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There was only time for running. Tai and Uella crawl into my lap. Will you teach us to fly? No. I will teach you other things. Things that will keep you alive.
But at one time, long ago, it must have been perfectly beautiful and majestic. Whoever had once wandered these halls probably thought it would be perfect forever.
As we drew closer to home, I heard the excitement rise in Jase’s voice. He was exuberant about the changes we would make.
I could finally admit that I loved Hell’s Mouth. It hummed in my blood like it had that first day I rode into it.
Secure those papers, Kazimyrah, and if you can’t safely send them to me, destroy them. We have no idea what information the scholars escaped with after the fall of the Komizar, or what they have developed since. We don’t want these papers to fall into the wrong hands if there’s even the slightest chance for a repeat of the carnage—or worse.
She inspired me. She made me see myself differently. She saw me as someone worth saving, in spite of my rags and past. She inspired me to be more than what others expected of me. I dared to believe I could make a difference because the queen had believed it first. Even when I landed our whole crew in prison, she didn’t give up on me.
might change. “I know, Kazi. No one knows more than I do.” He brushed aside my hair and kissed my neck. “But this isn’t an end. It’s just the beginning. I promise. After all we’ve been through, nothing can pull us apart. I’m afraid you’re stuck with me now.” I closed my eyes, breathing in his touch, his scent, and every word he spoke. I promise.
Other truths were harder to share—they surfaced in layers—some buried so deep they were only a vague ache we had learned to ignore. We helped each other find those truths too.
This was the “family” I was returning to. It wasn’t just Priya’s threats that worried me, but the gulf of broken trust I wasn’t sure could be bridged again, not even for Jase’s sake. I had seen Vairlyn’s gutted expression as I took her son at knifepoint. I would always be the girl who had invaded their home, the girl who had lied and stolen from them.
“Kazi, you are my family now. There is no choosing. You’re saddled with me forever. Understand? And so are they. That’s how families work. Trust me, they will come around. They loved you already. They will love you again. More important, they will be grateful. The Ballengers let their guard down. I have no doubt we’d all be dead if you hadn’t intervened.”
I didn’t understand all the emotions and complexities of a family, and I worried that maybe it was too late for me to learn.
I felt myself falling deeper into the world that was Jase Ballenger. “Never. Not through a thousand tomorrows could I ever be sorry. Trouble with you makes me glad for it. I love you with every breath I will ever breathe. I love you, Jase.”
I knew more than ever now that chances could be wrenched from your grasp in an instant, including chances for last words, and if there were to be any final words between Jase and me, I wanted them to be those.
We saddled up and left, and as we rode, I relived the magic of each day, determined not to let these weeks roll into oblivion.
“We will, Kazi. You and I. We’ll write our own story. And it will take a thousand volumes. We have a lifetime ahead of us.” “That’s a lot of trees.” He shrugged. “We own a mountainful, remember?” We. Everything was we now. We wove our dreams together like armor. Nothing could stop us now.
“Of course, you realize once you tell Lydia and Nash, they’ll want you to teach them everything you know.” “We’ll stick to juggling and coins behind ears for now. Shadows are a bit harder to master.” “Don’t forget the silent signals,” I reminded her. “They would love using those at the dinner table.” She smiled. “Already on my list of priorities.”
Her fear weighed on me. I had already studied the map, trying to find any way around it, but there was none.
In comparison, the red plain we traveled across now seemed almost tranquil, and if it took a few dozen riddles to get Kazi through it, or more Ballenger legends, I was ready.
I looked past him to where the bird had been and saw Death hunched over, his back bowed, lifting a body from the valley floor. He looked over his shoulder at me, and then bird, body, Death, they were all gone.
Lydia and Nash are going to grow up differently than I did. They’re going to have different lives, ones where they’re not always having to watch their backs. They won’t need straza trailing them everywhere they go. Our history is about to change. We are going to change it, together, remember?”
The wolf at the door. I couldn’t help but think of Zane. My history was about to change too.
She mumbled a few more incoherent words and drifted back to sleep, her cheek nestling into my shoulder. I kissed the top of her head. My breath, my blood, my calm.
But she went ahead and tried out several anyway, her head cocked as she listened to their sounds on her tongue, her dreams as full as my own.
Tonight we would be sleeping in beds at Tor’s Watch. We would be eating dinner at the family dining table. Our new life would be beginning.
to kill someone, even without a weapon. I was far better trained than Zane. But I was afraid of what he might tell me.
And then one bitter winter, when many Vendans had died already, I was curled up, shivering in my hovel, blue with the cold, thinking I might be next, and I heard a noise. Shhh. It was only wind, I told myself. Kazi. It was only my rumbling belly. Shhh.
She was spring in the middle of a harsh winter. She turned, her eyes warm amber pools, looking into mine as if trying to send me another one of her silent signals, her lips mouthing my name—Kazi, my beloved, my chiadrah—and then she turned and walked away from me, but now someone was beside her. He looked at me too. Death. She looped her arm through his and then she was gone. But Death lingered a moment longer. He looked at me, then finally stomped his foot in warning, and I ran back to my hovel.
Since that night I had seen Death many times—and that was no dream. Maybe he had always been there, and in the busyness of trying to survive, I simply hadn’t noticed. Or maybe once a dark door has been opened it can’t be shut again.
We kissed again, banter still playing between our lips as he pulled me to the ground. I knew the lightness, the play, the laughter were his gifts to me, a promise that no matter how close we were to Tor’s Watch and whatever challenges it held or objections his family voiced, we would not lose the perfect beauty of these last weeks. It would not change anything between us. He didn’t need to say the words again. I felt them in every kiss. This was just the beginning.
Run, Mije. Deep into the forest where it is dark. Please, by all the mercies of the gods, run. Don’t stop. I can’t lose him.
Run, Kazi. Go— Kazi— The greenhouse. Please— I love—
them I knew how to do other things besides steal their Patrei. Show them I could learn to be part of a family.
Sometimes it was Jase who brought me back from the edge. His voice reached through the darkness. Go with the current. Just a little farther. Keep going. You can do it.
My desperation to save Jase had exploded through me like a hot flame. Every nerve blazed with one goal. Saving him was all that mattered. Had I? Had he gotten away? I couldn’t fail again. Not this time. Where are you, Jase?
The thump, thump, thump of the arrows still vibrated in my throat, steel piercing his bone and flesh again and again. Blood ran everywhere. A familiar voice crept in, my own, whispering cruel thoughts that had haunted me my whole life. Sometimes people vanish from our lives and we never see them again.
“Cowards!” I screamed, pounding on the door before the footsteps retreated. My daily response was proof that I wasn’t too weak or dead yet. That I would kill them all. I would. And Paxton would be first.
Jase, where are you? I have to know. Maybe needing to know was all that kept me going. I still needed to be there for him. Which meant eating.
Who was smuggling medicine and extra food? Who wanted me to stay alive?
I winced as I pushed up from the ground, holding my side, forcing strength into muscles and bones that shivered with weakness. I steadied myself against the wall. “I’ll walk.”
And they distrusted Rahtan. So they weren’t entirely stupid.
His accent. The familiarity struck me. Two of the men in Fertig’s gang of raiders had called to each other and sounded like these soldiers.
More likely I was being prepared for something, and I doubted it was anything good.
Weakness didn’t stop me from being a soldier. Maybe it even made me a better one. I knew how to use everything, even a momentary stumble. The soldier’s tiny push knife now hung heavy in my pocket.
Jase. Whoever was yelling had to be talking about Jase. Which meant he had gotten away. My first full breath in days filled my lungs.
“So you’re the one who—” He let the thought dangle. The one who what? “You’re not what I expected,” he said, stepping closer. He nodded to Black Teeth and No Neck, and they both grabbed me by my arms. Really? I was starved and weak and recovering from a knife wound, and though I may have wanted to leap at him, I had already expended all of my energy just walking to meet him. Even Rahtan were human and had their limitations. I made a show by taking a long look at the hands gripping my arms, then turned back to him, raising my brows. Coward much?
It was as if I was his last hope of finding Jase.
like I had fallen deep into a river, no words, no breaths, sinking, and I couldn’t find my way back to the surface, and there was no one there to reach down and pull me up.
Tomorrow, Kazi, die tomorrow. “No,” I choked. “Not this time.”
There would be no tomorrows, not ones that mattered. I was empty, and I would never be full again. Make a wish, Kazi, one will always come true. My wish had already come true, and the jealous gods snatched it away, just like they had taken away my mother.
The ring glowed on the floor, reflecting all the light the world held, the shine of Jase’s eyes, the glint of his hair in the sun. A ring that was not just a ring.
