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“What is Tempeste—a place?” Ember kept her head down and her voice low, tearing off chunks of her bread as fast as she could.
“Go slow, or you’ll throw up.” I cautioned, the dress stuck to my back where the whip marks still seeped.
“And save half, there’s no telling when they’ll feed us next, and small meals will keep our energy up.” I couldn’t look at my outstretched feet, didn’t have the courage to peel the bloody slippers off to inspect my broken toe.
“What’s Tempeste?” Ember asked again, chewing slower.
“Tempeste is the seat of power for Carex Centaria, the Fae King.”
“So, it’s a city?”
“A grand city, from what I’ve read.”
She shook her head. “If you had told me all those nights you snuck into the library would save our lives, I would have said you were mad.”
I resisted the urge to point out we were definitely notsaved, when Ember took a sip from the canteen and choked. “Aloth,this is liquor, not water.”
I glanced to where the Mistress and Solok sat with their heads together. “Give it to me, I’ll dip some water from the stream.” I searched the dense trees overhead, studied the thick moss on the trunks. “We’re deep enough in the wood, it should be clean enough.”
I picked my way through the clusters of soldiers, emptied the foul-smelling liquor into the dirt, then rinsed out the canteen and filled it up, splashing water over my face and smoothing my hair back. I rocked back on my heels to find Solok watching.
He’d said I would never go hungry.
That I’d be safe.
Then he’d lied to the Descendant’s faces, right before he slaughtered them where they stood.
Nothing he said could be trusted. The Mistress would kill me, the first chance she got. The only person I could rely on was myself and now Ember was depending on me, too.
As if he saw inside my head, the Axe smiled, the cruelest, most evil thing I’d ever seen.
I climbed to my blistered, aching feet and made my way back to Ember. “Drink as much as you can and we’ll refill before we leave. Then trade off carrying the weight.” I patted my pocket where I’d stowed the other hunk of bread, enough to last another day.
“We stick together, understand? Never let them separate us. And don’t ever get caught alone with Solok.”
* * *
The moon roseabove the trees when we stopped next, our water half gone, my feet so battered I couldn’t take another step. Ember collapsed to the forest floor, eyes closed, panting. We’d left the castle a full day ago, we had to be close to the wall.
Wehadto be, judging from the amount of magic saturating the stagnant air, the way the trunks glowed with some unnatural luminescence. I closed my hands into fists, shallowed out my breathing, willed my racing heart to slow.
This magic was different than any I’d ever known.
Not the watered-down version of the Descendant’s diminished gift, but a pure, undiluted power that sang to me, a symphony that shook the stars, urged me to grasp all of that raw power in my hands and use it to burn everything to ash.
I’d been fighting the pull for hours, though a single glance at Ember told me she was immune. My friend couldn’t even open her eyes, her battered legs…
I blew out an unsteady breath.
We had four more days of this and I couldn’t take another step.
I didn’t see a wall, but the glowing trees formed a solid line running in both directions. I wanted to shake Ember, tell her how strongly I sensed the magic, but she would think me mad.
Power coursed up through the soles of my aching feet, saturated every breath I took, coated my skin. Energy churned around us like an enormous vortex, intoxicating, terrifying, and consuming, ready to swallow me whole.
Solok ran his fingers down one of the trees and light bloomed between the trunks, a glowing whirlpool suspended midair.
We’d reached some sort of doorway and what I’d assumed were trunks were actually two pillars carved from stone, blue light pulsing through them. Beneath my feet, the loamy soul hummed with the same tempo, every beat echoed by my thumping heart.
