Page 5

I desperately wanted to ask who he was and who he was aligned with, but the scars on the soft skin under my feet showed me the consequences of using my voice when I should have stayed silent. Learning that lesson was painful, but it had ingrained itself in me now.

His fingers flexed as if he were battling the urge to let me go or press further into me.

If he wanted submission, he’d get it—just long enough for me to kill him. That was the deal I’d made with myself when I had demanded to be trained. I melted into whoever I needed to be to get the mission done and get our kingdom back. My sigh was loud and forced, and I dropped the pin. My teeth clamped down, the only sign that rage licked around my tongue, demanding I tell him exactly what I thought of him and his kind. I put on a smile, made my muscles relax, and flexed my fingers, showing him the threat was gone. Or so he would believe. Then I’d wait until his back was turned.

“Good.”

His hand on my hip softened, and I shoved him away. The grunt he made was one of surprise, as if no one had ever gotten that close before. I tried to see through the veil covering his head, but the material shimmered with rune magic—he could see out, but no one could see in.

He extended his arm to show me the way, as if he were some highborn lord. “Shall we?”

Then he spun around and strode out into the Grand Hall. There wasn’t the slightest pause; he didn’t wait for me to follow, but I didn’t care. Picking up the pin and placing it back in my hair stick, I hurried out into the hall and headed to the archives. The bookcases towered above me, and there was a moment, a heartbeat of a second, as I studied the man’s back with the sound of Aster’s voice lingering in my ear, that made my memories unlock and the unwanted tug came flooding back. But I breathed deeply and pushed the images of what we had once been away.

We had rounded the corner and were approaching the stairs leading to the archives when a murmur came from further down the corridor. The guards were waking up. I picked up my pace, not caring if I was heard. I hurtled past the Nomad and flung myself down the stairs. If he were following, then he did so quietly, but I didn’t look back. There was a chance I could get to the archive gate and through it fast enough that I could lock it again, and he wouldn’t be able to follow me.

The archives lay below the workshop, and ancient magic ensured their protection, just like the wards that secured the gates did, but I had the amulet. I had been down to the archives before and had explored the rooms using the amulet to gain entry, but there was not enough magic left to go through each one now to confuse my Rider shadow.

My throat tightened. If I lost him in the…

“Room eight,” he said, right behind me. “Trust me.”

Rolling my eyes, I kept moving. I trust no one.

“And there’s only one way out.” He pointed to the lone window at the top of the stairs.

I shook my head. There was no way out of that window. I would have to climb several floors and use the same rope that Ember had used, but first I needed the book. As it was clear the Nomad Rider knew which room it was in, there was no point lying to him. Room eight was the room for old books and scrolls so damaged that the magic had gone and the pages were blank. It was the last place I wanted to take him.

“Move faster.” He tapped me forward. “Just because they’re all broken doesn’t mean they’re not powerful… dangerous.”

He had interpreted my hesitation as confusion. But I had explored every hidden inch of the library and had seen what room eight held. The Annatalian librarians and others had made sure our most precious texts were damaged and could no longer be read. Those books held our secrets, and I had been learning them stitch by stitch and page by page.

Above us, men’s voices grew louder and sharper. They had found Frickel’s body.

Without warning, the Nomad grabbed my arm and hurled me toward the gate of room eight. “Your amulet can unlock the witches’ runes on the gate.” How did he know that? Maybe Aster really did send him. “But to be clear, I don’t need you conscious to use it…” Or maybe not.

He had the impatience of someone who was used to having his orders followed. So I huffed out an exaggerated compliance and reached for the neckline of my dress, tugging at the leather attached to the amulet. There was no point getting burned to death over a little thing like opening a gate.

Pressing the amulet against a steel bar in the middle of the gate, I willed the thing to work. There was no lock, no handle—these would materialise when the magic had seeped between the wards. I closed my eyes and began the begging, which was the only way I had found to get the amulet to work. Internally, I had to beg the library to open the gate for me, and I had to beg over and over again while gripping the amulet in one hand and the gate in the other. It would have been preferable if Aster had told me how to use the amulet’s magic on the gates and not just on the library’s outer doors. But over the years it had come down to pure desperation, which led me to uncover the way. As Thorn always said, “We have the will, so we’ll find the way.” And one thing I never lacked was the determination to get our homeland back, whatever the cost.

The guards’ voices had quieted, which was worrying, but the gate protecting room eight shone and the handle came into being. I grabbed it as heat wrapped around my fingers, but it didn’t stop me from entering.

The Nomad hummed behind me as if I had just proved him right in an argument I didn’t know I had taken part in. But I wasn’t going to focus on him too closely. I would get the codex and ensure the pin hit his flesh, then get my cousins and me out of this crumbling prison-sized city once and for all.

I pushed the gate open, stepping over the threshold with the Nomad close on my heels.

Once we were safely inside, with the gate closed, I spun around on him. Knowing that the runes on the gate hid my voice from the rest of the building, I said, “Who are you and what do you want? You’re not Aster.” No matter how much I wanted him to be. It would be easy to believe he was part of the rebellion, but I didn’t think it was as simple as that.

“Clea’s been arrested. She’s close to breaking. She’s already given up this mission to steal a codex which spoke of breaking the curse. Others heard her too. So, stop stalling and get on with it.” It wasn’t an answer, and there was an irritated bite to his voice that itched over my skin.

“You… Were you there when they… broke…” I couldn’t even form the words as my throat contracted, my fists clenched. Clea was loyal to the rebellion—she believed in doing whatever it took to get our lands back—but this… I pushed down the fury twisting in my stomach.

I’d play along until I could get the codex and get away from him. What this Nomad didn’t know was that I had outwitted Riders before, and I would do it again. At thirteen years old, I had sworn on the battlements of the Annatalian Castle, as our Royal Phoenix Flock were shot down with silver-tipped arrows, one by one, that I would chain myself to revenge. That was what I worshipped. Revenge.

4

Room eight was a large, dimly lit rectangle with endless rows of floor-to-ceiling bookcases, each stacked with glass boxes. The archives were climate-controlled, so it had the chill of a cave and the dryness of the afternoon desert sun. Inside each box, I could just make out an ancient book or scroll.

I sighed while running through my options. The codex was in the very back cabinet, but I couldn’t lead the Rider straight to it. And I didn’t have hours to send him on another trail. I had around forty-five minutes before the bell chimed midnight. Then the torchlight procession would reach the city gates, and I’d have maybe another fifteen minutes as the horde flowed through the streets and up to Worship Square. Or, as we called it, Death’s Door. When the enemy Riders first rounded up Annatalians loyal to the throne, they burned the men who refused to work in the mines in that square and the women who fought back. It’s why they started capturing younger girls who didn’t have the strength to defend themselves.