can you tell?”
“The blue pins.”
Olivia squinted. Every man had several blue pins on his jacket.
“Hunters deserve to die.” It almost sounded as if Aren was trying to convince himself. Or her. She certainly didn’t need any convincing.
“We’re going to walk to Vallos?” a young red-haired man whined. He shivered.
“Unless you have a better idea,” a man with a thick beard said. “You can go fish the remains of the boat out of the ocean, if you want.”
The red-haired man grumbled something Olivia couldn’t understand. Her magic twitched in her body, begging to be released.
“Do you have a preference?” Olivia whispered.
“No,” Aren replied.
“I want the one with the beard,” she said loudly. He reminded her of the Lera king.
The hunters’ heads all snapped to her in unison.
One had a bow and arrow, and he darted around a tree as he aimed at her. She laughed. His head made a thudding sound as it hit the ground.
Aren had the others, so she strode to the man with a beard. She wanted him on the ground, and he was there in half a second. She sat down on his legs.
“Five pins, huh?” She yanked one off his jacket. “I heard about these from my sister. Killed fifty Ruined and you’re proud of it?”
He frantically shook his head.
“I’ve probably killed that many people too, but you don’t see me bragging about it.” She cocked her head. “Although that was bragging just then, wasn’t it?” She yanked his jacket open and slammed the pin down on his chest, through his shirt, and into his flesh. He howled.
“Oh, come on. That didn’t hurt that much. You should have seen the size of the needles your king put in me.” She pulled another pin off his jacket and shoved it into his chest, across from the other one. She did the other three as well. When she was done, he was whimpering, tears streaming down his cheeks.
“Aren, hand me the rest of the pins. He has so many spots to put them.” She patted the hunter’s stomach.
There was no reply. She turned to find Aren leaning against a tree, blinking. He looked like he’d been hit over the head.
“Aren!” she yelled.
His eyes shifted to hers and cleared.
“Give me their pins.” She pointed to the dead hunters.
“Am I …” He scrunched up his face. “Am I supposed to feel like this?”
“Like what?”
“Dazed. Is it from detaching?”
“Yes. It gets better with time.”
He slowly stood, brushing dirt from his pants. He turned away from her.
“Aren! Pins!”
“Just kill him,” he said without turning around. The hunter began blubbering.
Olivia let out a long, exaggerated sigh. It was too bad her mother was gone. She appreciated torture more than anyone. Understood the value in it.
She climbed off the hunter. He whimpered and tried to slither away, feet scrambling across the dirt. She snapped his neck. “I was going to make a smiley face on his chest out of pins,” she complained.
Aren paused and glanced over his shoulder at her. Fear flashed across his face. The second most powerful Ruined, the boy who had killed more hunters than anyone she knew, was scared of her. Perhaps this was how she earned the loyalty of the Ruined and saved them all: fear.
She smiled.
Em opened her eyes and immediately rolled over to check the bed across from her. Empty. Olivia’s bed had been empty every morning for a week, since they moved into the cabins.
Em pushed off the covers and stood, walking to the small window next to her bed. Outside, a few Ruined were building a fire in the pit not far from the cabins. The sun had just come up, and they were the only ones out and about. The area in front of the cabins was mostly dirt and brown grass. It was gray again, and for a moment she thought of Lera. The blue skies and sparkling ocean. The cheese bread and colorful clothing.
She let the image of Cas take shape in her mind, smiling as he held out the cheese bread to her. If he was here, she might crawl under the covers with him and stay there all day. Ruina’s gray weather wouldn’t be so bad if she could spend the day in bed with him.
She pulled on her clothes and walked out of her room, the image of Cas lingering in her mind. Across the hallway, Aren’s door was ajar, his bed empty.
The front door opened, bringing laughter with it. Em stepped out of the hallway to see Olivia and Aren walking inside. Olivia’s cheeks were pink from the early morning chill, and she waved enthusiastically at her sister.
“What were you guys doing?” Em asked, unable to keep the suspicion from her voice. Olivia only looked that happy when she was killing someone.
“We rode south a bit, to explore the area,” Aren said. He shrugged out of his coat without meeting Em’s gaze.
“It’s a good thing we did. One of the Lera ships had a problem and had to come back. A bunch of hunters were on board,” Olivia said.
Em was afraid to ask.
“They’re dead now,” Aren said.
She nodded. That was probably for the best. They weren’t safe with hunters nearby.
Still, the delighted look on Olivia’s face made her uncomfortable.
Aren walked to the kitchen, his strides quick and easy. “You’re not exhausted from using your magic?” Em asked.