“And what do I smell like?” she whispered, blinking into view.
He didn’t flinch at her closeness. “That starclover you pick for Windtorn,” he said, his eyes as soft as his voice. “And rain-washed night air.”
She kissed him then. Just a light press of her cold lips on his warm smile. His eyes widened, and she laughed at his shocked grin before bounding away. “Come find me then, Keo.”
Time spun forward, and a blade was at her throat. The rotting mangled flesh of the man’s face pressed against her cheek.
“And here I thought I would have to come to you,” Mogens’ gravelly voice rasped from his lipless mouth. His fingers dug into her neck. “I’m going to enjoy this.” He slowly dragged the dagger from her jaw to her cheekbone, the pain screaming through her face. “How about we start with an eye?”
“Aza!” Makeo rammed into Mogens with nothing but the knife from his belt, burying it into the maggoty flesh.
The distraction was just enough. Aza wrenched free, but no sooner was she away than Mogens’ dagger tore through Makeo’s chest. Mogens laughed in a shrill screech, and the Lost closed in all around them with bony, reaching fingers.
Then, Zephyr was there in a gush of flames, and the Maldibor warriors, and even Ioni’s father, determined to protect her. And then it was over. Mogens disappeared in a wash of bloody darkness, Ioni’s father was dead along with a handful of the Maldibor, and Makeo lay dying.
And in this nightmare, Ioni couldn’t save him.
✽✽✽
Heart heavy and throbbing, Aza woke to the sound of rain tapping on wood, a splitting headache, and something warm pressed up against her back. Her eyes fluttered open to find herself in a shelter cobbled together from a wooden door wedged against a leaning tree trunk. The ocean waves shushed her from somewhere close in the near-dawn twilight, and a shiver ran through her damp body. Her numb fingers moved to the back of her head to probe the tender, fist-sized lump that had grown out of it. She had made it back to shore. But how? Where were the others?
She winced and noticed someone had bound the cut along her forearm with strips of fabric. Turning in the sand, she found the still-human Makeo curled behind her, his breaths even against her back. One of his sleeves had been torn off at the shoulder, which explained the binding on her arm. A warm rush of hysterical relief tingled from the crown of her head to her fingertips. Makeo was alive. Makeo was here.
Had he done all this? Her mouth curved into a wistful half-smile. This was definitely not the way he would’ve wanted to spend a dark moon night. But where were Shad and Witt?
Makeo rolled away, taking his blessed warmth with him, and Aza had to force herself not to scoot closer. His bleary eyes half opened, and then, on seeing her awake, snapped wide.
“Aza, you’re awake.” Relief melted the tightness behind his gaze, and he wiped a hand across his face. “Thank Odriel.”
“How’d we get here?” Aza tensed her muscles to sit up, muffling a groan.
He put a hand on her shoulder. “Rest for now. There’s no use moving until the rain has stopped.”
Aza sighed but couldn’t deny the weariness that sat on her chest like a stubborn mule. “I was in the water when I got hit in the head.” She pressed her fingers to her temples as if she could squeeze out the lost memory. “What happened?”
“When the boat fell, I looped the rope around Shad so Witt could pull him in, and then I swam after you.” Makeo crossed his arms, goosebumps raising the fair hair on his bare skin.
“What hit me?”
“It was actually the last whaleboat.” He smiled. “It was overturned, but I was able to push us onto it.”
Aza’s lips parted. In a stormy sea, he had dragged her unconscious body up onto a boat. That took some otherworldly strength. “How’d we get to shore?”
“We were fairly close to land, so it didn’t take too long for us to wash up with all the other debris.”
Aza nodded her leaden head, reluctant to ask the next question, the guilt already welling up within her. “What about Witt and Shad?”
“They were safe in the whaleboat when I last saw them.”
The relief stole her breath away. Thank bloody Odriel.
He gestured out to the beach. “I assume they’re also waiting out the rain on the shore somewhere.”
That was a big assumption. Their whaleboat could’ve easily overturned, and they could’ve just as easily drowned last night. Aza’s hands clenched. “This is why I wanted to do this by myself. You’re putting your lives at risk for no reason.”
Makeo met her hard words with his soft ones. “We want to protect Okarria just as much as you do. We’re putting our lives at risk because we believe in you, Aza.”
Aza sucked in a breath, picturing her father’s furious face and Zephyr’s skeptical one. Were they okay? Had Mogens’ Hunters found them too? Thinking of her mother, a sharp pang wrenched her gut, and she squeezed her eyes shut. “But what if I’m wrong? And this is all for nothing?”
“Then we’ll try something else.”
“Ugh.” Aza pressed her still-clammy palms to her face. “There’s a reason the Shadow Heirs work alone.”
Makeo chuckled with a deep rumbling in his chest, reminding her the curse of the Maldibor still hid somewhere deep inside him. “As I recall, the Shadow Heirs of legend always had the two other Heirs by their side. And your father has at least one.”
He didn’t understand. The Shadow was the cold one. The calculating one. The assassin. She ran a finger across the scar along her cheek. Friends were just liabilities. Makeo thought he knew her from their bright childhood memories. He hadn’t yet accepted that the little girl Aza used to be was gone—snuffed out by the shadows. And he had a right to know who he was dealing with. That he couldn’t depend on her.
“Witt was terrified out there, and I abandoned him.” She swallowed, the confession sizzling in her throat. “He would’ve drowned if it weren’t for you.” Maybe he still had.
“There was no right choice.” Fatigue lined Makeo’s face, and he lay back down beside her—close but not touching. “You did what you thought was right.”
Too tired to keep them in, Aza’s thoughts flowed from her tongue. “But I wasn’t thinking of it like that. I decided based on who’d be the most”—she choked on the word—“useful.”
Makeo’s warm hand found her icy one, and she couldn’t bring herself to pull away. She had spent three years trying not to miss him, and in this moment, she was too tired to fight it anymore. Instead, her fingers laced between his, the completeness of their knitted hands making her heart ache. She shouldn’t be doing this. He had to stay away from her.
“It sounds heartless…” Though Makeo’s voice was gentle, Aza flinched at the word. “But the fact that you’re worrying about it now says otherwise.”
“I want to believe that, Keo.” His childhood nickname slipped out before she could stop it, and she sighed, his words soothing her in a way she wished they didn’t. The thoughts slid through her exhaustion-slicked mind, and a shiver ran through her. “But sometimes I’m afraid the shadows have stained me.”
“In the face of pain and fear, a heart will raise walls to protect itself.” He scooted closer to her, and she leaned into his heat, her pulse stuttering. “But that doesn’t mean it’s not a good heart.”
Exhaustion and vigilance warred within Aza, but exhaustion won out. She let her eyelids fall shut just for a moment. “There’s a thin line between a walled heart and a stone one.” Aza almost imagined she could still feel the sway of the boat. “You can’t know which one it is until you see inside.”
“I see you, Aza Thane,” he whispered in her ear. “And I will remind you as many times as you need to hear it. You don’t have to be alone.”
On the edge of unconsciousness, Aza wasn’t sure if he’d really said that, or if she’d dreamed it.
Chapter Eleven
Tazgar
“Aza!” Witt’s voice ripped through Aza
’s dreamless slumber. For a panicked moment, she pictured him on the edge of the sea, pleading with her not to leave him. Then, she forced her eyes open and returned to the present.
The rain had stopped, and the weak morning sunlight peeked through their lean-to shelter. Sometime in her sleep, her cheek had found the crook of Makeo’s bare shoulder, and their bodies touched from their chests all the way down to their twined ankles. Her eyes widened, and her face burned hot. Careful not to make any sudden moves, she lifted her hand from his chest and rolled away from his warm, human form.
How mortifying. What if he’d woken up before her and found her like that? It was just because she’d been cold. She’d needed his body heat. Nothing more. She tried to scrub the embarrassment from her face before ducking out of the shelter.
“Aza!” Witt yelled again.
She spotted Witt lumbering down the beach with a bag over his shoulder and Makeo’s huge sword strapped to his back. It took her another heart-stopping second before she spotted Shad’s small dark form padding next to him. A thick knot loosened in her chest. Two of them. Thank the skies, they’d made it. Aza waved at Witt from the tree line but didn’t have it in her to shout his name. Behind her, Makeo shifted with the groans of awakening.
It took a moment before Witt caught sight of her. “Hey!”
He said something to Shad and pointed in her direction before taking off running.
Aza found herself smiling at his enthusiasm. Sure, Witt was annoying most of the time, but his perpetual ebullience was hard to totally ignore. She stiffened as he threw his arms around her, the guilt of abandoning him still prickling her enough to let him do so. Even after she had left him to drown, he still embraced her with open arms. He had a forgiveness in him she was sure she could never muster.
“Thank Odriel, you’re okay.” He lifted her off her feet for a brief moment before releasing her. “I knew you’d be all right, of course, but Shad was worried.”
Aza retreated a step. “I’m fine.”
Shad sat on his haunches behind Witt, but his gaze stayed on the bits of wreckage scattered in the sand. “I’m glad to be wrong.”
Makeo emerged from their lean-to. “What about the other whaleboat? Did they make it?”
Witt nodded. “Yeah, we ran into them farther north. The passengers were a little shaken, but okay. They’re going up shore to the next town to regroup.”
A shadow lifted from Makeo’s brow, and the guilt in Aza thickened. She hadn’t even thought about the others.
“And here’s this.” Witt unstrapped the broadsword on his back and tossed it to Makeo. “Something tells me you may need it again before too long.”
“Where are we?” Aza shifted her gaze to the shoreline.
“The fates seem to be on our side,” Shad said, starting down the beach. “We are on the northern edge of Tazgar. If we follow the beach to the river, it should take us almost directly to Dorinar’s dwelling.”
Makeo strapped on his sword. “How long?”
“Without horses?” Shad’s ragged ear flicked. “Four days, maybe three if we move fast.”
Aza turned south. “Let’s move fast then.”
“Now, wait a minute.” Witt strode after her. “Don’t we want to talk about how those things got on the boat first?” His gaze slid to Makeo and Shad following behind them. “Because they weren’t like that when we started. I worked with those sailors for days. They were just normal people.” He shook his head in disbelief. “Maybe a little on the salty side, but definitely not possessed.”
Aza bent her head to one side and then to the other with a crack. She tried not to remember the faces of the sailors she had left on the deck. She didn’t want to think of them as normal people. They were people who had tried to kill them.
“Whatever changed them must be the same dark yanaa that raises the Lost,” Shad said.
“Only more powerful,” Makeo added.
Aza thought of the green glinting in their eyes. It was the same green as the smokey veil that clung to the bones of the Lost. “I think they’re drawn to my yanaa like the Lost are.” She swallowed, her mind weaving through the spiderweb of connections. She flexed her fingers, the void of yanaa still aching within her. “It takes an enormous amount of yanaa to enter the Shadow Plane, and twice now, they’ve attacked on the same night as I’ve spoken with the shadow dwellers.”
Witt’s brow wrinkled. “But even so, what would have changed them? One of Odriel’s Blessed, a magus, a necromancer…?” He threw up a hand. “I don’t know about you, but I think I would’ve seen a necromancer in the mess.”
Shad shook his head. “You would not be able to identify a human necromancer unless you saw them using their yanaa.”
Aza looked at Makeo. “Did you sense anything aboard the ship?”
“I felt much ill will, as I’m sure you did. But among the sailors’ suspicion, it didn’t seem out of place.” Makeo’s brow furrowed, and he ran a hand along his bare arm. “But there was a whaleboat missing before the fire even started.”
Witt rubbed his pale, angular jaw. “Some of the crew could’ve escaped.”
“Or the necromancer could have changed them before saving his own skin,” Aza said darkly. It had to have been Mogens. He was the unnatural thread weaving the Lost together from one generation to the next. But how had they not noticed him on the ship? Makeo should’ve been able to sense him, or at the very least, smell him.
Shad nodded, his gaze staring off into the swamp of moss sprawling across the beach. “A necromancer who can turn the living into mindless killers.”
“Not mindless.” Aza’s teeth ground together. “Those things are strong, capable, and murderous.”
“But what if it’s not their fault? If the necromancer released the sailors, maybe they would have gone back to themselves,” Witt said.
“That’s a big ‘what if’ when there’s a blade at your throat,” Aza replied. “Ifs make you hesitate, and hesitating gets you killed.”
Those were the simple terms her father had taught her as a girl. A heartbeat could mean the difference between life and death. Don’t look at their face, look at their blade. No faces. No emotions. No hesitation.
Aza kicked a rock into the waves. “So, I’m going to leave that ‘if’ with you so I can keep us both alive.”
Frowning, Witt looked away, but Makeo met her gaze. “You’re a protector, Aza, not a killer,” he said, just loud enough for her ears.
Aza wrinkled her nose, her tense muscles unwinding under his soft eyes—a gentleness she had to keep reminding herself she couldn’t afford.
“Draw your line in the sand, Keo, but don’t be surprised when it washes away,” she murmured.
Witt kicked at a rock, unfazed by Aza’s heavy words. “On the bright side, they probably think we’re dead now.”
“Yes.” Shad agreed, his thin, dark pupil narrowing on Aza. “So if they are drawn by your strolls on the Shadow Plane, let’s not tempt them again.”
It made sense, but Aza stiffened anyway. Had the Shadow Plane warned her, or had it led them straight to her? The Shadow Plane was a strange place, but surely it wasn’t… evil. Even thinking about it made her want to dive in again. She shook her head, and irritation bubbled under her skin. Leave it alone. Why did the thought of not going to the Shadow Plane bother her so? She could go a few days without walking its gray fields, couldn’t she?
Makeo placed a hand on her shoulder. “Don’t worry, in a few hours, I’ll be back to my big-eared, sharp-nosed self.” His smile didn’t reach his eyes. “And a Maldibor doesn’t miss much.”
Aza had a sudden urge to press her cheek into the warmth of his knuckles. His touch was strangely reassuring, even if his words weren’t. A Maldibor’s ears were all well and good, but she preferred her own. Even so… without the Shadow Plane, the world seemed strangely quiet.
✽✽✽
Though Aza still yearned for the draw of the shadows, its whispers fell blessedly quiet in the swamps
of Tazgar, and the fresh memory of the mindless sailors kept the temptation at bay. Aza pushed forward as hard as she dared, but it still took four days of wet feet and Witt’s senseless babble before Shad pointed them to a moss-covered ramshackle of a dwelling growing up between the swamp’s tangle of roots and branches. Hidden in its coat of green, the cottage seemed to lean to one side, hiding sullenly in the strange silence of the bog. Green and brown vines snaked over the roof and around the stone walls as if to strangle this strange intruder. A thin curl of gray smoke swirled out of the squat chimney stack in the lone sign of life.
Witt threw his hands up in the air. “Finally.”
Makeo’s huge body—bear-like once more—exuded a sigh of relief, and even the bedraggled Shad seemed to pick up the pace. But an unwelcome nervousness needled Aza’s belly. After they’d risked their lives and come all this way, would Dorinar even have the answers she sought? Or would he brush her off too?
She pressed her lips together and waded through the ankle-deep bog. Steeling herself, she knocked on the door. Her nerves vibrated with anticipation. She’d only ever met one magus, Everard, and that had been over a decade ago. He’d been a surly, stern sort who didn’t take well to children or nonsense. He’d sentenced Shad to a century of servitude and didn’t even have the courtesy to lift the curse on time, and he was supposed to be the kindest of the magi. What if Dorinar was—
She didn’t get to a third knock before the door swung open.
Though Aza had never met Dorinar, she was fairly certain the petite, short-haired, young woman standing before her was not him.
“I’m sorry…” the woman trailed off. Her eyes skipped between Witt, Makeo, and Shad and then returned to Aza, her apologetic wince fading away to curiosity. “Oh.” Retreating a step, she opened the door wider and looked over her shoulder into the shadowy parlor. “Aza Thane and Shadmundar are here with a Maldibor.”
Aza’s brow rose. Did she know this woman? Aza didn’t wait to be invited before she brushed past her onto the stone floor.
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