by Lani Lenore
“But you still dream about it?”
“I forget the dream just after I wake up. I only remember flashes of things – shadows, darkness… I dream of the storm.”
Rifter breathed deeply. He seemed relieved to have that off his chest, but Wren had other things that were clawing at her own, desperate to get out.
“Can’t you stop fighting him, Rifter?” she asked suddenly. “Can’t you just pretend he isn’t here?”
“I can’t do that,” he said, shaking his head regretfully.
“Can’t you try?”
“It’s not that easy,” he insisted, his voice growing darker. “I feel him all around me, all the time. He poisons this place, and I feel that inside my body. I can’t just ignore it.”
He clenched his fists at his chest and stomach as if he was going to dig into his own flesh and rip himself open. She believed she understood what he was saying, however. This was why he had been so agitated lately.
“It’s him or me, and I’m not going anywhere. I need him to leave here and the only way to make sure he stays gone is to kill him. I just don’t know how. I’ve been trying for a long time.”
Wren looked at him sorrowfully. She’d known that he would give her an answer like that. He was going to keep on, and he would pull the rest of them into darkness with him.
“When I saw you fight him, it scared me,” she confessed.
Rifter touched her face, brushing her hair back. It was a whisper of movement in the dark, and she suddenly felt the notion that they were like a married couple, sharing secrets while the children were asleep.
“I can’t tell you that I’ll stop,” he said. “I can’t. But with any luck, it’ll end this time. Then it’ll be like it was.”
With only the nightmare monsters to fear, she thought sourly. There’s always a catch.
“Wren,” he said softly, pulling her eyes up toward his. “I do feel better now that you’re here. I don’t know why, but I do. I don’t think it was a mistake that you found this place. I think I called you here because I needed you, but I didn’t even know it then.”
Wren’s girlish heart fluttered, but the secret woman in the back of her mind knew better.
He doesn’t mean what he’s saying. All he cares about is his war.
No, he loves me. I just have to be patient.
Don’t be such a child. He doesn’t know what love is. Neither do you.
“Wren, do you love me?” he asked. The sound of that question was musical to her. It made blood pulse in her ears.
She wasn’t sure if she should have told the truth, but she couldn’t lie to him.
“Yes,” she answered with a nod.
When he kissed her, she didn’t push him away, but she had a difficult time holding him close. Though he was warm and his kiss was soft, she wasn’t sure she felt the same thing she once had. She closed her eyes as tight as she dared, letting him guide her, hoping that her doubt would disappear somewhere so that she could swallow it down.
He let his greed take him over, kissing her harder, burying his tongue in her mouth. She let him push her back against the ground and tried to lose herself in him. He was absorbed in her – she could tell it by the way he breathed. She wanted that for herself.
Was she really a child, or was she a woman? She would know it soon.
His hand brushed against her leg, slowly pushing up her gown. He wanted to undress her, feel her skin against his. The thought of his nakedness had not bothered her before, but now that she imagined it in this way, it was too much. She felt an unfamiliar tingle shoot down through her belly, and a nervous chill followed.
I can’t do this…
“Stop,” she said suddenly, pulling away from his kiss. There was confusion in his eyes as he looked back at her, out of breath. He didn’t understand why her hands were on his chest, resisting him. She had to make him understand.
“I – I’m not ready for this,” she said. It was all she could think to say.
Rifter didn’t respond. He only looked at her with pain and humiliation in his eyes. She had hurt him; she could see it. He was off of her in an instant, beyond the flap of the tent before she could even get up.
Wren didn’t want him to go, but she wasn’t sure what she might have said to make him stay. She rose up to go after him, brushing past the flap. He had only taken a few steps in front of the tent, standing there in the night with his back to her.
“Rifter, wait...”
It was too late to get him back. She had ruined it, and he didn’t heed her. In fact, when she said his name, she triggered him. He took off straight up into the air where she could not follow, leaving her stranded with her guilt.
Chapter Thirty-One
1
The next day was gloomy. Gray clouds covered the sun, promising more rain. The boys had built up their own fire again, keeping to themselves since the Tribals would have nothing to do with them. They had been allowed to stay close, but were continually watched by wary eyes.
Wren slept late inside the tent. She had been kept awake by her tears over what had happened with Rifter. She wished that it had gone differently, but she could not bring herself to believe that it was entirely her fault. She just wished Rifter hadn’t run away from her like that.
I just need to talk to him. I embarrassed him, but he’ll forgive me if I explain myself.
Once she was brave enough to venture out, she approached the others where they were loitering around their fire. Max was there with Henry, who was showing him how to tie a sturdy knot. She didn’t say anything to that. There was nothing left to say. The others were cooking meat that they’d hunted down that morning, and while she would agree that it smelled good, she had too much trouble in her belly to be hungry.
“Where’s Rifter?” she asked them. She held herself as if she was cold, but really she was just guarded, in case they would all attack her with harsh looks and words.
As if they even know. At least, I hope they don’t.
“I think he’s out in the woods somewhere,” Toss said helpfully. “Said he was going for a hunt.”
Her disappointment was showing clearly on her face. She knew they all saw it. But at least Rifter had come back after taking off like he had. He just wasn’t here now.
“Everything alright?” Finn asked her. She looked up at him as if she had forgotten that the rest of them existed.
“I just wanted to talk to him,” she said, shaking her head in denial.
She sat down on a fallen tree near Toss, looking at the fire in a trance. She had hoped Rifter would have been back. Beyond that, she wasn’t sure what she should do with herself. She needed to make him understand what had happened between them, and how she felt about it. She didn’t want him to get so far away from her that she couldn’t get him back. She needed him. She wanted him close – just not that close yet.
“How are you holding up?” Toss asked, and she snapped to. They had all been through a lot – too much that they weren’t prepared for. She guessed she was holding up as well as they were.
“I keep telling myself that maybe this will end soon,” she said. “If we can just hold on, maybe Rifter can get rid of the Scourge this time for good, and it will all be over. We can start again somewhere else, but we won’t have to worry about it anymore.”
The group was quiet, doing what they did so well – eyeing one another, communicating without words as if they could read each other’s minds. Wren was tired of being left in the dark. She almost spoke out against them, but she didn’t have to. Finn erupted first.
“Alright, that’s it!” he said, throwing his hands up. “I can’t do it anymore!”
“Finn,” Nix said with an air of warning, but the other boy didn’t stop.
“No! No more dancing around it. She needs to know.”
Nix didn’t say anything else, conceding to the inevitable. He crossed his arms and looked at the ground, not willing to be a part of it.
Finn looked at the rest of them t
o see if he would get more disapproval, but they said nothing. When they didn’t oppose him, he turned and knelt down in front of her, looking into her bewildered eyes.
“There’s something that we have to tell you, Wren. We all know it – we’ve known it for a while – but you’re so close with Rifter that we just didn’t know how to trust you, or tell you because of him…”
“What is it?” she asked when he trailed off. “I want to know.”
“It’s not going to stop,” he said bluntly, sighing because there was no better way to say it. “He always comes back. I mean, even if Rifter kills him, he always comes back.”
Had she heard that right? A strange tingle rolled across her neck as if a spider was crawling there.
“What are you saying? You mean Rifter has killed him before?”
“Rifter has killed him many times before,” Toss said lowly. “He just doesn’t remember any of them.”
How was that possible? If Rifter had killed the Scourge, then he ought to be dead. Perhaps he was. How could a man come back from the grave?
“We go off to war, and they go at each other hard for a while until Rifter manages to kill him. As far as we know, it has never gone the other way. Things get quiet, life is good for a bit, and then the Scourge comes back – out of nowhere,” Finn went on. “Neither of them seems to remember what happened. They know each other – know their hatred for each other – but that’s it. It just goes on and on.”
“Why don’t you tell him?” she asked, amazed at how they could keep this to themselves, yet fearing that the matter was more complicated than she was aware.
“We’ve hinted, but he never takes it up,” Sly said regretfully. “You know how he is, but can you imagine being told something that you know in your own mind didn’t happen? He’d never believe it.”
“So this happens over and over again,” Mech confirmed. “We fight the pirates and Rifter fights the Scourge. We kill them, and then he comes back, assembles a new crew, and it starts over.”
“It’s never the same though,” Sly chimed in. “It’s always a different plan – a different circumstance. Rifter has never wounded the Scourge like this beforehand, though it’s usually a huge ordeal to kill him. He’s never come after our home, but it’s like they said. We have a war, Rifter wins, and then it’s quiet for a few days, a few weeks – and then he’s back.”
“Do you think there’s any way to get rid of him for good?” she asked, though doubtless she hadn’t been the first to think of that.
“I’ve been trying to think of a unique approach for ages,” Sly admitted. “But like so many other things, I eventually gave up on it. My theory? The Rifter and the Scourge are part of each other somehow. To know that for sure, we’d have to at least know where one of them came from, and we don’t. All that I’m left with is an idea that the Scourge exists because Rifter exists. Given that, I have to believe that in order to kill the Scourge for good, they’ll both have to die.”
“Okay, that’s enough,” Nix said finally, not liking the way that this conversation was going.
Sly shrugged. “It’s only a theory.”
“There’s no sense thinking about it anyway,” Nix said. “We’re here because we were chosen by Rifter. We fight for this life we’ve earned, and that’s it. So what if it keeps happening? That’s just the way it is, and apparently that’s the way he wants it.”
They were all quiet about it then, and Wren wasn’t sure how she was supposed to absorb this information. It was wrong not to tell Rifter. Could he not be forced to understand? If he would accept it, then maybe something could be done to stop this from continuing.
Maybe he can be convinced?
She wanted to try but she knew that she couldn’t tell him directly because of her promise to the others. She had to keep their confidence, but maybe she could hint at it – feel him out and see if he really denied it or if it was true that he’d forgotten completely.
If he would listen to her.
She stood with the intention of heading into the woods to look for Rifter, but Nix was quick to cut her off. He didn’t say anything, but she knew what he needed to hear from her.
“I’m not going to tell him,” she promised. “At least, not outright.”
He stared at her a moment to make sure she wasn’t lying, but then stepped out of her way to let her pass.
Wren moved down the hill and into the trees, hoping that Rifter didn’t hate her too much. She wanted to salvage this life if she could. She had given herself to it. It would be such a shame for her to lose that now.
2
Rifter did not handle rejection well. He didn’t like the word no – didn’t like to be told that he couldn’t have something he wanted. He’d wanted her but she’d turned him away. Why had she? Hadn’t she said she loved him?
Growling, he ran a hand back through his hair and shook it off. Why did he even bother with trying to figure her out? He had more important things to decide right now, like what he was going to do with his enemy.
He’d spent much of the night ripping through the heavens, shooting across the sky like a bullet. He’d plummeted into the sea and shot back out, cold and soaking wet, but he flew fast until he was dry again. Rifter had flown across the world until he was exhausted, until he thought he’d killed all his senses.
He wanted to forget that the incident with Wren had ever happened, but it wasn’t always that easy.
When he felt he’d calmed down, he came back to the camp, but as soon as he’d landed, he was thinking about her again – he was made angry all over again. The flying wasn’t enough. He needed to kill something, and he had gone off into the woods to do just that. He hadn’t gotten that far, however. He’d only gotten to the creek before he’d given up and sat down on the ground.
Rifter closed his eyes and resolved to put Wren behind him for now. He was too tired – much too tired to think about it anymore. He tried to find his way through the darkness behind his eyelids, as if he could reach out and connect his mind with the Scourge’s mind in order to find him.
Where are you?
He felt his enemy’s presence in his world, but he couldn’t pinpoint the exact location. There was a constant pounding in the front of his mind and pressure bearing in on him from all sides, but he could do nothing with it. His brow furrowed as he strained to press forward through the dark, but he found nothing.
On a whim, he reversed himself in his own head and decided to look backward, but all he found there were the empty hallways where his memories used to live. He belonged to today, and though he might have remembered last week or even last month, the rest of it was gone except for tiny bits of things that he knew. If he had ever wondered where all of his memories had gone, it was now. That was Wren’s fault too. Before, he hadn’t even cared to think about that sort of thing. She and her questions had done this to him.
Her soft mouth… He couldn’t think about that now. It was done with.
Rifter opened his eyes when he realized that there was someone standing in front of him.
He expected Wren – I don’t want to see her right now – but it wasn’t. The Tribal princess was standing there, staring at him with dark, intense eyes. What was her name? He’d forgotten. She was the painted huntress and that was good enough.
She had crept up on him but was holding no weapon, baring only her decorations, dyes and supple skin. When she had seen his recognition, she lowered herself to her knees to sit, looking at him but not saying anything, though it wouldn’t have done her much good to talk to him. He couldn’t understand her.
He regarded her with little interest once he saw that she was no threat. He didn’t know what she could have wanted from him. He had nothing to give her. When she saw that he didn’t respond, she merely lowered her head and clasped her hands near her chest as if to pray.
She was not a danger to him, but he had no use for her now. He would tolerate her company if he could pretend she wasn’t there.
He c
losed his eyes again, trying to concentrate, but he was numb in the darkness.
3
Wren had a sensitive place in the middle of her heart that ached when her conscience was swirling with trouble. She could feel that now, and she wouldn’t be able to rest until she’d made it right.
She just didn’t know how she was going to do that.
The unfortunate way Rifter had reacted hadn’t changed her answer to his advance, but she couldn’t stand that this was between them. She didn’t know what would happen when she saw him again, but she had to try. She’d done the only thing she could do: she’d asked where he’d gone and started off through the woods after him.
Maybe he doesn’t even remember it anymore. She supposed that would have been the best thing that could possibly happen. If he could just forget it, both of their lives would have been a little easier.
But what about all that forgetting? Her mind was still boggled by what the boys had told her just a few moments ago. Rifter had killed the Scourge before, and yet he had come back. How could a man be killed and then raised from the dead? And so many times at that? It only meant that the Scourge must not have been fully human, but why hadn’t she suspected that before? The boys had told her that story – about how his coat was made of shadow and the land died beneath his feet. That was true. She had seen it. How could a man be killed if he wasn’t really a man?
Maybe it wasn’t her place to solve that problem. Right now, she just needed to find Rifter. She was preparing to call out when she saw him through the trees, in a clearing by the water. His coat of leaves had nearly hidden him from her.
Rifter sat on the ground, his eyes closed as if resting, but she thought he was probably deep in thought, maybe about her. That made her feel terrible all over again.