Hands of Fire: Chapter Thirteen
When Tav makes his way to the Rastons’ cottage—rucksack slung over one shoulder and a hunting knife strapped to each hip—he can hear the screaming before he even reaches the front door. Vic’s mother, Bellici, is shouting in Messahnian, the language lilting and rolling and beautiful even at this volume. Thanks to a childhood at Vic’s side, he can pick out a few words here and there, but he doesn’t need a translation to know what this argument is about.
Once again Victahri has left an important discussion until the last possible moment, and once again Tav will be caught in the middle.
“Amana, please.” Vic’s normally low voice—coarse as the sands of her mother’s homeland—pitches up in desperation. “Please listen to me.”
“I will not,” Bellici replies, slipping easily into the Wesrean tongue Tav can understand. “I will not listen to you throw your life away.”
“I’m not throwing anything away!” Vic snaps. “Tav needs an extra hand with these traders. We’ll only be gone a couple of weeks, we’ll be together the entire time, and I’ll be fine.”
Tav pauses, hand poised to knock, head tilted to listen better.
“You’ll be fine, eh?” There’s a sharp clang, like something metal hitting the ground. “Just like your father was fine? Just like my son was fine? You’ll be dead, but that’s fine, is that right?”
“I’m not Mahl,” Vic says. Tav can picture her expression. A V between her furrowed brows, a slight hollow to the right side of her jaw where she bites the inside of her cheek to keep from crying, a frustrated flush creeping up her tanned throat.
Bellici’s response is quieter, and Tav finds himself leaning against the door to hear her clearly. “No, you’re certainly not. Mahlri would never put me through this.”
Taking that as his cue, Tav raps the door with his knuckles three times. Silence descends on the house like a bird of prey, catching what might have been said in its talons before flying away.
The door creaks open, Vic’s wary eyes peering through the crack, and just like every time he sees her his heart does a little flip.
“Hi,” he says softly, pretending not to see the tear that leaks from the corner of her eye, squeezing his hand into a fist to stop himself from brushing it away.
“Can you give me a minute?”
“Of course,” he replies, just as her mother calls, “Let him in, Victahri.”
Despite himself, Tav steps into the dimly lit front room.
Bellici stands in front of their cooking fire, small hands fisted at her sides, eyes brimming with the same stubborn fire he so often sees in Vic’s gaze. His shoulders curl, braced for the lecture, only to reel back in shock when Bellici staggers forward to grip his hand.
“Don’t do this,” she begs.
Tav swallows hard.
“Don’t take her. She belongs at home, with me. She belongs where she’s safe. The forest will take her, just like my husband, like my son.” Eyes shining with unshed tears, she lowers her forehead and presses it to the back of his hand. “Don’t take my daughter from me, Tav Jethan.”
I’m not trying to, he thinks, clenching his jaw to keep the words from tumbling out. I’m trying to get her back.
And to keep her from doing something incredibly stupid.
Gently drawing his hand out of Bellici’s grip, he reaches under his shirt collar, fingers grasping the thin chain hidden beneath the fabric. He yanks it free, his neck already feeling too light without the familiar weight, and draws it over his head. Then he places the chain and the engagement ring dangling from it into her palm.
Somewhere behind him, Vic’s breath hitches, but he pretends not to notice.
“Bellici.” He waits until the older woman meets his gaze. “Consider this collateral. You have my word that I’ll protect your daughter with my life. Like I always have.”
Her wrinkled fingers close over the ring, holding it close to her chest. He knows she doesn’t believe him, knows he made similar promises about her son, the son who died because of him. Knows that she has never looked at him the same way since he carried Mahlri’s broken body through her door and that she probably never will. Knows that even still, he owes the Raston family everything, knows he’s apologized in every way he can think of and never quite earned this woman’s forgiveness.
She turns and shuffles toward the door leading to Vic’s room, disappearing through it without a word.
But she doesn’t give the ring back either, and maybe for today that’s enough.
Straightening, Tav turns to Vic—who still watches him with wide, wary eyes—and offers his hand. “Ready?”
“I didn’t know you kept it.” Her face is a blank mask, the tears from before shoved down somewhere deep inside her.
Tav forces himself to shrug, to force something casual into his words. “It’s not an easy thing to get rid of.” Dropping his hand, he pulls open the door and steps out into the gray dawn light.
They walk in silence down the dirt path and through the center of town until Tav stops to look at the message board to the right of the tavern. It’s a ritual of his, looking at the posters of the missing, memorizing their faces, the list of identifying features. Finding anyone alive in the Unclaimed Lands is rare, but finding the dead isn’t nearly as difficult. And some small part of him thinks that maybe if he can bring these families closure, the gods might consider it penance for his past mistakes.
But there are no new names to search for, just two new wanted posters from Messahna. The southern country is always losing its mages and asking the rest of the world to find them.
Vic lingers for a moment by the oldest poster on the board, stretching out a hand to brush her fingers over the image. Much of the ink is faded, but they looked at it enough times that Tav can recall the face. Long blond hair, heart-shaped face, mischievous eyes. The Nortundrian princess, gone missing on her ninth birthday. He remembers the search parties always coming through the village, the rough way the guards would search through their homes.
“Do you remember what Mahl used to say?” she asks suddenly.
Tav shakes his head, the ghost of a smile on his lips. “That one day he’d find the missing princess, hidden away in the Unclaimed Lands. He’d rescue her from a vicious beast, and she’d thank him with her hand in marriage.”
“He was going to be a prince,” Vic sighs.
“Doubtful,” Tav says with a huff. “Sixteen years is a long time to be missing.”
“Too long,” Vic agrees.
But then again, Mahlri is dead, and maybe his old friend found the princess in the afterlife.
“Is that what you wanted?” Vic asks as they start to walk again, nudging him with her hip. “Marry the lost princess? Be the future king?”
“I’ve only ever wanted to marry one woman,” he says, holding her gaze long enough that the hint of a blush creeps into her cheeks. He wills her to play along, flirt back, but something shutters in her eyes and she speeds up until she’s walking ahead of him.
Tav stares at her back and wishes he knew what she wants from him. Worries that maybe she wants nothing.
Vic’s father used to tell them that travel through the Unclaimed Lands is one part planning and three parts luck.
Tav has always been good at the planning part. Good at mapping every route in his head. Good at packing as many tools for as many scenarios as possible in his pack. Good at training with bows and knives, learning which plants are edible, where the water sources are. Good at having answers for anything the forest can possibly throw at them because he’s already lived out the possibilities in his head.
He has shit luck, though, and that makes all the difference.
Careful planning is what gets them through the first two days of the trip without incident, skirting along the edge of the Green Markers and never venturing deeper. It’s because of careful planning that he has a pouch of dried plumberries, her favorite snack, to share whenever her mood takes a turn for the worse. And when they strap themselves to a sturdy tree branch about fifteen feet above the ground, the safest place to be in this forest at night, it’s careful planning that lets him lie there, wide awake, and not reach for her in the darkness.
Bad luck is when he wakes with Vic’s hand over his mouth, her gaze fixed on something below them.
He taps the back of her hand lightly to let her know he’s awake, then slowly rotates his body until he can see the forest floor below them. At first he doesn’t see it, as he waits for his eyes to adjust to the inky blackness. But then he spots two glowing red dots at the base of their tree, and around the dots he can make out the fuzzy outline of a head, and that head connects to a body, and a breath gets stuck in his chest.
Because there is a person beneath their tree, and Tav thinks that person might be made of shadows.
“Come,” a voice whispers, whether in the night or just his head he doesn’t know. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Vic’s head tilt like she’s listening closely for something. Does she hear it too?
Her eyes find his in the darkness. He watches her reach for the straps preventing them from falling, watches her work the knots loose with nimble fingers. Together, they push themselves up into crouched positions, sliding their packs on. The figure below them doesn’t move, but Tav can’t shake the feeling it’s watching him.
“Come,” that voice says again.
Vic takes his hand.
Run, she mouths.
They take off through the trees, leaping from branch to branch as quickly as the limited light will allow, but Tav knows they’re not fast enough.
“We have to climb down,” he orders. “We’ll be faster on the ground.” A risk when they have no idea what lurks in the surrounding darkness, but Tav would take his chances with a forest beast over the demon that chases them any day.
Vic doesn’t argue. She just drops to her hands and knees and starts lowering herself down the tree, Tav close behind her. Their feet have just touched the ground when a glass-breaking shriek rips through the night. He claps his hands over his ears, teeth gritted, but Vic just grabs his arm and pulls him along.
“This way,” she pants. “We have to find a place to hide.”
She sets off at a sprint, veering left and right seemingly at random, but her stride never falters, as if she knows exactly where she’s leading him. Tav swears he can hear something chasing them, can feel the hot breath of something snapping at his heels, but he keeps his eyes fixed on Vic’s back. There’s a stitch forming in his left side, and his legs burn with the effort of staying upright on the uneven terrain.
The ground beneath their feet turns loose and sandy, and over the pounding of his heart, Tav catches the gentle murmur of one of the many rivers that winds through the Unclaimed Lands. Still clutching his hand firmly, Vic’s pace slows as she leads him closer to the bank, underneath a stone overhang he hadn’t even seen until they were practically on top of it. Vic pulls him beneath the rocks, feeling along the wall with her free hand.
“Here,” she whispers, and then she tugs him into a deep crevice.
He shuffles in after her, and together they wedge themselves in tightly as far back as they can go. He has to fight back a shudder when he finds their bodies completely aligned, bowing his head until his lips brush against the outer shell of her ear. For a moment, he thinks he feels her shiver.
“How did you know this was here?” he breathes, resting his hands lightly on her hips, but she shushes him, her face so close he can feel her mouth feather light on his neck. His heartbeat is deafening and he doesn’t know if it’s from the monster chasing them or the feel of her in his arms again.
There’s a sharp crack from somewhere outside their hiding spot. A grinding sound follows, like a blade being drawn across a whetstone with agonizing slowness, dragging across the rock above. Vic presses her face into his neck, and he cups the back of her head.
“Come,” that voice whispers, but he squeezes his eyes shut.
Eventually, the thickness in the air dissipates. The sounds outside shift back to gentle moonbirds and their own breaths.
But Vic doesn’t uncover her face, Tav does not let her go, and they don’t come out of hiding until morning.