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Now, these two Kalex were offering to help. Their intentions would need to be her target of speculation next. They had managed to rescue her once and bring her all the way back here. Kalex had been known to venture out into the woods, less likely to be hunted by beasts than their human counterparts, but still. What were they doing all the way out there in the first place?
“How?” Clea asked, pressing up against her temple to pause her thoughts. She tried not to sound incredulous in her tone.
Alina thrust an eager finger in Ryson’s direction. “Ryson will take you! He knows the woodlands better than any soldier. He is the one who saved you from it and was just on his way back from transporting someone else safely.”
That confirmed Clea’s suspicion that Ryson had saved her. She examined him and got the sensation that he was doing the same despite his bandages. So, they were smugglers? It would explain how he managed to get her back into the city so easily, likely using some secret underpass.
It was clear that Ryson knew the forests, but she would have to be insane to agree to such a proposal with what little she knew. Then again, was this even a risk in comparison to the first attempt she’d braved? She was desperate and she sensednothing malicious from either of them. Veilin could sense the cien that evil intentions invited. They both appeared to possess none, despite how unsettling Alina seemed.
“Of course, you would have to pay us in return.” Alina interrupted her thoughts again.
“I don’t have money,” Clea replied. No money, no security, and no way back to Loda. She tried to avoid swimming in the desperation that felt like it was pouring steadily into the room.
“Ryson can handle the costs when you arrive in Loda. I’m sure it won’t be a problem then,” Alina said, allowing her eyes to linger on Clea’s tattoo. Clea turned her wrist over in her lap, realizing the mark was exposed. It was another clumsy mistake. Her name, her brand, she might as well tell them her reason for running.
In the ensuing silence, Alina added, “It is a game of trust. You can go with him, or you can go alone.”
Clea nodded but didn’t respond.
Alina brushed off her sackcloth dress. “Ryson will take you to the market for supplies. You can sort your thoughts there.”
The door closed. Ryson was gone.
Alina approached a small wooden table in the corner of the room. She retrieved a second set of clothes and rested them on Clea’s lap before leaving the cottage.
Clea watched the door in the ensuing silence, ignoring the chill that fought to shiver down her spine.
Chapter 3
The Shell
CLEA COMBED HER fingers through her knotted hair and wove it into a braid over her shoulder. As she got dressed, she found several bruises and scratches, but she hadn’t suffered an injury that wasn’t beyond quick repair.
The clothes Alina had provided were almost perfect replicas of the ones she’d embarked with. Clea dragged a crate in front of the door to block it as she removed her clothes. She changed before following the slightest compulsion to pick off stray pieces of lint from the fabric. She was relieved to peel off Ryson’s haphazard bandages and discard them. The bandages were loose and disorganized as if he’d tied a bandage to a stick and wrapped her arm from a distance. All that remained now were thin scabs on her skin.
The skin of a Veilin was deceptive in how it hid their past hurts. Her mother had always warned her that an injured mind could kill too. Clea had trained to foster a strong mind, but she knew memories of the reaper’s claws would linger. Just as they’d sunk into her skin, they hooked her mind like a paralytic, and the last thing she wanted was to leave the safety of the walls again.
A few reapers were easy to kill, but in hoards, they never stopped coming. That was how her mother had died, and last night had felt like a slow and agonizing race toward death. Thereapers breathed loudly with hunger, not because they needed air but because they were desperate for the scent of blood. Their contorted bodies blended with the dead trees like camouflage, and in hoards it felt as if the entire forest were chasing you, chasing you with the hungry, loud breath of want.
Clea made the bed she’d been lying in, and before she realized it, she was arranging the candles and trinkets sitting on the stand beside it. She moved from that to stacking bowls in the kitchenette and had to peel herself away from organizing only to stand motionless in front of the door.
Her fingertips grazed the splintered wood before the pull of hesitation froze her in place. Her hand looked fragile, her fingers as breakable as fine pottery. She clenched her fist against the faint tremors in her muscles, looking back at the room again and resisting the urge to correct the bowls that still sat somewhat haphazardly in the kitchenette. It gave her some sense of calm to give this little pocket of her world order, even if it wasn’t hers. As futile as it seemed, it was the only distraction from the fears chiding in her mind that behind that door, behind those walls, was the type of death that terrified her.
Dying was inevitable and dying in battle was almost a certainty for a Veilin. As a member of the royal family, she’d been expected to become one, but becoming a Veilin meant amplifying the inborn human element that the darkness craved most: life. It took training, discipline and practice, but eventually life, or ansra, could be fostered with such strength that it could be channeled. The only problem was that making yourself a Veilin meantmaking yourself a target. Being a target almost guaranteed an early death, but everything in her core cried out against the nature of a specific kind of death.
She didn’t want to be eaten.
Her blood would ultimately be poison in a beast’s belly, but she found no pride or poetry in that like others did.
She wanted to die whole.
It felt like a silly desire. She’d never confessed it to anyone, but she couldn’t help wanting it. She wanted it more than she wanted anything else.
She picked another piece of lint from her sleeve and scolded herself.
Selfishness, she thought, rebuking her fear. She pushed images of her last escape from her mind, stuffing this restless version of herself away. Failure wasn’t an option, no matter how unbearable her circumstances felt. Her thoughts had done few favors for her lately. She just had to stop thinking and act.
She took a step back from the door. She tugged her sleeves farther down her wrists and checked the collar of her shirt to ensure it still rose high up along her neck. Her hand moved to correct her braid, but she stopped it, forcing it to her side in an act of rigorous restraint.
