Page 37 of Artemysia
Fuck. I don’t even know how to apologize for something like that.
When I ride up behind her, Throg cuts me off, inching closer to the flank of her elk.
“Get lost. Nothing you say can make that okay,” he growls.
Ivy watches us from the side, unusually quiet, but doesn’t react. She doesn’t scare easily, but I’m certain she had no idea what I was capable of—that I could turn on my own. It’s clearthat it bothers her. Ivy’s mind is replaying all those times we were alone on assignment, thinking it could have been her in my grasp. I know she’s mulling over it now, even though she’ll never show or admit that it frightens her.
“Delphine.” Shame ignites my skin when I see her bruised neck.
“Riev, don’t focus on it. You didn’t do it on purpose. I’m fine.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I know you are. I’m ordering you to drop it.”
“But—”
“Drop it.”
Self-loathing burns a painful hole in my chest, making it difficult to breathe. Normally, a bit of violence might relieve the pain, but in this case, nothing—nothing—will ever make me forgive myself. I fall back and ride in silence and shame. Shame for the vicious creature that lurks deep within me, that takes over when I need it to, if only to survive.
The inhuman beast thatisme.
“Love is deadly.” - Delphine
The only way to kill a Syf is to decapitate it.
Since Riev has gone as silent as a graveyard and Throg and Ivy haven’t stopped talking to each other since my no-talking ban was lifted after midday, I’ve been left to my own musings. We approach the sheep and wheat producing village of Limingfrost just as the sun is about to set.
Right on time.
Decapitation. Otherwise, Syf heal from wounds that we cannot. I’ll never forget this, because the first one I ran all the way through with my sword got back up on her feet, pulled out the blade from her belly, and tried to slice off my leg with it.
I dodged in time, but there’s a long, raised scar on my calf. Throg had to sew it up for me right there on the field. His patch job stopped the bleeding, and the wound didn’t get infected, but let’s say his suturing skills aren’t as detailed as the work heputs into his own hair and nails. On longer rides like today, the scar aches when it rubs against my stirrup leathers, even through my high boot.
It reminds me that I canneverlet my guard down.
Not even when the last few hours were a dull, long ride through farmlands until a wooden sign announces Limingfrost, the last Academy outpost village closest to the woods. Our stop for the night.
At this time of year, after harvest, smoke should be curling out of the chimneys, but the silhouettes of the village roofs are stock-still in the peachy-pink skyline of a late autumn sunset. No smoke, no sounds or signs of human life.
Right away, my instincts tell me something is terribly wrong.
I turn over my shoulder to the others. “Split up. Ivy, you’re with me. Throg and Riev, circle east and come around the river’s edge of town.”
Riev bends his elk right, turning her at the shoulders. “It’s too quiet. No one’s come down the road for a while.”
His first words in the last three hours.
I nod once. “Exactly.”
South, back toward Stargazer, is where Limingfrost villagers would head for travel and trade. It’s also their direction of evacuation and escape if attacked. North is all farmland, half a day away from Artemysia, and to the west the settlements are scattered and tiny.
My blood runs cold.
The only escape is south, and we saw no sign of evacuation.
Ivy splits off from Throg and steers her bull elk alongside me. Throg and Riev peel away from us toward the river on the horizon to the right. There’s no need for words. We all recognize the likelihood of disaster in a settlement within reach of the Syf forest. The agricultural villages are constantly at risk. But the most fertile farmlands are out here, and it’s not possible for our entire civilization to crowd into the gates of Stargazer.
