Page 152 of Starside

He huffs a cruel laugh. “You don’t know what bad means, Aris.” His fingers tighten against my skin. “You don’t know what fear means. Or pain. You don’t know any—”

“You don’t know what I know,” I say, my voice coming out so sharply, it cuts him off. He doesn’t say anything in response.

Silence. For several moments, it’s just silence.

Then curiosity overtakes me, and I break it. “How many people have you killed?”

He doesn’t hesitate. “I lost count a long time ago.”

“Hundreds?”

A pause. “More.”

I take a stuttering breath. So many lives … gone at his hand. This same hand that is now steering me through the darkness.

I shouldn’t be shocked. I know his reputation. I have seen him in action.

“The only way you get good at killing is by killing, Aris,” he says.

He’s right. And maybe that’s been my biggest flaw all along, the biggest threat to me reaching the gods and getting my revenge.

I am not as heartless as Raker. I can’t just turn off my emotions. And … and it makes me reckless.

“Have you ever been anything else?” I ask quietly. There is nothing but our voices in this tunnel. “Anything beyond the killing?”

I can’t imagine him as a child. Laughing. Carefree. Hell, I don’t even know if he has a face. I don’t know if he’s badly wounded, or monstrous, or anything at all.

Did he have a family? Was he born into one of those orphanages where the children are trained to fight from the time they can walk? Is that how he joined the king’s guard?

I want to ask. But—but I don’t want to ask anything I won’t answer, if he turns it on me.

It doesn’t matter.

That’s the question that quiets him, and turns into miles and miles of walking in endless silence.

And I can’t help but wonder why.

We walk in darkness for a full day.

The tunnels groan and shift around us, as if constantly being shaped with magic, and Raker guides us through different paths. He’s our compass, moving assuredly, and I really hope he knows what he’s doing.

I start to fear we’re traveling deeper underground. That maybe there is no ending, and we’re forever lost in the maze of the mountain. Maybe we’ve just been walking in circles. In this darkness, I’d never know it.

Even my memories can’t keep cold terror from settling in the pit of my stomach. Or, after a day without rest, my legs from wobbling.

They finally give out, and Raker only plucks me from the ground and drags me along again. “I can’t,” I say, blinking away dust. My voice is just a rasp. My body is spent.

“You can” is all Raker says.

And the fight in me that rises at those words, that wants to scream at him … it is enough. It is enough for me to dig into that pit of strength again and find more.

His hand is still splayed against my spine, where he fisted the fabric of my shirt and pulled me to my feet again. It’s a large steadying presence, keeping me upright. His fingers are long across my sword. But he doesn’t take it. He just keeps his hand there.

“How are you not tired?” I ask.

“I am,” he rumbles.

He doesn’t sound it. He doesn’t feel it. That hand is radiating strength, and I am taking it, as if leeching some of his years of training.