“Or your Touch of Death?” I’d spoken little to Aric today. I vaguely remembered him returning, finding me just waking, rising from Jack’s side. He’d scanned my face, then given me a nod of satisfaction. —You kept your promise.—
“Just so, Empress.”
“If it’s spreading, when does it stop?” Would it reach Fort Arcana?
Jack parted his lips to say something, then seemed to think better of it. “We’ll figure that out in the future, bébé. One thing at a time, non?”
“How do we avoid this valley?”
“We doan, or we’ll never make it to Dolor in time. We’d have to backtrack a dozen miles to the last mountain pass. The slavers must have figured out a detour, maybe through a mine. But I doan know of it.”
Of all the ways to die in this new world, bonebreak fever would rate among the worst. “Let’s play it safe and go back.”
“Look, I’ll wear a bandanna, me.” Jack pulled one from his bug-out bag, letting the rain soak the material. “There’s a trail skirting the west edge.” He pointed out a narrow stretch between the outermost row of tents and a rushing stream. “We haul ass along it, getting through in minutes.”
“Only room for one at a time,” Aric observed.
I turned to him. “I won’t agree to this, not unless Jack rides behind you.”
Amusement. “I smooth the way for your squire?”
“You won’t get sick, right? Neither will I.” I thought. “You go, then Jack, then me. This makes the most sense.”
Aric bowed his head in that cocky way. “Then by all means. Let my sacrifice be noted.”
“Evie, you doan stop for any reason,” Jack said. “This is not the time to help a victim or show mercy.”
“I actually concur.” Aric lowered his visor. “We’re closing in on the Lovers. You need to conserve your powers.”
“So doan do it,” Jack added.
“I heard you two loud and clear.”
“Good.” Aric spurred his horse and descended. Jack reined around right behind him, glancing over his shoulder to make sure I stayed close.
Down in the valley, the yells boomed. For long, tense minutes, we sped along that trail, hooves kicking up dirt.
Almost across!
At the other end of the valley, Jack and Aric ascended the rise. I wasn’t far behind —
A man lumbered in front of my horse.
With a cry, I yanked hard on the reins. The mare whipped her head and straightened her legs, skidding to a stop. A few more inches, and I would have run the man over!
Eyes seeping red, jaws stretched open, he yelled in pain, as if trying to communicate like that. More of the sick limped toward me, closing in. Beside me, one man vomited a rush of blood into a small runnel of water. The mare sidestepped with wide eyes, her nose flaring.
Like watching a train wreck in slow motion, I followed the blood’s course as it ran and ran. It met the stream, swept away by the current, as if the plague sensed new victims downriver.
How many more humans could we lose?
The sick raised their contorted arms toward me. Wordlessly begging, they offered their hands—fingers splayed wide, bent at odd angles.
Like twigs.
The men made no move to attack, just beseeched with bleeding eyes, yelling between spasms. They wanted me to end their suffering.
Could I? Could I curb the spread? My glyphs stirred—as if my powers had been awaiting a purpose like this.
Tears welled as realization hit me. Power is your burden. This was what Matthew had meant.
These men would die in agony, or they would die now. Either way, they were as good as gone. As I had with Tad, I could make them sleep, never to wake.
A peaceful death.
The wind blew in my favor.
Jack and Aric had made the ridge. They’d both asked me not to do this, had agreed it was a bad idea.
“Evie, come on!” Jack called.
Some tiny, vanishing part of me needed to keep the peace with them. To not rock the boat. To fall in line with what the boys wanted and expected of me.
Then I remembered that the Empress of all Arcana wore a crown for a reason.
The red witch whispered, Demeter withholds viciously—and gives lavishly. GIVE.
I spurred the mare, forcing my way past this crowd. They wailed when they believed that I couldn’t—or wouldn’t—help them. Some crawled after my horse. The sound reached a tumult.
I removed a glove. I rolled up my sleeve, uncovering my golden glyphs. The last time I’d pulled from my spore glyph, I’d only intended to make soldiers sleep.
Now I filled my hand with my most lethal poison. Tears spilling, I held up my flat palm and aimed it back.
Pursing my lips, I blew over my hand.
Blowing a kiss.
I turned away when the closest men’s lids grew heavy. Staring straight ahead, silently crying, I rode on. Behind me, my poison spread outward like the wave of a detonation.
The din ebbed until I could hear bodies collapse. A last echo of their moans. A stray whimper here and there.
Then silence. In my wake, I’d left a mass of bodies. Power was my burden.
It weighed as much as a crown of stars.
When I reached the ridge, Jack’s brows drew together; Aric’s gleaming eyes narrowed. But I didn’t care if they were angry.
Jack surprised me by saying, “Now that it’s done, I’m glad. You cauterized a wound and saved countless more.”
I pulled my glove back on. “All right, let’s hear it, Aric.”
“As the mortal said, it’s done. Empress, you delivered many from a short, wretched fate.” His tone was full of pride. “Sometimes a reaper is welcome.”
Jack frowned at him, as if he couldn’t reconcile this man with the indiscriminate murderer he imagined the knight to be.
Aric held his gaze. “Never deny the power of Death.”
27
DAY 376 A.F.
“This doan feel right,” Jack said from ahead, his bow at the ready. He was taking point along a rutted track inside another a narrow canyon. Aric rode beside me.
Since the colony yesterday, I’d spoken little to either of them. Last night, we’d sheltered in an old gas station, and I’d passed out the second I put my head down.
Despite the fact that we’d been threading the needle through a cluster of cannibal mines.
Now the three of us surveyed our surroundings. Or tried to. After endless miles on the road, the fog had thickened until we had to slow our pace. Jack rode just a dozen or so feet ahead, but I could barely make him out.