Page 19 of Children of Fallen Gods

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I rejoinedMax far behind the house. He had taken a sharp turn away from the main paths, veering to a secluded expanse of overgrown grass at the edge of the grounds. It was getting dark, and mist clung to the air, rendering the sky grey and flattening the distant mountains to silhouettes. Deep green forest spread out before us, and the house loomed behind.

Max stopped walking abruptly, head bowed, hands stuffed in his pockets, facing the tree line. We stood there together in silence.

“They will not send him out there,” I said at last, quietly. “Will they?”

“I don’t know. They took him. If they’re desperate…” He cleared his throat. “Last time, some of those soldiers were only fourteen, thirteen, near the end. Children.”

I did not miss the way his head twitched towards the house, as if he was going to look over his shoulder and thought better of it. The soldiers were not the only children claimed by the war.

A blink, and his memories — Reshaye’s memories — flooded me. Blood and fire andanger, and the lives of all those Farlione children discarded in one terrible night like crushed flower petals.

I reached for his hand, and his fingers twined around mine with unexpected force, as if he were a sinking boat and I was the only thing tethering him to the shore.

Or perhaps, the opposite.

“And this is what it was all for,” I muttered. “Zeryth’s throne.”

“I should have seen it happening.” He closed his eyes. “But of course I didn’t. I didn’t see any of it until it was too damned late.”

I knew he was talking about more than the crown. More than the war. More than Zeryth. He was talking about me, too. Reshaye stirred at the back of my thoughts. I shuddered.

“It’s not possible,” he said. “One life can’t be bound to another like that. He’s bluffing.”

I was silent.

I wouldn’t put it past Zeryth to manipulate us with a lie. And yet, when I thought of the strangeness of what he had showed us, the odd magic I felt in the air when he revealed it… I suspected it was not so simple. And I suspected Max knew that, too, and didn’t want to admit it.

“There must be a way to get out of your contract,” Max said. “I’ve heard rumors that there are ways to break a Blood Pact. If I talk to the right people, maybe—“

“Break it?”

“Of course. Do you want to be the one to put Zeryth on a throne?”

No. The answer rang out in my head, firmly.No, I don’t.

But out loud I said, “I don’t. But I will.”

Max’s gaze snapped to me. The betrayal in it gutted me. “That mandoesn’t deserve to draw breath.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Doesn’tmatter?”

“You think I do not hate him, too? Of course I do. He’s— he made me—“

I couldn’t even figure out how to finish that statement. What words were there? He had left me in slavery once, and now he dragged me back into it. He took my desperate desire to save the helpless and used it to make me a weapon of death. Now he tried to control my very life, and use it to control others. It made me so angry that I couldn’t breathe.

But then, the image of the refugees on the boat flashed through my mind. They way they looked at me — as if I was their last hope.

“But I made that pact for a reason,” I choked out. “That has not changed. I fight his war, so that I can go fight mine.”

“His war for what? For his ego?”

“When I spilled my blood on that contract, I thought it was going to be for Sesri’s ego. Is there a difference?”

Max gave me a look that said he thought there was a world of difference.

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