Chapter Two: The Rain Tower (1)

Lila woke to the sound of rain and the smell of soup.

She lay on a pile of dry hay in a crumbling stone tower, staring up at a ceiling green with mold. Rain leaked through a crack and plinked onto her forehead in a slow, maddening rhythm. Her side was bandaged—thickly, badly, the way a man would wrap a wound if he had never bandaged anyone but himself.

"Terrible craftsmanship," she said aloud.

"Good enough." The voice came from the corner, cold as a cellar. "You're alive. Stop complaining."

She turned her head. A man sat by the fire, whittling a stick. Silver hair, gold eyes, a face like the wall itself—carved, unreadable, never once smiled at. His right sleeve was torn, and beneath it, a black-wrapped arm was soaked with blood.

Him. The wolf.

"Are you a man or a wolf?" she asked.

"Guardian." He didn't look up. "Kael Voss. First Claw of the Everwall Border. You're in a restricted zone. By the Law, I should hand you to the patrol for execution."

"Oh." Lila lay back down and closed her eyes. "Fine. Execute me. Wake me when you're done."

The whittling stopped.

"I haven't slept in two days," she said, eyes shut. "Eighty miles of running, a silver nail in my side, and I've finally got a roof. Kill me, don't kill me, just let me get one nap in first. Don't be rude."

The fire cracked. Kael looked at her—at the way she curled up in the hay, at the way her breathing leveled into sleep in under a minute. Ten years of Border, a thousand dying refugees, and every single one had begged for mercy. Not one had told him to stop being rude.

"I'm losing my mind," he told the fire.

"No." A cheerful voice filled the doorway. "You're in trouble."

Rhett stood there, round-faced and beaming, holding a bowl of steaming broth. His deputy. His patrol captain. The only man on the Border with the survival instincts of a lemming and the observational powers of a gossip.

"Chief," Rhett whispered, eyes shining, "who's the girl?"

"A refugee."

"A refugee you carried into your tower. A refugee you bandaged. A refugee you're *making soup for*." Rhett's voice trembled with delight. "You remember that frozen cat, don't you? The one you threw out to die because it wasn't authorized personnel?"

"That was a cat."

"What's the difference?" Rhett asked earnestly. "Both are unauthorized life-forms in your jurisdiction."

Kael's fist tightened on the knife. "She's different."

Rhett's eyes lit up like twin lanterns. "Oh? How?"

"…She has silver poisoning. Silver draws wights. Wights pollute the wall."

"Oh, silver draws wights." Rhett nodded, savoring it. "Right. Of course. I'll go tell the Council right now. They'll be thrilled."

"Rhett."

"Chief."

"One more word and I'm assigning you to night watch at the Rift."

Rhett shut up instantly, set the soup on the threshold with the reverence of a man delivering a holy relic, saluted crookedly, and ran. Halfway down the stairs he came back, one head around the corner, whispering fast and low:

"Chief. If you're going to keep her, hide her good. The Council's got eyes like hawks—especially *that* one. I got word this morning. The Arbiter's coming. Elaine Cross. You know what she does to guardians who crack. She's coming *right now*, Chief. Right when a girl shows up in your tower."

The stairs fell silent.

Elaine Cross. The youngest Chief Arbiter in Council history. Eleven guardians in three years, every one exposed, Brand shattered, cast out into the dead lands. She had eyes that saw through walls and a smile that had ended careers.

The fever came at midnight.

Silver poison is a slow, deliberate killer. By the time the storm was at its worst, her body had lost the fight: burning hot, lips cracked, shivering so hard the hay rustled under her.

Kael stood over her, telling himself the same lie over and over. It's the silver. It'll draw wights. It's for the wall. It's for the wall.

Then he sat down, lifted her head, and fed her soup one spoon at a time.

She drank two spoonfuls before her eyes opened, unfocused and wild. Her hand shot out and caught his wrist, surprisingly strong.

"…Don't leave me," she rasped. "Don't leave me, Ma. I couldn't save her. I tried, I ran, I went back, she was too small, I… I'm sorry, I'm so sorry—"

Tears slid down her cheeks, hot, and landed on the back of his hand.

Kael looked at the tears. He had spent ten years convincing himself he had no heart left—that the Law had filed it down to nothing. He looked at her crying, and something behind his ribs, in the place the Law had welded shut, cracked open and showed him a red, raw, living thing he had sworn was dead.