“Darius, please. Please don’t do this, let me go. They’ll kill me.”
“You don’t even know the half of it,” he says.
I succeed finally in pushing him off me, adjusting the dagger, positioning it in front of me. Darius doesn’t see it, though, and presses his body into mine so forcefully the hilt of the knife goes into my stomach and winds me, making bile rise to my throat.
Darius’s grip loosens; there’s a sudden suction of air and he releases me and stumbles backward, his hands to his stomach.
He’s wearing a thick wool shirt, his coat pulled open. But the clothing does nothing to stop the blood from seeping from the stab in his stomach, the dagger on an upward angle, lodged in his body. I should run and not look back—Darius can’t be alone.
But when Darius falls to the ground clutching his stomach, eyes filled with fear, I catch him. “No, no, no, no. Darius? Darius? ”
He gasps for air, chest rapidly rising and falling. I press my hands to the area around the dagger, blood coating my fingers, seeping across my legs. “Darius.” I lean over him, pressing my face to his chest as I hold him to me. “Darius, please, I’m—I’m so sorry.”
He doesn’t look at me, I don’t even know if he can hear me.
His eyes are vacant as they stare at the sky, mouth hanging open.
His body goes limp in my hands. An iron fist wraps around my throat and restricts my breath. I killed a thirteen-year-old.
My voice is low and quiet, between a cry and a moan as I try to stop the blood from seeping out. I can barely see him, tears streaming down my cheeks and mixing with the scarlet that coats his body.
I know Elias is there before he speaks; I can feel his energy, his warmth. But it feels so distant, the cold in my chest too overwhelming. I can’t look away from Darius.
“Milena. ” My eyes snap up at the desperation in his voice, blinking to clear the tears. “Are you hurt?” He moves in a flash—one second he’s far away, the next he’s kneeling right next to me, hand on my forearm. His clothes are stained red. “You’re covered in blood.”
“I killed Darius. I k-killed him. He’s dead.”
“Hey.” His hands pull at mine. “Look at me.” I can’t. Darius was a kid. I knew him. I liked him. “Hey. You’re okay.”
“I killed him.”
“It’s okay,” he says, fingers swiping at my cheeks and coming away red. “It’s okay. Let him go, Milena.”
“I can’t.”
“You can,” he says softly. He pulls me closer, dragging me across the ground so that Darius’s body drapes across the forest floor, blood staining the snow. “I’ve got you.” His arms wrap around me, holding my head against his shoulder, hand on the back of it. I can hear the steady thumping of his heart, the rhythm barely matching my own. And we stay that way, my body wrapped in his warm embrace. I don’t know how much time passes—it could be seconds or hours—but we soon hear shouts. “We have to go.”
I know he’s right. I know we aren’t safe. But I can’t speak and I can’t leave Darius here. His blood covers my hands—it buries itself beneath my nails and works its way into the crevices of my fingerprints. “Milena.” He shakes me so that my gaze is on him again, eyes uncharacteristically warm. “Milena, I’m sorry.”
And when he looks at me, fingers supporting my head and holding the back of my neck, I can’t look away. A fire burns in his eyes, so hypnotizing everything around us fades away. Until I can’t see anything anymore.
Chapter Ten
I wake up tangled in bedding, forehead damp and body wrapped in the warmth of the light streaming through the window. The room spins as I twist in the sheets and stretch my arms above my head, noticing Cassia. She sits on the edge of the bed, legs folded beneath her and a book in her hands. I’m back at the castle, but I can’t remember how I got here.
“Cassia?”
She jumps. “Hey.”
“You’re okay. Is Eric—”
“He’s fine,” she says, uncrossing her legs. “How do you feel?”
I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror opposite the bed.
My hair is a frizzy mess and my eyes look dark and sunken. I brush the bruise on my cheek. My skin feels tender—like it’s been scrubbed. “How’d we get back here?”
“Elias said you passed out. Again.” She frowns. “He carried you back and I bathed and changed you. I hope that’s all right—you were just covered in so much blood, and I assumed you’d rather it was me instead of Eric or Elias.”
Pictures stitch together in my mind, bile rising in the back of my throat. I scramble from the bed and rush to the bathroom door, throwing myself over the sink as my stomach empties itself. My mind flashes with pictures of Darius’s body, dead on the forest floor.
“What happened, Milena?” Cassia sweeps my hair back from hanging in my face.
“I killed someone.”
“He would’ve killed—”
“I knew him. He was my friend. He was just a kid.”
It didn’t feel real last night. But now, leaning over the sink, I feel it—the heavy weight of both grief and guilt pressing on my organs. It doesn’t matter how hard Cassia scrubbed my body, blood has found its home in the lines of my palms, and it’s not the kind that can be washed away.
“The first few times are hard.” Eric appears in the reflection of the mirror over the sink. He lingers in the doorway, a solemn look on his face.
“What?”
“It gets easier with time.”
“Murder? It’s not a hobby I intend to continue.”
He raises a brow. “You think any of us do? You think we wake up in the morning looking forward to that sort of stuff?”
“I wouldn’t put it past you.”
“Get over yourself.” His voice is so low it’s nearly a growl.
“They aren’t people, they’re hollowers, and they kill us all the time. You’ll kill again and you’ll get to the point where you won’t even care.”
“Stop it, Eric,” Cassia says.
“You know I’m right, Cassia. Don’t think I’ve forgotten how you didn’t talk for days after you first hurt a hollower. Now you can do it in your sleep.”
“What is wrong with you?” I spin around to glare at him.
“Why do you hate me so much?”
“I don’t hate you.”
“You could’ve fooled me.”
“Ignore him.” Cassia glares at him. “Did you come here to antagonize her or is there something you wanted?”
“Elias wants you to get a message to the elders,” he says. “He’s going to see them.”
“He’s planning on leaving? So soon after what happened?” She moves to the door. “Let me talk to him.”
“Cassia—”
“Why is he going to see them, anyway? Which, by the way, he still hasn’t mentioned what Ana wanted to talk to him about before we had to leave so abruptly.”
Eric stops her in the doorway, uncharacteristically gentle.
“Leave it, Cassia, you know he won’t want to talk about it.”
“He never wants to talk about it.”
“Contact the elders.” He puts a hand on her shoulder. “Please.”
She sighs. And for the first time since I met her, vulnerability peeps through her hard exterior, silver eyes shimmering in a way that reminds me of a child—of Darius. Eric steps out of the way to let her past, looking at me over Cassia’s shoulder with something other than distaste for once. A question presses at the back of my mind, one that, deep down, I already know the answer to. “Is Ana dead?”
“Yes.”
I remember last night very clearly. Ana leaping across the clearing, Elias holding her body in his arms. The same way he held me when he came across Darius lying dead on the forest floor, his blood coating my arms. But in the pain I felt after what I did to Darius, I forgot all about Elias’s wounds. How could he hold me that way when his Ana was murdered because of me?
How could he even look at me?
I blink back the blurriness in my eyes, wanting more than anything to find Elias and apologize, because there must be some part of him, deep down, that knows this is my fault.
I don’t hear Eric leave, but soon I’m all alone in the bedroom, deserted to be with my thoughts, and my heart aches. I don’t know what it’s like to have a proper parent, or what it’s like to feel unconditional love, but I know what it’s like to look up to someone so much you see them as a father. And even though Charles never cared for me, even though he’s hell-bent on murdering me, the thought of watching him die the way Elias had to watch Ana makes me waver on my feet. You can’t easily force yourself to hate someone you grew up trying so hard to gain love from.
Emotions don’t work that way.
~
When I was eleven, Flo and I tried to climb a tree guarding the village because we thought we’d be able to see the hunters. We snuck out of the kitchen and hid behind a tomato patch, tearing our dresses on the rough bark as we tried to tug ourselves up to straddle the top. With blooded knees and scratched arms, we slung our legs over the top of the branches and gazed out into the forest. The wind tossed our hair around our faces. The forest was a never-ending sea of green.
I still remember the look on Flo’s face. Her freckle-covered cheeks were tinged pink, her hair lit from the sun, burning like a flame. We were invincible. Nothing could touch us. It was Cynthia who found us and screamed at the top of her lungs for us to get down, threatening to confiscate the board games that we so dearly loved. But we didn’t come down; we didn’t want to.
With Charles and the hunters gone, there was no authority. We could do what we wanted.
It turned out to be a bad choice. When Charles got back just before nightfall, Cynthia was about ready to hack the tree down herself. Flo climbed down first, head hung in shame as Cynthia shouted at her, but my descent wasn’t so elegant.
When I was halfway down, my legs slipped off the stick jutting out and the foundation beneath me snapped. My arm broke when I hit the ground, an excruciating pain shooting from elbow to wrist.
I remember screaming, scrambling across the ground as I held my arm to my chest. But the clearest memory of that day is of Charles standing over me, eyes mossy and lips tight. I begged him to help me, to carry me to the tunnels and tuck me into bed.
But he only stared and stepped back. He told me that I had to suffer the consequences of my actions—my disobedience. And now, in the castle with the very creatures Charles taught me to fear, I can’t push the memory from my mind. The prospect of seeing him again calls up bitter memories, painful indications from my past that alluded to the idea that he never loved me at all. Signs that were so blatantly clear and scattered all throughout my childhood, that I cast aside, chose to ignore. And I can’t help but wonder if I am partly to blame for the position I’m now in. It’s not the only thing that I’m to blame for.
The library door is already open when I reach it, the stone transitioning to a worn carpet. I had spent the remainder of the morning in my bedroom, knees to my chest and back pressed against the wooden headboard, as I thought of Elias, Darius, Charles, and Ana. I peer around the door. Elias leans against the wall by the fire, his eyes on the flames. He looks like some sort of painting that should be hung next to the extravagant artworks lining the castle walls.
“You can’t say anything.” At the sound of Eric’s voice, I leap back, gripping the door. Eric paces behind him, pausing when Elias doesn’t answer.
“All this time . . . why did she lie to us?”
“You know why.”
“But now we know the truth. I can’t keep this to myself.”
“Yes, you can.” The fire crackles in the silence that hangs between them. “Elias, you have to.”
“But—”
The door creaks and they both spin toward me. I freeze, blood running cold.
“Milena?” Elias calls.
“Oh, sorry, I was . . . I was looking for you and—I just got here.” From the looks on their faces, neither of them believes me. “I wanted to talk to Elias.”
The air is thick with tension. “Eric, can you see how Cassia’s getting on?” Elias asks. Eric opens his mouth to protest. “Please.”
With a sigh, Eric brushes past me and leaves the room. I stare sheepishly at Elias, stepping farther into the room and taking a seat on the burgundy sofa. The bookshelves trap us in a cocoon of warmth. Elias picks up the book on the couch beside me so he can sit down, holding it tightly in his lap. I peer curiously at the cover—it’s old and musty.
“How are you feeling?” he asks.
“Better.”
If he notices my lie, he doesn’t point it out. “Good.”
Silence stretches between us. I have so much to say but I don’t know where to start, because any sort of apology gets stuck halfway down my throat. It doesn’t feel like enough. Nothing I say could ever be enough. “I wanted to thank you.”
“You don’t have to thank me for bringing you back here. I told you the hollowers wouldn’t take you.”
“That’s not what I was going to thank you for.” With a surge of courage, I shift closer, watching closely for any signs of irritation. But he makes no effort to move away, his eyes softer than I remember. I don’t have the courage to say what I really want—that I’m sorry about Ana, that I’m thankful he held me together when he must’ve felt like falling apart.
“You don’t need to be afraid of me, you know.”
I hold my breath at the tilt of his head, the slight lilt of his mouth—a nearly there smile. “What?”
“I see the way you look at me, Milena. The way you talk to me.
You’re afraid of me and you don’t need to be.”
I don’t know how to respond. What he’s said is both right and wrong. There’s something about Elias that makes me feel secure, like nothing could ever touch me, and at this moment I trust him to protect me. But I know the reality of my situation—I saw what he did to those hollowers in the forest. Elias protects me because he needs me, and the second he discovers information that implies he doesn’t could be the moment my life ends. I’m not afraid of Elias. I’m afraid he’ll stop protecting me. “I’m not scared of you.”
“The pounding of your heart suggests otherwise.”
“Maybe you do scare me, a little.” A lie. But it’s much better than the truth.
“I won’t ever hurt you,” he says.
Sounds from the village waft through a gap in the windowpane.
Laughter and joy swirl in the wind and fills the air. And as I stare at Elias, I believe him, despite the fact that I watched him tear a head from a body. And that terrifies me.
“Before we left the mountains, Ana wanted to talk to you, and then you wanted to leave straight away. Did she say something?”
I ask.
“Ana couldn’t help us like I hoped,” is all he says. I watch him as he talks about her, noting the way her name rolls off his tongue while his eyes remain vacant of feeling. It irks me to see how well he can hide his emotions.
“Cassia told me that Ana raised you.”
“She took me in when my parents were killed.”
The revelation doesn’t surprise me, but in a way, it makes me feel less alone. He was an orphan, just like me. “I’m sorry that she died.”
“People die every day,” he says, voice hard and cold. I frown, staring at him. He’s careless with his words, seemingly unaffected by the death of the woman who raised him.
“That’s an awful thing to say.”
“It’s true.”
“That doesn’t mean you don’t get to be sad,” I tell him, shifting so that I’m facing him. “Elias, I—”
“Don’t say it, Milena.”
“You don’t even know—”
“You’re going to apologize like it’s your fault.”
He can read me like a book while I can barely decipher one thing from his expression. “Elias,” I start, “she raised you and they killed her because�
�”
“It isn’t your fault.”
I swallow the lump in my throat. “They wanted me.”
He shifts closer and puts a hand on mine. My first reflex is to flinch, but his hand is warm and gentle as it smooths out my fist until my palm is laying flat. He opens the ragged book in his lap and places it in my hand.
“Here,” he says, drawing away as I hold the page and smooth out its edges. On one side, is what appears to be some sort of list—a combination of words I can’t read. The other is a drawing of a woman with long, wild hair and eyes that seem to shine even through the drawing. “This was an old, spare book Ana gave me. She had a few drawings in here but let me use the rest of the pages. I didn’t know she still had it.”
“This is amazing. Did you draw it?”
He stares at the drawing through half-lidded eyes, nodding.
“It’s beautiful, Elias.”
“She was beautiful, incredible. She taught me everything I know today. She protected me when I had nobody else.” His eyes seem distant, like he’s not sitting in the library with me but is somewhere with Ana, in his childhood. Lost in a world that’s not our own. “And then she grew old and I became strong, and I vowed to protect her the same way that she protected me when my parents were killed.” He looks away from me, to the window.
“This is my fault, Milena. This isn’t on you and it never was. Ana is dead because I didn’t protect her, and that’s on me.”
He’s wrong. He had an opportunity to trade my life for Ana’s and when he didn’t, they killed her. The fact that he’s blaming himself for her death shakes me—that’s too much of a burden for somebody who doesn’t deserve it. “You can’t mean that.”
“I do. And I mean it when I say that I won’t let the hollowers get to you as they did her.”
“Until you realize the reason they want me doesn’t affect your village, right? It wouldn’t be logical to keep me safe when so many others are dying in my place.”
“No. It wouldn’t be logical.” He didn’t say it, but he may as well have. I was right: my protection is conditional.
I look back at the book in my lap, eyes slightly blurry as I try to make out the words on the second page. “What’s this?” I pause in thought. “They key . . . ingrebiance?”
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