His voice was loud and deep. A voice for ceremony. In any other situation, Perry might’ve appreciated that this man assumed him a Blood Lord. Now he only saw the sad truth in it. That he should hear himself addressed this way for the first and last time together.
“I will not,” Perry said.
Silver Mask kept silent for a long moment. Then he called one of the archers. “Strike him through the leg. Muscle only. Don’t pierce the arteries.”
Perry had come close to dying several times. But at those words, he knew this was his time. It wasn’t fear that struck him, but a crushing disappointment at all the things he hadn’t done. At all the things he knew he could do.
The archer raised his bow, his eyes steady, aiming through the Croven mask.
“No!” Aria stepped around Perry.
“Get back, Aria.” He said this, but when she took his hand, he accepted it. She moved to his side, somehow understanding that he needed her. Needed Roar there too. With the two of them, he could stand there and wait for an arrow to strike him down.
The archer hesitated, seeing their joined hands.
“Perry . . . ,” Roar said hoarsely, behind them. “Get down.”
The charge of the Aether burned in the back of Perry’s nose. It buzzed over his skin, grating and alive. A stir ran through the Croven. They lifted their masks, yelling in terror as they saw Cinder.
He strode through the Croven. Shirtless, his veins created glowing lines over his skin. He came forward, searching with his Aether blue eyes. The Croven darted out of his way with a sudden eruption from the bells.
“Cinder,” Perry said.
The boy’s eyes found him and held for a moment. Then he turned his back to Perry and raised his palms. Perry felt an updraft like the intake before a scream. He grabbed Aria by the waist and leaped over the stone outcropping, landing on Roar, as Cinder lit the night with liquid fire.
Searing flashes rolled past as the Aether let out its horrid shriek, drowning the Croven’s screams. Perry pressed his eyes closed against the burning streaks. He covered Roar and Aria as best he could, his fingers gripping the earth like they might be carried off.
Quiet came with a suddenness that thundered emptily in his ears. The night returned with a cool drift over Perry’s arms. Long seconds passed before he could lift his head. The pungent scent of burnt hair mingled with charred flesh and wood. Perry tried getting to his knees but ended up rolling to the side.
Stars. He saw stars through a vast hole in the Aether. Clear, bright stars. Around the hole, the Aether rippled in circles. Like a pebble thrown in a pond but working closer. Tightening instead of spreading. Slowly covering one star after another with its blue light.
Aria appeared over him. “Perry, are you all right?”
He couldn’t speak. Perry tasted ash and blood.
“Roar!” Aria said. “What’s wrong with him!” She thrust Roar’s hand onto Perry’s forehead.
Now Roar stared down at him. “Where are you hurt, Perry?”
Everywhere, Perry thought, knowing Roar could hear him. But mostly my throat. You?
“I’m good enough.” Roar turned to Aria. “He’s all right.”
With Aria’s help, Perry sat up. As far as he could see, the trees were burned to black stalks of carbon. The earth glittered with embers, but he saw no fire. No bodies anywhere. Everything had already burned. Cinder had bled the life out of everything except a crow mask that lay in the ash, the silver warped. Dripping like melted wax.
Nearby a half-starved figure with a shorn head lay within a circle of fine gray dust. Perry climbed to his feet. Cinder was curled into himself. He was bare. His clothes gone to ash. Not a single hair was left on his scalp. The glow of his veins faded before Perry’s eyes, seeping back into his skin.
His eyes opened to dark slits. “Did you see what I did?”
“I saw,” Perry said, his voice in shreds.
Cinder’s gaze fell on Perry’s hand. He stared at the spoiled flesh. “I couldn’t help it.”
“I know,” Perry said, seeing himself in Cinder’s black eyes. He understood the terror of being good at ending lives.
Cinder groaned, clutching at his stomach as he began to shake. His breath came in gasps as he convulsed in a tight ball. Perry took a blanket from his satchel and covered him. Then he stashed the rest of their things in the rocks. Aria took Roar as he had done earlier, supporting his injured side. Perry lifted Cinder into his arms, stunned by the coldness of the boy’s skin.
“I made it right,” Cinder said through trembling lips.
They came upon a pair of Croven huddled together in the shadow of a tree. At the sight of Cinder, they scurried away. Perry swallowed against the rawness in his throat. Had the boy ever known anything beyond fear and pity?
They rushed into Delphi, bursting into the courtyard. Perry set Cinder down next to Roar right on the cobbles. People were gathered inside the gate, armed with weapons, braced for war, for an invasion, for anything. The Aether continued to seal above. Whatever break Cinder had brought them was vanishing.
Marron cut through the gathered crowd. “Mark and Gage?”
Perry shook his head, then he staggered off a dozen paces, turning his back. He pressed his fist to his lips to hold back the guilt and everything else that threatened to come up. Behind him, Aria told Marron what had happened. People cried and cursed Perry. They were right. He’d brought the Croven here. Mark and Gage had died because of him. Perry saw no way of escaping that blame.
Marron came up to him. “You have to go. The Croven might return. Get home, Peregrine. Get Aria to her mother.”
Clarity returned with those simple words. He had no time to spare. He went to Roar. “You’ll come in the spring.”
Roar took Perry’s offered hand in a firm grip. “As soon as I can get there.”
Perry moved to Cinder. He knew he couldn’t command the boy, whose power was far greater than his own. But he also knew Cinder needed him. Needed someone to help him make sense of what he’d done, and what he could do. Maybe Perry needed that too.
“Will you come with Roar?” It was a bigger question than what it appeared to be on the surface. The true question was whether he’d pledge himself to Perry.
Cinder answered right away.
“Yes.”
Chapter 36
PEREGRINE
Perry and Aria stepped through the gate together. They collected their belongings from the rocks and ran. The Aether came screaming, dropping funnels that shook the ground beneath them. Smoke thickened the cool air as the woods ignited. Perry steered around the flames, holding tight to Aria’s hand.
They moved swiftly, driven by the need to put Delphi behind them. They cleared the worst of the storm in a few hours and then spent the rest of the night traveling in silence. Descending slopes with locked arms. Passing water back and forth between them, and sharing touches. Her hand holding his for a dozen paces. His, resting on the small of her back for a moment. Touches that had no real purpose but to say I’m here and We are together still.
By dawn, Perry couldn’t ignore the scents that clung to them any longer. Blood and ash crusted to their clothes and skin. The smoke from the Aether storm was thinning. He could no longer count on it to mask their scents and keep the wolves at bay. They stopped by a river that rushed over a cascade of gray boulders and washed quickly, shivering at the icy water, and then set off again. He hoped they’d done enough.
Hours later, Aria grasped his arm. “I hear barking, Perry. We need to find someplace safe.” Her words fogged in the cool afternoon.
Perry strained to listen. He heard only the lull after a storm, but the musk of the animals was strong, telling him a pack couldn’t be far. Scanning the woods for a sturdy tree where they could shelter, Perry saw only pines with high, slender branches. He quickened their pace, cursing himself for not grabbing more arrows from Marron when they’d taken Cinder and Roar back. He had only his knife to protect them. A knife wouldn’t last long against wolves.
Aria looked back sharply, her eyes wide. “Perry, they’re right behind us!”
Moments later, he heard the wolves himself, two sharp barks that sounded far too close. Desperate, he ran for the nearest tree, a poor choice. The branches too low and brittle. Then he saw a game trail, a worn dirt path weaving to a tree up ahead. He spotted a wooden shack set up in the branches of the massive pine. He ran, Aria beside him, as the snarling grew louder. Claw marks shredded the trunk around the base. A rope ladder hung from a thick branch.
He lifted Aria onto the ladder.
“They’re coming!” she yelled. “Perry, climb!”
He couldn’t. Not yet. Didn’t trust the brittle rope to hold both of their weight. He drew his knife.
“Go! I’ll be right behind you.”
Seven wolves prowled into view. Huge animals with glinting blue eyes and silver pelts. Their musk came at Perry in a red wave of blood hunger. They raised their shining snouts, reading scents as he did, then laid back their ears and bared their teeth, their hackles rising.
Aria reached the top and called out to him. Perry spun and leaped, grabbing the highest rung he could reach. He pulled his legs up and slashed with his knife as their jaws snapped at him. He kicked one wolf on the ear. It yelped and fell away, giving him an instant to find a rung with his foot and push. He launched himself up, pulling himself to the top.
Aria grabbed him, steadying his balance. They followed the wide branch to the shack. The two outfacing sides were boarded solidly. On the other two sides, every other board had been left off, giving it the look of a cage.
Aria slipped right in. He couldn’t squeeze his shoulders through so he smashed one of the boards with his foot. The wood groaned beneath him, and he couldn’t stand at his full height, but the floorboards were sturdy. For a few seconds, he and Aria looked at each other, panting for breath, as the wolves barked below them, claws ripping at the tree. Then he kicked off a layer of leaves and set his satchel down. The last of the daylight came gray and blurred through the slats, like light moving through water.
“We’ll be safe up here,” he said.
Aria peered out of the shack, her shoulders drawn tight with strain. The rabid sounds continued. “How long will they stay?”
He saw no point in lying to her. The wolves would wait, just as the Croven had. “As long as it takes.”
Perry ran a hand through his hair as he considered his options. He could make new arrows, but that would take time and he’d dropped his bow somewhere below. For now, there was nothing he could think to do. He knelt and took the blankets from his satchel. They’d been running for their lives. They didn’t feel the cold now, but they would soon enough.
They sat together as night fell over the shack, the darkness amplifying the snapping sounds from below. Perry brought out water, but Aria wouldn’t drink. She covered her ears and pressed her eyes closed. Her temper seethed with anxiety and he knew—felt—how the sounds brought her physical pain. He didn’t know how to help.
An hour passed. Aria hadn’t moved. Perry thought he might go mad when the barking stopped unexpectedly. He sat up.