The Puppeteer and The Poisoned Pawn (The Pawn and The Puppet series Book 3)

“You can fake your death. Control the outcome so they won’t have a chance to hurt either of you.”

My body moves erratically, speeding through the forest with all of the energy I have left. I have to find my friends. I have to tell them what I’ve discovered. I’m not thinking about what happens next; I’m just sprinting like a crazed bull.

“You can fake your death.”

But no one could have faked that. I watched the sickle plunge through Dessin’s chest. My entire body was drenched in his hot blood. A part of me wants to protect myself from imminent disappointment. I know that if I let myself get excited about this… the heartbreak will be all-consuming.

“You can fake your death.” The voices are like screaming sirens in my head.

The pieces fit, though. He was so frustrated that he had to keep these secrets from me. It’s because it wasn’t even his plan to begin with. He was honoring my wishes!

“You have to keep me in the dark.”

It must have been hell for him to know me, remember me, care about me, and yet know for a fact that he was a stranger in my eyes.

“Let me believe Aurick is a friend.”

Jesus, I threw a fit when I learned who Aurick really was. I let my anger with Kane and Dessin tear me apart and keep me from enjoying my last few moments with him. He couldn’t tell me about Aurick because we were buying time, and I had to appear clueless to the leader of Demechnef.

I look up at the dark-gray sky, growing angrier from an impending storm. My legs burn, and my chest is tight. Sweat runs down my body as if it is already raining.

“Chekiss!” I scream.

“You can fake your death.”

“Warrose!”

If there’s any chance… I have to know.

The scent of firewood and smoke brush past my nose. I search the forest until I see a warm orange glow near a thin creek.

“Niles!” He’s the first one on his feet, racing toward me with an alert expression.

His blood covered my hands. Life vanished from his warm-brown eyes.

“What’s wrong?” he asks.

The others gather around me, watching me pant, resting my palms on my knees to get more oxygen in my lungs. I grimace at the sight of my legs. Dried blood has become a second skin. What must they think? They don’t exactly look surprised to see me this way.

“I think”—a cough breaks free of my lungs—“he’s alive.”

Being around those I love makes me want to cry. To finally let go. But I lock down my emotions, refusing to let myself feel until I know if this is real or not.

“What did you say?” Ruth asks.

“Who?” Chekiss attempts to hold me up.

“All of them. Dessin, Kane, Greystone, Aquarus, Kalidus, Foxem, Dai, Syfer.” I look at them with wild, unpredictable eyes. “He faked his death.”

Ruth lets out a devastating noise. “Oh, Skylenna.”

“How could someone possibly fake that kind of death?” Niles asks with raised eyebrows.

“Look—it sounds crazy. I know that. But I saw it—We made a plan. He must have done it somehow!”

Chekiss rubs a hand over my back. “Why do you think this?”

“Skylenna—”

“No, listen to me!” I shake myself free of their hands and back away. “We made a plan years ago! He would fake his death so I would become like him. The female subject to this fucking experiment!”

I didn’t notice until now that Warrose has remained quiet. “She’s right.” His voice is barely a whisper, but loud enough that everyone freezes.

My eyes bulge out of my head. Did he know?

“He asked me not to tell you,” Warrose breathes.

“You knew?” I explode. My body, despite the severe exhaustion and aching pains, fires through the air, pummeling him to the ground. “You fucking knew?”

“We didn’t know if it would work! I still don’t know if it did.”

I stop pounding my hands against his chest to listen.

“The day the Naiadales stopped us, remember? They asked to speak to Dessin. They were giving him a rare vial of the old Emerald Lake Spring.” I think back on this. The day we gave ourselves up to Demechnef. “Its legend says it can bring someone back from the dead, regenerate their wounded body.”

“A legend?” I spit out.

“They said it was a prophecy that his death would turn you into the warrior that will end the war!”

A memory flickers across my thoughts. The day Garanthian gave me the demons’-teeth weapon. You fight yet, Skylenna? He said yet. It was in his prophecy that I’d become this way.

I shake my head. “But you don’t know if it worked?”

Warrose looks grim. “No. I thought he’d be out by now, come looking for you. DaiSzek stayed at his grave. To dig him out if—when he finally woke up.”

I wilt, still straddling his hips. What if it didn’t work? What if the springs no longer held the elements that could revive someone?

“How long is it supposed to take?”

“Days or weeks. It depends on the gravity of the injury.”

I slide off of him, pressing my hand to my mouth, trying to process the thoughts racing through my mind. He would have come for me by now.

Maybe I should find him.

Where do I start?

“What should we do?” Niles asks, kneeling next to me.

The group is silent. But I’ve made up my mind.

“We have to dig up his grave.”

The storm swallows us whole. Clouds that look like waves in an angry sea. Lightning claiming the powerful sky. Rain hammering down on us, so hard and so fast that it stings when it shoots across our skin. The trees overhead are waving like giant green flags, whipping through the watery line of fire.

“We should find shelter!” Warrose yells at me through the ferocious winds. “Someone will get hurt!”

But my mind isn’t operating on reason. No, it’s running on fumes and dangerous threads of hope. I let the images of my Dessin bleeding out across my lap counteract my thoughts, laced with hope that could very well kill me. I’m not thinking about anyone’s safety. I’m not concerned with the lightning splitting trees in half or the ground beneath our feet starting to slosh with a flood.

I’m thinking of him.

That boy who reached his hands into Jack’s dark basement, pulling me into the sunlight. The one who taught me to swim, to climb a tree, to find food in the forest, to fight like an assassin in the night. That boy who held me while I cried, while I asked God to take us far away from this horrible place. That boy who put my happiness before his own.

Kane.

I’m thinking of the man in the thirteenth room that everyone feared. The man that was cruel to all except me. The man that would ride through hell, endure endless torture, walk through fire just to save me. The man with the heart covered in armor. The avenging alter.

Dessin.

The cold rain mixes with the blood of the asylum devils, washing it away in the storm. I have no food in my stomach. No sleep to keep my eyes open. No rest to soothe my aching muscles. All I have now is my will to see him again. To feel his heart beating.

Chekiss and Niles start to fall behind, and to my surprise, Ruth picks up her pace, running violently beside Warrose and me. Our feet splash in puddles, and she looks at me through wet strands of hair and those deep-brown eyes.

“I’m with you,” she grunts, sharp whimsical features covered in drops of rain, firm with determination.

My heart of ice and poison cracks, only a little, a slight hairline fracture that lets in some of her warmth. Even after the cruel words I said, cutting her deep, she is still standing by me. I give her a quick nod.

We enter the graveyard. The air heavy with lingering spirits and the strong scent of wet soil and wilting flowers. I point to the red oak tree drooping over my father’s grave. Kane’s family plot is right behind it. Now that I think about it, they must have planned it that way. Sophia and Jack’s families, bound in life and death.

I slide to my knees, gliding through the mud as we reach his headstone. I blink several times, clearing the water from my lids. It says the names of all of his alters.

I look up at Warrose with stunned eyes.

He nods. Guilt. Fondness. Calm sadness.

Without another word, I scramble to dig with my hands. Six feet of compact dirt, only soft and mushy at the first few inches due to the storm. I’ll do it. I’ll break my fingers, bloody up my nails, push myself to the brink to find him.

Niles and Chekiss finally catch up, dropping to the ground to help Ruth and me dig. With every handful of mud, rainwater fills the small hole. It’s exhausting. We’re hunched over, sopping wet, blind from the sideways rain, and slipping around in mud.

“Move,” Warrose orders. He rips off his black tunic in a hurry, revealing his raised tattoos, gray and black, an ancient language in the form of calligraphy markings all over his body.

And he’s huge. The broad lines of his back. The trim coiled muscles across his stomach. I turn away quickly, looking over at Ruth, who is gawking with an open mouth. She stops digging.

“Is that really necessary?” she asks him.

Warrose snorts. “I brought shovels. So, yes.”

Oh, thank God.

It feels like hours pass as we dig to the bottom. Niles’s shovel clanks against the coffin first. At this point, the storm lets up, now sprinkling over us in a fine mist.

“Niles!” Warrose shouts, gripping the edges of the slippery wood. “Help me open it!”

We drop our shovels, moving out of the way to give them some space. My heart is a ball of thunder in my chest. The oxygen is too thin. And what if he’s in there? What if he is—still dead? My body starts to shake violently as if it only just realized we’re soaking wet and surrounded by a chill in the air.

Ruth’s hand slides into mine, holding me close as they work the lid.

I hold my breath. I wasn’t supposed to let that dangerous sliver of hope tighten itself around my heart. But it has. There’s no denying it now. I can’t protect myself from what comes next.

“You can fake your death.”

Niles and Warrose grunt, opening the lid slowly.

I suddenly remember what he said the night before I saw him die. You have to go back and figure it out yourself. You have to be brave. And please, please… remember me.

This was all he wanted. For me to remember the life we shared. Every moment I have loved him, even as a little girl. He was my whole world, and he knew it. And he was willing to risk everything to get that back.

Watching the coffin open, my entire body clenches, and we lean forward to look inside.

I collapse with a sharp intake of breath.

“Oh my god,” Ruth whimpers, covering her mouth. “It’s empty.”

A thousand emotions and thoughts and questions tumble over my body as I try and take it all in. If it’s empty, then he’s alive. He got out. Ruth tries to embrace me, but I turn to the side and retch, my stomach turning over as I vomit.

“That means she’s right, doesn’t it? He faked his death!” Niles rests his hands behind his head in shock.

Warrose sighs. “Where the fuck did he go?”

My body shudders again. I get to tell him I remember. I get to look him in those warm, chocolate eyes again. I get to feel his arms wrap around me.

Nothing matters anymore, and yet, everything does.

“I have to find him,” I pant, tears burning my eyes.

“We need to fill this hole back up,” Warrose thinks aloud. “If he took the time to make it look like the grave was in perfect condition, then he must believe Vexamen is watching. He must want to keep his miraculous revival a secret.”

But something inside the casket catches my eye.

I stumble to it, reaching my hand over the satin pillow where his head once rested. A necklace. Leather string. Wooden cross.

I hesitate to grab it. Touching it will suck me into the void again. And I’m moments away from losing consciousness. I look up at Warrose. “Take it,” I say. “I’ll touch it when I’ve rested.”

They don’t ask me to elaborate. No one has any idea how to react to this, what to say, how to feel. We trudge back to the forest to make camp in silence. Warrose makes a fire, feeds the group, and I now know why I haven’t seen DaiSzek. He’s been waiting for Dessin to come back. If only I had realized that sooner.

I eat absentmindedly with the group. Letting my numb toes and fingers thaw in front of the fire, listening to Chekiss snore lightly, and Niles nudging him to breathe normally.

And as the clouds part and I look up at the twinkling stars, my last thought is:

I’m ready to see the sun.