Shattered Souls (Guardians of the Maiden Book 3)

Dyna stared at the bow and quiver of arrows Len handed her, baffled to be trusted with a weapon. But after yesterday’s beating, she wasn’t going to question it aloud. Len hissed some instruction at her then she wandered off. Dyna suspected target practice was meant to keep her busy while Len went to frolic with Novo deep in the forest. Even Yavi and Von would end up taking their tent at night, forcing her to share quarters with Tarn.

She never asked to stay, and he never offered, but she would end up falling asleep in the chair by the brazier from sheer exhaustion. She waited for him to order someone to carry her out, yet she would wake in the same spot in an empty tent with a blanket over her shoulders.

But every time she stepped outside, they would always be in a new location. How did Tarn move the tent without disturbing her?

Dyna glowered at the tree thirty yards away where she’d painted an X. The bowstring creaked as she pulled it back and aimed. Snow flurries drifted down, her breath clouding in the air. It didn’t stick to the ground yet. There was perhaps a week or two left before the gorge of Troll Bridge was filled with snow. She needed a new plan.

The arrow flew, but it skidded off the edge of the trunk and plunked to the ground. Dyna sighed. Would she ever get anything right?

She couldn’t protect her family. She couldn’t protect her friends. She couldn’t even shoot a damn arrow. They were only five days away from the port, and she wasn’t any closer to finding another way to escape.

Dyna snatched another arrow, notching the bow. Mind your sight, a voice whispered through her memories. Her skin tingled as she imagined Cassiel beside her, his gentle hands adjusting her form. It made her vision well.

She pressed a fist against her chest. It still hurt, but knowing he was alive was all that kept her from falling apart. The ache was a constant burden she had learned to live with, but she could only imagine it was much worse for him.

“Feel the weight of the weapon.”

Her back tensed at Von’s sudden voice behind her.

“Not only the physical weight, but the weight of its meaning. Of the target you intend to hit. Once you understand that, you won’t miss.”

Target.

All she could see was the knife plunging into Zev’s stomach, the black blood spilling from his mouth. The fury rising in her veins melted the weather’s chill. There was only one target in her mind now.

Dyna pivoted on her heel and aimed. The string creaked as she held it taut, the arrow point lined up perfectly with Von’s face where he stood a few yards away. His wide eyes fixed on her, a new acknowledgment entering them at the hatred he must see there. They looked at each other in silence with nothing but the snow drift between them.

“Believe me, Commander,” she said. “I know its weight well.”

His gaze fell to resignation, as if he’d been waiting for this. And he looked sad. Not by this moment, but because this was what his life made him. Her fingers trembled on the bowstring with the urge to shoot. It would be so simple to end him right here where no one could see. The image of Zev sinking to his knees and keeling over repeated in her mind over and over.

Her blood heated with rage.

Dyna swung to the right and released. She’d been off by inches, but Tarn’s hand snapped out and he caught the arrow, cracking it in half. He stood in the shadows of the evergreen trees with Dalton standing behind him. The young mage gave her an ashamed look. After bowing to Tarn, he rushed away and Von’s image vanished.

She clenched her teeth. “You were testing me.”

Tarn came forward to stand beneath the flurries. White fluff drifted down and caught on the shoulders of his black coat. “I wonder, Maiden, would you have shot him?”

She had certainly considered it. Would she have killed Von? So she was furious and saddened by Zev’s loss, that the need for revenge might have won if she hadn’t noticed Tarn first. That darkness was startling.

The real question was, would she have missed?

The touch of Tarn’s gaze lingered on her downturned head as she gathered the fallen arrows into the quiver, leaving behind a tingle on her scalp. She roughly wiped an escaped tear from her cheek.

“Do you weep for the Lycan?”

Dyna threw down the bow and quiver. “His name was Zev!” she shouted, a sob catching in her throat. “He was my cousin, as close as a brother to me, and you killed him!”

Tarn idly took in her expression. “It seems you have forgotten I was not the one who stabbed him.”

“It may have been Von who held the knife, but you gave the order.” She had pushed out his loss from her mind to survive her time here, but Zev was gone. If she ever escaped, he wouldn’t be there waiting for her. The thought carved a new hole in her chest, and Dyna felt like she couldn’t breathe.

Muffling her cries, she crouched to pick up the fallen arrows. The hole of anguish and pain, she filled it with snow, because if she revealed her weaknesses to this man, he would carve a deeper chasm until she broke in half, too.

“That which you feel right now—anger, sorrow, love—they are useless feelings that serve only to bind you. Thank the gods he’s dead, for now you have nothing left to lose.”

Dyna snatched an arrow and lunged at him with a feral scream.

Tarn caught her throat. He shoved or lifted her, too fast for Dyna to know, and pinned her against a tree. Her heart thundered in her ears as he squeezed—not enough to cut off air, but enough to prove how easily he could snap her neck with little more than a flex of his hand. His eyes—they were like chips of ice.

Beneath them she glimpsed a spark of something that sent frost crystalizing in her veins.

Pressed flush against her, his hard face was inches away, his chest rising and falling sharply with heavy breaths, or maybe it was hers. She was too aware of her feet dangling off the ground and the helplessness of her position. The arrow had fallen somewhere when his other hand had pinned her wrist above her head.

She was completely at his mercy.

Attacking him was stupid. She had gone briefly insane from her wrath, which had instantly cooled to fear.

“You have little regard for your life,” Tarn said, his voice deadly soft. “That will be the last attempt you make. Try it again, and I will punish you.”

Dyna swallowed beneath his grip as she remembered Geon’s back. Any punishment Tarn gave would be cruel, but she had to question his restraint.

“Why haven’t you killed me yet?” she faintly asked, feeling trapped against the wall of his chest and the rough surface of the tree pressing into her spine. He was the only thing holding her in place.

“I will.” Tarn’s hand slid lower on her throat where his thumb found her racing pulse. “The moment you stop being useful.”

Her heart pounded as she waited for him to decide how useful she was. The only reason why he had captured her was for her map. Yet why…?

Her legs floundered in the empty air, causing her bangles to clank lightly.

Then the answer came.

A surprised scoff left her. “I know why you don’t have me open the journal,” she said. “To open it, I would need my Essence and I can’t do that with these bangles on. You’re not willing to take them off at the risk of giving me my magic back.”

His jaw flexed. “You could tell me where it is.” She opened her mouth to answer, but he shook his head. “I expect any location you give would be a lie, unless you wish to disclose such information in my tent.”

Where he could prove her claim against the runes.

At her glower, his mouth thinned. “Yes, I thought not.”

Tarn could easily torture it out of her if he wished, so why the hesitation?

“Is it the divination that gives you pause?” Dyna asked under her breath. She felt the rise of his chest halt. “They told me what the Seer said. That I may be your undoing.”

He didn’t answer, but she saw the growing ire on his face.

“I may be the one with the power here,” she said, feeling haughty. “You won’t hurt me. Not until you know what that last line means.”

There was only the wind and silence as they stared at each other past the flurry of snow. A muscle flexed in his clenched jaw. He despised it, this small sliver of a hold she had over him. The spiteful joy she felt from it made her smile.

He looked at her mouth, and for a frightful moment, her heart stopped. But cold indifference was all she saw in his gaze when it lifted to hers again.

“Do you know what true power is, Maiden?” Tarn asked. “It’s having control and influence over others. I can end your life or I can make you my perpetual slave, leaving you to never see your family again. I am the bow that directs the arrow’s course of your life. That’s power. And you lack it.”

His icy grip squeezed her throat. She kicked and wheezed, her lungs burning for air. He held on long enough to make her fear for her life before letting go. Dyna collapsed to the ground. Tarn left her there, coughing and gasping, not bothering to see if she followed or not.

She touched her throbbing neck with trembling hands. Did he contemplate killing her or was that all to prove his point?

Slumping against the tree, Dyna buried her face over her knees and silently wept. She wanted to go home. She missed her village. Its safety and the idle peace of an easy life. Now she was across the country, lost, and imprisoned by strangers because of fae prophecies. She laughed wetly at the ridiculousness of it.

Gods, what was she doing? She clenched her fists, biting back a scream. That man, the world, had her under their heel. Control over her life had been taken from her. She was trapped and smothered beneath the mercy of others. Her whole life had centered on not being strong enough.

But when would that stop being an excuse?

If you want to be a fighter then be one.

When Len soon returned, they sparred. Dyna struck with all of her fury. Flesh against flesh. Bone against bone. Her muscles spasmed with every hit she took, but she spat the blood from her mouth and pushed herself off the frozen ground again and again. She fought against the loss of Zev. Against the desperation to return to Cassiel. Against Tarn.

She beat her fists with the urge to stop being the one everyone stepped on.

Her opponent’s leg shot out. Dyna pivoted, the sweeping kick missing her by inches. Taking the opening, she swung and the punch landed, throwing Len back.

She rubbed her jaw, staring at Dyna with mild surprise. “Gasan,” she said in what almost sounded like approval.

Dyna wiped the blood from her nose and lifted her fists, falling into position. She refused to be made anyone’s arrow.

This was where it ended.

Len nodded and motioned. “Again.”

Dyna attacked with everything she had. She beat down the frail, naive girl that left North Star. Tore apart her weakness. Kicked down her failures. Punched through her fear. She shredded it all away until her flimsy shell crumbled into itself.

And with each strike that followed, that frail girl slowly began to perish.