War of the Wilted

by Amber Mitchell

  It will never come out.

  The shift of the saddle signals Rayce pulling himself up behind me. His strong arms wrap around my middle, his solid chest pressing into my back, and for a moment, my entire world is the steady thump-thump of his heart inside his rib cage. He reaches for the reins of the horse, his stubble brushing against my sweaty neck as he leans forward.

  “Cover me,” he shouts, hands on the reins.

  I twist around without hesitation, gripping the stunner, and aim behind us when he lets out a sharp breath of air against my neck, somewhere between a sigh and a groan. His weight collapses into me, much heavier than a second ago, and his hands slip from the reins.

  “What? What’s wrong?” I ask. “We have to get moving.”

  His eyes wince shut and he slumps forward, revealing the brown and white fletching of an arrow sticking out of his shoulder. Something sharp sticks into my back. Before I can even react, another arrow pierces a little below the first, sending another jolt through both of our bodies with its impact.

  My whole world tips forward listening to his shallow gasps in my ear. Fight, Rayce.

  Suddenly, all of the red makes sense. All of the pain. And I want it. I want to bathe in the blood of whoever just tried to take Rayce from me.

  All I hear is his breath, and cling to the sound more important than my own heartbeat. Pray to whatever god or goddess is listening not to let that sound stop. Because if it does, so will my heart.

  Chapter Seventeen

  My gaze wild, I swing around and pick out the Sun soldier responsible for shooting Rayce. He fumbles with another arrow, reloading his crossbow to once again try to take my world away from me. He won’t get another chance.

  A scream bubbling up from my throat, I point my stunner directly at the soldier’s neck, in the small space between his chest armor and helmet. Just like hitting a wooden target, my bolt flies true, raining green pain through the soldier’s body, and he drops his crossbow before falling to the ground.

  “G-Go,” Rayce sputters through his pain. “R-Retreat.”

  It takes everything I have not to finish the soldier off, but getting Rayce to safety is now my top priority. Grabbing both of his hands to keep him locked in place, I take hold of the reins and kick the sides of his horse with all my strength, straightening my back to hold his heavy weight easier.

  “Just stay with me.” Worry rattles my voice like a gust on a windowpane. “I’ve got you. Hold on as tightly as you can.”

  His shallow breathing in my ear spurs me forward. My mind cycles all the things I should’ve said to him when he was wrapping my hand. How stupid this whole fight was, how I should’ve focused on the warmth and comfort of his embrace instead of my burning need for revenge. I grit my teeth, and try to force regret out of my mind. If I start thinking that way then I’m already accepting he won’t survive and I refuse to believe it, no matter what lies his shallow breathing tries to tell me.

  Rayce will pull through. I won’t let him die.

  Wind rushes through my hair, chilling the sweat sticking to my face. The heat from Rayce’s back keeps me centered. Guiding the horse through the battlefield tests every skill I’ve picked up as I jerk the reins to the left, avoiding trampling over a wounded man reaching out to us.

  Already, a few of the rebels have swiveled their horses the way I’m headed, and I can hear what sounds like Arlo crying for them to retreat and cover Rayce. My focus remains solely on the base of the hill as we barrel forward, dreading the moment we get there. I’m not sure I’ll have enough strength to keep him on the horse. “Rayce, are you still with me?”

  He lets out a little sputter in response, but his hands grip around my middle, his large fists yanking at the green fabric of my uniform. His breath hot on my cheek, he whispers, “Right here.”

  “Hold on a little longer. I’m going to need your help when we ride up the hill.”

  He mutters something unintelligible, but as the horse begins up the steeper incline, his hands stay clutched around me. I hold my breath, one hand on the reins, the other locked around Rayce’s wrist, straining to keep a hold of him. We just need to get past this and everything else will fall into place.

  A few more seconds and we’re up, nothing but rolling green grass and the fringes of woods before us. I don’t wait for an invitation, snapping the reins to urge Rayce’s horse faster.

  We may have left the grueling shouts and ringing of swords clashing behind us, but the salt of sweat and iron of blood still lace my upper lip. Rayce’s head slumps against my shoulder, rolling with each bounce of the horse’s body.

  A little bit longer. That’s all I need from you.

  His words from the time I got hit with a stunner bolt repeat over again in my head, except this time it’s my silent plea to him as I lean forward, urging the horse faster.

  Stay with me.

  It’s the only thing I want from him, more than my own forgiveness. He can go back to completely ignoring me as long as he stays alive. I hold onto this hope as we barrel toward the woods. The silhouettes of treetops beckon me forward against the dulling blue sky, forever growing closer and darting farther away in the same instant. The sound of Rayce’s breathing tries to compete with the thunderous galloping hooves of the beast and my reckless heart.

  We make it to the tree line when Rayce begins to slip off the horse and my arm nearly gives out from trying to hold him up. Tugging back on the reins gives our weary horse a break. We come to a stop along the edge of the woods as a blood-red sun sets on our back, burning the clouds orange, yellow, and red. Riding underneath the thick canopy of trees reminds me of being home, and I fill my lungs with fresh air, trying to rid my tongue of the taste of battle.

  “Rayce, we’re at the woods,” I say, forcing false cheer.

  His voice sounds drier than the leaves underfoot. “W-water.”

  “I’ll get you some. I’m going to take care of you, I promise. Just hold out a little longer.”

  After a few minutes of searching, I give up on finding the rendezvous point. It would be nice to have the help of people more skilled in medicinal aid than my basic knowledge of “wrap it if it’s bleeding and ignore it if it isn’t,” but that isn’t an option right now.

  I’d read books on law, war, the history of the two kingdoms, but I couldn’t be bothered listening to Marin when she would try to identify and show me what each piece of equipment was in the first aid pack? Rayce and I are both about to suffer for that mishap.

  The sky grows dark while we trot south, back toward the way we came. My gaze searches in between the trees, looking for a place to rest for the night. I manage to find a large gray rocky formation blanketed in hanging green vines and moss. A jagged raindrop shape splits up the base of the rock, almost like it’s trying to tear itself in two.

  It isn’t much, but it will shelter us for the night, and after our luck today, it’s more than I was expecting.

  “Whoa, boy, whoa.” I pull back the reins, trying to calm the weary beast that has carried us farther and faster than it probably should have.

  We come to a stop in front of the cave and I look back at Rayce. His beautiful eyes, the gauge with which I can always measure his mood, are pressed close and his jaw clenched to stave off the pain. He breathes slow and heavily through parted lips. I rub my thumb over his joined hands and let him go. His large hands fall slack to his side. The sudden movement jolts him awake and his eyes flicker open.

  “W-water?” he asks again.

  I twist around to face him better. “Almost, a minute longer. Do you think you have the strength to stand? It won’t be for long and I’ll help you, but we need to get off the horse.”

  “Of course.” He grits his teeth, brow creasing deeper. “It looks worse than it is, I’m sure. My leaning on you is just an excuse to get closer. Pretty sly, huh?”

  Flashes of him bleeding out on the battlefield from his uncle’s dagger through his gut flicker through my vision. He joked then, too, as his bl
ood streamed through my fingers. Though he keeps his tone light, his pale face and unfocused eyes reveal an entirely different story.

  “I’m in awe of your smoothness, shogun.”

  I pull my leg over the huge beast, hoping my voice didn’t betray the fear coursing inside me. Sliding slowly down the horse’s side, I hold Rayce’s weight for as long as I can, guiding him to slump forward instead of falling back on the arrows still sticking out of his back.

  My feet hit the ground, thankful for something solid underneath my boot. I twist around, holding up my arms, the horse’s sweat soaking my uniform as I reach for Rayce, touching his thigh.

  “Ready to be close again?”

  He clenches his jaw, gathering his strength, and pulls up his own leg with difficulty. “Aren’t you the one that’s supposed to fall into my arms?”

  A bitter laugh escapes my throat. “You know I’ve never liked things the conventional way.”

  Which is true of our entire relationship. We went from being engaged but having never met to reluctant allies to him leaving me breathless with his kisses, and now we’re caught somewhere in the middle. A horrible inbetween that I have no clue how to break free from.

  He braces himself on my shoulders and slides down, his legs nearly giving out on him when he crashes onto the rocky ground. His hands grip onto my shoulders like he’s holding on to a cliff’s edge for dear life, leaving my legs straining to hold most of his weight, and his head tips forward, his face resting in my hair.

  “Lucky me,” he says.

  Being this close reveals a trail of dried blood running down Rayce’s right shoulder and an arrowhead barely peeking through his clothes. I grit my teeth. It pierced straight through. A clean wound was lucky, at least, but removing it is still going to hurt.

  Breathing in the smell of his sweat and dried blood through my nose, I brace myself for what I need to do next. Slinging his good arm over my shoulders, I wrap my hand around his waist and we stumble toward a tree trunk while the horse walks over to a small brook a few feet away. After sitting him down, I pull off my water pouch and guide it to his lips.

  He drinks greedily, little rivulets dribbling down his mouth and chin.

  I pull the pouch away and he closes his eyes, resting his head on the rough bark. “A little better?”

  He makes a guttural sound, which I take as affirmation.

  I peek behind him to assess the arrows sticking out of his back while he rests. My first instinct is to grab the shaft and rip it out but the last time I did something like that, Piper called me fool for an entire month because of how risky it was. Something about arrowheads staying inside the flesh.

  Suddenly, my throat feels very dry. “I’m going to need some help getting these out.”

  “Didn’t pay attention during lessons? Is that what I’m hearing?” He grunts. “I’m disappointed.”

  My hand finds the hilt of a small knife I keep strapped on my leg every time I go into battle ever since the emperor’s little life lesson about war.

  “I’m more of a hands-on learner.” The tip of the blade threatens to slice my finger as I run it over the edge. Perfect. “This is great practice, right?”

  “Not inspiring a whole lot of confidence, I have to admit.” He keeps his eyes closed. “But first things first, you need to cut the shafts off the arrows as close to my skin as you can.”

  Pressing down on the front of his vest, in between the tiny sheets of metal sewn to leather, I find the arrowhead again and see that it sticks far enough out for me to cut the end off of it.

  Taking the knife to the wooden shaft, I begin to saw it off. He winces his eyes shut, letting out a muffled gurgle from his throat. Though I need to focus, the soppy sound of his flesh moving and his painful little noises compete for my concentration.

  “I’ve always been someone who learns by doing. Even when I first had to learn how to aerial dance. The Gardener had a girl before me that was also familiar with the art, and she tried to teach me relatively slowly, but I never got a single thing right until I tried it myself.”

  The small piece of wood holding the arrowhead falls with a thud to the ground. Rayce’s eyes flicker open and he holds my gaze. Dropping the knife to my side, I place one hand firmly on the shaft sticking out of his back and the other slips in between both of his. His fingers wrap around mine as he braces himself.

  “It’s how I got the small scar on my stomach.”

  “I always wondered about that,” Rayce says. “From what you’ve told me and what I’ve picked up from the others, it didn’t seem like the Gardener hurt his dancers. At least, not physically.”

  “No.” I didn’t mean for there to be so much force behind the word. “He didn’t. The scar was from the third time I tried to catch myself. It wasn’t from a very tall height, but I missed and landed on a rock. There was so much blood I thought I was going to die.”

  “I’m sorry.” His voice is soft like the times we’re curled into each other’s heat.

  “Yes, well, the world can be cruel.”

  I choose that time to rip the arrow free from him. He clenches his mouth shut, a grunt dying in his throat as he squeezes his robe tight. Blood oozes lazily from the fresh hole going through his shoulder.

  He takes a moment to settle. His voice shakes with pain, higher than usual. “The world is cruel and sometimes it can hurt like the wrath of Yun.” He glances at his shoulder and worry passes through his eyes, seeing the other arrow still needs to be removed. Neither of us say it, but it’s clear this one will be much worse. “But it can also be kind. You can find people that care about you, that cherish you for the person you are and not what you could potentially do for them. I hope…even though things have been difficult lately, I hope you learned that from your time here.”

  His words shake me to my core. This sounds so much more like the man who convinced me to stay, who worked to heal all the wounds soaking through me so deeply they might as well have been that first arrow. My shaking hand wraps around the hilt of my knife, staining the white ivory handle red with Rayce’s blood.

  Quiet, small like all the shattered parts in me shift to make the words. “I remember. It’s a world you want to create, right?”

  My mind gets caught on all the things he doesn’t say. He never mentions that we are on better terms, or that he forgives me, he just casts tiny specks of light in the darkness that we have plummeted into. Wiping my sticky hands on my pants, I pull back his shirt to reveal the piece of wood sticking a few inches deep into his flesh.

  “If I’m able to,” he says. I don’t speak, beginning to saw part of the long shaft of the arrow off. It must hurt because his pitch rises. “Of course that will mean taking responsibility, not just over the rebellion, but the entire nation.”

  And being willing to kill your uncle to do so.

  That particular point is better left to a time when I’m not busy cutting an arrow from his shoulder. No need to cause him any more pain.

  I focus on his voice instead of the wet sound the arrow makes when I begin to slowly twist it free. “I’m not entirely confident I’m up to that task, not that I have much of a choice. The only way to create the world I dream of is to first take over leading Delmar. Leading the rebellion is already so”—his voice cuts out—“heavy. I don’t know if I can carry any more weight.”

  This is the part where I should reassure him. I should tell him I’ll remain by his side to help him shoulder the weight, but the words won’t leave my lips. Maybe if he was destined for something easier. I could remain a soldier by his side for the rest of my life, or perhaps even carry on the work Oren was doing. But I cannot lead.

  His muffled cries disturb the quiet evening as I finally pull the shaft from his puckered flesh. My heart drops when it comes out without the arrowhead. The only way to avoid the wound festering is to get it out. Throwing the arrow to the ground, I hold out my hands and study them. Bloody, shaking, so inexperienced and also…the only thing that can help save him rig
ht now.

  “The arrowhead didn’t come out, so…”

  “My pain is about to get a lot worse.” He takes a deep breath through his nose. “Not sure I’ll ever be ready, but I’m as close to it as I can be.”

  Crawling fully behind him, I peel back the rest of his robe, revealing his shoulder, half of his broad back stained with dry blood and the twin puckered gashes causing him so much pain. I uncork my water pouch and pour some water on my hands, trying to rinse the blood off the best that I can. The little brook the horse drinks at isn’t too far away, but I don’t trust my knees not to give out on me.

  Putting one hand on his back to steady myself, I take a deep breath like Arlo taught me to do before firing a stunner, and move toward the small tear in his flesh.

  He hesitates a moment, his words coming out slowly. Fear colors his voice lower. “That’s how I’m approaching the idea of ruling, too. I don’t think I’ll ever be ready, but I’m as close as I can be.”

  My fingers find something solid in his back and I grip around it, trying to keep the chilly fear in the pit of my stomach at bay. The way Rayce cares for his people has always been one of the things I admired most about him, but if he doesn’t feel like even he is doing a decent job at leading them, I have no hope for myself. He’ll see right through me, through my pretending. What the last few weeks have taught me more than anything else is that I’m not meant to make decisions. I make the wrong ones for myself. How can I ever expect to make choices that could impact the entire empire?

  “You’re a good leader, Rayce. And you’re going to make an amazing emperor.” My stomach twists because if that fate is ever realized, I might not be able to stand beside him any longer. “Something I’ve always admired about you is your ability to make decisions that benefit the people you’re protecting, and you’ll continue to do that when we win this war.”

  My voice falters as I struggle to push out the rest of my words. I wonder if he noticed that my fear of what comes next has added a new layer to the wall built up around us.