Chapter 12
Poppy
Running my fingers over the cool handle crafted from wolven bone, a faint smile tugged at my lips as I thought of the man who’d gifted me the dagger on my sixteenth birthday.
Neither Vikter nor I had known exactly when my birthday was. He’d said the same thing as Casteel: Pick a day. I’d chosen April twentieth.
I had no idea where he’d gotten such a blade. I’d never seen another. When he gave it to me, he’d placed his hand over mine and said, “This weapon is as unique as you. Take good care of it, and she will return the favor.”
My smile grew, relieved that I could think of Vikter without drowning in grief. The sorrow was still there. It always would be. But it had gotten easier.
“I hope you’re proud of me,” I whispered. Proud of my choice to lead the Atlantian armies, to take the same risks as the soldiers and weather whatever marks this war left behind. After all, he had taught me the importance of that.
Like when I’d accidentally discovered what those white handkerchiefs tacked to the doors of homes in Masadonia meant, and how Vikter had helped those families inside, those who couldn’t carry through on what needed to be done. He gave those cursed—those infected by a Craven’s bite—a quick, honorable death before they became a monster that would attack their family and anyone else who came near them. A peaceful death instead of the public execution the Ascended liked to carry out for the cursed.
I’d asked him once how he could be surrounded by so much death and remain untouched by it. For the longest time, I didn’t understand his answer.
“I’m not untouched by it. Death is death. Killing is killing, Poppy, no matter how justified it is. Every death leaves a mark behind, but I do not expect anyone to take a risk that I would not take. Nor would I ask another to bear a burden I refused to shoulder or feel a mark I haven’t felt myself.”
I eventually understood what he meant when I saw the true extent of how many—young and old—were really infected. There were a couple of dozen executions a year, but in reality, hundreds were infected. Hundreds of mortals cursed while doing what the Ascended would not do for themselves, even though they were stronger, faster, and far more resistant to injury than a mortal.
I thought I understood. But now? I sheathed the wolven dagger to my thigh. Now, I realized that Vikter’s words had meant far more than just aiding the cursed. He wasn’t a Descenter, but looking back, I suspected that he had been talking about the Ascended. The Blood Crown, who asked so much of those they were supposed to serve while doing so very little for them.
Whether I was a Maiden or Queen, a mortal or a god, I would never allow myself to become someone who would not take the very same risks I asked of others. Nor would I refuse to carry those marks Vikter had spoken of while expecting others to bear that kind of weight.
Tightening the thin strap that lay diagonally across my chest, I picked up a short sword made of iron and bloodstone. Far lighter than the golden Atlantian weapons, I slid the blade into the scabbard secured against my back so the grip was facing downward, near my hip.
Laid across the map, the remaining weapons beckoned in the early morning sunlight streaming in through the window. I planted a booted foot on the chair and reached for a steel blade. My fingers skimmed the straps holding my shin guards in place. I slid the dagger into the shaft of my boot and switched feet, placing a matching one in the other. Then I picked up a slender spike of bloodstone with a hilt no wider than my arm. I slid that into a forearm sheath. It was a favorite of Vonetta’s. She normally carried one on each arm while in her mortal form. I secured the second short sword, strapping it to my back so it crossed the first, and the pommel sat at my left hip. Picking up the final blade, a brutal, curved one, I glanced down at myself, wondering exactly where I would place it.
“Do you think you have enough weapons?”
I looked up to see Valyn standing in the doorway. I hadn’t seen him since he’d left yesterday.
Throat warming, I glanced down at myself. “I don’t think you can ever have enough weapons.”
“Normally, I would agree with that statement,” he said, his hand resting on the hilt of one of the three swords I could see on him. I was sure the gold and steel armor hid more. “But you will be the deadliest weapon on that battlefield.”
My stomach tumbled a little as I lowered the sickle-shaped blade. “I hope I won’t have to use that kind of weapon.”
Valyn’s head cocked in a painfully familiar way that twisted my heart as he eyed me. “You really mean that.”