The wind was cold, whispering through the golden leaves above my head. The adrenaline was finally fading after six hours in the Áccyn camp. I was back home. Even if home was no longer in Fort Calmier, but a small town of makeshift tents sprawled through the Appalachian Mountains. I knew the faces here. People I’d grown up with. People I’d trained with. People I’d pored over books with. My parents were here. So why did I feel more lost than ever?
Blood rushing down Khadija’s shirt. Arashi falling back, unconscious. That empty Darkness behind Nick’s eyes. Natanian’s high scream, his fingers clawing at the monster’s hand clamped over his face. The crack of gunfire. Twenty agents thrown back from Nick in a spray of red. Blinding pain burning through my gut.
I blinked the memories away, rubbing the residual pain from my chest. Five days. Five days since the Earth rose, swathed in golden robes with a crown ringing his dark head. Five days since we’d escaped Sherwood. Five days since I’d helped capture Sorcerer Ishkur Gisborne.
Ishkur still bore the frostbitten scars slashed through the sharp red of his Ealdra uniform. Scars caused by my hands.
He sat bound in the middle of the clearing below me, the boy who used to be my best friend. They keep telling me he’s still in there somewhere, that if we defeat Crius, that if we somehow break Ishkur’s hold, that Nick will return. But I watched the Arrow’s power shred through the last of Nick. I looked into his eyes and only Ishkur looked back.
His head was bowed, his black hair hanging around his face. His sword sheath rested empty at his hip. He knelt on the forest floor, his hands bound behind him to a steel ring driven deep into the ground. His Ealdra uniform was torn and dirty, the knees of his pants stained. Mud caked the bottom of his boots. Nick would never have allowed such damage to his clothes. Nick would have spent hours fixing every hole, every split seam with the perfect precision he’d learned in his years of princely training.
Nick’s head came up and his mismatched eyes met mine. I backed into the trees, instinctively reaching for my sword hilt.
“Where is he?” someone shouted behind me.
“Master—”
I turned to see Master Bancroft shove through branches onto the top of the hill overlooking Ishkur. Two Áccyn guards stumbled out of the trees behind him, panting. A faint smile tugged at Ishkur’s face, and his eyes turned to Bancroft.
Bancroft stopped. “Nicolas...” The name came out in a faint breath. He took one hesitant step forward. His face twisted in grief, his shoulders sagging, his hands trembling together.
“He’s gone.” My voice choked through my lips. I swallowed, looking away from Bancroft’s expression that so closely mirrored my own.
Arashi moved from his post in the shadow of the trees, raising his hand. “Master,” he warned.
“No.” Bancroft shook his head, losing his footing for a moment on the loose slope of the hill. “My boy...”
Arashi tensed. “He is gone, Master. That is not Nicolas.”
“No!” Bancroft scrambled down the slope. Arashi leapt after him. The two of them raced towards Ishkur, boots impacting the damp earth. Arashi spun past Bancroft and caught him in the chest, only a few feet from Ishkur.
“Let him go!” Bancroft screamed at Ishkur. “Monster! Let my boy go!”
Arashi shoved him back.
Ishkur’s smile widened. “You cling to Nick so tightly.” Bancroft froze. “A runaway, a traitor, an Ealdra crown prince. Why? He could have turned on you so simply.”
“Let my boy go,” Bancroft croaked.
Ishkur only laughed, shaking his head. “He’s gone. His mind, his body, his power is mine.”
With a roar, Bancroft unsheathed his sword and lunged at Ishkur. A moment before the blade sliced through Nick’s body, Bancroft’s sword dropped from his hand and he fell to his knees, his body trembling with sobs. Ishkur only looked on, that stupid smile plastered on Nick’s face.
I stepped down the hill into the clearing, my hand on my sword hilt just in case. “Bancroft?” I started.
“You should have saved him!” Bancroft was on his feet, spinning on me. “You should have done something!”
My shoulders slumped, my hands cold on my sword hilt. “I couldn’t... Ishkur had a hold on him since he ran away from his court. There was nothing—”
“Then you should have killed him!” Bancroft’s cry hung in the air. Ishkur tilted his head, watching me through Nick’s eyes. Waiting. “You should have killed him before he became this.” Bancroft sank to his knees.
I swallowed and let go of my sword hilt, rubbing my hands on my pants, trying to warm up the ice-cold feeling running through them. I knelt before Bancroft, ignoring the morning dew seeping through my pant knees.
“I won’t stop.” My voice trembled. I cleared my throat. “Nick’s gone. But I won’t stop fighting. He would have died for this camp, for the people he cared about.”
“What can you do? How do you know? You never knew Nick; none of us did.”
“That’s not true.”
Ishkur knelt in the body of my best friend only an arm’s reach away from me. Listening. Waiting.
“This... thing... didn’t take over until the night of my Manifestation. When he let the Sheriff and his Hunters in. I knew the real Nick for years. You knew the real Nick for years. You were his only Master who listened to him. He trusted you. He hung onto you when he was at his worst.”
“This is all very sweet,” Ishkur finally spoke up. “Very sentimental. But it’s going to be no—”
“You can shut it!” The anger swelled inside me. Ishkur started in surprise. “That’s right.”
I turned back to Bancroft and rose to my feet, holding out my hand. He grabbed my forearm, and I pulled him up.
“You got this handled?” I asked Arashi. He nodded silently. “Great. C’mon, Master. Let’s get out of here.” I patted him on the back and he moved back up the hill. I glanced back at Ishkur, the chill that ran up my spine consumed in simmering rage. I picked up Bancroft’s sword and moved up the slope after him.
Arashi ran his hand over Ishkur’s bonds, faint trails of fog drifting off the top and up Ishkur’s arms as he strengthened the sorcery that held him.