The Drowned Woods (26)

Fane took several steps back, stumbling through weeds and over a neighbor’s chicken. A few people gave him odd glances, but Fane ignored them.

Grief blurred his sight; his breaths hurt, lungs aching and throat too full. He’d spent years planning how he would avenge his family—and it had all been for naught. Rain began to fall and Fane knew he should have found shelter, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. He needed to be away from this place, back in the quiet safety of the forest.

He’d barely made it out of the village when the robbers appeared. Half-dazed by rain and shock, he did not see them until he nearly walked into one.

It was a man. With a grizzled face and blade-scarred hands. He held a dagger, and there was a woman at his side. “Now, now,” said the older man, voice soft, as though he were talking to a spooked horse. “Give us your coin. Hand it over and we’ll leave you be.”

Fane looked at the two thieves, barely comprehending. “What?”

“You daft?” asked the woman. She was a few years younger than the man, with silver eyes and shining golden hair. “Hand over your purse or my friend here’ll open up your neck. Don’t think he won’t.”

Fane gazed at them blankly. He felt utterly removed from this encounter, as though he were watching it happen to someone else. “I don’t have coin.”

The man laughed. “Don’t have coin? Hear that often enough. Keep bleatin’, friend, but we’ll—”

It was the woman who struck first: a fist thrown at Fane’s stomach. He brought up his arm, trying to protect himself. The movement drove his knuckles into the woman’s shoulder.

And the magic took hold of him for the first time.

At first, it was exhilarating. He felt lighter and faster, and there was no pain. Not even when a wound opened up above his left eye or when the man slammed his knee into Fane’s gut. Fane caught the man’s arm, twisted it on instinct and felt something snap. He would break the man’s arm, then escape. Just escape and—

But Fane couldn’t stop.

Not even when he tried.

And he did try. Every muscle in his right arm clenched, trying to hold himself back, but the magic was too strong. He drove the man to the dirt and struck, splitting his knuckles.

He kept raining down blow after blow. And when that man was unmoving, he whirled on the woman. Her face was bloodless, terrified, and he wanted to stop. He didn’t want to hurt her. But his body was not his own. Fane choked back a cry, closed his eyes, and tried to separate himself from the nightmare.

He was on his knees when he returned to himself. His knuckles bled, his ears rang, and there were two bodies around him. The thieves were horribly, unmistakably dead.

Staggering upright, he barely managed to take three steps before he retched into the grass. His stomach clenched, the taste of sick hot on his breath.

When he listened to stories of knights and heroes, Fane had never considered what slaying a man might entail. He had only ever thought of shining swords and good intentions.

But Fane was no knight and this was no tale.

There was only iron.

Iron sang all around him. Smeared across his hands, spattered across his face, in his hair—

He retched a second time.

When he was finished, Fane found refuge beneath an old oak tree, trying to take stock of himself. His whole body ached; he felt as though he’d awoken from some terrible night’s sleep. But it wasn’t a dream. Those people were dead. Did they have families? Hungry children waiting for them at home? Or were they merely bad people?

Fane did not know. And he never would.

As he sat there, his panic gave way to a numb despair.

Seven years of service for seven human lives.

He had taken two lives. And he could not imagine wanting to take more.

He looked at his hands. Death lurked in the shadowy spaces between his fingers.

Sitting beneath the oak tree, Fane whispered a promise. He would never use that power for himself.





A wine bottle flew at Fane’s head.

He ducked, falling to one knee and rolling out of the way. The damp cellar floor was hard against his knees. He kept his arms tucked in close, afraid he might accidentally strike someone in his scramble to escape.

A knife flicked into Mer’s fingers. Silver spun through the air, then thunked into the wooden door frame a finger’s width from the man’s nose. He jerked back, snarling in surprise—then stumbled and began falling down the stairs.

Mer spat out a curse and grabbed for Fane’s arm. He half expected her to try and throw him like she’d tossed that knife, but she yanked him back, hands fumbling at his belt. He wasn’t armed; of course, he wasn’t armed. He opened his mouth to tell her as much, but then her fingers found the water flask at his belt and she yanked it free, uncorked it, and tossed the contents across the floor. “Back through the cellar,” she said tightly. “Go, now—I’ll deal with him.”

Before his eyes, the water shimmered and hardened.

The man’s foot hit the bottom step. He tried to right himself, staggering toward Mer, but he fell over sideways. He skidded, sliding like he was on—

Ice, Fane realized. She’d frozen the floor.

The man tried to stand but his feet went out from under him again. Mer retreated, never turning her back to the man, one arm thrown out to push Fane back like he was some unruly sheep that needed herding.