Текст книги "The Kiss of Deception"

Автор книги: Mary E. Pearson

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Текущая страница: 14 (всего у книги 20 страниц)

“You’re not a farmer,” Gwyneth said.

“I don’t care what the hell he is,” Berdi said and shoved a cloth sack into my hand. “Go!”

“The leader is Sven. He’ll have at least a dozen men with him,” I called over my shoulder as I walked out the door. I still had six hours of daylight. I filled my bota at the pump and grabbed a sack of oats for my horse. They had a long lead. It would take a while to catch up with them. But I would. I’d do whatever it took to bring her back. I found her once. I would find her again.

CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

I woke to a grinning face and a knife at my throat.

“If you have the gift, why didn’t you see me coming in your dreams?”

It was the boy, Eben. He had the voice of a girl, and his eyes were those of a curious waif. A child. But his intent was that of a seasoned thief. He intended to steal my life. If the gift was all that was keeping me alive, Eben didn’t seem to have gotten the message.

“I saw you coming,” I said.

“Then why didn’t you wake to fend me off?”

“Because I also saw—”

He was suddenly catapulted through the air, landing several feet away.

I sat up, looking at Griz, whom I had seen glaring over Eben’s shoulder. While he wasn’t fond of me, Griz also appeared not to tolerate rash independent decisions. Kaden was already on Eben, yanking him from the ground by the scruff.

“I wasn’t going to hurt her,” Eben complained, rubbing his bruised chin. “I was just playing with her.”

“Play like that again, and you’ll be left behind without a horse,” Kaden shouted, and shoved him back to the ground. “Remember, she’s the Komizar’s prize, not yours.” He walked over and unshackled my ankle from a saddle, a precaution he had called it, to make sure I didn’t try to make a run for it during the night.

“And now I’m a prize?” I asked.

“The bounty of war,” he said matter-of-factly.

“I wasn’t aware we were at war.”

“We’ve always been at war.”

I stood, rubbing my neck, so often abused of late. “As I was saying, Eben. The reason I saw no need to wake was because I also saw your dry bones being picked at by buzzards, and me riding away on my horse. I guess it could still turn out that way, couldn’t it?”

His eyes widened briefly, contemplating the veracity of my vision, and then he scowled at me, a scowl laced with too much rage for his tender years.

The day passed as the one before, hot, dry, grueling, and monotonous. Past the foothills was another hot basin, and another. It was the road to hell, and it afforded me no chance of slipping away. Even the hills were barren. There was nowhere to hide. It was little wonder that we passed no one. Who else would be out in this wasteland?

By the third day I stank as badly as Griz, but there was no one to notice. They all stank too. Their faces were streaked with grime, so I assumed mine looked the same, all of us becoming filthy striped animals. I tasted grit in my mouth, felt it in my ears, grit everywhere, dry bits of hell blowing on the breeze, my hands blistering on the reins.

I listened carefully to their grunting babble as we rode, trying to understand their words. Some were easy to decipher. Horse. Water. Shut up. The girl. Kill. But I didn’t let on that I was listening. In the evenings, as discreetly as possible, I searched the Vendan phrase book inside my bag for more words, but the book was basic and brief. Eat. Sit. Halt. Do not move.

Finch often filled the time whistling or singing tunes. One of them made me take note—I recognized the melody. It was a silly song from my childhood, and it became another key to their Vendan babble as I compared his Vendan words to the ones I knew in Morrighese.

A fool and his gold,

Coin piled so high,

Gathering and hoarding,

It reached to the sky,

But nary a coin,

Did the fool ever spend,

While his pile grew high,

The fool only grew thin.

Not a pittance for drink,

Nor a pittance for bread,

And one sunny day,

The fool found himself dead.

If only these fools appreciated a bit of coin, I’d be out of this blasted heat by now. Who was this Komizar who instilled loyalty in the face of riches? And just what did he do to traitors? Could it be worse than enduring this scorching purgatory? I wiped my forehead but felt only sticky grit.

When even Finch fell silent, I passed the time thinking about my mother and her long journey from the Lesser Kingdom of Gastineux. I had never been there. It was in the far north, where winter lasted three seasons, white wolves ruled the forests, and summer was a brief blinding green, so sweet that its scent lingered all winter. At least that’s what Aunt Bernette said. Mother’s descriptions were far more succinct, but I saw her expressions as Aunt Bernette described their homeland, the creases forming at her eyes with both smile and sadness.

Snow. I wondered what it felt like. Aunt Bernette said it could be both soft and hard, cold and hot. It stung and burned when the wind pelted it through the air, and it was a gentle cold feather when it drifted down in lazy circles from the sky. I couldn’t imagine it being so many opposite things, and I wondered if she had taken license with her story as Father always claimed. I couldn’t stop thinking of it.

Snow.

Maybe that was the smile and sadness I saw in my mother’s eyes, wanting to feel it just one more time. Touch it. Taste it. The way I wanted to taste Terravin just one more time. She’d left her homeland, traveling hundreds of miles when she was no more than my age. But I was certain her journey was nothing like the one I was on now. I looked out at the searing colorless landscape. No, nothing like this.

I uncapped my canteen and took a drink.

How I would ever get back to anywhere that was civilized now I wasn’t sure, but I knew I’d rather die lost in this wilderness than be on exhibit among Vendan animals—and they were animals. At night when we made camp, except for Kaden, they couldn’t even be bothered to walk behind a rock to relieve themselves. They laughed when I looked the other way. Last night they had roasted a snake that Malich killed with his hatchet, and then smacked and belched after each bite like pigs at a trough. Kaden ripped off a piece of the snake and offered it to me, but I refused it. It wasn’t the blood dripping down their fingers or the half-cooked snake that killed my appetite—it was their coarse vulgar noises. It was apparent very quickly, though, that Kaden was different. He was of them, but he wasn’t one of them. He still had truths he was hiding.

With their chatter quieted, all I had heard for miles now was the maddening repetitive clop of hoof on sand and occasional body noises from Finch, who now rode on my other side instead of Eben.

“You’re taking me all the way to Venda?” I said to Kaden.

“Taking you halfway there would serve no purpose.”

“That’s on the other side of the continent.”

“Ah, so you royals know your geography after all.”

It wasn’t worth the energy to swing my canteen at his head again. “I know a lot of things, Kaden, including the fact that trading convoys pass through the Cam Lanteux.”

“The Previzi caravans? Your chances with them would be zero. No one gets within a hundred paces of their cargo and lives.”

“There are the kingdom patrols.”

“Not the way we’re going.” He was quick to quash every hope.

“How long does it take to get to Venda?”

“Fifty days, give or take a month. But with you along, twice that.”

My canteen flew, hitting him like lead. He grabbed his head, and I got ready to swing again. He lunged at me, pulling me from my horse. We fell to the ground with a dull thud, and I swung again, this time with my fist, catching him in the jaw. I rolled and got to my knees, but he slammed me from behind, pinning me facedown against the sand.

I heard the others laughing and hooting, heartily entertained by our scuffle.

“What’s the matter with you?” Kaden hissed in my ear. His full weight pressed down on me. I closed my eyes, then squeezed them shut tightly, trying to swallow, trying to breathe. What’s the matter? Did that question really require an answer?

The sand burned against my cheek. I pretended it was the sting of snow. I felt its wetness on my lashes, its feather-light touch trailing across my nose. What’s the matter? Nothing at all.

The wind had finally calmed. I listened to the crack and spit of the fire. We had stopped early tonight at the base of another range of hills. I climbed to a crag and watched the sun disappear, the sky still white hot, not a drop of swirling moisture to lend it color or depth. Kaden and I hadn’t spoken another word. The rest of the ride had been briefly punctuated by more laughter from the others, tossing my canteen between them in mock terror, until Kaden yelled for them to stop. I stared straight ahead for the rest of the ride, never looking left or right. Not thinking of snow or home. Just hating myself for letting them see my wet cheeks. My own father had never seen me cry.

“Food,” Kaden called to me. Another snake.

I ignored him. They knew where I was. They knew I wouldn’t run. Not here. And I didn’t want to eat their belly-slithering snake that was probably full of sand too.

Instead I watched the sky transform, the white melting to black, the stars so thick, so close, that here I thought maybe I could reach them. Maybe I could understand. What went wrong?

All I had wanted was to undo what I had done, meet my duty, to make sure that nothing happened to Walther, that no more innocents like Greta and the baby would die. I had given up all that I loved to make that happen—Terravin, Berdi, Pauline, Rafe. But now here I was, out in the middle of nowhere, unable to help anyone, not even myself. I was crushed to the desert floor, my face ground into the sand. Laughed at. Ridiculed. Betrayed by someone I had trusted. More than trusted. I had cared about him.

I swiped at my cheeks, forcing any more tears back.

I looked up at the stars, glittering, alive, watching me. I’d get out of this somehow. I would. But I promised myself I’d expend no more effort fighting insults. I had to save my energy for more important pursuits. I’d have to learn to play their game, only play it better. It might take me a while, but I had fifty days to learn this game, because I was certain that if I crossed into Venda, I’d never see home again.

“I brought you some food.”

I turned and saw Kaden holding a chunk of meat speared on his knife.

I looked back at the stars. “I’m not hungry.”

“You have to eat something. You haven’t eaten all day.”

“You forgot? I ate a mouthful of sand at midday. That was plenty.”

I heard him exhale a tired breath. He came over and sat beside me, laying the meat and knife on the rock. He looked up at the stars too. “I’m not good at this, Lia. I live two separate lives, and usually one never meets the other.”

“Don’t fool yourself, Kaden. You’re not living even one life. You’re an assassin. You feed on other people’s misery and steal lives that don’t belong to you.”

He leaned forward, looking down at his feet. Even in the starlight, I could see his jaw clench, his cheek twitch.

“I’m a soldier, Lia. That’s all.”

“Then who were you in Terravin? Who were you when you loaded goods in the wagon for Berdi? When I tended your shoulder? When you pulled me close and danced with me? When I kissed your cheek in the meadow? Who were you then?”

His chest rose in a slow measured breath. He turned to look directly at me, his lips half parted. His dark eyes narrowed. “I was only a soldier. That’s all I ever was.”

When he couldn’t look me in the eye any longer, he stood. “Please eat,” he said quietly. “You’ll need your strength.” He reached down and pulled the knife from the meat, leaving the slab of snake sitting on the rock, and walked away.

I looked down at the meat. I hated that he was right. I did need my strength, and even if I choked on every gritty bite, I would eat the snake.

Where did she go, Ama?

She is gone, my child.

Stolen, like so many others.

But where?

I lift the child’s chin. Her eyes are sunken with hunger.

Come, let’s go find food together.

But the child grows older, her questions not so easily turned away.

She knew where to find food. We need her.

And that’s why she’s gone. Why they stole her.

You have the gift within you too, my child. Listen. Watch. We’ll find food, some grass, some grain.

Will she be back?

She is beyond the wall. She is dead to us now.

No, she will not be back.

My sister Venda is one of them now.

–The Last Testaments of Gaudrel

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

“They call it the City of Dark Magic.”

We stared at the ruins rising from the sands like sharp broken fangs.

At least now I knew we weren’t in Morrighan anymore. “I know what it is,” I said to Kaden. “Royals hear stories too.” As soon as I saw the ruined city, I knew what it was. I’d heard it described many times. It lay just beyond the borders of Morrighan.

I noticed the others had fallen silent. Griz stared ahead under thick scowling brows. “What’s the matter with them?” I asked.

“The city. The magic. It raises their hackles,” Kaden said. A shrug followed his answer, and I knew he had no such reservations.

“A sword is no good against spirits,” Finch whispered.

“But the city has water,” Malich said, “and we need it.”

I had heard many colorful stories about the dark magical city. It was said it was built in the middle of nowhere, a place of secrets where the Ancients could practice their magic and offer untold pleasures for a price. The streets had been made of gold, the fountains flowed with nectar, and sorceries of every kind were to be found. It was believed that spirits still jealously guarded the ruins and that was why so many of them were still standing.

We continued to move forward at a guarded pace. As we got closer, I saw that the sands had scoured away most of the color, but occasional patches survived. A hint of red here, a sheen of gold there, a fragment of their ancient writing carved in a wall. There was no wholeness left to the city. Every one of the magical towers that had once reached to the sky had crumbled to some degree, but the ruins evoked the spirit of a city more than any ruins I had ever seen. You could imagine the Ancients moving about.

Eben stared ahead, wide-eyed. “We keep our voices low as we pass through so we don’t arouse the dark magic and spirits.”

Arouse spirits? I scanned the faces of my once fierce captors, all of them sitting forward in their saddles. I felt a smile ignite deep inside, hope, a small bit of power returning to me. With no weapons, I had to use whatever I could to stay alive, and sooner or later I had to convince them that I really did have the gift.

I pulled on my reins, stopping my horse with a jolt. “Wait!” I said and I closed my eyes, my chin lifted to the air. I heard the others stop, the huff of their breaths, the quiet, the expectant pause.

“What are you doing?” Kaden asked impatiently.

I opened my eyes. “It’s the gift, Kaden. I can’t control when it comes.”

His lips pulled tight, and his eyes narrowed. Mine narrowed right back.

“What did you see?” Finch asked.

I shook my head and made sure worry showed on my face. “It wasn’t clear. But it was trouble. I saw trouble ahead.”

“What kind of trouble?” Malich asked.

I sighed. “I don’t know. Kaden interrupted me.”

The others glared at Kaden. “Idaro!” Griz grumbled. He clearly understood Morrighese, even if he didn’t speak it.

Kaden tugged on his horse’s reins. “I don’t think we need to worry about—”

“You’re the one who said she had the gift,” Eben pointed out.

“As she does,” Kaden said through gritted teeth. “But I don’t see any trouble ahead. We’ll proceed cautiously.” He shot me a quick stern glance.

I returned it with a stiff grin.

I hadn’t asked to be part of this game. He couldn’t expect me to play by his rules. We continued down the main path that cut through the city. There was no street, gold or otherwise, to be seen, only the sand that was reclaiming as much of the city as it could, but you couldn’t help being filled with awe at the grandeur of the ruins. The citadelle back home was immense. It had taken half a century to build and decades beyond that for expansions. It was the largest structure I knew of, but it was dwarfed by these silent, towering behemoths.

Kaden whispered to me that in the middle of one of the ruins there was a natural spring and pool where I could wash up. I decided I would hold back on any more visions until I was at least able to bathe. We rode our horses between the ruins as far as we could, then tied them to the remains of marble pillars blocking our path and walked the rest of the way.

It was more than a pool. It was a piece of magic, and I almost believed the spirits of the Ancients still tended it. Water bubbled from thick slabs of broken marble, running over the slick stone and splashing into a sparkling pool below that was protected on three sides by crumbling walls.

I stared at it, lusting after the water as I had never lusted before. I didn’t just want to dip my hands in and wash my face. I wanted to fall in and feel every luscious drop kissing my body. Kaden saw me staring.

“Give me your canteen. I’ll fill it and water your horse. Go ahead.”

I looked at Griz and the others, splashing their faces and necks.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “They won’t bathe much beyond that. You’ll have the pool to yourself.” His eyes grazed over me and then glanced back at Malich. “But I’d leave your clothes on.”

I acknowledged his prudent suggestion with a single nod. I’d bathe with a thick winter cloak on right now if that were my only option. He went to fill the canteens, and I pulled off my boots. I stepped in, my feet sinking into the cool white sand that lined the bottom, and I thought I was in heaven. I dipped down, sinking below the surface, swimming to the other side, where the water splashed down from the broken slabs like a waterfall. When the others left to go water their horses, I quickly unbuttoned my shirt and pulled if off along with my trousers. I swam in my underwear and chemise, rubbing away the dirt and sand that had become ingrained in every pore and crevice of my body. I dipped my head below the water again and scrubbed my scalp, feeling the grit wash loose. When I surfaced, I took a deep cleansing breath. Never before had water felt this exquisitely purifying. Hell wasn’t made of fire but of blowing dust and sand.

I quickly swished my trousers in the water to wash the dirt from them and then put them back on. I was about to grab my shirt and wash it too when I heard heavy rumbling. I turned my head to the side trying to discern what the sound was and where it came from, and then I heard the subtle rhythm. Horses.

I was confused. It sounded like many more than just our six—and then I heard the blast of a horn. I was stunned momentarily. Oh, blessed gods! A patrol!

I ran from the pool, scrambling over rock and ruin. “Here!” I screamed. “Here!” The rumbling got louder, and I ran through the narrow pathways, pieces of broken rubble bruising and cutting my bare feet. “Here!” I yelled over and over as I ran toward the main road that wound through the middle of the city. It was a maze to get there, but I knew I was close as the rumbling grew louder, and then I caught a glimpse through a narrow pathway of horses galloping past. “Here!” I screamed again. I was just about to reach the road when I felt a hand clamp around my mouth and I was dragged backward into a dark corner.

“Quiet, Lia! Or we’ll all die!”

I struggled against Kaden’s hand, trying to open my mouth to bite him, but his hand firmly cupped my chin. He pulled me to the ground and held me tight against his chest, huddling us both in the corner. Even with my mouth clamped shut, I screamed, but it wasn’t loud enough to be heard over the roar of hooves.

“It’s a patrol from Dalbreck!” he whispered. “They won’t know who you are! They’d kill us first and ask questions later.”

No! I struggled against his grip. It could be Walther’s patrol! Or another! They wouldn’t kill me! But then I remembered the flash of color as the horses flew by. Blue and black, the banners of Dalbreck.

I heard the rumbling fade, softer and softer until it was only a flutter, and then it was gone.

They were gone.

I slumped against Kaden’s chest. His hand slid from my mouth.

“We have to stay a little longer until we’re sure they’ve left,” he whispered in my ear. With the thunder of the horses gone, I became acutely aware of his arms still around me.

“They wouldn’t have killed me,” I said quietly.

He leaned closer, his lips brushing my ear in a hushed warning. “Are you certain? You look like one of us now, and it doesn’t matter—man or woman—they kill us. We’re only barbarians to them.”

Was I certain? No. I knew very little about Dalbreck and their military, only that Morrighan had had skirmishes and disputes with them over the centuries, but certainly my current situation wasn’t any better.

Kaden helped me to my feet. My hair still dripped. My wet trousers twisted around me, covered in grit again. But as I looked down at my bruised and bleeding feet, two thoughts consoled me.

One, I at least knew that patrols sometimes ventured this far. I wasn’t out of their reach yet. And two, there was trouble, just as I had predicted there would be.

Oh, the power that would give me now.

CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

RAFE

I bent down and looked at the dark spot on the ground.

I rubbed the dirt between my fingers.

Blood.

I would kill them.

I would kill every one of them with my bare hands if they had harmed her, and I’d save Kaden for last.

I pushed twice as hard, trying to stay on their trail while I still had light. The ground became rocky, and it was harder to follow their tracks. I had to slow my pace, and it seemed that only minutes had passed before the sun became a fiery orange ball in the sky. It was going down too fast. I pushed on as far as I could, but I couldn’t track them in the dark.

I stopped on an elevated knoll and built a fire in case Sven and the others rode in the night. If not, my cold campfire would be easy to spot by day when they tracked me. I stabbed at the fire, poking it with a stick, and wondered if Lia was warm, or cold, or hurt. For the first time since I’d known of her existence, when the marriage was proposed by my father, I hoped she did have the gift and could see me coming.

“Hold on,” I whispered into the flames, and I prayed she’d do whatever she had to, to stay strong and survive until we came.

Even if I caught up, I knew I’d have to hang back until the others arrived. I had been trained in countless military tactics and was well aware of what the odds of one against five were. Except for an opportune ambush, I couldn’t risk Lia’s safety by going in there half-cocked ready to take their heads off.

What was she doing now? Had he hurt her? Was he feeding her? Did he—

I snapped the branch in two.

I remembered the words he spit at me when we wrestled on the log. Give it up, Rafe. You’re going to fall.

No, Kaden.

Not this time.

CHAPTER FIFTY

The flat white sands disappeared and were replaced by sand the color of burnt sky, ochre of every hue. It was still blistering hot, and the air shimmered in waves, but now the landscape offered a variety of rocks and unearthly formations.

We passed enormous boulders with large round holes in them, as if a giant snake had slithered through, and still others teetering precariously as though they had been stacked by a colossal hand. If I was ever to believe in a world of magic and giants, it would be here. This was their realm. Sometimes we’d reach a high ridge and see for miles into multicolored canyons so deep the water that trailed through them became thin green ribbons.

It made me wonder and ache with the same feeling that a black sky dusted with glittering stars did. I had never known of this peculiar world. So much lay beyond the borders of Morrighan.

My captors were still crude and hostile, and yet if I turned my head a certain way and paused, my lashes fluttering like I was seeing something, I delighted in how I caught their attention. They would stir in their saddles and look across the horizon with dark brooding glances. Kaden would direct his dark glances at me. He knew I played on their fears, and maybe he worried about the power that gave me, but there was nothing he could say or do about it. I used this sway over them sparingly, though, because I hoped a time would come when it would serve me better than in long stretches of emptiness where there was no apparent escape. At some point, maybe it would open a door for me to flee.

I kept track of days, scratching lines into my leather saddle with a sharp rock. I didn’t care about their tack, only about how much time I had left to find a way out of their grasp. It seemed they were deliberately taking me on the most lonely, desolate stretches imaginable. Was all of the Cam Lanteux like this? But if there had been one strategic miscalculation like the one they had made at the Dark City, there would be another, and the next time I’d be ready for it. In the same way their eyes scanned the horizon for unexpected visitors, so did mine.

I tried not to think about Rafe, but after hours of the sameness, hours of worrying about Pauline, more hours of assuring myself that she was just fine, hours of wondering about Walther and where he was headed and if he was all right, hours of fighting the knot in my throat thinking about Greta and the baby, my mind inevitably circled back to Rafe.

He was probably home now, wherever that was, resuming the life he once had. I understand about duty. But did he still think about me? Did he see me in his dreams the way I saw him? Did he relive our moments together the way I did? Then like dark, burrowing vermin, other thoughts would eat through me and I’d wonder, Why didn’t he try to change my mind? Why did he let me go so easily? Was I just one more girl on the road from here to there, another summer dalliance, something to be bragged about in a tavern over a tankard of ale? If Pauline could be fooled, could I be too?

I shook my head trying to extinguish the doubt. No, not Rafe. What we’d had was real.

“What’s wrong now?” Kaden asked. The others were staring at me too.

I looked at him, confused. I hadn’t said anything.

“You were shaking your head.”

They were watching me more carefully than I even knew. I sighed. “Nothing.” This time I wasn’t in the mood to play with their fears.

The red cliffs and rock eventually softened to foothills again, but this time there was a glimmer of green on them that deepened and grew as we traveled down a long, winding valley between two mountain ranges. The beginnings of forest appeared, a gradual unveiling of yet another world. It felt as if I had already traveled to the ends of the earth, and we still had a month to go? I remembered looking out across the bay at Terravin to the line separating sea and sky and wondering, Could anyone really travel so far that they might not find their way home again? The bright homes that surrounded the bay protected loved ones from being lost at sea. What would protect me? How would I ever find my way back?

It was getting dark. The mountains on either side grew higher, and the forest around us became thicker and taller, but I caught sight of something at the far end of the valley that was almost as glorious as a patrol.

Clouds. Dark, furious, and luscious. Their churning blackness marched our way like a thundering army. Relief from the relentless sun at last!

“Sevende! Ara te mats!” Griz bellowed and kicked his horse into a fast trot. The others did the same.

“Afraid of a little rain?” I said to Kaden.

“This rain,” he answered.

We lashed the horses to timbers in the semishelter of ruin and trees. I wiped the rain from my eyes to see what I was doing. “Go inside with the others!” Kaden yelled over the roar of wind and the deafening thrash of forest. “I’ll unsaddle the horses and bring your gear!”

The cracks of thunder chattered through my teeth. We were already drenched. I turned to follow the others into the dark ruin tucked close to the mountain. The wind tore at my hair, and I had to hold it back to find my way. Rain fell through most of the structure, but lightning lit the bony skeleton and revealed a few dry corners and nooks. Griz was already trying to start a fire in one of the stony alcoves on the far side of the cavern. Finch and Eben took up residence in another one. It was once an enormous dwelling, a temple, as my brothers and I would have called it, but it didn’t feel holy tonight.

“This way,” Malich said, and pulled me beneath a low overhang of stone. “It’s dry here.”

Yes, it was dry, but it was also very dark and very cramped. He didn’t let go of my arm. Instead, his hand slid from my arm up to my shoulder. I tried to step back out into the rain, but he grabbed my hair.

“Stay,” he said and yanked me back. “You’re not a princess anymore. You’re a prisoner. Remember that.” His other hand reached out and slid across my ribs.

My blood went cold, and my breath grew shallow. I was either going to lose a chunk of my scalp, or he was going to lose a chunk of his manhood. I preferred the latter. My fingers tensed, ready to maim, but Kaden walked in and called out, looking for me. Malich immediately released me.

“Over here,” I called back.

Griz’s fire on the far side of the cavern caught and lit the ghostly interior. Kaden saw us in the dark niche. He walked over and handed me my saddlebag.

“She can sleep in here with me tonight,” Malich said.

Kaden looked at him, a golden line of light illuminating his cheekbone and dripping hair. The vein at his temple was raised. “No,” he said simply.

There was a long silent moment. Kaden didn’t blink. Though he was of equal size and strength to Kaden, Malich seemed to have a reverence if not fear of him. Were assassins higher in the pecking order of barbarians, or was it something else?

“Suit yourself,” Malich said and pushed me toward Kaden. I stumbled into his chest, tripping over rubble. Kaden caught me and lifted me back to my feet.