Helena. Finn. The fallow fields.
I turn and bolt in that direction, but when I reach the clearing, there’s nothing save for empty land and a blanket of smoke. I don’t know how long I stand there—staring, waiting—but eventually, I head back to the village, so very numb. My chest aches, hollowed out, a cavern where my heart used to be. I can’t think around the pain of knowing that death by flame is how Finn and Helena likely met their end as well. Gods, I would’ve killed them myself to spare such torture. I would’ve done anything.
But I didn’t do enough, did I?
Exhausted and choking on smoke and tears, I return to Mother’s side. There’s no one left. Just me. This was probably the Prince of the East’s plan when he didn’t kill me, to punish me with the fate of emptiness and utter aloneness. To take everything from me but my breath.
Someone touches my shoulder. I jerk around, God Knife raised, prepared to be cut down like everyone else.
The Witch Collector’s valley-green eyes meet mine. He’s on his knees, holding his bleeding side. He opens his mouth to speak but collapses before any utterance leaves his lips.
After a moment, I crawl nearer and press my blade to his throat, its edge ready to slice through skin and bone—exactly what Finn prepared it for. I’m so angry, so devoured by the pain in my heart. Gods, I want to blame him.
The Witch Collector lifts his chin, staring at me in a way that causes guilt to swirl in my gut. I can’t stop crying, and I loathe that he’s seeing me this way—consumed with grief. I’ve lived in terror of the Witch Collector my whole life, and now I have the chance to kill him. Yet under the glow of this terrible firelight, I see not a man to be feared or destroyed, but just…a man.
Struggling to breathe, his every breath gurgles in his throat. He looks to the black sky, but his gaze finds mine again, and he asks the unthinkable.
“Sing me alive.” He glances toward my mother. “I saw you. Heard you. I know you can. D-don’t…let me die here. We can’t…let them…win. Sing me alive.”
He watches me, a helpless plea hidden inside the fine lines fanning from the corners of his eyes. He’s the last person I should save, but he still carries the breath of life, and I’m surrounded by death, and I just want someone else to be with me when the sun rises.
But this isn’t someone else.
He’s the Witch Collector.
And so, with a heart that feels hard as stone, I stand and turn to go.
10
Alexus
For a heartbeat, I’m certain Raina Bloodgood might help me. It’s a false hope, because a moment later, she rises and turns to leave.
She’s not only a Seer. She’s a Resurrectionist.
And she’s going to let me die.
At least the last thing I will ever lay my eyes upon in this long life is a powerful woman of both beauty and fury. A soul delicate yet wild and so deeply moving—even if she does wish me dead.
In the last few years when I’ve visited Silver Hollow on Collecting Day, I’ve been incapable of preventing my gaze from lingering on her face, though she has never so much as lifted her chin to look me in the eye. I can’t blame her. In another life, I would’ve tried to know her. I would’ve admired her and read her poems written by my own hand. I would’ve walked with her through fields of stardrops, danced with her in the stream.
This is not another life.
She turns back and casts a long look over her shoulder. I watch her, standing in her bloody, soot-stained dress, the wind tearing stardrops from her long hair, white petals drifting through the smoke like snowflakes.
If I could speak, I’d tell her I came here to help her. To help us all. I’d tell her that I’m not evil. That I’m not entirely good, but I never meant to bring her sorrow. I’d tell her I’m terrified of what my death means, and that I’m worried about leaving her alone, because she doesn’t realize how alone she might truly be or what evil is yet to come.
I would tell her to go to Littledenn. To see if all those women and children in the root cellar survived. I’d tell her to get them out of the vale, though where they might go I cannot fathom.
I fear war is coming, the likes of which Northlanders have never seen. The Prince of the East has indeed walked inside the Shadow World. He also has power he should not have, a living amalgam of all the things people claim: shadows, souls, and sin.
In truth, my death will weaken the Eastlanders’ chances of success at conquering the Summerlands, and I tell myself that I’m ready to sacrifice all.
But it’s what I’ll leave behind that Tiressia must fear. I am salvation and damnation. There cannot be one without the other.
Something in Raina’s eyes shifts from dark to light. She returns to me and kneels in the grass, ash falling all around. Conflict swirls in her irises, but as the last breaths of life slip from my body, she lifts her slender hands, and with the most graceful movements I’ve ever seen, begins to sing.
11
Raina
The first time I rouse, I see nothing but a smoke-filled sky, and it hurts to breathe. I’m lying next to a body that folds around mine, warm and comforting, and for a heartbeat, I think it’s my mother. But a little death thrums against my chest, nestled away in a deep corner of my heart. It isn’t hers, and that thought brings overwhelming sadness that sweeps me back to darkness. At least the stolen death feels like it’s exactly where it belongs.
Inside me.
A deep voice meets my ears. “Come, little beauty,” it whispers, and I’m dimly aware of being carried away, the crumbling cinders of my village fading from sight.
The second time I open my eyes, a long, black cloak sweeps over me like a blanket. The world no longer burns, and I think I’m in the vale, the pale light of morning breaking through the clouds. I’m atop a horse, strong arms cradling me while holding fast to the reins. I hear the chink chink clink of a bridle, the soft thud of hooves, and I notice an unmistakable sway rocking me back to sleep.
Before I succumb, I look at the bearded face of the man who holds me, and he meets my stare. My head rests on his shoulder, his mouth so close that the warmth of his breath drifts over my lips.
“It’s all right. Rest.”
My heart pounds, something inside me screaming Get away, while another part of me wants to be closer. I shouldn’t be with him, but I am, and I’m too tired to question where we’re going. My eyes close—I’ve no command over them—and I drift, curling against the Witch Collector’s heat.