take a few breaths to steady himself.
“You don’t understand,” she said, her voice soft, not from anger or fear or threat, but from the deep, chilling realization of what had happened. “When a soul eater dies, they cease to exist, but the souls they carried belong to the dark realm. Souls that go there are slaves to their raksasa masters who can do whatever they want with them. I didn’t want to kill him because it would have been a pointless death for a good man. But this?” Quinn looked at the boy again, and she couldn’t help the small embers of anger and frustration that came to life again. “This is worse.”
All around them, dead and unconscious Cisean warriors lay prone, but it was only the one that was eaten that concerned her.
“I will mourn for Vaughn. He’s . . . my son. But he is not alone in our mourning, Quinn. Many have died tonight. Mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters have all lost someone—”
“We have to find a way to free him,” Quinn said.
“If there is a way, I don’t know it,” Thorne answered.
“No, but we know someone who might.”
Both Quinn and Thorne looked at the boy, and that heaviness she saw in the leader, it filled her then.
“Are you sure?” he asked. “You didn’t want him. You know the tribe will care for him either way—”
“It doesn’t matter what I want,” Quinn said. “We both know who sent that creature. Triene was either sending you a message, or this was an assassination attempt. It’s too convenient that Lazarus sends for a summit and then a blood-magicked creature is here. There’s only one soul eater who might have an answer for how to at least free Vaughn, if not bring him back to life—”
“And if not?” Thorne asked. “If we take the boy to Norcasta and there is no way, what will you do with him, then?”
Quinn pressed her lips together. “I don’t speak Trienian, but Lazarus does. We might be able to get answers out of that creature. Find out what—”
“What of the boy, Quinn?” He motioned to him, and she sighed. He was young, though she didn’t know his age. While the darkness ran deep, the way he looked at her then wasn’t the Maji in him, it was the child. She sighed.
“I don’t know, Thorne. But I’ve been to the dark realm, and Vaughn . . . he doesn’t deserve what’ll await him there. I have a war to fight, and now a friend to save. Past that, we’ll figure it out. But the boy is coming with.”
Quinn walked forward and extended her hand.
The child looked between her and Thorne, who she sensed had great trepidation about releasing him to her after what just happened.
Still, the boy took her hand.
“Please don’t hurt him, Quinn. Vaughn wouldn’t want that.”
But it wasn’t her who answered. “Quinn only hurts people who hurt her first,” the little boy said.
Quinn pressed her lips together because what he didn’t realize is that he had.
He took away her friend. One of her only friends.
For once, she was beginning to see the burden of what it meant to have a dark Maji for a child, and why those same qualities she saw in him now made her people hate her.
“He is safe with me,” Quinn said.
“And from you?” Thorne asked.
It was that empathy—that ability to understand—that let her release her anger. There were few in the world who understood Quinn, and fewer still who she understood in return.
But this child, this horrible, awful child was one of them.
She had hurt people for the ones she loved as well.
“They’re one and the same,” she said. “We ride at dawn.”
Now more than ever, she needed to get back to Lazarus.
Nero had taken something from her, and if she couldn’t take it back . . .
There were worse fates than death.
Quinn would make sure of it.
Chapter 21
Rat Winter
“One does not need to be good to be kind, but kindness is an action and not an intention. Motivation matters not.”
— Quinn Darkova, fear twister, walker of realms
Her forearms rested against the wooden railing. She leaned forward, narrowing her eyes on the traveling party below. Thorne was out in full force with a dozen Cisean warriors and the boy, all readying for the journey ahead. Somberness hung in the air. A palpable tension that wouldn’t dissipate. While the men didn’t appear to fear the boy outwardly, Quinn couldn’t help but notice the way their eyes flicked in