Erador heaved Dethil closer to his side. His arm pressed on his injury. He grimaced and pushed on, using the flame on a stick Dethil held to guide him through the forest. Fallen tree limbs, roots, rocks and his injuries hindered him from returning to the manor.

  “Remember that time I almost vomited in your mouth and you had to take me to bed,” Dethil said.

  Erador hoisted him higher. “Like I could forget.”

  Dethil laughed. “This feels similar... except I have fucking splinters in my ankle, and burns.” He stumbled over a stick and Erador caught him. “I’d rather feel that again. What I wouldn’t give for a drink.”

  Erador swallowed a few times hoping to moisten his raw throat that felt burned from the ashes. “Let’s take a break.”

  Dethil unhooked his arm and pressed his back against a tree and slid to the ground. He held the stick high, and with his other hand he manipulated the fire to move slower down the branch.

  “My arm burns.” Dethil sucked air through his teeth, gripping the cut that oozed black liquid through the binding.

  “Don’t touch it. You’ll irritate it more.”

  Erador resisted touching the throbbing wound near his shoulder left by Slen. He sat on the ground, hardly noticing the pine needles and sticks poking his legs. It wasn’t his shoulder that worried him.

  Dethil groaned and leaves crunched as he laid on his side. He held the stick in the air, so it wouldn't touch the debris. “You can’t be sure Hawth knows Yuni.”

  “Oh, he does,” Erador mumbled, kicking a rotting log. “He fucking knows something.”

  Hacking, Erador’s lungs burned as if the smoke hadn’t left him and he was still in the cottage. He tried to calm down, so he wouldn’t breathe too hard and his chest wouldn’t hurt as much, but he felt like he was watching his near death on repeat.

  Hawth was hiding more. If Erador was close to the manor, he would run there and choke him, but he wasn’t sure how far they had walked. With their injuries, it had been much slower. He was worried about Dethil's blood loss. Erador’s sleeves he ripped off to wrap Dethil’s wounds were already soaked with blood.

  “Are you hanging in there?” Erador asked.

  “Best I can,” Dethil breathed.

  Erador shut his eyes and leaned his head against the tree. He concentrated on the chirping crickets and steadied his breathing. He tried to focus on getting Dethil home, but all he could think about was that thing in the woods. Maybe it was a hallucination from Slen and the smoke inhalation, but who dragged him out of that house when Dethil wasn’t there?

  “Did you... see visions when you were attacked?” Dethil said.

  Erador recalled the serene moment of that woman, but it was only a distraction to give a lurker the opportunity to finish their victim.

  “They’re hallucinations from the poison,” Erador said.

  “It felt real.” Dethil groaned as he sat up. “There was a child on a white beach with clear water and I… I wanted to be near her.”

  Erador shifted to hide his uncomfortable shivers; that was a vision he had experienced. He reminded himself that they weren’t his memories. These moments belonged to Slen’s owner. He shouldn’t have mixed feelings about a monster.

  Dethil touched the black poison dripping from his wound. “It was how the lurker felt, wasn’t it?”

  “It’s meant to distract you so he can finish you.”

  “Oh come on, they were memories.”

  Erador let out a sigh. “Lurkers are ruthless. Don’t let their dead owner’s memories fool you into thinking there’s anything good left in them.”

  “You felt it.” Dethil hit his chest. “You felt its sadness.”

  “They’re lingering memories from their owner. Shadows experience the world through us. They don't have feelings. They know how to mimic them.”

  It didn’t make sense how a shadow could feel on it’s own.

  Dethil scoffed. “Is that how you justify being mean to Shade?”

  “He’s a shadow. Not a person.”

  Erador was glad to be away from the fire’s reach. He didn’t have to contend with Shade’s whining about his insult. Mimicking feelings wasn’t the same as having them. Lurkers were a shell of what they used to be, looking to destroy and consume. If Shade and other shadows were compassionate, why did they become monsters when their owners died?

  “Shadow or not, it still feels,” Dethil said.

  “When I die, Shade will become a lurker.” Erador pressed his foot against a rock. “He’ll kill people. They don’t have empathy. They don’t get sad.”

  “You’re wrong.” Dethil shook his head, tongue pressed in his cheek. “They live, breathe from the sun. They have a soul.”

  “Lurkers are more like an insect.” Erador picked a leaf off the ground. “Mindless creatures, doing what they’re programmed to do. There’s no love in them.” Erador crumbled the leaf and dropped the remains.

  “That lurker has more love than...” Dethil sat silent, twisting his pinky ring.

  “Then what?”

  “Nothing...”

  Dethil turned his body away and shut his fingers over the fire, leaving them in darkness. Erador let the silence in, and tried to ignore the tense air. He knew who Dethil meant. His heartless father didn’t love anyone; he wanted someone to control. Erador wouldn’t treat Dethil poorly over a disagreement like Jerus.

  “How are you going to explain to him what happened to you?” Erador said.

  Dethil scoffed. “I haven’t thought of it.”

  Without another word, Erador hoisted Dethil up. His shakiness indicated he wasn’t ready, but he would get weaker if they stayed. Erador helped him through the woods and into the garden. He had to push harder to get his weak muscles to support Dethil through the path and help him sit on the manor steps.

  “We have to get you treatment,” Erador said. “Wait here.”

  Erador rushed up the steps and opened the back door to Judgment’s hall. The painted windows blocked the moonlight. It helped him avoid the devastation of the once beautiful plants.

  Erador felt for the familiar curved handles on the door and opened them into the dusty room. He never wanted to come here again, but he pushed through the room, his footsteps echoing. Here his father laid Judgment on his followers and forced Erador to the room of Retribution nearby to beat him.

  That didn’t matter now. Dethil needed help.

  He slipped out the door, into the lit stairwell and went straight for the throne room. Erador peeked around the wall and panned his gaze to the purple chair, but Yuni wasn’t here. Mikra swept a broom around the throne.

  Erador called the caretaker but he didn’t respond. Again he tried, louder, his voice echoing down the room. The servant stopped and looked around, until he found Erador. He walked to him and cupped his ear as he titled his head toward him.

  “Can you get Sescina?” Erador said. “Tell her it’s an emergency, to bring her supplies, and meet me in the garden.”

  Mikra nodded and left.

  Erador rushed back outside. Dethil laid against the steps, eyes closed. Erador reached down to jostle his shoulder and make sure he was awake, but stopped when he groaned.

  After minutes, Sescina bounded down the steps bearing a lantern. “Erador! Is everything...” She stopped and dropped her case, overlooking their wounds. “Oh my... what happened?”

  Dethil groaned as he pushed himself up. “Erador was trying to face his fear.”

  Sescina clicked her tongue. “You’re not supposed to go to the realm by yourself. Wait until Loma hears this.”

  “She already knows we went,” Erador said.

  Sescina eyed him suspiciously and examined the dark oozing liquid on his shoulder. “You’re marked again?” She shook her head and looked at Dethil. “Him too?”

  Erador forced a grin. “If it’s any consolation, it was the same one.”

  “You're a fool. Both of you.” She rummaged through her case and pulled out a cloth. She pressed it to Erador’s shoulder, and he grimaced. “Apply pressure.”

  She moved to Dethil next. “Can you walk?”

  “Not well.”

  “Take this.” She handed the lantern to Erador and hoisted Dethil on her shoulder.

  Erador led them through the Hall of Judgment, staring at the floor to avoid seeing too much, but his skin crawled as he recalled counting the polished stone to calm himself before he would get beaten. He focused on the golden double doors, an escape from punishment.

  He reached the throne room and entered the nearby infirmary. Erador set the lantern on the table and helped Sescina lower Dethil onto the bench. It was smaller than the infirmary he went to for treatment for his lashings. It had one bed, a chair, and a cabinet of supplies.

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  Sescina peeled off the torn strips of sleeve on Dethil’s arm that Erador used to lessen the bleeding. She handed Dethil a cloth and had him press it to the wound, while she used scissors to cut open his shirt and unveil the other injuries on his chest. Tattoos covered his flesh, a flaming heart was on his chest.

  Erador couldn’t stop thinking about Yuni’s green flame and what Haven told him on the manor steps about it possibly being a spirit. A question for what that tattoo meant lingered on the tip of his tongue as he watched Dethil slumped against the wall. Sescina pulled splinters from his ankle with tweezers.

  He didn’t need to ask because Shade dug up the memory when Erador sat close to Dethil, touching the fire on his chest. It represented his element. The Native Harians, Dethil was related to, believed every fire had a soul. Yuni’s flame was unnatural, green like the color of Loma’s crystal. Why would it be a danger to let anyone know she had it?

  Erador adjusted the cloth on his arm. He couldn’t believe he was considering what Haven told him was true. A soul? A living being inside of a brooch? Maybe it was the lurker venom messing with his head. It would happen to Dethil too.

  He buried it as he reached for the knob.

  “Erador?” Sescina looked up. “You can’t leave now. I have to remove as much of the venom as I can before it spreads.”

  “I’ll manage. Dethil needs it more than I do.”

  Sescina wasn't able to remove all the venom when Erador was a child because the scars were too deep. More of the venom was able to penetrate his body. Saving him was more important at the time but that meant he was forced to endure feeling Slen since. Removing this new venom wouldn't change that.

  She threw him a roll of bandages. “At least wrap your wounds.”

  Erador went into town. He passed by Sunflower Alley and looped around it on another street to get to Aminria’s house. The deep sounding wind chimes called him to the porch where he knocked on the door. Aminria opened it and looked surprised. She pulled the front of her shirt closed. Her hair stuck in wild places like snakes ready to bite him if he dared speak.

  “What are you doing here?” she snapped.

  Erador didn’t allow her bitty voice to bother him. His wounds were already painful enough. “I need to talk.”

  She gasped as her eyes wandered to his shoulder, where he still pressed on the cloth. “What happened?”

  “Long story.”

  “I don’t want to be a part of this.”

  “It’s something you should know.”

  Erador stared at her with worry, and he knew it unsettled Aminria by how she shifted on her bare feet. She looked up and down the street and moved aside to let him in.

  Aminria sat on her worn sofa and used a match to light a few more candles on the coffee table. “What did you want to tell me?”

  She picked up her nail file and scrapped the metal against her nails but they already looked filed; it was unusual for them to be so short. He wished it was because she had been anxiously waiting for him to tell her something new, but it was likely because she was worried about how Emera died.

  “Yuni knows Baubie,” Erador said, without hesitating.

  “What?” Aminria dropped the nail file. “How?”

  Erador sat next to her. “I followed her. Baubie knows about her brooch and told her to not to let anyone see it. He said it could put her in danger.”

  Aminria’s lips parted. “You’re kidding?”

  Erador grabbed her arm. “This could be what we need to get rid of her.” He set the binding on the end table. “I’m going to talk to Hawth.”

  Aminria laughed in frustration. “You better do more than talk.”

  “If he denies knowing Yuni...” Erador scoffed. “I will.”

  “Good luck getting that from him. We got nothing from Emera.”

  “Then what am I supposed to do?” Erador looked her up and down. “Give up like you?”

  Aminria stiffened her face. “Maybe you should wait. Telling him you know about Yuni might make things worse.”

  Throwing down the cloth, Erador ripped out the splinter in his arm and snatched the binding. He wrapped it tight around his arm, limiting his circulation. He welcomed the numbness as he ripped at the binding but was unsuccessful at tearing it. Aminria went to another room and a drawer opened. Erador stared at the still clock on her end table, trying to decide what to do. Maybe he should wait. Hawth might reveal to Baubie that he’d been following Yuni.

  He looked toward the sound of scissors snipping his binding. Aminria rewrapped it. He looked away from her as bitterness worked inside him. He flinched at her soft touch. She was too gentle for someone who abandoned him. The tingling vanished as blood rushed back and anger took over.

  “You took a beating.” Her worried voice didn’t match her distant stare.

  “Dethil is in worse shape.”

  “He’s helping you now?” she said curiously, not upset as if she were missing out.

  Something he wished would come from her. He shouldn’t have been optimistic about her helping him again.

  “No one else wants to,” he said, turning the roll of binding in his hands.

  “So Hawth and Yuni...” She tied the binding. “They look similar. Maybe Baubie is her father. It would explain why he’s so concerned.”

  “I thought you didn't care.”

  “I'm just making observations,” Aminria said, rising. “It doesn't mean I'm back in.”

  Erador tossed the roll down. “I never thought otherwise.”

  She crossed her arms “Then why did you involve me?”

  “I thought I’d give you time to prepare if anything happens.”

  “Like what? Your death?”

  Erador played with the ripped string on his pants. “Baubie is worried the followers don’t want her to cure Judgment, which could put her at risk. If he’s worried about her, Hawth, and that brooch, then he could try something. It's better to work together.”

  Biting her finger, Aminria moved across the room, past the small table by the window. He held back a smile knowing he got to her. She was in as much trouble as anyone.

  “Hiding doesn’t make it go away,” Erador said, getting up. “You can’t just leave.”

  “I could,” she said stiffly.

  “How? You’re marked and you’re a wanted princess.”

  Aminria’s jaw tensed as she gripped the windowsill. “I’ll take it back then.”

  “Take what back?”

  “Elsgrith,” she said.

  Erador blurted out a laugh. He didn’t mean for it to sound mocking, but her fierce look said otherwise. He scratched his neck. “You... you couldn’t possibly do that.”

  Aminria raised her thin eyebrows as she faced him. “Excuse me?”

  “Elsgrith is massive.” He moved toward her. “You can't march in there, kill your aunt, and reclaim the throne by yourself.”

  She crossed her arms and lifted her chin. “I’ll find a way to convince them.”

  “Aminria,” he said. “You’ll get yourself killed.”

  “Won’t I be doing the same here? You said yourself, you’d take that risk.

  “But this is different.”

  “I’m not safe here anymore,” Aminria whispered. “I’ll take my chances.”

  “You will there, but not here?” Erador shook his head. “I can’t believe this after everything my father did for you.”

  “I have other options.” Amrina sat on the sofa and tugged on her sleeve. “I can hide my mark.”

  She was giving up on them like the followers and it made his chest hurt, but he didn’t want to care. Aminria was just scared. She was running away. Maybe that’s why she left Elsgrith and didn’t fight then. Maybe it’s why she hadn’t gone back after all these years.

  “What did your aunt do to you?” he asked.

  “Why do you care?” she snapped.

  “I do.” Erador sat with her. “You just won’t tell me.”

  Aminria laid her hands on her lap and played with the hem of her shirt. “She...” Aminria swallowed. Her voice was as delicate as a butterfly’s whisper, and each broken word was like the cries of an insect with a torn wing that would never fly again. “She killed my father.”

  Erador stared the floor He couldn't bear to see the forbidden sorrow in her gaze, afraid the dip in his chest would convey on his face. His fingers twitched as if he wanted to caress her back and have her lean into his chest. He tried to ignore the sudden feelings that he knew her on a deeper level than he reached with her. His scars burned and his vision blacked out.

  He heard it, a voice that said, “I’m sorry little song bird.”

  “What did you say?”

  Erador blinked, feeling as if he was pulled back to reality, staring at Aminria who was shocked. He touched his lips, unsure if what he heard came from him.

  “Nobody calls me that. Nobody,” Aminria said, fiercely.

  She stomped to the window and crossed her arms. She lifted the silver moon charm on her bracelet to eye level. Her saddened eyes focused to the sky.

  He winched and squeezed his arm where Slen had stabbed him, trying to ignore the uncomfortable atmosphere. Shade pressed about Dethil’s condition, giving Erador a reason to leave. He rose and went to the door.

  “What are you doing?” Aminria said.

  “I need check on Dethil.”

  “Can’t this wait until morning? You should rest.”

  Aminria nodded at the sofa. The brown fabric unraveled in places, exposing the bedding underneath. He normally wouldn't agree to sleep on such a thing, but his body felt too weak to make it back to the manor. He laid down, glad it was comfortable and it smelled nice, like Aminria’s roseberry perfume. It helped shift his focus from his throbbing injuries, and numb his mind.