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“Solin...” I looked up with fresh tears in my eyes. “It’s beautiful.”
He winced as if my praise hurt him.
Syn sniffed the balm coating my newly drawn ash bee. She went to lick me, but I pulled out of her reach, dropping my right hand and raising my left.
The second tattoo wasn’t nearly as intricate or detailed.
It was small and symbolic.
Directly in the centre of my palm, two bison horns curved with their points almost touching. Beneath the crown of sharp-tipped crescent moon horns existed a flickering fire morphing into a blazing sun.
Looking up, I frowned. “What does it represent?”
Fiddling with his braids as if they needed redoing instead of being pristine, he muttered, “It’s the mark of our clan.” Solin looked at his left palm, tracing the silver-ashed mark that linked us. “The bison horns are the emblem of the Nhil. We’re named after light, as you know, and only exist thanks to the generosity of the bison who share our grasslands.”
Dropping his hand, he shrugged. “Three marks for the three clans of Quelis. Everyone knows their mark, but only the chief, chiefess, and Spirit Master from each clan may wear the symbol on their skin, drawn into their flesh with the ash of the fire that chose them.”
Coming toward me, he cupped my cheeks once more. His eyes burned black with intensity, scaring me. “I wish I knew who you truly are, Runa. I wish you could remember so you could see that what I’m about to do is far, far greater than you and I. Far greater than my people, my kingdom, and everything I hold dear. I cannot see past the visions I am granted but I beg you to...trust me.”
He exhaled with a wince. “Trust me and...forgive me.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
. Darro .
I COULD KILL THEM ALL with a single thought.
That knowledge.
That sickening, suffocating knowledge slammed into me the moment I heard Runa’s scream.
I threw myself at the two guards barring the lupic with their flimsy, stupid spears.
I threw a fist into the jaw of one of them.
And a shadow mimicked me, attacking the other like a mirroring piece of my spirit.
Both men toppled sideways, their spears clattering uselessly beside them.
Natim bleated and bolted, disappearing into the night.
Zetas snarled, and I almost managed to snatch the lupic’s entrance before Tral proved to be a chief of his word.
In a flurry of action and well-orchestrated discipline, I was suddenly surrounded by weapons.
“Get on your knees,” Tral commanded from behind me. “Kneel, and you won’t be hurt.”
“Tell your people to get out of my way, Chief.”
“Take another step, and the first thing Runa will see when she steps out of that lupic is your corpse.”
Zetas snarled at the spear points angled at my neck. The Nhil never took their eyes off me, even as the wolf growled and snapped at the long lengths of their weapons.
They didn’t flinch or waver. I knew in their locked knees and braced shoulders that they would die before letting me pass.
I let my very willing, very lethal shadows rip murderously through the camp.
A spear pressed against my jugular as a male with almond eyes and jet-black hair demanded, “Do as our chief says and kneel.”
My shades clashed and clouded in response, buffeting his spear with enough force to make him trip backward, bumping him against another hunter.
I gathered another gust of darkness—
“Don’t.” Tral’s voice came from behind me again. “Don’t be suicidal.”
Didn’t he understand it was them who had a craving for death, not me?
Their hearts would stop well before mine did.
Runa cried out again.
My heart tore up whatever mortal parts of me still existed and opened wide to what I truly was.
My shadows knocked two hunters off their feet without a single command. Their different coloured braids clacked with beads as they flew backward, and the brown fur around their hips padded their jarring fall. They landed with pained grunts, scrambling upright as fast as they could, tripping forward to angle their weapons at my face.
They glowered at me with ferocity, yet they couldn’t hide the trembling of their fear.
They feared me.
Their panic stunk like a decomposing carcass left in the sun.
“One last chance, Darro.” The chief’s voice slipped straight into fatal demands. “Kneel and this can all be forgotten.”
“She’s awake.” I chewed every word, crunching every letter. “She’s in pain. Let me see her.”
“Not before she comes out of her own accord.” Tral’s voice hovered directly over my left shoulder. “The pain is only minor,” he urged. “Every Nhil member goes through it. Some as young as ten when they’re first marked with their spirit guardian. I promise you; no true harm is befalling her.”
No true harm?
Didn’t he understand that any harm was unacceptable?
My vision blackened as my shadows grew so thick that the circle of hunters and their spears were cocooned in a cloud, blocking us off from the rest of the camp, intensifying over me in the centre until I moved in clotted night.
