Eris knew what was about to happen. Knew she was powerless to stop it.
“No...”
“‘And though they break my body, they can never take my soul.’”
The commander plunged the silver sword through Day’s heart.
Eris felt her body freeze over.
Before she could scream, Jemsin’s hand came down hard over her mouth. Pulling her back. She tried to push him off. Day needed her. She had to go to him.
The woman withdrew the blade. As she did, Day looked straight at Eris. As if he’d known she was there all along.
Their gazes locked. Eris saw the blood seeping through his gray sweater. Saw that his eyes were already clouding over. She stopped struggling.
In that moment before death stole him away, he mouthed one word.
“Run.”
And then Jemsin was hauling her back to the trees, telling her the same thing as Day.
“Day! The scrin!” She sobbed. “My friends are all inside!”
Jemsin grabbed her shoulders and made her face him. “Listen to me, lass. Your friends are dead. There’s nothing you can do for them now.” He pulled her against his wet, salt-encrusted clothes. “We have to run. It’s what he would want: for you to survive.” He pulled her away, wiped the tears from her cheeks.
Eris looked up into his brown eyes.
“Are you ready?”
Eris nodded.
They ran.
They needed a way off the islands, but everything Jemsin owned had sunk to the bottom of the sea, and the Across would only shelter them temporarily—the only door within it led straight back to the scrin. So Eris tried to barter her spindle for passage aboard a ship. The shipmaster sneered at her, turning them both away—until he saw the knife at her hip. The one Day gave her. “That,” he told her with gleaming eyes as he called her back, “is a fairer trade.”
So Eris sold her knife in exchange for passage.
It was only after they sailed out of the harbor, only after the Star Isles disappeared in the distance, that Eris wondered: Why Day? Why hadthe commander of the Lumina army forcedhimto watch the scrin burn, and no other? He was only a caretaker.
And what had they been looking for? What was so important, it warranted burning the scrin with everyone inside it?
But Eris remembered the conversation she’d overheard. The Master Weaver had given her a clue when she eavesdropped on him and Day:If she stays any longer, she’ll bring sorrow upon us.
Day hadn’t disagreed with him.
Eris didn’t know why the Lumina had come, or what they wanted. But she did know this: The destruction of the scrin, the slaughter of all her friends, the death of her guardian...
These things were her fault.
Nineteen
Eris had never told that story to anyone. She only told it now because it might earn her Safire’s sympathy. If she had Safire’s sympathy, she might be able to change the commandant’s mind about handing her over to the empress.
But another part of her told the story because ever since Kor told Safire it wasEriswho burned down the scrin, Eris couldn’t stop thinking about the look that had come into Safire’s eyes. Horror. Then disgust. And last of all: loathing.
Normally, these things didn’t matter to Eris. Who cared what other people thought about her?
But for some stupid reason, it mattered what Safire thought.
