Eighth moon, first year of the reign of King Corvus
Travellers’ quarters, Seer’s Tor, Krike
‘Crys?’ A gentle hand on his shoulder and he jerked out of sleep, nearly fell out of the chair pulled up to the edge of the bed. ‘Crys, I think he’s waking up.’
Crys knuckled his eyes and leant forward, his spine crackling protest. The amount of healing he’d had to force into the calestar so soon after the soul-dreaming, plus the wounds he’d sustained in Tanik’s attack, had tested the depths of his strength, and for the first time he realised that it wasn’t a bottomless well of power. The Fox God – he – had his limits and they weren’t as far out of reach as he’d thought. Not by a long way. Foxy had nothing to say on the matter, and despite how they were almost one these days, Crys got the sense the god was keeping something from him.
It probably had to do with … the end, something Crys refused to think about. As he and Ash had promised each other, it was one day at a time with no eye for the future. Still, the sense of secrecy in his own skin was unsettling.
Despite all of that, despite everything he’d done, Dom had slept for a week, a sleep that hovered like a kestrel over the cliff edge of death. Every breath could have been his last. Whatever had happened to him in the knowing had almost broken him, and it had almost broken Crys to save his life.
But now the rhythm of Dom’s breathing had changed and his fingers were twitching on the blanket. His right eye opened, closed, opened, and then his left, more slowly.
Crys and Ash craned their necks, manic grins stretching their mouths. ‘Hello, Dom,’ Crys said softly. ‘You’ve decided to join us, I see.’ Dom’s eyes were vague, anxiety building in their depths. ‘You had a violent knowing a little while ago when you were with the Seer-Mother and you’ve been asleep for a few days. Don’t worry, you don’t need to try and talk yet. Just concentrate on getting better.’
Ash slid his hand beneath Dom’s sweat-lank hair and lifted his head, pressing a cup to his mouth. ‘Drink,’ he whispered. ‘Just little sips, that’s it. Not too much.’ Whatever animosity had been between the three of them had burnt away in the last days as Dom lingered within death’s shadow. Not forgiven, exactly, but accepting.
‘Here,’ Ash said, swapping the cup for a shallow dish, ‘chicken broth. It’s not very hot, so don’t worry about burning your tongue. Now that you’re awake, we can finally get some food in you. We had to massage your throat just to get you to swallow water, so I’m looking forward to you doing some of the work now.’ He grinned, but Crys could hear the strain in his voice.
The archer half filled the bowl of a spoon and dribbled the contents into Dom’s mouth; they watched him swallow, a little better each time, but slow, so slow.
‘Can you tell us how you feel?’ Crys asked when he’d finally finished. Not the question he wanted to ask, but the one he needed to. The rest would just have to wait that little bit longer.
‘See …’ Dom mumbled.
Ash screwed up his face in thought. ‘Seriously tired? Seriously pissed off?’ he guessed, working hard to raise a smile.
‘Tan …’
‘Tantrum?’ Ash tried. ‘Tangled? You’re worried about your hair? Tankard? You want a drink?’
Crys grabbed Ash’s forearm. ‘Seer-Mother? Tanik?’ he asked. Dom blinked in acknowledgment. ‘Don’t worry, she’s dead. The Krikites follow the Fox God now; they know who I am. We found a mark on your neck – looks like you were poisoned, though why she did that we might never know. Unless you can remember.’
Dom’s right hand cut weakly through the air. ‘Tanik … forced knowings.’ The words were more breath than sound, but they slid across Crys’s skin like a snake, leaving chills in their wake. Dom’s breathing was ragged. ‘Saw …’ he managed and coughed, the sound pitiful in his weakened chest. ‘Made me tell.’
‘Made you tell? Tell what – what you were seeing? And what did you see?’
‘Everything. Mace. Rillirin.’
‘Mother-shitting bitch,’ Ash breathed. ‘Not that it matters now, she got what she deserved.’
‘Pesh.’
Crys frowned, the name familiar. Then he swore. ‘Tanik’s brother. We haven’t seen him since the tor. No, wait, he wasn’t up there. Did Tanik tell him what you told her?’
‘He was there. Heard it all. Saw him leave.’
Crys and Ash looked at each other; there was no point pretending they didn’t know where he’d gone. ‘All right, Dom, I know you’re tired, but it’s very important that you tell me everything you remember. Where exactly is Rillirin?’
‘He’s got a week-long head start, Crys. We’re not going to catch him.’ Ash’s hands were firm on Crys’s shoulders as if to hold him in place in case he leapt up and started running for the border. The thought had crossed his mind.
‘If Lanta gets her hands on Rillirin and the babe it’s all over, no matter what I do, no matter whether we win the war.’ He kept his voice low, though Dom looked like he was sleeping again. ‘If she puts the Dark Lady into that infant, I really don’t think I can kill it, no matter what it becomes. I won’t kill it, not a babe.’
‘Of course not,’ Ash said, even as Crys remembered the Wolves’ promise of vengeance up on the Sky Path. ‘But you’ve got Tara in the city to prevent exactly that happening. Can’t the Fox God go to her, tell her to get her arse moving?’
Crys stepped out from beneath Ash’s hands and threw his own out from his sides. ‘If I could do that, don’t you think I would have by now? If I had that sort of influence, I’d have reached out and stopped Lanta’s heart and Corvus’s too.’ He paused to compose himself, knowing that yelling at his lover wasn’t going to help either of them – or Rillirin. Or Gilgoras. ‘Sorry. If it’s possible, I don’t know how to do it, and Foxy isn’t giving away any secrets.’
‘What I wouldn’t give for a bloody messenger pigeon right now,’ Ash muttered. ‘So you’re telling me Rillirin’s on her own?’
‘For now, yes. Which is why we need to move out. Pesh might have a week-long head start but he needs to find allies among the Easterners or the Mireces, convince them he’s got valuable intel and get them to act on it. That gives us some time. Not much, granted, but maybe enough.’
‘Fewer than two thousand Krikite warriors have arrived so far. That’s not enough to aid Mace. It’s not enough to win.’ Ash winced as he spoke, knowing that wasn’t what Crys wanted to hear.
Crys rubbed at the red markings tracing his collarbone, weighing up their options. ‘It’s going to have to be, love. We need to march for the Wolf Lands. If Rillirin’s there or on her way there, then we can protect her. If we’re too late and Corvus gets her, he’s going to think he’s invincible and that belief might just be enough to gift him victory. Either way, Mace is going to need whatever warriors we can bring him. The longer we delay, the more likely we are to lose.’
‘And the sooner we leave, the smaller our numbers,’ Ash pointed out. He sighed. ‘All right, I see your point. I’ll find the Warlord and tell him we need to leave tomorrow.’
He glanced once at Dom, pressed a kiss to Crys’s eyebrow, and ducked through the low door into the warm sun. Crys watched him go until muffled sobs told him that Dom was awake again.
He took a seat in the chair and clasped the calestar’s hand and the squeeze Dom gave it was less pressure than a butterfly’s kiss. ‘Don’t worry,’ Crys lied, ‘we’ve got plenty of time. We’ll find her.’
‘My fault,’ Dom breathed, haunted. ‘My fault. You should kill me.’
‘What?’
‘Kill me. Please.’
‘You asked me this once before and I told you then: your task is not yet complete,’ the Fox God said while Crys was thinking of a response. ‘It is still not complete.’
Sobs racked the man on the bed, energy he didn’t have expelled in shaking, heaving gasps. ‘Please kill me,’ he begged again. ‘Can’t do this. It’s too much.’
‘Yes, you can,’ the Fox God said. ‘And you will. You are needed, not just by me but by Rillirin and your child. Do it for them if no one else.’
‘I’m trying,’ Dom whispered. ‘But I haven’t the strength. Dying …’
‘Dying would be easier, yes. And as for strength, you’ll find it when the time comes. You’ll have to.’
Crys put his hand on Dom’s shoulder to take the sting from the Trickster’s tone, but the calestar shrugged it off and turned his head away. Quietly, so as not to disturb him, Crys emptied the room of knives. And then, doubting his decision but with no alternatives presenting themselves, he began to pack.