“I’d like to vote Chekiss off the island!” Niles announces while we all pack up to keep moving.
Kane glances over to me, raising his eyebrows with a do-I-really-have-to-entertain-this look. I shake my head. Chekiss just rolls his eyes and continues packing. I hear Ruth try and scold him for his obnoxious remark.
“He snores, Ruth.” Adding extra emphasis to her name as if she should know how silly she is for not noticing.
I turn around so Kane can put my winter coat on, applying a scarf and fluffy beanie.
“Your winter gear should be in your packs. It’s going to get a lot colder where we’re headed,” Kane announces to the group.
I notice Niles staring at DaiSzek who seems to be guarding our area, sitting at his post to look out for intruders. Niles takes a few excited steps toward him.
“I wouldn’t,” Kane calls out while shuffling through his bag, his back facing Niles.
Niles doesn’t realize he’s the target of Kane’s warning and keeps shuffling closer to DaiSzek.
“He’s talking to you, Niles,” I warn him with a higher tone of caution.
Niles stops and glares over at Kane. “Will he bite me?”
“Most likely.”
“Well how likely are we talking here?”
Kane turns around and crosses his arms over his chest. “If you directly approach him, he’ll assume you’re a threat and attack.”
“Whoa! You said bite, not attack!” Niles takes slow steps backward.
“I thought bite sounded less scary.” Kane smirks, fully amused and Niles is holding his hands up like he’s about to be shot down.
Niles scoffs. “Well, how scared do you think I would have been if I were expecting a little harmless nip and instead was greeted with my face being torn off?”
“Niles!” Chekiss reproaches. “You’re being a nuisance. Just leave him alone.”
“I’m a nuisance?! Who’s the one that was gargling saliva in their sleep? I was so disturbed I almost cuddled up to man eater over there for some sweet relief!” Niles saunters off to pick up his argument with Chekiss.
“Hey, maybe we should tell Niles what Dessin did to Albatross for being annoying, huh?” I nudge Kane in the side with my arm.
He glances up at me after he finishes fitting everything in my bag. A considering smile rises, then falls. “That’s not funny,” he decides.
I start laughing. “Yes. It really is.”
After a while, we pick up our feet and begin our slow journey north. Kane tells the group that our continuous movement is merely to buy us time. Time to plan. Time to have together. But he leans in close, telling me he’s still looking for one Demechnef defect. A man he didn’t see among the bodies we found.
Kane and I lead in the front, taking on the brunt of the crisp blizzard winds, cutting through trees and running past our cheeks like razor blades. It only happens a few times. But I’m sickened by flashbacks. My entire body aching at the memories. The false time lapse. The beatings from Absinthe. The cramped cage digging into my shoulders and neck. I just want to forget. But it’s still fresh.
I spend the rest of the hike drawing the puppet in my mind.
Ruth requests for a few more stops than Kane and I would have taken if we were on our own. Her legs are shorter and unconditioned, but the altitude and frigid winds weigh heavily on us all. I run back to her many times to remove my gloves and place my warm palms on her rosy cheeks. Chekiss has never looked so pleased. He gazes at the highest branches of the trees overhead, watching them as they overlap and clap together. At cracks of lighting and the drumming of thunder, his mouth gapes open in an astounded smile. And for the first time, Niles says nothing. He looks up from his boots sinking into the snow and catches Chekiss admiring the beauty of the wilderness, and he makes no comment to ruin it for him. He smiles to himself and continues to trek on.
Kane points out a cave up ahead, a small dark hole barely visible through the mass of falling snow. He tells us that the storm is strong enough to keep any unwanted visitors away, at least for a little while. But something catches his attention through the heavy fog of falling snow. His feet stop crunching through the ice, his body an impassive stone.
The group follows his iron stance, straining our eyes to see what he sees, blinking away the flurries and melting ice.
DaiSzek snarls at my side, lowering his posture, hovering one paw in the air like he’s a moment away from breaking out into a sprint.
I open my mouth to ask Kane what’s going on but stop myself as he slides his glance to me. A look of darkness, gore, and violence. Not Kane. A quick, effortless switch. His look tells me to stay behind him no matter the cost. I can only nod. Because this isn’t the look of a man who is about to face another small army of men. This is a look of a man who knows he’s outnumbered.
The sound of feet stepping through cracking ice breaks my attention from Dessin, and through that blinding sheet of a blizzard, dark crunching steps get closer. Hunched. Crawling. And it isn’t the sound of their feet…
It’s the sound of paws.
Oh no. Beasts? They may be crouched low like DaiSzek, but their massive forms cannot be overlooked. A few are the size of an elephant, others are leaner, like a panther or jaguar. And as they inch closer, it becomes perfectly clear that we’re surrounded, at least ten of them closing in on our unprotected sides.
But DaiSzek notices this weakness before Dessin, falling back to cover Ruth at the back of the group. A monstrous roar bellows from DaiSzek’s chest, breaking frozen branches off of trees, vibrating the earth under our feet, stretching through heaven and hell.
But they keep advancing, fearless in their attempt to challenge a RottWeilen.
What do we do? They’re going to have a hard time protecting all of us.
Dessin fastens something across his chest, unsheathing a long dagger that could almost pass as a sword. “Here,” he says under his breath. “Take this.” He unhooks a small knife from his chest belt, the gift of weapons Garanthian gave him.
I take the knife and clutch the hilt in my fist. I don’t know how to use it. But at least I have something in case they overwhelm either one of my protectors.
“Everyone stay in this circle and don’t you dare move.”
Chekiss, Niles, Ruth, and I huddle closer together, holding our breath, reaching for the other’s arms, shoulders, or quivering hands as we watch them crouch low. Then, like a firework of fur and fangs, they attack.
DaiSzek is a dragon from hell, leaping high into the air, assaulting in a downward spiral from the sky, crashing down on top of two blond mountain cats. They don’t even have a moment to react before his teeth carve so deeply into their flesh, he’s ripping out full gushing arteries, flinging them to the snow.
Dessin moves nearly as fast as the animals. One the size of God’s fist charges him like a bull, but before it makes contact, Dessin is spinning, dagger lashing out, sinking into the neck of the gray beast. He’s a silent assassin, moving so quietly, so calculated, it seems choreographed. Each lashing of his legs, his dagger, his flips through the blizzard winds are those of an angel of death—a warrior god.
And for a moment, a brief blink of an eye, I’m certain they are more than capable of defending us from the pack. Two against ten. But Dessin’s specialty is with human combat. And I’m reminded that he is still a man, they might not be able to predict each move of an animal when a sharp set of jaws clamps down on Dessin’s arm.
He grunts, sinking his dagger into the neck of the large mountain cat. After it falls into the puddle of its own blood in the snow, Dessin continues to fight as if he hadn’t been maimed at all. Yet, blood rains from his forearm, sprinkling over the white ground with each movement, each gutting. It doesn’t slow him down until another mountain cat jumps on his back, biting into his shoulder.
I nearly fall to my knees as he roars in agony.
And this awful sound is enough to distract DaiSzek, getting him to look over for one fleeting moment, opening up a new weakness for three snapping animals to bombard him, toppling DaiSzek to the ground with the unexpected force.
No! It’s too much. Dessin is bleeding. DaiSzek is outnumbered and distracted by the scent of his family’s blood spraying through the arctic air.
And one tall gray bear gets past Dessin’s line, approaching us in a dead run, a loud, earth-quaking gallop that tells me we are no longer safe in the circle. I hold out my knife, hoping the bear will run right into it, stab himself trying to maul us.
My name is screamed from Dessin’s vocal cords as he’s held down, bombarded in the snow and puddles of his blood.
I am our only hope.
The bear opens its mouth, taking one last deadly lunge to devour us. I scream and close my eyes, holding up the pointy end of the knife.
There’s a wet, snapping sound followed by a feral gurgling, then a thud, like dropping a sack of potatoes. I open my eyes, feel the hands of my friends gripping my waist, my back, my arms as they stay tucked behind me.
I killed it! I—
But my knife isn’t bloody. It hasn’t been used. The body of the bear has collapsed at my feet, and his head lies next to it.
I look up, expecting to see Dessin or DaiSzek standing in front of us, the cause of the decapitation. But no, they’re still overwhelmed, bodies slammed into the earth. And more animals have arrived, twenty, if not thirty.
Instead, I see a stranger wearing a black mask that covers his entire face, dark hair that hangs nearly to his shoulders, sleek feathers of a raven that coats his body, and a whip that might be made of chains or tiny blades. A weapon that decapitates with one swing.
I stare at him in horror and gratitude, sucking in fast breaths.
But the man doesn’t stay put, he winds up his arm, throwing the metal whip out toward Dessin, snaking the tail end around the necks of three mountain cats, swiping their heads clean off their shoulders with a slurping crack.
The whipping man doesn’t wait for Dessin to get up, he rushes to DaiSzek’s side, whirling through the air to reach a large group of the beasts that keep piling up, cutting through their necks like butter. A gory show of flying heads and spraying veins. It’s a clotted mist, a crimson thunderstorm over their falling bodies. And the man keeps going, waving that whip around like his arm will never get tired, like his body was made for the combat of beasts.
The killing slows to a painful stop as DaiSzek shakes the last bear like a rag doll, rattling the loose bones in its body.
My friends and I shiver, holding each other as we blink in shock, waiting for Dessin to confront the strange man. The soldier that turned the tide of this battle. He could be from the Stormsages. Maybe someone of this territory that was looking out for us.
The silence is smothered by the sharp winds, the gurgling necks, and our frantic breaths. Dessin and the masked man watch each other from over the carnage, waiting for the other to say something.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Dessin says with clenched teeth. “I thought you were dead.”
With that notion, the man removes the charcoal mask, tossing it into the snow. Deep-blue eyes. Sleeping, dreaming blue eyes. Stubble along his chin and jaw, and olive skin. And that look I’ve seen a thousand times. The eyes of a murderer. The excitement of war, violence, and chaos.
He grins at Dessin. “You think that little of me? I just saved your ass.”
“We had it handled.” Despite the hard expression, Dessin’s mouth curls into a faint smile. They shake hands first, then pull into a manly, back-slapping hug.
“You smell like a horse’s ass.” Dessin cringes as he pulls away from their embrace.
The masked man barks out a laugh. “Couldn’t handle a few little kitties, huh? I guess that asylum softened you up.”
Dessin snorts. “I guess so.” His dark eyes flick to me, then back to the masked man. “This is Skylenna”—he points to me—“Chekiss, Niles, and Ruth.”
The man turns to us, studying our colorless expressions, our mouths still gaping open to pant from terror. He nods his head at me. “Skylenna,” he purrs with a look of secret amusement. “You are as beautiful as he’s always described you to be.”
I look to Dessin for confirmation, but he only stares back at me blankly. Unashamed.
“This is Warrose. We’ve trained together since we were boys.” Dessin nods his head back to the blue-eyed man that is currently watching me without blinking.
“You were taken too?” I ask, holding in my aggressive need to shiver.
“I was.” He exchanges a look with Dessin. “He broke me out when he was eighteen. I fled to this mountain,”—he motions his hands to the North Saphrine Forest—“where I stayed with the rejects of the Chandelier City.”
“Which is why I thought you were dead.”
“If I had been there a day sooner, you’d have found an entirely different set of corpses.” There’s a wicked flash of violence dancing in his eyes. “But you beat me to them. Were you there to look for me?”
They’re talking about the slaughter of babies, women, and children from that small village. The one where Garanthian found us. I wonder why he never mentioned this man before.
“Obviously,” Dessin says.
“Well, I followed you—” Warrose’s attention shifts to a focal point over my shoulder. Ruth sighs shakily, trembling against my back at the sting of the winter winds. I look back at her, wrapping one arm around her shoulder. Warrose continues to stare. “Let’s get them in the cave. Before the small one loses her toes.”
Dessin nods, signaling for us to step over the piles of bodies to the cave up ahead.
“We’re going to stay here for the next couple of days,” Dessin informs us as we step through the threshold of the darkness made of stone and hard shells of ice.
“What happens after a couple of days?” Ruth asks.
“After a couple of days, we come to a final decision on what we’ll do from here. We’ll have a plan on how we’re going to handle what comes next.” He sets down his bags and clears his throat. “I need to catch Warrose up. Get warm and we’ll go collect what’s salvageable to cook.”
After they leave the cave, the four of us sit on the cold stone floor with our hands outstretched to the wild lickings of the fire. There are long sweeps of silence while we all enjoy the warmth spreading to our toes and fingers. The rush of tingling goodness caressing our insides and melting away layers of ice clinging to our skin.
“I’ve been thinking…” I say to the others. “There’s a way we can get the three of you out of all of this.”
Ruth picks her head up.
“My childhood home and Kane’s are off the grid and unoccupied. They’re completely empty. Maybe we could show you the way, Kane could teach you how to hunt, and you could live there freely. Then you all don’t have to be dragged down with whatever Kane and I have to do. You won’t be hunted anymore or at risk of being thrown back into the asylum.”
My friends sit quietly, staring in different directions. The marmalade-orange light paints new shadows around the peaks of their faces. The cave’s opening whistles and hums with the warrior winds that sprint to battle. Our fire pops and the cozy aroma of burning wood mixes with frozen pine trees.
Chekiss speaks first.
“We’re not going anywhere without you, dear.” His statement is final. Unwilling to negotiate or fold in any which direction.
I feel the movement in the air to my left as Ruth nods.
“We’re a family now. Family sticks together,” Niles adds.
Ruth’s arm stretches around my shoulder and her head leans gently in the crook of my neck. I breathe in her sweet scent of strawberries and rainwater.
“I know we are. But I couldn’t sleep at night if anything happened to any of you,” I say.
“And we couldn’t sleep if anything happened to you.” Chekiss rubs a hand over the side of his head, his light-brown skin changing shades in the shadows. “We’re going to keep each other sane by staying together. One wolf can’t survive alone without its pack. It would die of starvation or be hunted down by a predator. We’re stronger as one.”
Except Dessin. He’s stronger and faster when he only has to worry about himself.
“It’s just… Demechnef has more weaknesses to hold against Dessin now. Before it was just me, now he has four of us to watch over. I can’t imagine how much of a burden that is for him.” I think about the guilt that bound Kane in his own personal hell when he found out what Albatross had done to me. He blamed himself and as much as I’d try to convince him otherwise, I believe that remorse will stay with him for the rest of his life.
Ruth’s small hand slides up my wrist to hold mine. It’s warm and soft, like it has just been freshly lathered in lotion.
“Then how should we settle this? Because if it were up to us, we’d stay with you. But we don’t want to make this any harder on either of you than it is already. Truthfully, we don’t even know why you two are running and what Demechnef wants with you,” Ruth says.
I think about this carefully, like her question is made of glass, wobbling on the surface. I want them to stay and to keep us company during this journey. I want to watch Chekiss’s face as we travel through the shade of the trees. I want to hear Niles complaining about something trivial. I want to hear them argue. I want to keep talking to Ruth about Kane and hear her opinion on what I should do about my feelings for him. I really want them to stay.
“I think it’s only fair that Kane decides. He’s the one we’ll all have to rely on for safety. He should be the one to decide if we stay together or not,” I answer with confidence.
We tense as Warrose steps through the veil of cold dust, carrying a mountain cat over his shoulder with a pinched brow that indicates he’s cold and maybe a little grumpy. I stand, racing to the mouth of the cave in search of Dessin. The shrill wind slaps against my skin like a wet towel. The white blinding flurries and harsh gray lighting of the sky make my eyes water, but I see him approaching, DaiSzek trotting alongside him.
He meets my eyes as he slips out of the storm, tossing the dead animal in front of the fire.
“Hi,” I utter.
“Hi.” He smiles, warm and deep, hitting the pit of my stomach.
Kane.
I look back at Warrose who is watching me from over the flames, skinning his mountain cats as if he could do it with his eyes closed. “Hard to keep up, isn’t it?”
I smile at him. “No, not for me.”
“I met Dessin when I was ten, then Foxem when I was eleven. And Syfer when I turned fourteen.” He nods at the memories attached to each alter. “I thought he was a faker. A theatrical son of a bitch.”
Kane listens while he prepares the dead animals. I sit down between the two men, waiting for Warrose to tell me more, fill in the missing pieces that still make up the mystery of who he is.
“It wasn’t until I met Dai that I fully believed in what he is. The many faces of who he is.” Warrose smiles at me sadly, knitting his brow together as he considers whether he should tell the rest of the story or not. He’s handsome. An inch shorter than Kane, thick lashes, a dimpled chin, and a voice of sand and gravel.
“You met DaiSzek?” I ask.
He glances at the massive beast guarding the entrance, diligently watching for movements. Pellets of snow melting on strands of his fur. “No. I met the animal that he turns into when it is forced out of him.” Warrose stares at Kane, asking silently if he can tell his story.
“I’d rather you didn’t.” Kane doesn’t bother looking up.
“And how mad would you be if I told her anyway?”
“It’s not just her you’re telling.” Kane looks up from the meat, making eye contact with Ruth, Chekiss, and Niles who are all gathered around, listening eagerly. Completely mesmerized by Warrose.
“We can keep a secret,” Ruth offers quietly.
Kane sighs. “Please leave out the graphic details.”
Warrose smirks, raising his eyebrows at me with an I will tell you later look.
“There’s a point in training where Demechnef wants you to be able to destroy an identity after you kill. Meaning, make the person unrecognizable. Meaning, rip them apart so no one will know who they were.”
“That’s graphic detail,” Kane scolds.
“I was given the task of doing that to an elderly man.” Warrose sighs, shaking his head. “And for the first time in my training, I couldn’t do it. I refused. There had to be boundaries at some point. Well, that was it. But because I refused… they brought Dessin in before he was ready, before he hit the right age. He was only twelve.”
I can’t help but watch Kane rotating the meat on a stick, focusing his attention on feeding us. My heart throbs, clenches, and sinks into my stomach.
“I watched it happen. The split. The animal he became. It—” He blows out a breath. “It wasn’t human. I felt like an ass for thinking the worst of him for years.”
This man knows Dessin, Kane, and the others so well. They’re practically brothers. And here I am, lucky to know anything at all.
“What were they training you for?” I ask, feeling that edge of irritation grip me by the lungs, burning a hole in my stomach. The story reminds me of the bit Albatross mentioned. The fucking dolls. How Dessin would take part in their assault. “Why the two of you? And what do I have to do with any of it? Has he told you how he knows so much about me?”
My timing is terrible. Pathetic. Inappropriate. But this desperation to learn everything he knows is eating away at my insides. It’s searing my patience.
Warrose parts his lips and scratches the side of his jaw. “War with Vexamen. Some children were experimented on to make the best quality of soldier.” He blinks a few times because that’s all he can really say.
“Okay. So I get tortured for what feels like several months, nearly brainwashed, starved, beaten, isolated and no one can tell me what my part is to play in all of this? Doesn’t that seem a little unfair?”
Those dreamy blue eyes fall to his blood-stained hands.
“No? Okay, another question. Who wants to explain to me the fucking dolls that Demechnef used to offer the soldiers?” The aggressive intent comes pouring out of me like a volcanic eruption. I don’t know what brought this anger on.
“How did you—”
“How could a stupid girl like me know about the fun activities you boys took part in?”
“Skylenna,” Kane warns, voice alarming yet low with caution.
“Tell me! Was it a manly thing to do? Rape a woman when she’s unable to fight back?” It’s acidic fire shooting from my chest. I can’t stop it. I can’t slow it down.
Draw the strings. The legs. The arms. The eyes.
The sketch in my mind fades. It doesn’t calm me down.
“You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about!” Warrose is on his feet, towering over me like a great oak tree.
“Is it true? Am I at the very least entitled to know if I’m sleeping in a cave next to men that assault catatonic women?”
“Jesus! We never took part in that!”
“No? So Dessin wasn’t the worst offender in Demechnef? Because that’s what I heard.”
“He was. Want to know why? Because any chance he got, he’d sneak into their rooms and slit their throats so they didn’t have to endure that abuse any longer! And for every woman he freed, he suffered weeks of blinding torment in the arena!” Warrose is clenching his fists, glaring at me with resentment for making him explain that out loud.
“That’s enough,” Kane barks.
The cave is speechless. No one has an answer for me. No one can give me peace for what I just went through. My jaw still feels like it’s been wired shut. My head is throbbing, my cheeks splintering with pain, and I’m so weak I could pass out and sleep for ninety years.
I push myself off the ground, brushing past Kane to put some distance between me and the others. But DaiSzek is a safe location, I plop myself down alongside him, hearing the echoes of Ruth whispering to Niles, the contrast of a whistling wind in front of us and the hissing fire from behind us.
DaiSzek smells woodsy, of wet bark from a tree and frozen rain. He glances down at me with his ember eyes, following my hand as it combs through the fur on his back. His deep, rumbling breaths level me back down to earth, extinguishing that burn in my stomach.
I don’t know what came over me.
“Will he attack me if I sit next to you?” Niles approaches from behind us.
I watch DaiSzek’s eyes flicker back and forth between the threat beyond the snow and the threat trying to sit down.
“Not sure. Maybe just sit an arm’s length away,” I advise. Niles obeys, lowering himself to the ground slowly, like a bomb will go off if there are any sudden movements.
Success. Until they make eye contact. Niles gawks into DaiSzek’s eyes eagerly. A long guttural growl slides between sharp teeth and a curled upper lip.
“And maybe never make eye contact again,” I say.
As soon as Niles darts his eyes away, DaiSzek’s growl decreases in volume and aggression until it fizzles out to an agitated sigh.
“Eventually I’m going to get on his good side.” Niles pouts.
Maybe one day.
“I wanted to ask you…” he prompts.
“I don’t want to talk about me and Kane.”
“But—”
“Ruth beat you to it.”
He straightens up, twists his head to look back at her. “She did?”
I nod.
“Not sure I like that.”
I shake my head and sigh. “I know why you want to talk about that though.”
He cocks his head.
“You’re afraid to ask me about the trauma I experienced when I was taken. But you also want to know if I’m okay,” I say. The smell of cooking meat fills the cave. “I’m okay. You don’t have to ask and I don’t want to talk about it.”
His hand clenches my shoulder. Squeezing, hard. I look up at him to find tears welling up in his sharp sea-foam-green eyes. I lean in, as if he’ll tell me his pain in whispers.
“You didn’t sound okay back there. Far from it.” His words are unsteady from the dam of a cry that could break any second. “When Dessin realized what happened, that you sacrificed your own safety for ours, he went ballistic. He began talking to himself. He went into an awful rage, bouncing back and forth between two personalities. It was devastating for us to watch. We, of course, felt our own fear, loss, and regret over you being taken. But his pain was so far on another level. I’ll never be able to fully explain it to you.”
I’m tingling with goose bumps from head to toe. I can understand his reaction as if it were my own. Because that’s how I would feel if Kane were taken from me. But still, I’m in amazement. That much feeling must be linked to something.
“It really scared me seeing a man that powerful, that strong, that fearless… be that afraid. I thought we were going to lose you again. And the first person that’s ever fought for me, and listened to my problems, and shown me that I’m not crazy, just lost and misunderstood… that person would be gone forever.” Niles leans over and uses the sleeves of his coat to wipe his eyes.
I prop myself up on one knee and pull his wide shoulders in for a hug. He sniffles against my chest and I rest my cheek on top of his head layered with golden curls. I can’t believe I started my life living with toxic, violent acts of love. I lived with a man who locked me in a basement for days on end. I lived with a resentful twin who would beat me up when she had a meltdown. To this. This group of friends who cares deeply for me. Even through the stress of running from an enemy, being left in the dark, I can be grateful for this. For Niles.
“I love you, Niles. You’re my chosen brother in this life.”
