The Grace Year(93)

“We’ll even cut you in,” the other one says.

Ryker doesn’t answer. Not with words.

Tightening his grip on the blade, he starts swinging.

There are boots stamping all around me; I hear a scream, the slicing of flesh, the grinding of bone. I’m praying that it’s not Ryker when a body slams to the ground, one hazel eye locked on me, the other with a dagger pierced right through it.

“Stop,” I hear someone call from the distance.

Beyond Ryker fighting the other poacher for control of the knife, there’s a third poacher coming toward us. I have to do something. I can’t just lie here and play dead, no matter what I promised.

Slipping out of the pack, I grab the knife embedded in the hides and get to my feet. I want to help, I’m trying to help, but they’re moving so fast. The last thing I want to do is hurt Ryker even more, but if I don’t do something, we may never make it to the shore. I’m on the verge of throwing myself into the fray when the poacher kicks Ryker’s legs out from under him, holding a knife to his throat. Ryker’s eyes land on the knife in my hand, and I know what he wants me to do—toss it to him, the way we used to pass the time last winter.

With trembling hands, I lob it toward him. I’m thinking I didn’t use enough force when he manages to snatch it right out of the air, swinging his arm back, plunging the steel into his assailant’s ribs, but not before the poacher drags the knife across Ryker’s throat.

There’s a moment of complete and utter silence.

The world stops turning.

The birds stop singing.

And in the next breath, everything seems to speed up, faster than I can even process.

“Run,” Ryker manages to get out, before he crumples to the ground in a sea of his own blood.





I’m standing there, frozen, not knowing what to do, how to breathe, when the third poacher reaches us. He takes one look at Ryker, the two poachers lying on the ground, and lets out a horrifying growl. “It was only supposed to be you.”

It’s enough to snap me out of this … enough to run.

Taking off toward the south, I’m scrambling past the poachers’ abandoned blinds, following the barrier the best I can, but tears are stinging my eyes, clouding my vision. I hear fast footsteps behind me, but I can’t look, I can’t bear to see Ryker’s body. The place of his death. A knife slices through the air right next to my head, nicking my ear. I weave between the trees trying to lose him, but he stays right with me. Diving for me, he manages to grasp my cloak, ripping half of the wool from my body, but I kick him as hard as I can and keep going. I keep striving. For what, I have no idea, but Ryker told me to run and that’s all I can focus on right now.

“Open the gate,” I yell as I get closer.

I hear the girls arguing, but I don’t have time for this. I’ll never be able to scale it like I did before. Not now.

“Please,” I scream as I bang against the wood. Tears are streaming down my face; my entire body is trembling. Pressing my back against the gate, I’m trying not to think of Ryker, the look in his eyes when he told me to run. The blood. The bodies. As I stare down the long path, I get the faintest glimpse of the vast lake in the distance, and I can’t help wondering if this is punishment for believing I could somehow escape this … that I could be happy. After everything that’s happened, surviving the woods, being stabbed with an axe, being hunted by a guard, having my heart broken into a million pieces, I can’t believe this is how it ends. On the final day of my grace year, hunched outside the gate of the encampment, condemned to death by my own kind.

I close my eyes, finally ready to accept my fate. Then I’m pulled inside.





Covered in blood and filth, my torn cloak exposing my body for all to see, I sink to my knees before them.

They stand there in shock, staring down at me.

Gertie is reaching out to comfort me when Kiersten screams, “Don’t touch her … she’s a whore.” She’s dragging a rain barrel to a huge pile of supplies in the middle of the clearing. Everything I built to keep them going this past year. “We need to burn everything … burn her with it,” Kiersten says as she hacks into one of my barrels, splitting it into pieces. “Get the torches,” she yells.

“You can’t be serious,” Gertie says through her split lip. I’m sure it was a fight to even get them to open the gate.

“She can’t go back with us,” Kiersten says, taking out her rage on my cooking stand. “Not after everything that’s happened here. And if we don’t burn everything, the next year’s grace year girls will never suffer, and if they don’t suffer, they won’t be able to get rid of their magic.”

“Haven’t we all suffered enough?” Gertie says, her voice trembling.

“Shut up,” Kiersten says.

“No … she’s right.” Jenna steps forward. “My little sister is in the next year. Allie. She’s never done anything wrong … been good her whole life … followed all the rules. Why should she have to suffer for something that’s not even real?”

“The magic is real,” Kiersten screams. “Jenna … you can fly, Dena … you can talk to animals, Ravenna … you can control the sun and the moon.”