by Isla Frost
Theus was eyeing me in concern. “Are you all right?”
To divert his attention, I blurted the first question that came to mind. “Why can’t I see you with my second sight?”
I’d learned during our snooping that the walker students were invisible to this peculiar second vision, but at the time, I’d just chalked it up as yet another mystery and not a very important one.
But my abilities had been far less powerful then, and with my wildcard magic heavily intertwined with life forces, it seemed more important for me to understand now.
Theus’s dark brows rose, surprised maybe.
“You already know the answer. Like you, my life force has been sundered from me in preparation to face the Malus.”
Great. So his surprise had been at my slowness to connect the dots.
But the reality of what that meant—to have been separated from our life force—was only now sinking in.
Before it had been an abstract idea, a theoretical detail buried beneath the deluge of shocking revelations they’d piled upon us in the past week. But seeing Theus’s body without the life force apparent in every other flesh-and-blood creature I’d looked at made it real for the first time. Made me realize just how grave our transformation rituals had been.
How was it even possible to separate a living being from their life force and for that being to go on living?
“Then how are you not dead?” I asked. “And for that matter, how am I not dead?”
Amusement flickered in his deep green eyes. “Are you so sure you’re not? Humankind have thousands of tales about zombies and the other undead.”
I gaped at him, and he cracked a smile.
“I’m jesting. It’s complicated, but the short version is that our life force is still whole, it’s simply been moved and anchored elsewhere. We’re still connected to it by a thin thread of energy. If you look hard enough with your second sight, you might be able to see it.”
I brought up the sight again, feeling it becoming easier with repetition, and peered intently at Theus. Sure enough, there was a delicate golden strand leading off into the distance. This was the reason we could stand before the Malus without being instantly drained.
“Wow. I see it.”
I remembered the fear in the other walkers’ gazes. Fear and loathing, yes, but why would they be afraid of me if they were invulnerable to my Malus magic?
“Can I affect it?”
Theus shrugged. “You shouldn’t be able to, but we don’t really know since you’re the first person to ever manifest this gift.”
He seemed remarkably unconcerned about the possibility.
“I might let you try later… once you’ve had a lot more practice.”
I decided he must be jesting again and focused on the more immediate implications.
“So Cricklewood hasn’t gone through the same ritual then? Because I could see him as clear as the sun.”
“That’s right. None of the teachers have. Hollows—that’s what we call walkers who’ve been separated from their life force—are too valuable to waste teaching.”
That explained why some of the professors seemed more afraid than the students. But it raised a new question.
“Wait. If hollows are so important, why are you all hanging around twiddling your thumbs at the academy?”
Theus glanced down at his thumbs. “Ah, I’m afraid that’s a human idiom I’m not familiar with.”
I hid a smile. “It means wasting time, like you’ve got nothing better to do than fiddle with your thumbs. It’s obvious to everyone that the walkers aren’t challenged by the lessons or the trials. Not so far anyway.”
He arched an eyebrow. “Sometimes keeping you humans alive is hard work.”
I snorted. “Tell me about it.”
It was strange to share a joke with a walker. But his expression sobered quickly enough.
“We are at the academy for a purpose. To form relationships with the same warriors we will one day be fighting beside.”
I frowned. “Then why are you and Lirielle the only ones making an effort?”
“Because most seventeen-year-olds are cocky and stupid?” Theus suggested, but then he shrugged. “They’re mingling among their own kind well enough, which is part of that purpose. Perhaps they’ll pay our human counterparts more attention now that everyone remaining has passed the trial phase and undergone the ritual.”
He didn’t sound optimistic.
As fascinating as our conversation was, I was growing increasingly uncomfortable that we were having it while stationary. I’d stayed in this location for too long, my scent and unusual behavior a call for nearby creatures to investigate. Time enough for a pack of hunting beasts to surround us or an intelligent predator to set up a trap.
It said something about how much safer I felt with Theus beside me that I’d lingered. Something I didn’t want to analyze too closely.
So I suggested we walk onward, and Theus fell into step beside me. His movements were graceful and confident, and his superior senses scanned our surroundings. I did not let my own guard down altogether but enough that I could watch his face when I asked, “Can I ask you a personal question?”
Theus lifted a shoulder. “So long as I can choose not to answer.”
I rolled my eyes. “There are few things walkers are better at than not answering.”
This made him crack another smile, so I asked, “Why are you different?”
He didn’t answer for a long time. Then he exhaled heavily.
“I don’t know. I’ve never been well liked among my own kind. Perhaps that has given me a different perspective.”
“Lirielle seems to like you well enough.”
Amusement danced across his face. “Yes, but she has never been afraid to stand out or go against the status quo. I’ve tried to adopt her unflappable attitude but with less success.”
His tone was admiring, which caused me to wonder. “Are you two together… like, in a romantic way?” I regretted asking as soon as the words had left my mouth. What business of it was mine?
“No. She’s just the only one who believes I’m worth more than my meager powers suggest.”
Ouch.
Theus was considered weak? Neither his muscled, athletic form nor the magic I’d seen him wield seemed to match that claim. But there was something in his statement that puzzled me more.
“The only one?” I asked. “Not even you?”
He hesitated before answering. “When you’ve been raised bringing shame to your family, it’s hard not to be at least a little messed up. I suppose it’s in part why I’m fascinated by human culture. Your species is much less obsessed with objective measures of success or power. Most relational bonds are oddly sentimental. And you don’t perceive walkers as any more valuable than yourselves, no matter how they might outperform you at every turn. I’ve come to see that you have a different sort of strength. One I’d like to better understand.”
I didn’t know what to say. There was no comfort I could offer. Nothing meaningful anyway. A human girl telling him his kind were a bunch of bastards wasn’t likely to offset his entire upbringing.
So instead I went with, “You’re here, aren’t you? You said yourself hollows are vital. That must mean something.”
“It does mean something. Just not what you think.” He shoved a hand through his hair. “Hollows are vital, it’s true, but the cost of separating life force is much steeper for walkers than it is for humankind.”
“What do you mean? What’s the cost?”
“Being distanced from our life force strains us. It cuts our lifespan in half.” He glanced at me, guessed that I wouldn’t know what that meant, and added, “From two centuries down to one.”
“Oh.” My mind reeled, trying to grasp those numbers. To comprehend what that meant for each and every walker kid at the academy.
Let alone what that meant for the human students’ life expectancy. Supposing the Malus didn’t devour the entire worl
d in ten years anyway…
“It doesn’t work the same way for humans because your blood is mixed with ours, which increases your vitality and lifespan. The net effect ends up being neutral.”
It was hard to celebrate the news when the case was so different for the man beside me, the person protecting my back in the forest.
“But far worse is that it tethers us to this earth forever. The ritual cannot be undone. And while we can step through gateways on this world and stay linked to our life force, if we tried to leave, the connection would instantly snap.”
I was trying to understand why there was so much pain in his voice as he said this. It sounded like bad news for humans, for the planet they’d invaded, but why was it so bad for the hollows?
“I don’t get it. Why is that worse than cutting your life in half?”
“Do you know what it means to be a walker? Or what it used to mean, before the Malus?”
“No. Not really.”
“We were made to walk between worlds. Every part of us yearns for it. Imagine the thing you love most, the thing that gives you the greatest joy, the thing you were born for, and then imagine being barred from it forever.”
I’d experienced something of that when they’d ripped me from my family. But I didn’t say so. I still hoped to get back to them someday.
From what Theus was saying, the equivalent of that was an utter impossibility for him. And the pain in his voice made me pay attention even if I couldn’t wrap my head around the cause.
“Before the Malus, our kind were world walkers. With stars in our eyes and wings on our feet, we skipped merrily between worlds, like a bird between the branches.”
His eyes sparked with a fierce joy and longing as he described this. Longing, and grief.
“And now?” I asked.
His face fell, the grief winning out.
“Now we are the hollow ones. Bound to the earth but not of it. Bound to war but not victory. Bound to blood and death.”
A creeping sort of horror was settling over me. The more he talked, the more it took hold. “Then why would anyone choose to undergo the ritual?”
“Few do. Most of us have the choice made for us by our parents. Every breeding couple must offer one of their children for the fight against the Malus.”
That took me aback. If they were prepared to demand that of their own kind, it put the Agreement with the humans in a startlingly different light.
“Do you have any siblings?” I asked, feeling the pang that always struck me when I thought of my own. Perhaps the night Theus had enabled me to look through the gateway to see them, he’d understood my need to know they were okay more than I’d given him credit for.
“Yes. Three,” he told me. But no warmth, no joy, no love touched his features. There was only pain there.
He noticed me staring and elaborated.
“I do not enjoy the relationship you do with your brother and sister. They are each powerful, perfect, as they are supposed to be. I hold nothing against them, but it was painful to watch my parents look upon them with pride.”
His usually beautiful voice, deep and resonant, was strained.
“Most of those chosen to become hollows are sent to the academy at seventeen with great honor, respect, and grief. It is difficult for a parent to select a child, knowing that their years will be halved, their life bound to this world, and their future filled with the bitterness of war. But in this age, standing against the Malus is also where the most stature can be obtained. Hollows are honored for working to restore the balance.”
He swallowed like it hurt. “For my parents, the choice was easy. They were only too happy to send me off to become a hollow, to get their weak son out from under the noses of those that judged them for my shortcomings. In fairness, they hoped the ritual would transform me, balance out my weakness. But when that failed…” He broke off.
Sympathy welled in me. An emotion I’d never expected to feel toward a walker. It’s hard to feel sorry for someone that thinks themself superior to you. But Theus had never treated me that way. Never treated any human that way that I’d witnessed.
When he’d stayed behind in that first trial, I’d believed he’d done it for tactical reasons. To gain huge amounts of points by saving all the useless humans. But that had been my own assumption, borne out of my preconceived ideas of walkers rather than from anything he’d said or done.
Now I felt sorry for him—and ashamed of myself. Neither of which I wanted to feel. So I pushed back against those emotions, reminding myself of all the wrongs the walkers had done to us.
Except Theus was seventeen. He hadn’t been there for any of it.
Dammit, I was a mess. But I couldn’t afford to feel things for a walker. Not when my plan was to take them down. Not when they’d come so close to destroying our world—no matter what they claimed about protection.
Yet here was Theus, raised without love or worth, separated from his family as I was from mine, only in a way that could never be mended. And he’d somehow overcome the prejudice and history between our species, overcome everything he’d been forced to sacrifice, and every single wall between us, to reach out to me. He was walking though the damn forest, guarding my back, with no conceivable benefit to himself.
In fact, now that most of the walkers hated me and my magic, any association with me would harm his status further.
Neither of us had chosen to be on this path. Both our lives had been shaped and shoved around by forces bigger than us. But at least I’d had seventeen good years with my family first…
And what had it cost him, really, to look at my family through that mirror that night? Had he sensed the love he’d lost out on?
“I’m sorry,” I said at last, knowing there were no words that would heal his wounds.
“Don’t be,” he said. “None of it was your doing. And your presence in my life has brought only good.”
I smiled brightly at him, but inside, my heart cracked. Because no matter how sweet and kind this one walker might be, I couldn’t let him stop me from doing what I must.
And in doing so, I would become one more person in his life who rejected him and everything he’d earnestly offered.
Chapter Twelve
Theus and I traipsed around the forest, waiting for something to attack.
Our conversation had petered out into a comfortable sort of silence, and now we were killing time, hoping to attract the attention of a hungry predator.
Nothing tried to eat us.
And I felt unreasonably aggrieved by the fact.
My grievance was in part because I needed to practice my magic and in part because it was a long time to lug around my naked sword for no apparent reason. But mostly it was because the things Theus had told me had put me in the mood for a fight.
I wanted to punch something. A big ugly nasty something, preferably on its big ugly nasty nose.
Anything was better than mulling over what I’d learned. The sacrifice Theus and every snotty walker student in the school had made. The revelation that the walkers were asking no more of humankind than they’d demanded of themselves. Arguably less in fact. Theus’s tragic upbringing. And my inability to do anything about it.
I found myself hating the walkers both more and less. Nothing was black and white anymore. It was incredibly confusing, and damned inconvenient to my plans.
But it was impossible not to see the walkers in a new light. Impossible not to see that there were aspects of beauty, nobility, and honor in their actions. And at least equal amounts of dark and shameful ugliness, of flaws and mistakes.
Which made them seem… well… human.
Ugh.
Why did the world have to be so messed up anyway?
I supposed the Malus had an awful lot to do with it. Which brought me back to wondering about my wildcard magic. Could it really be the key to somehow turning the tide in the war? I was dubious at best.
But a sliver of possibility was better than none, and t
here was zero chance of my magic being useful if I didn’t learn to master it.
Which was why I needed a monster to attack me so I could practice! Hence, my grievance.
When the chimes rang for lunch, I rubbed my neck, which had grown stiff with frustration. I mean, honestly, the one time I want something to attack and I’m left in peace.
Maybe that was the secret to surviving the forest. Emanate violent tendencies.
Theus on the other hand moved with a free-flowing grace, as if our stroll in the dangerous wilderness had soothed and replenished him. Then again, I’d yet to see a walker move with anything less than smooth precision.
“I’ll join you again tomorrow,” he said as we returned to Millicent’s lawn. “And, Nova?”
“Yes?”
“I’m glad that they didn’t… that you’re okay.”
I wasn’t sure why he’d decided my life mattered to him, but I gave up on kneading the tension out of my neck and smiled, a more genuine one this time.
“I’m glad you’re okay too,” I said, hoping he’d know what I meant. “And for the record, I agree with Lirielle.”
That he was worth more than whatever perceived weaknesses his kind saw in him.
His return smile cracked my heart a little bit more.
I wiped the worst of the blood off my blade and sheathed it before walking into the dining room, where I would not only find my own lunch but some milk and honey for my peculiar sword as well.
That wouldn’t be embarrassing. Not at all.
At least Gus had stayed mercifully silent for the remainder of our uneventful foray in the forest. Perhaps he’d returned to his pleasant dreams.
Ameline and Bryn were already eating, but Ameline waved wildly when she spotted me, and I saw she’d dished a plate for me too.
“Are you all right? Did Theus join you like he told us he would? How did using your magic go?”
I didn’t feel like talking yet, so I brushed the questions aside as quickly as possible.
“Yes, yes, and I didn’t get a chance to try. How was your Advanced Magic lesson?”
“Brilliant,” Bryn enthused. Then snapped her mouth shut. Had Ameline just kicked her under the table?