The threads were alight with activity outside. Pulling him along with me, I staggered to the tent flap and thrust it open.
Weaver help me.
Atrius’s army had been destroyed.
To one side, dozens of bodies lay lined up, wrapped up in white fabric. An entire swath of tents to the east had been destroyed. Everywhere around us, warriors hurried to help their injured comrades.
A ragged breath left my lips.
“This isn’t just from the island.”
Too many injured here. Far more than Atrius had brought to Veratas.
“No.” His voice was low. Thick with anger.
Slowly, I pieced the truth together.
The Pythora King had somehow learned of the island. Attacked it. Used it as bait.
And then, when the most capable of Atrius’s forces were gone, he had struck—the island, and the camp.
At least here, Atrius’s men appeared to have been able to hold their position—if only barely. But the Pythora King’s goal probably had not been to destroy them. What was the fun in that? No, his goal was to break them, because that’s how he had won his country, too. By breaking the people within it.
I yanked my arm away from Atrius and started forward. He reached to stop me, but I snapped, “Would you want to sit in there and do nothing?”
His mouth closed. Understanding flickered across his face—as if recognizing something familiar in me.
He let his hand fall to his side.
“Know your limits,” he said. “Be careful.”
I nodded, and he straightened his back, and the two of us threw ourselves into the fight against the inevitable.
34
The hours wore on fast. I could move, albeit slowly and a bit painfully. My headache was far worse than my wounds. I followed the direction of the healer, attending to those she couldn’t get to quickly enough. My healing magic was weak, especially for vampires, but I could ease pain until she arrived.
I did not stop working. When the sun rose, we moved to tents and continued our work. When the sun set again, we moved outside once more.
With every body I leaned over, every soldier who, in the throes of delirium, asked about their wife or husband or child, with every suffering person who knew their death was near, with every one who slipped away despite our best efforts, the steady beat of rage beneath my skin grew louder.
Eventually, after countless hours—Weaver, countless days—I turned to the healer and asked, “Who’s next?”
She wiped the blood from her hands. “No one.”
At first, I didn’t understand what she meant.
“No one is left,” she said. “We’ve done all that we can do. Now we wait.” She went to the tent flap and opened it. “Sleep. That’s what I’m going to do.”
I did go back to my tent, because where else would I go? But immediately, I knew I couldn’t stay there, no matter how exhausted I was. The idea of sitting alone with the pained echoes in the threads was sickening.
So I stripped off my blood-and-sweat-drenched clothes, and threw on a fresh dress. I didn’t even consider my bedroll before I went outside.
It was very late—nearly dawn. The air was damp with humidity, though cold. The mists seeped into the sky, tinged rosy with the faintest hint of distant, oncoming dawn. It was unnaturally, eerily still. Like nature itself was holding its breath. The smoke from the last of the funereal pyres had risen into the sky, melding with the mists, the scent fading into the salty smell of the ocean. By tomorrow, both would be gone. The only traces of those who had died would be the ashes, which Atrius’s men would cast into the sea.
But the people who remained behind would be marked by that grief forever.
I didn’t realize fully how much the way I looked at the vampires had changed until this moment—until I realized how they bore the scars of loss just as strongly as humans did.
I stood at the entrance to my tent for a long time. Then I began walking.
I wasn’t sure how I knew Atrius was not in his tent, even long before I was close enough to feel his presence. Nor why I wasn’t surprised when I reached the beach to find him standing by the shore, staring out to the horizon.
For a moment, a sharp stab of mournful regret rang out in my chest—regret that I no longer had eyes to see what it must have looked like in sight alone, with all its intangible imperfections. I could imagine it, though—his silhouette dark against the silver waves, his hair like a waterfall of moonlight. Maybe, if I could see him that way, I would have felt the overpowering urge to draw him, the way I had once felt the urge to draw the sea.