Inkmistress (Of Fire and Stars 0.5)(16)
“Are you all right?” I stepped closer, hesitantly, clutching the strap of my satchel to keep my hands from trembling.
“I don’t know.” She spat another mouthful of blood and bile, then rolled her shoulders as if trying to become comfortable in her body again. “When I was the dragon, I felt invincible.”
“But you’re not,” I said. The cut on her cheek still wept tears of blood. She must have torn it back open during the attack.
She shrugged. “What difference does it make? At least this form has given me what I need to see my family and my village avenged. It’s all I have left to live for.”
She’d already done that. What came next? Didn’t I matter to her, too?
“I’m still here,” I said, softly, already knowing it wouldn’t be enough. I blinked away tears and ran my fingers over the ribbon on the bracelet she’d given me. “Doesn’t that mean anything?”
“Of course.” She looked away. “But everything is different now. I was supposed to take care of my village. I was going to build our town into a community so big the king couldn’t ignore us. Now I’ll never be Amalska’s elder. I’ll never be able to live in these mountains again, because all I see is empty space where my people were.” Her voice held steady, but her eyes glistened.
I swallowed hard. “We could start over. Find a new place. Maybe the north? You always wanted to see Corovja. . . .” I needed to calm her and know her plans before I told her the truth.
An unsettling smile crept across her lips, and I swore I could see the dragon in her eyes again. “Yes. I do think I will go to Corovja. I thought killing these people who destroyed our village would satisfy me, but the only reason they succeeded was because the boar king refused to send us support or help.” Her voice grew more savage. “A king who doesn’t take responsibility for the people of his kingdom is no king of mine. He is the one at the root of this, and he will pay.”
I stared at her, aghast. The boar king’s guards would surely kill her before she got anywhere near him. I racked my mind for an argument that might dissuade her.
“There’s still time to think about this, to seek justice some other way. Even if you challenged him for the crown according to tradition, you’d need a god to stand behind you. A geas like he has with the spirit god.”
“Who said anything about challenging him traditionally? I don’t have to wait for the first snow of next autumn. I could fly there right now and kill him before he wakes.” The savage glee in her expression made me shudder involuntarily. She said it like it would be the easiest thing in the world, like it wouldn’t take her days, if not weeks, to fly that far with her manifest so new.
As if an act of treason meant nothing.
As if taking life no longer carried any guilt.
As if the spirit god, ruler of emotions and the intangible, would let her touch the king even if she made it past his guards.
“He’d destroy you before you got within striking distance. Don’t you remember how his last challenger died? The spirit god turned her mind against her body until she bled to death devouring the flesh from her own bones!” My voice rose to a fever pitch of desperation. My panic felt like a creature that was no longer under my control, writhing and twisting inside me, desperate to escape, impossible to soothe.
Ina hissed in frustration, more dragon than girl. She knew I was right. “Then I’ll find another way to ensure he dies.” Before I could argue any further, she was already struggling to take dragon form again, anger giving her another wave of strength to draw on.
“But I love you.” I choked out the words. It was the only true thing I had left to cling to. The wind whipped over the lifeless road and a sob tore loose from my throat as my words were lost amidst the flapping of her wings as she took to the sky.
CHAPTER 8
AFTER MY PRAYERS FOR THE DEAD WERE ALL SPOKEN, I forced myself to put one foot in front of the other, waiting to wake up from the nightmare. Eventually the smoke of the burning trees dissipated into a whisper on the breeze and dawn curled her pale fingertips over the horizon. I continued on for days, gathering what food I could from the forest, but taking very little in the way of rest. Every time I stopped somewhere for more than a few hours of restless sleep, I began to feel as though the ghosts I’d left behind were dragging their icy nails down my back.
All I could think of were the lives lost—babies I’d helped bring into the world now dead before their time, entire families charred to ashes, familiar faces reduced to cinders. In no way could I have ever failed my duties—or Miriel—more than I had by contributing to the destruction of the entire village. Stopping Ina was the only purpose I had left. She was all I had left of home, and I couldn’t let her die trying to kill a monarch who wasn’t to blame. Confessing the truth was all I could do.
Worst of all—even though I’d seen her kill without mercy, I still ached to feel her lips on mine again.
Traffic increased once the mountain road joined the main thoroughfare north just beyond the foothills, but I didn’t dare try to beg a ride. The thought of interacting with strange people filled me with anxiety. I didn’t know how to talk to them, or how long it might take them to figure out I didn’t have a manifest. Would they shun me as they did other mortals without manifests, or might they suspect I was something more? I couldn’t risk it. I envied riders their horses and humans their manifests, and without hesitation would have traded the power of my blood to take the shape of a deer or a common sparrow, anything that would have given me an option other than slogging along the road on foot. I kept the hood of my cloak up, fearful of what people might see when they looked at me. Did they see a witch? A demigod? Or only a girl, weak, hungry, and lost?