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Gwyn spritzed some on her wrist and sniffed. “This is what snow smells like?” she asked, her eyes as round as her open mouth. She closed them and I knew she was picturing the snow-capped volcanic city I had described to her so many times before.
“It must be beautiful,” she said, taking another whiff of her wrist. “Something this lovely has to be.”
“It certainly can be,” I said, leaning back into the sand on my elbows. “But it can also be vicious when a storm hits. Deadly.”
“Kind of like you,” Gwyn said, spritzing me with the bottle. I waved my hands in front of my face as I laughed. The scent wafted around the room, filling our nostrils with snow as our toes dug into the sand.
We lounged for hours as we ate the picnic dinner I’d nicked from the kitchens. Gwyn had me tell her more about Volcar and its large snow-capped mountain that could erupt into a firestorm of coal and ash. Gwyn loved hearing my stories and I never grew tired of telling her them. She didn’t care about the missions or the people I hunted. She only ever asked about the cities. The trees. The way people spoke or laughed. What they ate. There had been many nights when I was alone, cold and miserable, that I thought of Gwyn and how amazed she would be to see even the most ordinary view. It helped me remember there were those who did with much less than me. People who would suffer if I didn’t return with my mission completed.
“How long do you think you’ll be gone this time?” Gwyn asked, plopping a chocolate-covered berry into her mouth.
I shrugged. “I don’t know. Months. Maybe longer.” Even at full haste it would take three weeks to reach Aralinth.
“Do you think you’ll kill him? The Shadow?” She licked the chocolate off her lips.
“I don’t have a choice.” My shoulders sagged as I let out a breath.
“That’s too bad. I kind of liked knowing there was someone out there working against the king,” she said, pressing her toes against the cool glass.
“Gwyn, you can’t say such things,” I whispered harshly. Anyone could be listening to us in the capital.
“I would never say that to anyone but you,” she said in a quieter voice. “Can you blame me, Keera, for wishing him dead?” Her mouth was set in an unnatural straight line.
I shook my head. The king’s death meant her freedom. I couldn’t begrudge Gwyn for wishing for such a thing, even though it was a foolish dream.
“You need to be careful.” I grabbed her hand. She squeezed mine back and lay down with her head in my lap. I tucked a stray curl behind her ear and stroked her hair. She closed her eyes, the dark circles under them almost disappeared in the cool moonlight. At nineteen she already looked older than I did, fine lines marked her forehead like the callouses on her palms. Gwyn’s blood was amber, though she was mostly Mortal. I doubted she would live any longer than the average woman. Perhaps even less depending on how the prince kept tormenting her.
My body felt heavy and hollow at the thought of her short life of servitude. I’d been alive for more than six decades. I’d lost people before, watched Mortals and Halflings younger than me grow old while I aged so slowly that I seemed not to age at all. Each death slashed through a heartstring, leaving a brutal hole that would never be filled. It didn’t make it easier to lose someone, only harder to bring myself to care again. After Gwyn, I doubted I would be able to care at all. If my heart didn’t stop beating altogether, it would be ruined for all else.
“Keera,” Gwyn said, her eyes fluttering open and focusing on the crash of the waves. I stopped stroking her hair. “You need to be careful too.”
I swallowed. “I will.”
“Good.” She grabbed my hand, holding it against her shoulder as she smiled. “I can’t have you dying before you bring me a gift from Aralinth.”
IWAS AT THE ORDER.I could smell the salt rising from the waves in wafts of mist.
Crash. Quiet. Crash. Quiet. Crash.
It was the melody I’d fallen asleep to those first decades of my life. No matter how tired or angry I was, the waves could always rock me to sleep.
But I wasn’t sleeping now. I was walking along the cliff edge, the Order towering above me, brilliantly white as the suns bore down upon it. It was a hot, midsummer day. I was stopped, cooling off in the spray blowing along the cliff edge. I peered down below where jagged rocks cut through the water and into the air like arrows cast through their target.
One wrong step and I would fall to be skewered by their pointed edges or crushed under the weight of the sea.
Crash. Quiet. Crash. Quiet. Crash.
It was like a siren’s song luring you into the depths. Daring you to jump.
“Keera, you can’t,” a voice called from behind me.
I turned and she was standing there. Dressed as she always was. Black pants and a sleeveless top of the same color. The uniform of an initiate.
She had never received her hood.
“The waves are calling to me,” I whispered. “I want to jump.”
“You can’t, Keera,” she repeated.
