No, I said. No. I can’t. I don’t— Someone was speaking at the same time as me, our voices layering over each other. The little girl was small and dirty, with messy dark waves.
Someone grabbed her wrist and pulled her forward.
Familiarity clenched in my chest, a sudden reprieve from the fear that choked me.
I knew that figure. The two of them walked ahead of me. The boy was only a handful of years older than the girl, perhaps thirteen to her nine. He was skinny and lanky with a head of messy copper-chestnut hair.
Don’t look at them, he told the girl.
Alright, I thought, and didn’t.
I just walked. I was still very afraid. But I felt a little less so now, following him.
Distantly, someone was calling me, but I couldn’t make out the words.
Just look straight ahead, the boy said to the little girl. Alright? Just look straight ahead and don’t look anywhere else unless I tell you.
Alright, I thought. I can do that.
I kept walking. I kept looking straight ahead.
Suddenly, the girl stopped short. She turned around and stared right at me. Her eyes were bright blue. Striking, actually, surrounded by her dark hair and all the blood and dirt on her face.
The boy stopped too, glancing at the girl, confused.
Then he turned around.
I let out a horrible choking sound—a scream that didn’t have enough air.
Suddenly the boy was not a boy. Suddenly he was an adult, still lanky, still skinny, still with the same blue eyes and messy hair.
His throat was open, his abdomen torn apart, revealing glimpses of pulsing gore.
His eyes widened.
Vivi, he choked. His voice was warped, drowning with blood. He reached out. Stumbled toward me.
I couldn’t move. Fear paralyzed me. I couldn’t look away. Couldn’t look anywhere but straight ahead, just like he had told me.
Vivi! he begged again, coming closer.
I tried to move, but threads tangled around my ankles—so many threads, past and present and future, intertwined and tightening and— He grabbed me—
22
I couldn’t breathe. My lungs frantically tried to pull in air and failed. I was drowning in blood. I was dying. I was— “Sylina.”
The voice was a blade, cutting through my panic.
Someone was holding onto my shoulders, gripping me tight. I wasn’t falling.
I wasn’t falling.
I couldn’t see. The threads were chaotic, my grip on them slippery. Pulling the world into focus seemed impossible.
“Drink,” the voice commanded, shoving a canteen into my bloody hands. “Now.”
Atrius.
The name was the first tangible thing that came to me.
I did as he told me, taking a gulp of water. I immediately choked on it, then had to thrust the canteen back to him as I flung myself to my hands and knees and retched into the sand as he held my hair back.
When I was done, he pulled me upright again.
“More,” he said, pushing the canteen back into my grasp.
I did. This time I didn’t choke. I took one gulp, then another, and then I was throwing my head back and drinking the whole thing while water ran down my chin.
By the time I finished, the world had fallen back into place, though my heart still felt like it was about to fracture my ribs.
Atrius still held onto my shoulders, watching me with a thorough, assessing gaze. I nearly jumped when his hands fell to mine, gently closing around them—noting the wounds.
“You’re shaking,” he said.
I didn’t want him to feel that. I extracted my hands from his grip and folded them in my lap.
“I’m fine.”
He stared at me. I wondered if he was waiting for me to scold him for pulling me out of a Threadwalk—again. I should have. It was dangerous.
But I couldn’t bring myself to. Not when I was secretly grateful he had done it.
“What did you see?” he asked. His voice was low and heavy, like he knew the significance of what he was asking.
The truth still pulsed through my veins, too powerful to acknowledge. I couldn’t give him all of that. Too vulnerable. Too close to parts of myself that were supposed to be gone.
“It’s going to be bloody.” I stood and immediately regretted it. I just wanted to put more space between Atrius and I, so he would stop looking at me that way.
I leaned against a broken tree trunk more heavily than I hoped was visible.
“There will be steep losses if you attack Vasai,” I went on. “Lots of blood will be spilled.”
“Whose blood?” he asked. “My soldiers’ blood?”
This question, reasonable as it was, speared me with a sudden bolt of rage.