It was just a part of her plan to kill us all. She means to use me as a sword against my own, but I won’t let her.
I crouch against the dune and stare across the water. The knife slips in my sweaty palm. My head is buzzing with lack of sleep—I haven’t allowed myself to do more than doze since the second fire.
One burned shelter is an accident. But two makes people wonder. A third will make them sure. Witchcraft, they will whisper. Witch, they will think when they look at me. In the five days since we were crushed, superstition has sprouted like mushrooms from the soil of an empty burial ground—haunted by warriors who will never be properly laid to rest. Thyra has been working with the widows of our most senior warriors to plan a ceremony of farewell to soothe our uneasiness and grief. We will not get to share our blood with our lost brothers and sisters one last time, nor can we arm them for eternal battle, but Thyra says our spirits and memories will be the wind that carries them to their final victory.
She cannot silence the whispers, though, nor can she quell the fear. The wolves of heaven no longer guard us. We are prey now. We have been cursed.
And we are all looking for a place to lay blame.
A low sob bursts from my mouth. I could not bear it if they knew that I am the cursed one, but I am; I know it. Fire drips from my fingers if I do not focus on suppressing it. Just as bad, frost creeps along my arms and bitter cold whirls around me at the worst moments. So far, they all draw their cloaks around their shoulders and blame it on the coming winter, but soon they’ll realize it comes from me. I feel the ice inside. It’s a blade on a stone, growing sharper by the day, destroying me.
I pull the collar of my tunic wide and hold the knife angled downward, the point touching the soft skin at the base of my throat. One solid thrust, and it will pierce my heart. I know how hard to push. I’ve felt flesh give way, the strike vibrating through a hilt to my palm, up my arm. I’ve felt the shield of bone, the resistance of gristle, the slide of viscera. I know to twist, to leave nothing untouched in my wake, to shred and tear and leave no possibility of recovery. I’m going to earn one more kill mark today, though I won’t be alive to ask for it.
I squeeze my eyes shut and turn my face to the heavens. Why me? There were thousands of warriors on the Torden that day. Why was I the one she sent to hurt my people? Did she know how hard I’d fought to be one of them? Did she know my tribe means more to me than anything else?
I wrap my other hand around the one clutching the hilt. It will be over soon.
“I thought I saw you sneaking away.”
I pivot on the balls of my feet, whipping the knife behind me. “I didn’t sneak,” I say breathlessly as Sander steps into view.
His brow furrows as he examines my face. “Are you crying?”
I grimace and swipe my hand across my cheeks. “Are you addled?”
“We were scheduled to take watch this afternoon, but—”
But I had planned to be dead by then. “Yes, this afternoon. So leave me alone.”
“What are you hiding from? Why weren’t you at noonmeal?”
I stand up, annoyance blazing through me. But fear is hard on its heels as I feel the heat sprout from my fingertips. I clench my fists, and sweat beads across my forehead as I wrestle the curse back. “Just because I wanted to get away from the gloom of camp, I’m hiding?”
He rubs his palm over the back of his head. “You haven’t been the same since we returned.”
“I can’t imagine why. I only watched everything I love burn and splinter, and there was nothing I could do to stop it.” My lip curls. “I think the better question is why you’re suddenly the perfect warrior, Sander. Did you realize Hilma would have thought you a coward, for the way you acted on the Torden?”
With a strangled growl, he lunges at me. I sidestep, but he catches a handful of my tunic and sends me stumbling over his legs, into the sand. I roll away as he tries to dive on top of me, then land a kick to the side of his head as he comes for me again. He grunts and rises to a crouch, ready to pounce. But as he does, I hurl a handful of sand into his face.
“You conniving little runt!”
“Maybe I haven’t changed as much as you thought.”
Sander chuckles as he blinks sand from his eyes. “Oh, you have. Setting fire to your own blanket two nights in a row, and somehow you’re untouched by the flames? Slinking around for the last few days with a cloud of bitter cold around you? Don’t think I haven’t noticed.”