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  “I knew. Of course I knew. From the moment you stepped into the castle, I knew that there was a necromancer in Isin. All my life, Rowan, I had waited to meet a necromancer. I studied endless books, the records left by past healers who'd come into contact with them. I convinced myself it was wishful thinking; surely I wouldn't be able to feel a necromancer's presence so clearly. And yet the moment you arrived, I knew,” Katja said, fingers moving from my chin to run through my hair. “And after all that time, what is my patience rewarded with? An illiterate farmer who barely scrapped together the intelligence to get there in the first place. I tried my best to make you better, I truly did, but you are irredeemably oblivious, Rowan.”

  All my life, I'd been convinced that necromancy only served to negate anything of worth I had within me. But there Katja was, reassuring me that my powers were the only part of me that counted for anything.

  “If you can do this, I certainly can,” Katja said firmly, and I opened my mouth to tell her that she was wrong, but she covered it with her fingers, refusing to let me speak. “No, no. Don't waste your breath, dear. You were right about one thing: of course I can't bring back fish. I've spent my entire life healing humans. I need to start with something I'm familiar with.”

  Her words had almost been enough to make me forget the knife in her lap, but in a flash, it was at my chest again.

  “Don't do it, don't do it,” I blurted out, heart betraying me. It pounded in my chest, reaching out to greet the tip of Katja's knife. My skin split open and the first trickle of blood spilt out, but Katja wasn't putting enough pressure on the blade. The first time she'd struck me, she'd exhausted herself. She'd lashed out blindly, knife digging in at odd angles, missing and splitting the surface of my skin open, but now, her movements were careful and calculated. “Hurts, hurts, please, don't, stop, stopstop, hurts—”

  My feet skidded against the floor, chains rattling behind me, and though thrashing only made it worse for me, I couldn't stop.

  “Shhhh,” Katja hissed, inching the knife in deeper. Blood stained my teeth and I pushed myself back against the stove, knowing that the pain would fade. Even then, I knew it wouldn't last forever. Because if it didn't fade, I would never be able to move past that moment; I needed it to be a memory, needed it to be gone. I was on the verge of collapsing, mind about to flicker out, but my powers surged through me, forcing me to stay afloat amidst the pain. “Oh, no, no. I don't want to hurt you, Rowan...”

  Her hand moved to my forehead, washing away the pain. The knife remained between my ribs, blood filling my mouth, and though I could feel the steel lodged in my chest, it didn't hurt. I stared at Katja, eyes wide, and when I tried to talk, I only succeed on choking on the blood. I coughed until my eyes were streaming, blood splattering from between my teeth and lips, and very gently, Katja reached up, using her fingers to scoop out what blood she could.

  “See, see,” she said softly. “It doesn't have to hurt, Rowan. Keep still and it'll all be fine, you'll see.”

  “There's a knife in my chest,” I croaked. “Pull it out. Please.”

  I wish I hadn't asked. Katja was barely able to hold back the torrent of pain that rushed out of me as my heart released the blade, surroundings falling away from me. Light peeled away in favour of darkness, but it wasn't dying that scared me so; I'd come back from that.

  I did all I could to keep myself conscious, to face Katja and her knife, for I had slipped out this world once already and found myself adrift in something more hollow than emptiness.

  *

  I hadn't managed to remain bound to Bosma.

  I awoke and pain tunnelled into my body. Katja had continued pushing her knife in once I was beyond unconscious, and had done all she could to heal the wounds over before my body could attend to them. I was riddled in mutilated scars, worse than the ones the wolves had left behind, and my head pounded, unsure of what to do with the conflicting forces running through me.

  My hearing was muffled, vision blurred, but I saw the night sky through the window. The passage of time did nothing to console me, and I couldn't tell whether I'd been there for a day or four. No one would be looking for me. Kouris might wonder where I was, but she'd only conclude that I'd headed off with Akela after all, or joined another crew for a handful of days.

  The sounds of Port Mahon slowly crept back to me, and the buzz of the town became a thrum. I wanted to call out, to raise my voice and scream for someone to come up here, but when I opened my mouth, a breath barely managed to rattle its way out.

  Katja was close to me, sat in the corner of the room.

  She was crying. Sobbing, really. Her whole body heaved as tears streamed down her face, and she was practically choking on her own guilt. It was the closest I could ever imagine coming to smiling. A light rushed through my fingers, as though my hands were cupped around a candle and light was seeping between the gaps.

  Katja looked around at the sound of me stirring, eyes stained red, and I wanted nothing more than to fade back into the darkness. It'd be better for me, better for everyone.

  “Rowan, I-I didn't... oh, it isn't meant to be this way,” Katja gasped. “I didn't want to hurt you, didn't want to harm you. I shouldn't have done that. I'm sorry, so sorry. Please, you have to believe me. All I wanted was to be stronger, to be able to protect Kastelir. That isn't so wrong, is it? I've done terrible things, but I only wanted to help. You have to believe that none of this was supposed to happen.”

  Head tilted to the side, I met her gaze. What did she expect me to say? That I forgave her, that it wasn't too late to end this? That I'd never mention this to another soul, not as long as I lived? Sniffing, Katja drew in a shaky breath and wiped her eyes, bravely wearing a watery smile.

  I had no words for her, and barely any strength. Not taking my eyes off hers, I leant forward as far as I could, and spat all the blood and vomit left in my mouth at her, plunging back into the dark depths before she could retaliate.

  *

  The next time I came to, my body had healed itself over enough to soak up the discomfort of my surroundings. It was the hottest part of the day, and I sweated though I'd yet to struggle, dried blood and vomit sticky against my skin. The floorboards wore against my bones and the ridges of the stove were worked into my spine. I sat up as straight as I could, shoulders rolling back, only to find that my wrists were no longer chained behind my back.

  My left arm had been pulled behind me and chained to the back leg of the stove, and the other was stretched out at my side, bound to the far leg at the front. I didn't care why I'd been repositioned. I couldn't move more than I'd been able to before, but I could move in different ways, and I pressed my feet flat to the floor, trying to inch my way up, chains grinding against metal.

  My voice was almost strong enough to reach out to Mahon, but the clank of metal drew Katja out of her room. She'd changed again but hadn't washed the blood out of her hair, and I saw faint trails of dried tears swiped across her face.

  She was calm, focused. More than that, she wasn't holding the knife, and it made me braver than I ought to have been.

  “How do you think this ends for you?” I asked in a whisper, thudding back down against the floorboards. “W-when Atthis and Akela get back, what do you think they're going to do?”

  Katja tilted her head to the side, as if trying to work out whether or not I'd really had the gall to say that.

  “Atthis is my uncle. We are family, and he will take my word. If you think that I intend to leave you like this, Rowan, you are sorely mistaken,” she said, crouching in front of me. “And Akela, well. She has been in love with my mother for so very long that she would never disgrace her memory by failing to protect me. Whether you believe her to be your friend or not, you are still a necromancer; she will understand that I had no other choice.”

  My ears rang, but it wasn't what she said that made my head spin. Her certainty that my friends would be betray me, would condone this, stirred nothing within me. All I could think of w
as water. My mouth was dry and had been for days, and the air I breathed turned to sand in my mouth. I ran my tongue across my teeth, the roof of my mouth and the inside of my cheeks, knowing that blood itself would be a relief right now.

  “Are you going to stab me again?” I asked, eyes rolling back as I looked up at her. “Your mother wouldn't be proud of you, Katja. She'd say... say you waited too long. She'd never waste her time like this. She'd just... just burn me.”

  My head lolled forward as I laughed hoarsely, and Katja's fingers knotted in my hair a second later.

  “Never speak of my mother, Rowan,” Katja hissed at me, ensuring I had no choice but to meet her fiery gaze.

  “She might... she should, she should burn you too,” I mumbled, mouth curling into a smile, “In case you're right. In case you can become a necromancer. B-better safe than sorry, right? Do you think she'd be happy if y-you went back and saved the country with necromancy?”

  Katja's grip loosened and her palm struck my cheek, forcing my head to jerk to the side. I'd seen her trembling with a knife in her hand, sobbing over what she'd done, but this was the first time I'd truly angered her, the first time she'd been aware of how quickly control was slipping between her fingers.

  I licked my dry lips and she lifted a hand to hit me again, but rose to her feet, thinking better of it. Eyes closed, I listened to her bare feet press to the floorboards as she went back and forth, back and forth, trying to regain her composure.

  I wasn't sure when she'd knocked the chair over, but I heard her pick it back up and drag it into the spot in front of me. The black behind my eyelids kept trying to shift into something else, and consciousness only kept rushing back into me because Katja's silence wouldn't let me leave.

  I forced my eyes open and Katja raised her brow, glowering at me as though I was a dog who had chewed through her best dress.

  “I've been thinking, Rowan. Thinking about what you said,” she began, and the words drifted through my mind. Keeping my gaze fixed on her was taking all the energy I didn't have, and all I could think was how strange it was that words were just sounds, but they were supposed to mean something to me. “You're right. I reluctantly admit that you're right; perhaps I cannot be a necromancer. Perhaps the fault is my own. Had I been more willing to hone what powers I had at a younger age, perhaps I would be more receptive to necromancy. But as things currently are, I simply don't stand a chance.”

  She paused, waiting for me to respond, but I kept my silence, hoping it would keep her from saying anything more. This wasn't the end of it. She wasn't giving up.

  “What I can do, however, is make you into a better necromancer. I believe I've already done so, to an extent, simply by sharing knowledge with you. You wouldn't have ever thought to move Uncle Jonas' body without my assistance, would you? Honestly, Rowan. Do you have any idea what you're capable of?”

  “K-kuh... killing...” I stuttered, and she sighed, exasperated.

  “Yes, yes. Killing dragons. Goodness me, we've all heard that story a dozen times over. And yet despite all this, you still fail to appreciate the extent of your powers.”

  My eyes closed, but darkness hadn't quite taken me. I was aware of the room beyond, aware of the way my shoulder blades felt as though they might split apart as I slumped to the side, only held up by my right arm chained far away from me.

  “Are you even listening?” Katja asked, impatient.

  “Nnn,” was about all I managed. Perhaps I blinked my eyes open.

  “Why do you have to make things so hard on yourself?” Katja rose to her feet, and I tried to let myself slip away, desperate to be unconscious before she could lecture me anymore. From above, I heard one of the drawers slide out, cutlery clattering together as it jerked to a stop on its rollers. “We could've worked together. It could've been easy, you could've taken control, and yet here we are. I have to do all the work myself. Here, here, look. You told me that things just happen for you. That it's intuitive. This shouldn't be any different, should it?”

  Steel pressed to my wrist. There wasn't enough force behind it to break the skin, barely enough to cause my eyes to flutter back open, but once they did, the words, “No, no, no, no,” were tumbling from my lips. Katja hadn't taken out another ordinary knife.

  It was a meat cleaver.

  I kicked out, but she was knelt to the side, too far for me to reach. Energy boiled within me anew, and I screamed and screeched, knowing, even then, that the noise was only reverberating within my own skull. I forced every inch of my battered body to move, desperate to pull my wrists free of the chains, the chains free of the stove, the stove free of the wall; anything that would let me escape.

  Even if I didn't have the strength for it, surely I was moving too much for her to be able to strike. She'd put a knife through me but I couldn't let her do this. I couldn't let her take a piece of me. I couldn't, I couldn't.

  “Katja, no, no. I'll help you, I'll do whatever you want me to, I'll...”

  She wasn't listening. Eyes fixed on my wrist, she brought the meat cleaver up, dropping the blade down in a clean, quick motion. I tore my eyes away, screwed them shut as the cleaver cracked the floorboards open, and my heart lurched, even though she'd missed. She'd had to. Nothing in my body registered a loss, and no pain flared up within me. I could do it. I could pull my arm free before she tried again.

  I was almost convinced that the chains would tear like paper until I tried curling my fingers.

  Nothing.

  I looked down, slowly.

  Katja had pulled the cleaver back and risen to her feet. I stared down at my hand, wrist still bound in chains, and when I pulled my arm back, it broke away with ease.

  My hand didn't.

  The air in the room turned to ash and flooded my lungs. The speed of my breathing overtook the pounding of my heart, and the nausea rose up within me, pooling in my lap, splattering across the floor. She'd done it.

  Katja had taken my hand and she hadn't even had the decency to let me feel it. Finally falling to the side, I held the bloody mess to my chest, convulsing as more than blood poured out of me, source never drying up. I was burning, burning from the inside out, that strange light from my fingers spreading throughout the rest of me.

  “Claire...” I gurgled through the gore, as though it was the only word I knew. “Claire, Claire...”

  The cleaver was placed atop the counter and Katja knelt down, picking my hand up and dropping it carelessly on the table.

  “Claire?” Katja asked, stepping into the puddle of blood surrounding me. “Goodness, dear. I know this is a difficult time for you, but you have to focus. Don't let delusions take you. You know as well as I do that Claire's dead. You saw what became of Isin. Rowan, darling. You know that Claire would never abandon the city, not while there were still dragons there. She isn't going to come for you. You don't need saving, Rowan; you merely need to be more compliant.”

  For the last eighteen months, I'd done all I could to keep hold of myself, but every time I mentioned Claire's name, I'd felt another small part of myself slipping away. I'd tried to respect her memory, but it hurt to think of her. Yet if there was ever a time to lose myself to the imaginary, the unattainable, this was it.

  My vision faded to all but a spark, and in this light I let myself believe that Claire was coming towards me. It didn't matter how she'd escaped Isin, or how she knew to find me there. All that mattered was that she'd been safe in Kyrindval all along, and that she was there with me, ready to put her arms around me. I gripped my wrist, trying to flex fingers that were no longer there, and did all I could do drown out my whimpers by convincing myself that she was pressed against me, fingers trailing through my hair.

  She was there. She was there.

  It didn't matter that compared to all that had happened, my feelings for her were but dust in the balance. Claire was with me, and I wouldn't succumb to any of this.

  “Hand...” someone was murmuring with my voice. “Need my...”

&nb
sp; They were right. If only Katja would give me my hand back; I could hold it to my wrist and join the parts together, just as I had on the farm, when workers caught their fingers in the equipment. I'd make myself whole again. Surely that would be enough. Surely that would prove to Katja that I understood the importance of my abilities.

  “You don't need anything, Rowan. What you need to do is think of layers: the bones, the muscles, the skin. It'll come to you.”

  Katja left me to my agony, and Port Mahon ceased to be. The birds had fallen out of the sky and the seas had stilled, leaving no reason for the pirates to remain; there was no one else, no one other than Katja, and I wouldn't call out to her.

  I curled around myself as much as the chains and stove permitted me to, wrist pressed to my chest, gushing, gushing. It wasn't mine. This wasn't me. It was all happening to someone else, and I was caught within a nightmare of their life, no matter how my arm moved when I willed it to. The body wasn't mine. It was just a shell, a shell for the powers Katja couldn't wield, and she would scrape me away from the inside until there was nothing left to disobey her.

  The fish were dead again. They'd rushed up to the neck of the pitcher, water tinted pink, and I had been gutted as they had, everything within me rushing out. My hand laid on the table next to them, discarded like the rotten end of a log, and I stared at it, willing it to move. It was mine, or it had been. Surely I could make it move, surely I could curl the fingers towards the palm.

  But the only movement I made was to shudder, teeth chattering together.

  My vision dimmed with the encroaching night and didn't clear properly once dawn was upon us. The table was a blur, everything else in the apartment a distant memory, and at some point in the night, Claire had come to me. I hadn't heard her open the door, hadn't seen her step across the floor, and though I didn't know why she hadn't carried me out, the only thing that mattered was that she'd been there.

  She'd pressed to my back, hair brushing against my face. The feel of her skin against mine had rushed through me, and I could only think of how kind she'd been, how she'd taken me away from my old life; how she had kissed me and not cared who'd seen; how she had been so beautiful, and thought the same of me, no matter how twisted and gnarled my body was.