Send Me Their Souls (Bring Me Their Hearts #3) - Sara Wolf Page 0,116

know that, can I?

It must be a poem, a story. His path, one way. My path, the other.

I pat him on the shoulder, and we watch the island float away from us. Even as we raise anchor and lower the sails and start to drift away, his green eyes hungrily take in every inch of Rel’donas, every grain of sand of the black volcanic island devoured by his gaze.

“You’ll be back,” I say, certain.

“You don’t know that,” he scoffs. “No one knows that.”

I look out past Rel’donas, at the gray horizon peeking through the mist, and laugh a little, shaking my head.

“I do, Ironspeaker. I do.”

25

THE WOLF

WHO WILL

EAT THE WORLD

It doesn’t take long for a handful of bored half-children, half-adults to find the very cool giant metal man in the cargo bay.

“They packed you a present!” Fione chimes to Yorl, stepping delicately around the matronic laid out on the wood, as if sleeping. It takes up nearly the entire floor of the bay, arms and legs as thick as tree trunks splayed out and gleaming in the white mercury light.

“Do you even know how to control this thing?” Malachite grunts, dubious. Yorl jumps with catlike alacrity onto the matronic’s inert body, kneeling down on its chest to look at the copper metal gears there.

“In theory,” the celeon agrees. “I’m still a season away from my piloting test, but I’ve logged a month of practice. Enough to know how to make it stand and lift a box.”

“That’s all we’ll need from it,” Lucien says, dark eyes roving over the matronic with curious awe. “I gather that—at the very least—it’s going to be an extremely large, extremely shiny distraction for the valkerax to gnaw on.”

“And you know how much we love gnawing,” I agree cheerily.

Yorl jumps nimbly down from the matronic. “That reminds me. I should set another batch of sedatives to simmer for you.”

“We can’t be drugging me every time Varia shows up,” I say.

“So you want to rampage around?” Malachite shoots.

“So you want to fight the final battle all by yourself?” I fire back.

He ignores me and looks to Yorl. “Maybe brew something to keep her awake. If she falls asleep, Varia will find us again like she did on the island.”

“Mal,” I whine. “You’re being mean.”

“Yeah, well.” He folds his pale arms over his chest. “You’re being too laid-back about all this.”

“I’m not!” I argue. “I’m just trying to lighten—”

“If Varia dream-tracks you again, or whatever, it’s my people who’ll get the worst of it,” he snarls. “She’ll see into your brain and head for the Dark Below and start destroying Pala Amna.”

“Mal,” Lucien says. “That won’t happen. We’ll get there first and warn them.”

The beneather snorts. “We better.”

“Surely Pala Amna is best prepared for a valkerax attack out of every city on Arathess,” Fione says.

“Yeah.” Malachite shrugs. “But not all the valkerax. And sure as shit not all at once.”

“Why does she want you so badly anyway?” Lucien muses at me.

“A very good question,” Yorl agrees, then looks to me. “Zera?”

“I—” I falter. Just for a second. “I don’t know. I know she attacked Windonhigh right after we were there and then the Black Archives while we were there.”

“Seemingly tracking you,” Lucien says. “Is it because—you don’t think it’s because she still hates you, right?”

no, foolish prince. it’s because she’s afraid of us. of losing her power because of us.

“I don’t think she remembers her own name most of the time, let alone what it’s like to hate someone,” I insist. “If there’s any hate fueling her, it’s the Bone Tree’s. And if there’s any reason that thing hates me, it’s because I’m part valkerax and not obeying it.”

I meet Fione’s periwinkle eyes, the sole gaze that cuts right through me. She’s the only one who knows both Varia and me intimately. She knows something doesn’t sit right in my words.

“Anyway, I don’t need sleep,” I quickly blurt. “But what if—she’s destroyed Vetris. Helkyris’s capital. Maybe she’s destroying Avel’s right now. After that, all that’s left on the Mist Continent is the beneathers.”

“Pala Amna,” Lucien agrees.

“She could go to the Feralstorm,” Malachite argues.

“No,” Yorl says. “There are more beasts than people there. Disregarding her going out of her way to stalk your group of late, there’s been a pattern to her attacks. The cities Zera just listed are of the greatest population densities. Varia seems to be going by descending order. And the fourth largest is Pala Amna. She’s headed there eventually, regardless if we are or