Chapter 38

TWENTY-SIX YEARS AGO

S zeth found light near the homestead.

Not at the house itself, which was dark and shaded as he passed it. Molli would be near the water trough, over by the family’s stone. That was only a short distance, in the direction of the light.

He nearly jumped to the heavens when he heard rustling from the hanging lines of beads that covered the home’s doorway. Simply the wind. Trembling, he crossed the meadow toward that ruddy light. Concern mounting, Szeth forced himself to creep past the tree, the bark chill and rough on his palms.

Straight ahead was the stone—with the packed soil around it—bulging from the ground like a tumor. Three men sat on it.

They sat on the stone, a small fire in front of them, built on the packed earth. They’d cooked a meal, and unwelcome scents—burned and horrible—assaulted Szeth. Szeth had a terrible premonition that he didn’t want to accept, so he didn’t look too closely at that fire. Instead he studied the three men. Soldiers, in leather armor with glistening metal studs. Helms of pure steel. Sheathed swords at their sides. Fingers messy from eating, bits of food in their beards.

They were Shin.

His people. Not strange raiders from across the mountains. They wore no color, of course—just black, grey, and brown—but their features were unmistakable. He’d seen outlanders before, and had remarked on their eyes, their dress, their features.

Szeth relaxed. This was a patrol of the Farmer’s soldiers. Similar groups had come through his family’s lands. He moved to continue searching for Molli, but snapped a twig when he did, causing the men to turn in his direction.

One slid down the stone to the ground beside the fire and stood, right hand on his sword. “Who’s there?”

Feeling embarrassed, Szeth walked into the light. When they saw him, they immediately relaxed.

“Boy,” the standing one said, “you work this region?”

“It’s our homestead. I’m a shepherd.” Szeth frowned as he got closer, noticing dark liquid staining the ground near the fire—and empty bottles near the men. “That’s my father’s wine.”

“Had to check the house,” said a man lying on top of the stone, his voice slurred, “for invaders.” He lifted a bottle to his lips. His face flushed with drink, he had a lazy expression, his helmet off beside him. He was bald, his head shaved clean.

“Why are you drinking?” Szeth demanded. “You’re on patrol. What if you get ambushed? What if—”

“Raiders didn’t expect resistance,” the standing man cut in. He had dark eyes set too deep into his skull. “They pushed off almost as soon as we marched in. There won’t be more fighting tonight, unless some slipped through. We were sent to search.”

“Best you tipped us a little,” the slovenly one said, drinking more. “For protecting your hide, little shepherd.”

The third man had a wispy beard. Younger than the other two. He hunched as he sat on the angled top of the stone, staring down, half-drunk bottle of wine in his hands. Father saved it for special occasions.

“You hungry, boy?” said the man with the sunken eyes.

Szeth shied back. “I … think you should leave.”

“What? Don’t you appreciate our help?”

“I …” Szeth stepped farther back and didn’t meet their eyes. “I think you should go.”

The drunk man chuckled and picked at a piece of meat, and Szeth knew. He knew. But he didn’t want to accept it.

“It’s aggravating, you know,” Sunken Eyes said. “We give our lives to protect you, but our only payment is glares. You think we don’t get tired of being told to move on?”

“You are they who subtract,” Szeth whispered.

“We’re the ones standing between you and that, ” the man said, waving toward the red light on the horizon. “They burned an entire village, you know? Would have kept going if we hadn’t been called in.”

Szeth turned away, trying not to hear the sounds of the drunk man smacking his lips as he ate, cracking bones between his fingers. A nauseating sound, like a crawling thing from the soil might make when you turned over its log.

“You want our protection,” Sunken Eyes said. “But you don’t want us around. Think on that, little splash-colored shepherd. Think about how you treat the people who defend you.”

“The world would be better without you,” Szeth hissed. “We’d all be blessed if there were no people who subtracted.”

The man snorted, then took a pull on his bottle of wine. He’d had more than a little himself, it seemed, even if it didn’t show as much.

“You know what I tire of most?” he said, glancing toward his friends. “The lies. The pretending. If we were to just vanish, who would stop those men on the coast?” He looked back, holding Szeth’s eyes. “You eat the meat we slaughter, on your special days. You use the boards soldiers cut to build your homes. Tell me: if you pay a man to kill, does that make you any less guilty? You subtract, little shepherd. You just do it the cowardly way.”

Szeth hovered near the tree, angry. This man spoke with such confidence. How dare he act as if he had answers? The Farmer didn’t have answers. Father didn’t have answers. But this man thought he did? This … pathetic excuse for a human being, this sack of slime that … that …

Szeth sniffled and wiped tears from his eyes. Nearby, the quiet one helped the slovenly one off the stone. They kicked a bottle aside and stumbled away into the night, heading past the house. Sunken Eyes stayed by the fire, his expression stubborn as he squatted and picked at the remnants of the meat. He ripped off a piece and began gnawing at the flesh.

That was Molli. Szeth finally accepted it. The “spilled wine” on the ground was blood, and he’d known what the men were cooking the moment he’d smelled the char. He fell to his knees in the dim light, finding her pelt—cut free—in the grass.

“Why?” he asked hoarsely.

“Sometimes,” Sunken Eyes said, stumbling to his feet, “we leave reminders to make it harder to ignore us. It’s worth the punishment. Worth the anger and the shouts, just to … live for an evening. Like you do.” He started into the night, unsteady on his feet.

Szeth pulled Molli’s wool to his face, but all he could smell was the blood.

“No,” Sunken Eyes said in a ragged voice. “No, that’s enough …” He stumbled a little farther. “I said no. ”

Szeth barely registered the man’s erratic behavior—speaking to nobody. Instead Szeth felt a building rage. A blinding, terrible heat. He dropped the pelt and went running, colliding with the soldier, making him stumble. But Szeth was only a child, and small for his age. He pounded at Sunken Eyes, but the man merely pried him free and tossed him away—like feed for the chickens.

Szeth hit the ground and tumbled against the roots of the tree. The man continued on. Stumbling, unsteady. “No,” he repeated. “No, I’ll get a whipping for what we’ve already done. If I did that … it would be a hanging. He’s a child. No. ”

Szeth pushed himself up, his right hand on something cool and smooth. A coldness that spread through him, rage extinguished—replaced by a distinct deep, terrible void that seemed to take all life, light, and warmth and suffocate it.

He stood up, clutching the stone his family had unearthed earlier. It felt like … fate. The will of the spren. Why else would Szeth fall there? Why else would the man have stumbled right then, slipping to the ground near the water trough? His voice becoming a mumble.

Spren made rain fall. Spren made rocks emerge. Today, spren moved Szeth. He approached the fallen man, the coldness at his core building and building and consuming him until …

Until he stopped, gazing at the pathetic man by the trough. A person. A terrible person that Szeth hated, but still. He had never hurt another by intent.

He would not do so today.

Szeth stared at the rock, which he blasphemously held. This wasn’t the spren’s will; he was lying to himself. This had been his choice. Why hadn’t the spren struck him down? Didn’t he deserve it? Didn’t he—

A hand grabbed him by the throat.

The soldier, growling, lurched upward and shoved Szeth, dropping him to the ground on his back. The man straddled him, nails biting into the exposed skin of Szeth’s throat. Terrible breath, with the scent of death upon it, lips parted in a grin. Spittle flecking onto Szeth’s face.

Eyes … eyes glowing deep within with a red light. Szeth panicked, scratching at the man’s claw grip.

The fellow just kept squeezing. “Thought to rob me, did you?”

Szeth’s desperate fingers found the stone again, dropped to the soil beside him.

“It’s not enough to take everything from us,” the man continued, leaning down. “Not enough to—”

Slam.

The man gasped, slumping against the trough. Frantic, Szeth hit him again.

SLAM.

His heart hammering in time with his blows, his muscles panicked as he drew ragged breaths, Szeth struck again. And again. And again.

Until the warmth returned. It was all over him. The warmth of blood.

He stood up, the rock slipping from wet fingers, and stumbled back. Feeling at his raw neck. Thinking, numbly, that he had subtracted for the first time in his life.

Until a soft voice blossomed in his mind.

Here now, what are you?

Szeth started, glancing around. The voice did not return, though he waited to see if it would. He waited until morning, when they found him, with Molli’s pelt—legs still attached—in his lap. Sitting next to a corpse that had once been—ostensibly—far more human.