Page 98 of Starside

My throat aches. My head throbs. The sun beats heavily down on us without the veil of magic, scorching hot. This rot is a curse. All I can do is hope it ends soon.

We finally happen upon a forest, and my dry eyes search wildly for anything living.

Red. I spot large apple-like fruits and lunge forward, picking them—only to drop them. They’re spoilt and teeming with insects.

I eat one of my berries, only to see that they themselves are starting to rot. It’s as if this place has a sheen, a poison around us.

“We should go a different direction,” I say, shaking my head. “This place—”

Raker ignores me.

We pass the carcass of an unrecognizable animal. I bury my nose in my shirt against the smell. Maggots crawl in and out of its skin, and its—its veins are dark, like that demon that tried to coax me out of the spring. Its flesh is gray.

Is this the God of Death’s work too?

We walk for hours, without finding a suitable place to spend the night. Finally, we settle beside a rushing red river. We’re not surrounded by water … but close enough to get in it, should we need to.

I really fucking hope we don’t.

I won’t be resting a moment tonight, anyway, remembering what happened the last time I fell asleep along a riverbank. Which is fine. I’m in no rush to return to that memory. Raker—bastard that he is—is right. Screaming in the middle of the night is a liability.

So is my very mortal reliance on food and water.

Training yesterday has only intensified my need for both. I’m so hungry that I find myself disappointed when Raker returns empty-handed. There’s nothing to hunt anymore, I assume. Nothing that isn’t poisoned.

I stare at my sad spread of food. I planned to save it for as long as I could … but it’s shriveling already. It won’t last another day. I eat a good portion of it, the food grinding together into a dry paste in my mouth that I work to swallow.

Then I look up at the towering figure that is sitting on a rock by the red stream’s edge, hunched forward. For once, his posture isn’t perfect.

He must be hungry. Clearly, it takes a lot of food to keep a knight like him satiated.

He should have tried foraging. I’m sure he wouldn’t turn up his nose at my berries and mushrooms now.

I eat another piece of fruit. I continue to watch him, trying to summon satisfaction and happiness at his current position.

I can’t. Maybe it’s because I know that him being weakened will only end up hurting me in the long run. Maybe it’s because I’m not a heartless wretch like he is. Maybe I’m still hoping he’ll train me.

You really are an idiot, I think to myself, before grabbing some of the mushrooms and berries and walking over to him.

He’s sharpening his blade. Fantastic. His hands grip the sword and polishing stone and—they’re huge. They’re the biggest hands I’ve ever seen.

Why am I staring at them? These huge hands have killed hundreds. I should be disgusted by them. I am disgusted by them.

My eyes dip to his sword, wondering if I’ll get another look at his mask in its reflection, but before I can, he lowers it, as if sensing my purpose.

“Here,” I say, extending my hand.

He doesn’t even look at me.

I scowl. “I know you’re hungry. Are you truly too proud to take something from me?”

He doesn’t say a word.

What? Does he think it’s poisoned? I make a show of biting one of the mushrooms in half, chewing, swallowing, waiting, remaining very much alive, then offer the other half to him.

He turns away from me, as if the idea of eating something that has touched my lips is a worse fate than being poisoned.

I roll my eyes and offer him a different one. I wait a moment. Two. Fine. He wants to starve? Fucking go ahead. “You know what, I—”