He Who Breaks the Earth (The Gods-Touched Duology)

Knox stepped out of the tent after Lia, his mind buzzing with fresh air and light and words and life as if he hadn’t been unconscious long enough to get halfway across the country. Anwei pulsed at the back of his mind like a cord tethering him to the earth. And Willow…

He felt around inside his mind, looking for her shadow, but Anwei’s presence there was too strong. Willow was gone. Knox ran a few steps to catch up with Lia. “Do you know what happened to my sword?”

Lia pressed fingers to her mouth through her veil and blew a kiss toward Vivi lying under a tree a ways away from the tent. In return, the thing threw back his head in a feral scream that was all teeth and quivering gullet.

Anwei must have told Lia about the sword. About Willow and… Knox’s mind flashed back to the last thing he truly remembered: Gulya slamming the pockmarked hilt of the cursed sword into his chest. After that, there were only shaky blasts of memory, of pain, of darkness, of a boy his age collapsed on the floor nearby. Willow shriveling inside him, claw-deep in whatever kept him alive as she dragged him to oblivion with her. And Anwei’s hands, her energy burning bright as it flooded him. Calsta’s voice telling him to reach for her.

“The sword melted.” Lia’s voice was quiet. “I don’t know what Anwei did with it. But it’s gone.”

Knox breathed in slow, then out. Did that mean Willow was free? Released from her rotting prison to go in peace? That was all he’d ever wanted.

All I ever wanted. The thought sat in his head, catching on every syllable. Because there were new things he wanted now. The memory of Calsta’s voice whispered through him. A bond, she’d said. What had happened between him and Anwei—the link that had joined their minds—was a magical bond. One that fit within the framework of Devotion. There were more oaths to make, Calsta had said, and saving Willow from the sword had hinged upon it… but Willow was gone.

It is not finished, Knox, Calsta’s voice whispered through him. You are not free of her.

Of who? Anwei?

Your sister is not gone. Anwei is keeping her from taking control of you, but Willow found the other half of her corrupted bond, and she likes him better than you.

“Knox?” Lia had led him to a large circle of open ground past the tents, where the weeds had been stamped to bare dirt. Three Trib sat on old stumps next to it, strumming mandolins, taking turns picking out melodies and laughing at one another when they hit wrong notes. “Are you all right?” Lia’s voice was tight, aurasparks glittering and skipping around her head like a crown. That was Lia. She’d always gathered up all the feelings she wasn’t allowed to have and turned them into energy almost as if she were a goddess herself.

“I’m fine,” he said.

“You’re moving slowly. Is it your wound? Calsta above,” she swore. “I shouldn’t have let you get up.”

“No.” Knox’s hand went to his side. A hard knot sat just under his ribs, which he’d felt when he first sat up but hadn’t been sure what it was or how it came to be. It pulled on him as he walked, as if everything inside him was two or three degrees crooked. “I’m just trying to remember everything.” He wanted Anwei to come back. She’d given up something; he could feel it. She’d made some oath, sacrificed something to save him from whatever had happened in the tomb. And it had solidified the bond between them.

She’s frightened of you. Calsta’s voice was scorching.

Frightened? Knox’s fingers dug into the knot under his ribs before he could stop himself, flashes of Anwei’s long braids in his face, Anwei threatening to spike his tea, Anwei’s rosebud mouth turned up in a smile. Anwei limp in his arms as he ran toward the gate in the tomb compound, and Anwei’s skin traced over in scars. She was angry at me, but that’s not the same thing. Did Willow do something…?

Yes, Willow tried to kill her again, but that’s not what I mean. Anwei is frightened of you.

Knox rolled his eyes—Calsta was in fine form, as always. Anwei had sworn at him, teased him. Confronted him when Willow’s sword was in his hand. Even yelled at him the night he’d told her about Calsta’s oaths. But there was no way Anwei was afraid of him.

He wasn’t afraid of Anwei either, but Knox couldn’t say that to Calsta. He didn’t even know what he was allowed to say to the goddess anymore. Only that everything inside him that was twisted together with Anwei wasn’t something he could step back from, even if he wanted to.

Which, in this moment of clarity, he very much did not want to.

You think I can’t hear every one of those thoughts darting through your little mind, Knox? Knox shrugged away Calsta’s amusement, then tensed as the Trib who’d come into the tent earlier appeared from what looked like a supply shelter erected next to the training field. Several others followed him out of the enclosure. Lia grabbed hold of her veil and pulled it off so quickly that it was over before Knox knew it was happening, Lia a mass of spangled white one moment and a snarl of red curls and freckles the next.

“Miss Lia, your face…” The Trib faltered.

“My veil isn’t sewn on, Gilesh,” Lia informed him. “You thought I was hiding something, right? Maybe a missing nose?”

Another of the Trib, much taller and with bangs that hung in his eyes, elbowed Gilesh. “I mean, we didn’t take bets or anything, Miss Lia.”

“Well, make them now, Bane.” Lia let her veil drop to the grass. “And get Knox a sword.”

“No!” Knox’s stomach jolted, his palms suddenly sweaty. “Not a sword. Anything else would be fine.”

“I thought we were going to spar.” Gilesh pouted.

“It wouldn’t be fair to you.” She pushed past him, going into the tent.

Riders began to fill in around the field, coming to see what the hullabaloo was about. They crowded in behind Knox, pushing one another and yelling out taunts toward Gilesh. Knox ran an eye over the growing company, struggling to find a pattern to who carried what: knives, spears, axes, even one with a pair of bronze maces large enough to punch through plate armor. Lia emerged from the tent holding her sword in one hand and a long quarterstaff in the other. She pointed it at him. “Are you feeling the least bit ill? Light-headed? Tired?”

Knox wrenched the staff away from her for an answer. He ran into the circle of packed dirt, holding his arms wide toward Lia in a challenge. Lia obviously needed a good spar, to sweat until she was tired enough to forget for a few minutes, but suddenly he wanted it for himself, too. He was awake. Full of energy, full of life instead of full of a ghost. He felt like himself instead of whatever the sword had made of him.

Willow’s not gone, Knox. Calsta’s reminder burned. But Knox didn’t want to hear it. Didn’t want to believe it with all this energy rushing through him and the sky clear.

“He’s been on his back for a month!” Gilesh stepped toward Lia, hand on his weapon.

“She probably doesn’t want to hurt any of you riders,” Knox called back. He racked his brain for the Trib leader’s name, the one who had managed to infiltrate the apothecary back in Chaol, then had spent his time there lying on the floor across from Anwei making explosives, as if they’d been playing marbles. “Altahn won’t like it if she starts picking you off.”

“You think Miss Lia won’t hurt you?” Gilesh’s smile had spread into a grin. “Or you think the kynate would rather she hurt you than me?”

“The second one.” Knox leaned on the quarterstaff like a cane. He was still confused as to how they’d landed in a circle of Trib with Altahn at their head. That sneak had pretended to help them back in Chaol only to escape with all the information they’d gathered in order to break into the tomb. “Are you going to come out here or not, Lia?”

Lia walked deliberately into the circle, keeping her sword point low.

Everything went quiet—not the Trib, who had begun shouting from the edges of the circle, but Knox’s mind as he breathed in, centering himself. His muscles felt soft, weak, but when he closed his eyes, Calsta’s well of power was there inside him, waiting to be drawn. Lia was too diminished to have her strength back, so at least that made them somewhat even. Lifting the quarterstaff, Knox took half a step toward Lia, glorying in the familiar calm he’d learned at the seclusions. He wasn’t a thief desperately trying to hide from his past, not a tool in Calsta’s hands. And he wasn’t the puppet that Willow had made of him.

A shard of ice came winging through his thoughts, quick like a startled bird and gone in a blink as it glanced off the barrier that Anwei and Calsta made in his head. Knox’s side began to throb, the hairs on the back of his neck prickling.

Willow was still there.

Knox breathed in, trying to negate the background hiss she made inside him. Go free, Willow! What do you want with me and this world? The thoughts came in desperate gasps, the dark presence gathering thicker like a storm over the wall of magic protecting him. The sword is gone. Just go!

Lia settled into her stance across from Knox, letting the tip of her sword hover just above the dirt. Her cheeks had gone pink, her eyes flicking between him and his quarterstaff, and Knox could see that she needed to swing that sword into something, and it didn’t matter who or what. A screech rang out over the camp followed by a long, shuddering auroshe squeal, as if Vivi could feel her agitation and couldn’t stand to be left out of the fun. The gooseflesh down Knox’s arms spread up his neck, his palms beginning to sweat, and a flash of unease stirred in his gut.

By now it seemed the whole camp had gathered to catcall and cheer. Gilesh and Bane tried to begin a synchronized clap, but it didn’t catch. Lia’s eyes ticked toward the sound, and in her moment of distraction, Knox threw himself forward, Calsta’s energy singing through him as he slammed the quarterstaff down onto Lia’s shoulder. It should have broken her collarbone—with a sword, it would have slit her from shoulder to navel—but Lia’s sword was up before he got close, batting the quarterstaff away like a fly.

Knox twisted in midair, fending off Lia’s return stab. When he landed, the riders were suddenly all very, very quiet.

Lia hesitated a second, as if to somehow acknowledge Knox’s days abed, but then she was a wildfire. Stab after stab, swipe after swipe, Knox blocking and spinning, trying to fit in his attacks toward her feet, then her arms, then her head, but she blocked each one, coming faster and faster until her frown was gone and she was nothing but energy.

Each attack came stronger, Knox drawing in more of Calsta’s energy to compensate for his leaden feet, the way he seemed to stick to the ground, turned too slow, and blocked a hair too long before returning an attack. Swipe, spin, stab, moving forward and backward and around until Lia spun up into the air, a kick swiping toward his face, then the full momentum of her sword slamming into the center of his quarterstaff when he blocked, slicing it in two.

Knox retreated, fending off her continued attack with the two severed pieces like twin swords, but then Lia hacked the one in his left hand in two and batted away the second when he threw it at her chest like a spear.

“Hey! Over here!” One of the riders held a mace out toward Knox. Knox rolled to the side to avoid another swipe from Lia’s sword, jumping up to catch the mace when the man threw it, barely bringing it up in time to block Lia’s sword.

Her eyes were wild, her teeth bared, and there was nothing in her but fight. Like so many years in training—with every frustration, every moment of anger and homesickness—Lia bled it dry on the practice field. This felt different, though, as if every blow, every form, every jump only stoked the raging bonfire inside her. She was raw. Out of control.

And she was coming for him.

Calsta help me, he swore, only to have the goddess laugh. In this fight? Why?

Lia leapt into a roll, her sword swiping a perfect arc toward his legs, forcing Knox to veer out of the way. He swung the mace toward her head, but Lia neatly slid beneath it, attacking with a barrage of kicks and stabs that left Knox off-center, forcing him to retreat toward the edge of the circle. The mace was too heavy to easily block her quick blows, and Knox felt as if he were moving in slow motion, the last swipe at him coming from underneath as Lia slipped inside his guard yet again. Turning the close proximity to his advantage, Knox landed a blow just above Lia’s sword hilt, knocking the weapon from her hands.

Lia swore, slamming the palm of her hand into Knox’s chin, then an elbow into his side, finishing with a cut toward Knox’s windpipe that forced him to drop the mace so he could block her arm. She slithered away from him, kicking her sword up into the air, the point coming toward her instead of the hilt. Whipping off her coat, she caught the sword by its point with the fabric protecting her and swung the hilt toward Knox’s head. He dodged, the split second he was on defense giving Lia an opening to flip the weapon up in the air and snag it by the hilt.

“Knox! Over here!”

Knox barely had time to wonder how the Trib knew his name before two objects were hurtling toward him. He jumped up to catch the first projectile, then spun low to grab the second. Trib knives.

They were too short to be much good against a sword, and Lia was rushing him, a feral scream on her lips. Vivi was screaming too, almost as if he were in pain.

Knox threw the first knife low, then the second one high, but Lia managed to strike the first one out of the air with her sword, then went down into a split to catch the second, sending it right back to him.

He swerved, and it flew into the swollen crowd of Trib, curses and laughter billowing out from their midst.

“Lia!” Knox yelled, ducking a blow from the sword. He whacked the flat of the sword away with his arm and grabbed her wrist. “Lia, you’re going to hurt someone!”

She didn’t seem to hear, clocking him in the stomach with the sword hilt just above the knot under his ribs. Pain arcing through him, Knox stumbled back. Another yell from the crowd. They were laughing, as if they couldn’t see that she had completely lost control. “Here!” someone called, and another weapon was in the air.

Knox lurched forward to catch it, spinning to face Lia before he realized that the weapon clutched in his hands was a sword. His mind seemed to blink out, his arms and hands adjusting automatically to the weight, the familiarity, the horror. Willow’s shadow reared up inside him—

He dropped it like a hot poker.

“Knox!” Anwei’s voice was suddenly there. He hadn’t felt her return, his attention all on Lia. “Knox, move!”

Lia’s sword was swiping toward his throat. Knox could see it all unfolding, the world slowed to a snail’s crawl as Calsta’s energy flooded him. He could count the grass blades, hear each one as they whispered against one another in the wind, feel the shape of each word issuing from the crowd, the swish of leaves in the trees, Vivi’s panicked stamping, birds’ wings overhead—

And his sword on the ground.

“Knox!”

Knox dropped down, jamming a fist into Lia’s biceps, his second blow knifing into her wrist.

The sword spun out of her hands and landed on the grass. She stood there, chest heaving, tears trailing down her cheeks. She looked at Knox, then Anwei, who was standing inside the ring of onlookers, the hubbub of laughter and jeering rising every second. Wiping the tears from her cheeks, Lia pushed past Knox into the crowd, the riders’ catcalls dying in awkward yowls at the sight of her tear-stained face.

“We’re leaving!” Altahn’s voice rang out over the noise. “Tents down and saddles up in the next hour!”

“Lia!” Knox took a step after Lia, but the sound of his voice spurred her faster. So he turned toward Anwei instead, her energy sparking in his head. Riders were flooding the training circle, the sea of mirth and back-slapping dimming to a background hum. Then Anwei pushed into sight. Knox’s insides lurched. There were circles under her eyes, her braids were all askew, and there were blotches of red that smelled like herbs across her face and neck. She seemed helpless somehow, staring up at him as if the world had stopped.

Anwei wasn’t helpless. She’d never been helpless. But the feeling made a hole inside him, stealing his breath and tightening his chest. The bond between them was electric. Anwei felt helpless, and so he was feeling it too. Helpless, and… afraid.

“You’re here,” he breathed.

There were tears—actual tears in Anwei’s eyes. “Storms and gods and broken skies, Knox. What is wrong with you? I thought you were a goner.”

He let out an incredulous breath, a laugh that wasn’t a laugh at all. “I thought I was too.”

Anwei crashed into him, her arms circling him tight. Her hands fisted into his tunic as they always did, as if she thought she was the only thing holding him fast to the ground. There were elbows and shoulders and shouts from the Trib jostling Knox from all sides. Adrenaline coursed through him, and his neck still tingled with the feel of Lia’s sword swinging toward his neck. But all he cared about was Anwei’s arms around him and her cheek pressed to his chest, her long braids trapped between them. He lifted her off the ground and spun her around, a laugh bursting out of him almost like pain.

Panic suddenly sparked inside him in the wake of his joy—his oaths, his goddess…

But Calsta didn’t say a word.

“Wait—” Anwei pushed away, slipping out from his arms as if she were made of fog. But then she grabbed his hand and dragged him through the crowd. The bond between them was like a bright light in his head, Calsta’s energy flowing around it—through it—and the swirling purple umbra of Anwei’s energy gusted back toward Knox as if they shared an aura now too.

New oaths. More together than apart. They’d mixed somehow, and there was no separating them.

When they got to the tent, Anwei yanked him inside, then dropped his hand to pull open her medicine bag. She squared her shoulders, rosebud mouth open as her eyes darted down the length of him, and she inhaled. The purple haze around her corded into streams, thick and ropy as they began to circle her, and even as Knox felt her thoughts churn with it, he caught a whiff of something salty and sweet that he’d never smelled before.

Knox knew to trust Anwei’s nose. But he was somehow part of it for a split second, the smell there, then gone in a flash, like a memory. Yet there wasn’t anything Knox could have cared about less in that moment. He reached for her again.

Anwei’s hand shot out, palm hitting his sternum and pushing him back onto the closed trunk next to her bedroll, forcing him to sit.

“What in Calsta’s name is wrong with you?” She knelt beside him, her hand sliding down from his sternum to touch the hard knot under his ribs. “You roll out of bed and pick up a sword?”

Disappointment flared inside Knox, then a terrible twinge of embarrassment, which was worse because Anwei could probably feel it. This was not what he had expected when she dragged him into the tent. “Lia needed—”

“Lia didn’t try to kill all of us, then die for a month. What happened?” She stood back up, agitation prickling their bond. “You were gone. There was hardly anything inside you. Just Willow.” She swept the braids back from her face, brow furrowing when her hand came away streaked with whatever herb coated her face and hair. Wiping her hand on her long skirts, she faced him again. “What did Lia do? How did she wake you up?”

“Lia didn’t—”

“Where is Lia?” Anwei jerked around to look at the tent flap as if she had expected Lia to follow them and couldn’t believe the Devoted was keeping her waiting. “Why was she fighting you? You just woke up from a coma! Why is her veil off? And Willow—I can still feel her inside you—” Her face crumpled, and she sank to the ground, hands covering her face.

Knox slid off the trunk and pulled Anwei close. Worry and confusion coursed through the place she’d claimed in his mind like notes vibrating from those Trib mandolins, each one out of tune. She let him gather her up, her forehead pressing into his shoulder—and Knox couldn’t think. Not about anything but the way she was touching him.

Energy sparkled in the well inside him. There were no warnings, no bells tolling, no interjections from the goddess he wasn’t thinking of even a little. Everything inside Knox began to twist, tighter and tighter until he couldn’t breathe. Anwei went still in his arms. “Knox?” The words were barely a whisper. “You said—”

Knox smoothed a hand up Anwei’s spine, the other circling her waist to pull her into his lap. He buried his face into her neck.

“You said this wasn’t okay,” she whispered against his cheek.

“I don’t know what the rules are anymore,” he said. And kissed her.

For that moment, the world seemed to break, the air nothing but a high, clear note in his head. Anwei’s lips moved against his, and there was no Willow, no goddess, no wound in his side, no world because it could have all ended right then and he’d still be kissing Anwei.

Anwei’s emotions swirled around him, relief and desire and excitement and fear.

Fear.

She’s afraid of you, Calsta had said.

Knox paused. Then suddenly Anwei was pulling away, a movement so fast and ferocious that she fell backward, catching herself on one hand. Anwei’s legs curled up under her, her hands closing into fists in her lap.

“Sorry.” Knox swallowed, swiping a hand across his forehead. “I should have—”

“No. You don’t need to apologize.” Anwei didn’t move, but the rush of feelings that had been so closely twined with his just moments before was shrinking back, leaving him cold. “I, um…” She cleared her throat but couldn’t seem to come up with any words, the light brown of her cheeks tinged with pink. “I need to go.” Getting onto her knees, Anwei pushed herself up from the ground. “Lia and the others need to see…” Her hands strayed to her bag, a corner of a leather folio full of documents sticking out. “You’re all right?”

Knox blinked, confusion thicker than fog inside him. “I think so?”

“Then you stay here.” She started to back away, pulling her sleeves down so they covered her to the knuckles, the hint of pink in her cheeks deepening when they went to the button at her throat, checking, as always, that her scars were covered. “I’ll need to look at your side before we leave. It’s not healing properly.”

“What is happening here, Anwei?” Knox’s insides wouldn’t settle, his heart still pounding with the feel of Anwei pressed up against him where now there was only dead air.

“I found what we need to get to the snake-tooth man.”

That wasn’t at all what he meant, but Knox nodded anyway, waiting for her to continue.

“He tried to kill you. And my brother isn’t dead. He belongs to Tual Montanne now.” Anwei’s heel caught on a messy bedroll, making her stumble to the side. She caught herself, a tense laugh squeezing out of her throat. “It’s all gotten very complicated. But I think, maybe for the first time, I might be a step ahead of him. But that won’t last if we don’t get out of here.”

“Wait, your brother is alive?” Knox swallowed. “And we’re going to get him. And Lia’s sister. And finally get rid of the snake-tooth man.”

Anwei nodded, a strained smile touching her mouth.

“And you want me… to stay here? In the tent.”

“Yes.” She hugged the medicine bag tight to her chest, still backing away.

Knox stood, moving slowly. Feeling too large, ungainly, wrong somehow. “Why?”

Anwei bit her lip. “You trust me, don’t you?”

“You know I do.”

“Then stay here.” She turned and walked out.