A Dawn of Onyx (The Sacred Stones, #1)(8)

“Arwen,” he stopped and turned to face me. “I know you’re scared.” I attempted a weak protest, but he continued. “I am, too. But I saw an opportunity, and I took it. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life fighting for the Kingdom of Amber any more than you want to spend the rest of your life living in it. This could change our lives. And for Mam, a chance at a cure. Or for Leigh, a chance for a better childhood. It’s the right thing to do,” he took my hand in his and squeezed. “I’m here to take care of us now. You don’t have to worry.”

I nodded, despite realizing how little my own brother knew about me. I would happily spend the rest of my life here. Maybe happily was the wrong word, but at least I’d be alive.

We continued walking, the sunset light fading behind mountains and leaving us awash in dusty blues. Shadows stretched across the dirt road, and I flinched and spun at every sound, every skitter behind me, despite nobody ever being there.

I was peering deep into some bushes, looking for the source of what I swore were footsteps when Leigh went rigid and turned to us with alarm.

“What is it?” I breathed, shielding her with my body.

“No, the pouch,” she whispered, hands fishing through her little canvas sack in horror.

“What?” I asked, though my heart had stopped beating altogether.

She looked to our mother. “The vials in it are empty.” Tears spilled onto her cheeks as she started back for our home. “Her medicine—we have to go back.”

A vicious chill ran over me.

I hadn’t poured the medicine into the vials in the pouch. I had let it steep, cooked dinner, Ryder came home—

In the commotion I had told Leigh to grab the pouch, but I never filled it.

Suddenly my heart was beating so fast I could hear it. “It’s my fault,” I breathed. “I need to run back for them. I’ll be fast.”

“No.” My mother’s voice was harsher than I’d ever heard it. “Don’t be ridiculous. We are risking enough as it is. Who knows how long they were following your brother? I’ll be fine.”

“No, Mam, you need it. Arwen is fast.” Ryder turned to me. “Run quickly, or you could miss the boat.” But I knew what he was implying—that I could run into the soldiers that were on his tail. Leigh was crying in earnest now but trying gamely to cover up her sobs.

“I’ll be right back, and I’ll meet you at the docks. I promise.” I sprinted off without waiting to hear their protests.

I couldn’t believe how stupid I had been.

After all the pressure I had put on myself to provide for my family, to follow in Ryder’s footsteps. To not be so afraid.

I raced up the dirt road, passing houses filled with families saying goodnight and putting out their hearths. The moon was now rising in the sky, the pale evening light replaced by midnight blue.

The sprint back to our house had given me a much-needed moment of reprieve. A sense of calm washed over my anxious mind. My heartbeat became rhythmic. My footfalls, the same. Thud, thud, thud. By the time I got back to our home, I already felt better.

I hid for a moment behind a single apple tree, but there were no soldiers, no horses, no carts anywhere near our house. No noise or lights coming from inside.

Bells and Hooves were calm, both lazily grazing on hay.

I loosed an exhale, and sweat from the run cooled on my face.

Maybe Ryder had been wrong, and they had never followed him in the first place. Or, even more likely, they had given up hunting down one lone thief.

I could see now that everything would be all right.

As long as we were together, we could brave this journey. I could.

I opened our door with a soft creak, and came face to face with eleven Onyx soldiers, bathed in shadow, sitting around my kitchen table.





THREE


“Someone left in quite the hurry.”

A rough voice scraped down my back like a dull knife.

It came from the menacing man lounging in front of me, his muddy boots propped up on the table Ryder had painstakingly carved so many summers ago.

Horror so crushing I could hardly think of anything else overtook me. My mouth was too dry to force a swallow. I didn’t waste a moment assessing the rest of the scene in front of me—I turned on my heel and prepared to run for my life. But a young soldier with a pockmarked face yanked me backward by my hair with ease.

My scalp ached and I yelped in pain.

The door slammed behind me as the soldier dragged me inside and the metallic smell of blood met my nostrils. My eyes swept over my home—in the corner, bleeding out onto our wood floor was a bald soldier, in an ill-fitting Onyx uniform clearly too small for his large frame. He had a gaping wound practically bisecting his torso, and two stoic soldiers beside him were packing it with cloth to no success. The broad soldier moaned in agony and the power in my fingers twitched with the urge to help him despite his creed and colors.

I tried not to think about what kind of convoy nearly loses a man and continues to break into homes, apprehending young girls by the hair like it’s nothing.

Each soldier was clad in black leather armor, some with studded silver embellishments. A few wore dark helmets that resembled hollowed, threatening skulls and shimmered in the still-dwindling candlelight of my kitchen. Others had no helmet at all, which felt all the more frightening as I looked into their bloodied, cold faces.