Page 77 of Down Comes the Night

Wren clenched her fist, absently watching her magic flicker. “Healing is the only thing I’m good at. The only thing that makes me useful. I had to be the best, or I’d be sent back.”

“That isn’t true,” Hal said. “You’re worth more than what you can do.”

“I guess,” she murmured. “But that was the fire that kept me going through my training and the recruitment process. And then I met Una.”

She still remembered seeing Una for the first time. They’d locked eyes across the field. Una had tossed her hair over her shoulder and given her a look of pure disdain. Wren had been helpless against it. Love at first sight, she supposed.

“The first weeks of basic training were hell. Rumors circulate fast, so everybody knew who I was. Most of them kept their distance, but a few other recruits wereawfulto me.” She understood it. Her aunt hadn’t done anything for anyone since she took the throne, and Wren had become an easy outlet for the frustration her peers inherited from their parents. “Una caught wind of it one day. She’s always had this sense of black-and-white justice and no patience for nonsense. I’ll never forget the look on this girl’s face when Una pulled a sword on her.”

Wren still shivered when she remembered the ring of Una’s saber loosed from its sheath. The flutter of her tormentor’s pulse as the blade quivered a bare inch from her throat. The righteous anger gleaming in Una’s golden eyes when she said,If you’d like arealfight, I’ll happily oblige.

Of course, Una had shrugged off her thanks. Back then, she had wielded her confidence like a blade, painfully aware of her lack of magic. But she had always been dedicated to protecting those weaker than her. People like Wren.

“Ever since that, we were best friends.” She closed her eyes. To be loved by Una was all she’d ever needed, her company like a warm and golden light. “She was my new purpose. I would’ve done anything for her, followed her anywhere, because I loved her. I believed in her. And I guess I wasinlove with her, too, until just recently, when…”

She glanced up at him and flushed. Whathadchanged, exactly?

It wasn’t only Hal—not the fact of him, here and warm beside her. But now, as she turned over their conversations, Wren began to wonder why she’d always thought she needed Una so desperately. She had grown so used to Una saving her from herself, she’d come to believe she needed it. But did her feelings truly make her weak? Could someone love her because of them, not in spite of them?

“Until recently,” Wren concluded. “That’s why my position matters to me so much.”

Wren watched him process what she’d said, carefully turning over each word as if it were delicate. Then, once he’d slotted everything into place, he said, “I understand.”

It felt like an absolution.

“Will you finish telling me what you brought up the other day?” she asked quietly. “You said you didn’t believe in the military’s cause anymore. What did you mean?”

As he lay unmoving beside her, Wren thought he might curl back into himself. Pretend to sleep, or conveniently lose his grasp on the Danubian language again. “The Vesrian army was a haven for people who hid their true intentions behind the banner of patriotism. They twisted good intentions into monstrosity and encouraged the cruelest among us.

“I didn’t always want to be a soldier. But when my magic awakened, I was…” He trailed off, searching for the words. “It was an accident, that first time. I can hardly describe what it feels like whenit happens. There’s a moment when the connection snaps into place and neither of us can look away. Cold, and then all I know is fear—not my own. It’s horrible.”

“Who…?” She hadn’t meant to let it slip, but she couldn’t take it back now.

“A friend.” Bitterness crept into his voice. There were no words for that kind of horror. Wren could picture it too clearly. Hal, still innocent in boyhood—confusion melting into terror. Had anyone witnessed it? Did anyone help him? “I was devastated. But my father was so proud.”

“What?”

“I was the first Cavendish mage in two generations. He told me there was no shame in what I’d done. That it was a blessing from God. That I was destined to restore our family’s lost honor. It was then I realized I had a duty to the world. If I made a name for myself in the war effort, I could regain my family’s title and its position in the magisterium—and only kill those who deserved it. I was so determined to be useful, I think part of me lies buried with my first victim.”

And what remained was the Reaper of Vesria.

“Immediately, my superiors noticed me. I worked hard. I formed no attachments. I was single-minded. Exactly the monster you believed me to be, fed by the promotions, their praise, the promise of political power.” He paused. “But my victims haunted me. I had to look into their eyes to kill them. I can’t forget a single one of them.”

She shivered, despite the warmth beneath the covers.

“Over time, I could not shake the growing suspicion that this war was wrong. ThatIwas wrong. They told us we were defending our way of life. They told us we were saving you from yourselves.” Shame clouded his expression. “You saw me at my blackest moment. By then, I had realized everything I stood for was a lie, even if my superiors believed what they were saying was true. If the war were truly about protecting Vesria, why did they order me to kill healers and civilians? Even some of your soldiers were hardly older than twelve. What harm could they have done us?”

Wren reached for his hand. This time, he did not pull away.

Hal stared somewhere far beyond her, his eyes as black as the deepest water. “That war protected no one. It was a massacre.”

“All of us followed orders. Our superiors told us the same things about you.” Wren’s voice came out wrong, weak. “What else were we supposed to do? We were too young to know better. We all saw what happened to deserters.”

“Don’t absolve me.” He drew an unsteady breath. “My life has been a series of regrets. But before I die, before I accept punishment for what I’ve done, I’ll make restitution to Danu. I’ll end this war. And I’ll rebuild Vesria into the kind of place where children grow up happy, not as soldiers. The only way I can do that is by becoming the grand magistrate—and by solving this case.”

“Hal…”

She did not know what to say. What he told her excused nothing, but Wren could see so clearly the circumstances that had shaped him: loneliness, desperation, trauma. Just like her, Hal had believed his magic was all he had to offer. Her compassion frightened her. He was still a war criminal. The people he killed were never coming back.