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Meera lay as still as she could, waiting impatiently for the sun to rise. The raek fires she kept burning illuminated her immediate surroundings but not the tree canopy overhead. Kennick, Shael, and Linus were visible—motionless on the pine needle forest floor—but beyond their cozy sphere of light was a realm of menacing shadows. The dark shapes of branches and leaves rustled on the periphery of Meera’s shifting firelight, and she stared at them, wide-eyed and incapable of sleep.
She was too agitated—not because of the possibility of what lurked in the dark beyond her fires—but because of what paced and twitched within her; she was thrumming with the need to act, desperate to jump at her spirit’s call for atonement. She had left her dungeon cell to start making amends for her mistakes, and the pull to start right away pounded in her head and buzzed in her blood. It was an itch creeping all over her skin that she needed to scratch. Sleep wasn’t an option for her—only torturous stillness and seemingly endless waiting.
Ever so slowly, the leaves above her lightened from deepest black to greys and blues. Then, as her heart ticked by the unhurried minutes, they warmed to the yellows and reds of fall. The sun was finally rising. Birds chirped their good mornings and fluttered from their nests. The whole world seemed to awaken around her—ready for the new day—and she could only blink and hope that she was also ready.
Meera had long-since squirmed away from Kennick to avoid disturbing his sleep. Now she wriggled against the ground, trying to get comfortable and resisting the urge to spring from the forest floor and pace until she could actually do something—something meaningful, something good. Rolling onto her left side, she found Linus facing her, his eyes also open. For a moment, they just stared at one another. Then Meera grinned; she still couldn’t believe Linus had come with them.
Like a log, she rolled several more times across the ground until she and Linus were face-to-face, collecting pine needles on her already grimy clothes. “Did you sleep okay?” she asked quietly, aware that Kennick and Shael were still breathing in deep, even rhythms.
Linus shrugged the shoulder he wasn’t lying on. “To think I could have slept in an actual bed last night and woken up to Cook’s breakfast,” he replied.
“Yes, but you’re free now!” she said, searching his eyes and hoping he didn’t regret his decision. “I’m glad you’re here,” she added, reaching out and poking him in the stomach.
Linus grinned at her. “Do you remember the day we met?” he asked.
Propping her head in her hand, Meera nodded. Of course, she remembered—every detail of that day had been etched into her mind by fear; she had been so scared approaching Cerun to feed him for the first time. She remembered the Captain’s anxiety and how he had all but run down the grassy hill to the canal. She remembered the smell of the bodies and the flies buzzing around her. She remembered Linus crying, staring at his dead brother. She didn’t know why he
wanted to reminisce about that day now.
“You went back in for the bodies even though no one told you to—no one expected you to,” he murmured. Meera shrugged. “I thought you were some sort of angel, you know,” he added, huffing a quiet laugh. She chuckled with him, still unsure of why he was saying all of this but glad of a reason to laugh, nonetheless. “But you weren’t. You were just a person—a braver, better person than the rest of us,” Linus concluded.
“No,” Meera argued. “I was stupid and impulsive.”
“Maybe at first, but you went back for the bodies when you didn’t have to—Why?” he asked quietly.
She shrugged again. “You looked upset. I figured one of them was important to you, and I figured I was the only person who could get them,” she answered dismissively.
“Yeah, but you didn’t even know me. You just did it because it was the right thing to do. Most people … most people wouldn’t have done that—I wouldn’t have done that,” Linus said. “I guess I—I guess what I’m trying to say is that I want to be the kind of person who does the right thing even when it sucks.”
“Even when you have to sleep on the ground?” she asked, smiling and raising her eyebrows at him.
“Even when I have to ride on a feathered monster,” he replied, grimacing.
“Rough flight?” Meera asked with another little laugh. It was light enough now that she could see the strain around Linus’s eyes and how rumpled his hair was. She supposed flying for the first time in the dark of night would be terrifying, and it hadn’t been a short flight.
“I’m out of rum,” he replied humorlessly.
“Good,” she said unsympathetically. Rolling onto her back, she gazed at the colorful leaves overhead and wondered how much longer she would have to wait until she could actually do something. Then, on a whim, she asked, “Linus, what ever happened to the captain of the guard—the one I knew? Does he still work at the palace?”
Linus didn’t answer at first, and Meera rolled back to look at him, stomach lurching. When she saw his face, she knew. “No!” she cried, forgetting to be quiet. “No! No!” Leaping from the ground, she tangled her hands in her filthy hair. Him too? The captain too? How many people had died because of her?
Linus scrambled up after her and put his hand placatingly her arm. “Meera, he’s fine.
He’s fine,” he kept saying.
She didn’t believe him. “He hanged. Didn’t he?” she asked, her voice oddly high and strained. She couldn’t seem to draw in a full breath, and the sound of her short, ragged inhales grated in her ears like nails on slate. The raek fires around them suddenly bulged and went out. Then Kennick was in front of her, putting his hands on her shoulders and trying to move her away. She didn’t budge; she was busy searching Linus’s face for answers.
“No, Meera. The captain is fine—he retired is all. I haven’t seen him in a while, but I’m sure he’s fine,” Linus insisted.
Meera didn’t believe him. “The guards? The guards that were there that day—did they hang too?” Kennick put his hand lightly on her cheek and tried to turn her to face him, but she ignored him; she only had eyes for Linus. She needed to know—she needed to know how many lives she was responsible for ruining.
Linus shook his head in answer, but Meera knew he was lying. Brushing Kennick aside, she took several steps away, just trying to breathe. Shael stood nearby staring at her—they all were—and she hated how concerned and scared they all looked. Shutting her eyes, she breathed, counting her inhales and exhales until her heart rate steadied. After one last deep breath, she opened her eyes and announced, “We’re all up, so it’s time to find Duchess Harrington!”
The three men standing before her were all silent and wide-eyed for a moment. Meera might have found it comical if she wasn’t trying so hard not to fall apart. “Meera, slow down. We do not have any food or supplies. We need to collect ourselves and make a plan first,” Kennick said. His dark eyes were so full of love and sympathy that she had to look away from them. She couldn’t stand to think of their shared loss; she just wanted to start doing something—something good, something to make up for her mistakes.
“I—I need—” she tried to say, voice trembling.
“You need a bath, Meera! You stink! Your knell men might be too polite to say it, but really, you can’t go anywhere or talk to anyone until you wash yourself,” Linus interrupted, making a face.
Meera choked out a laugh from her tight chest. She felt like she was teetering at the precipice of her sanity, capable of laughing or melting down at any slight sway of conversation. After she laughed, she nodded; she knew Linus was trying to distract her, but he was also right—she
really was filthy.
“Okay, so we need food, soap, and rum. Who has money? I’ll go into town!” Linus declared.
Kennick and Shael both glared at him, not nearly as amused by Linus as Meera was. “We’re not buying rum,” she told her friend. She assumed Kennick had money, although he and Shael hadn’t brought any supplies with them; they had thought they would be returning to the border right away. Meera cringed inwardly, hoping they weren’t too upset by their change in plans.
“I will go into town and get us supplies,” Kennick offered.
Linus barked a laugh. “You can’t go into a Terratellen town,” he replied, looking Kennick up and down pointedly.
Meera agreed, but she and Linus—the humans in the group—both had recognizable scars. “It’ll have to be Shael,” she said. “He’s the least conspicuous looking.”
“Let me go! I’ll just hide my stump,” Linus argued.
Meera opened her mouth to answer, but Kennick beat her to it: “You are not going anywhere. I do not trust you.” Shutting her mouth, she glared at him. “Meera, for all I know, he came with us to try to get you recaptured. I do not know him, and I do not trust him—not with you. Shael will go into town, and the three of us will stay here,” Kennick added, seeing her face.
“That’s fine, but we can trust Linus,” Meera replied, rubbing her eyes and wishing she had gotten a little sleep. She had thought she would start looking for the duchess right away, but instead she was doomed to more waiting.
Linus proceeded to recline on the ground, apparently unconcerned by Kennick’s mistrust. Meera, Shael, and Kennick devised a list of supplies, and Shael put his riding jacket over his knell-style shirt to look more human for his foray into town. Before he left, he reached into the pouch he wore around his waist and handed Meera a bar of soap. “You need this more than I do,” he said, wrinkling his nose in jest.
Meera took the soap and rolled her eyes at him before watching him walk away into the trees. “Going to go take a bath,” she announced to Kennick and Linus, and without looking at either of them, she turned and walked into the woods in the opposite direction of Shael.
She had only made it ten feet into the trees, however, when Linus trotted up next to her. “I’ll join you,” he said.
She smirked, knowing he didn’t want to be left alone with Kennick. “I don’t remember inviting you to join me, but okay,” she agreed, continuing to
meander through the unfamiliar woods.
“Where are you going? Isn’t the ocean that way?” he asked, pointing.
“I don’t need the ocean. I’ll just make a bath wherever I feel like it,” she replied.
“Okay …” he said, not asking her what she meant by that.
A few minutes later, Meera stopped. “Here looks good,” she announced, proceeding to shape a large rectangular hole into the ground and fill it with water. She heated the water with her raek fire, and bending down to untie her boot laces, she glanced up to find Linus looking shocked and a little alarmed. His expression made her titter another small laugh. “I can shape raek fire, air, rock, water, and metal,” she told him.
“How?” he asked, swallowing.
“A wild raek gave me the powers—Shaya, my raek,” Meera explained. “Don’t worry, they aren’t contagious,” she added, noting Linus’s furrowed brow. Then she hopped down into her bath fully clothed, seeing as she didn’t have privacy. It didn't matter; she needed to wash her clothes as well, anyway.
After a moment, Linus seemed to recover from his shock. “That looks nice,” he remarked, peering into the steamy bath. “Mind if I join you?” He didn’t wait for her to answer, however, before kicking off his boots and splashing into the warm water. Sighing, he leaned back against the lip of the makeshift tub.
Meera might have argued, but she was glad not to be left alone with her thoughts. She merely scrubbed her clothes and body with Shael’s soap. Linus had the decency to avert his eyes when she reached under her shirt and into her pants. Meera spent a long time scouring her scalp, and after she rinsed the suds from her filthy hair, she shaped the water out of the tub and refilled it. She felt so dirty; she wanted to keep scrubbing and scrubbing, but she passed the soap to Linus instead and watched him half-heartedly clean himself.
He eyed her across the water, tossing the soap onto the ground between them when he was done. His usually honey-brown hair hung dark and wet on either side of his face. Meera was still getting used to how much older and more grizzled he looked now. “What’s the deal with your husband?” he asked, scratching at his beard.
“We never actually managed to get married,” Meera admitted, avoiding the question.
Linus raised his eyebrows
at her, and she knew what he was thinking even if he didn’t say it. “Yes, I got pregnant without being married,” she said in irritation. She didn’t want to think about the pregnancy. “Do you need a lesson on the finer points of conception, or has your mother covered that for you?” she asked snarkily.
Linus laughed. “Don’t worry about me. I don’t attract many ladies these days.”
“Is it the general’s uniform that scares them away or the drinking?” Meera asked, feigning obtuseness.
“Must be the uniform,” he replied, casually lifting his left arm out of the water and pushing back his wet sleeve to reveal his stump. Waving it around, he added, “This is a big draw for the ladies. It’s only good for one thing, you know.”
Meera gaped at him a moment before throwing back her head and laughing—really laughing. It felt so good to laugh, too; for those few seconds, she forgot everything. The creeping figures at the edge of her mind disappeared, and there was only Linus’s grinning face and the sunshine filtering through the leaves above. Then she wiped the tears of mirth from her eyes, and reality settled back over her.
Linus regretted his comment at first—he was used to being around men and the kind of bawdy humor they digressed into to avoid talking about their real lives—but when Meera laughed, he smiled and relaxed. He supposed woman or not, she also needed distraction from the cruelties of life, and he was happy to provide some for her. Although, after her loud burst of laughter, his concern about her knell man rose to the surface again. “Seriously, Meera. If your fiancé finds me taking a bath with you, is he going to kill me?” he asked. He hadn’t liked the look the red-haired man had given him earlier.
“Kennick won’t hurt you,” Meera replied unconcernedly. “Besides, I handle the killing just fine on my own,” she added, and suddenly, her face changed; she was no longer smiling, and she was no longer looking at him. Picking up the bar of soap that he had tossed onto the ground, she began scrubbing her hands, arms, and neck all over again.
“Meera?” Linus asked, watching her movements turn more and more frantic. She didn’t look at him. She kept rubbing and scratching at her skin, her big eyes round and panicky on her face. “Meera!” he cried, moving through the chest-deep water toward her. He caught one of her wrists in his hand and tried to use his stump to block her other arm, but just when he touched her, Kennick appeared at the edge of the bath. Linus immediately raised his arms and stepped away.
Meera seemed to come back to herself then. “I’m okay, I’m okay!” she said, looking between Linus and Kennick. She put the soap down with a shaking hand and disappeared under the water’s surface. For several seconds, little bubbles trailed up from her, then nothing.
Linus stared at the reflective surface of the water and waited, holding his own breath. He watched and waited until his lungs forced him to suck in air. He took a step toward Meera, but he hesitated, glancing at Kennick uncertainly. He wanted to get her, but he didn’t know what her knell man would do. Kennick was also staring at the water with a look of strain on his bizarrely angular face. Finally, Meera emerged, wiping water and hair from her eyes. She didn’t even gasp for air; she just gripped the edge of the bath and hopped adeptly from the water.
Linus followed her out much less gracefully, and as soon as the cool air hit him, he regretted getting in the bath to begin with; his skin prickled with goosebumps all over. The next thing he knew, the bath was gone. The ground where it had been looked freshly churned but otherwise level with its surroundings. Suddenly, warm air buffeted him from all directions. He jumped and made a strangled noise, but then he realized that Meera was doing it to both of them—drying them. Supposing it was better than dripping dry and freezing, Linus stood stoically and tolerated the strange magic.
Kennick hovered near Meera, and when she stopped drying them both and reached up to touch her long—clearly matted—hair, he stepped forward. “Let me,” he said, pulling off one of his bracelets and turning it into a comb. Linus stared wide-eyed at the comb for a second, but then he blinked and looked away, trying not to draw
the man’s attention. He considered retreating into the woods, but he didn’t want to leave Meera alone with Kennick—engaged or not, Linus wasn’t sure what he thought of the knell man.
While Meera sat and Kennick started the tedious process of working his comb through her snarled hair, Linus plopped onto the ground and very slowly began pulling on his boots and gathering his hair behind his head. He always left his boots tied loosely to slip on and off, but he struggled with his hair; tying it back was one of the few things he often needed help with. He considered asking Meera for help but was too proud to do so in front of Kennick, so instead, Linus did the best he could, looping his pre-tied leather thong around his hair several times. He was sure it didn’t look great, but it would do.
Meanwhile, he watched Meera as Kennick worked through the many knots in her hair. It looked to Linus like he was being exceedingly gentle, and yet, her face was slowly fracturing, her eyes filling with tears. Helplessly, he watched as her breathing became rapid and shallow. He tried to catch her eye, but she was staring at the ground before her like her life depended on it. Finally, her face shattered. “Enough!” she shouted, reaching her hands back and grabbing her hair. Linus saw a flash of light, and the next thing he knew, Meera was holding a large clump of hair in front of her, looking startled. “Oops!” she said quietly before whipping her head back to face Kennick. “I didn’t burn you, did I?”
“No,” the man said softly. He looked like he was in pain, but he stayed very still. Linus couldn’t blame him—he wasn’t sure he would risk touching Meera if she was burning things and saying oops.
“I—” Meera started to say, staring at the hair in her fist.
“I will fix it,” Kennick told her.
Meera nodded and incinerated the hair she was holding. Kennick proceeded to detangle the remainder of her snarls. Linus wasn’t quite sure what was happening. He thought maybe he should leave, but he hated the look on Meera’s face. “Bartro made the captain retire after you freed the raek. The captain wasn’t happy about it, but they had a ceremony for him and everything. I was still recovering and couldn’t go,” he told her. He was lying: Bartro had hanged the captain and the two guards who had failed to prevent the prisoners from escaping.
Meera’s eyes slowly traveled up to his face and focused on him. “Really?” she asked,
sounding small and vulnerable.
“Oh yeah! I heard Bartro even made a whole speech about the captain’s service. He had a way about him, didn’t he? Bartro? He could really make a person feel special,” Linus replied. He didn’t know what he was saying; he was just trying to talk—to distract Meera from whatever was going on in her mind.
“Did he make your stump tingle?” she asked, a fresh light gleaming in her eyes.
Linus laughed. “He certainly tried. He gave me a ring—said if I was only going to have one hand, I might as well make it as impressive as possible … I lost it in a game of cards. Did he give you anything?” he asked. He hoped he wasn’t stumbling into upsetting territory.
“He gave me a pen—a nice carved wooden one,” Meera admitted. “It’s at the bottom of a lake.”
Linus nodded. He wondered vaguely whether Meera and Bartro had had a physical relationship, but he didn’t ask. “He knew how to manipulate people, that man,” he remarked. “It was all him, you know, Meera. The duke, the three boys—it was all him. He knew what he was doing.”
“It doesn’t matter. I played my part,” she replied, still calm.
Linus’s eyes shifted to Kennick, who had just finished detangling Meera’s hair and formed a pair of scissors out of more metal from his body. Linus watched as the knell man proceeded to cut and even out Meera’s mangled hair across her shoulder blades. Then he looked back at her face. “So, what exactly is the plan here?” he asked.
“I just want to talk to Duchess Harrington—to offer her my assistance with anything she might need. I just want to help her if I can,” she said quietly.
“What if she demands that you do something ridiculous? What if she insists you should die for what you did?” Linus asked. He thought this was an incredibly stupid plan, and his mood was turning; he was growing hungry, and his head throbbed as the rum from the night before drained out of him.
Meera sighed. “I’m not going to blindly do whatever she tells me to do. I haven’t lost my senses,” she said defensively.
Linus wasn’t so sure about that, but he didn’t say so. “Then what?” he asked. He was starting to wonder what the hell he was doing there. ...
