Remember, neither the treasury nor the haloria—nor the king, for that matter—actually feeds the High Keep.
~ Private letter from the steward upon his son inheriting the position
CLAEVE AND THE HORDE did not attack that night, nor the next, nor the next. He didn’t have to, not when we were doing such a good job of weakening ourselves from within.
As Aric had said and I’d already known, not everyone who’d escaped the High Keep had the spirit to work together in our much-reduced circumstances. There were harsh words exchanged over the limited water in the casks, and fisticuffs about the stew—which was actually quite good, I had to say. The palace steward, who’d inherited the position from his father, had been quite open to suggestions from the head cook who—despite not having the advantages of a High Keep upbringing—in the midst of our flight across the plains had made note of some wind-burned grasses with enough dried seed heads to thicken our meager stores. There’d only been a bit of frightened whining from those sent out to harvest it. And there’d been only one stabbing so far, inflicted by the old noblewoman with the forks. It hadn’t been a lethal blow, what with the weapon being a fork, but she claimed the overconfident young courtier who’d tried to take her heavy fur would think again before stealing.
Though the king pardoned her after a harsh warning that everyone heard, I knew both he and the old woman were wrong. Warnings and even stabbings wouldn’t stop the thefts and likely worse when people became too despairing.
Aric told me, one night when he returned to our cramped little watchtower after a day of advising the king, that there were more than a few palace folk missing from the roster in Velderrey. Whether they’d fallen in battle or were still trapped in the High Keep, hiding or imprisoned, been lost somewhere in the Widening Leas or fled to make their own fate, no one could be sure. Or maybe Claeve had made the same offer to them that he’d given to us amid the wrecked caravan—join me and your aura will shine on—and of their own volition they stayed with the horde in the High City, choosing to be dreadmarked.
Before we fell asleep, huddled in our shared cloaks, Aric said, “I thought I would live out the rest of my days and die in the dragon’s hold. In some ways, this is harder.”
I tried to curl all the way around him, as if my scrawny limbs could protect him. “My merciless grasp is so odious?”
“Odorous, maybe,” he countered.
Heyo, now he had a sense of humor?
“Could be worse,” I whispered. “You could be king.”
His chuckle ruffled my hair. Since that first devastating time, we hadn’t coupled, being too busy during the day and then too tired—and, yes, filthy—to seek that solace beyond some kisses and a desperate embrace that even the too-short hours of exhausted sleep couldn’t break. But somehow this felt even more intimate: sheltering together against a threatening storm.
Of course, the storm would soon break over us and either kill us or merely change everything, and then, either way, these quiet, protective moments would end. But for now, I would cling to them—to him—and cherish every breath, even the slightly musty ones.
“I am not a prince anymore,” he pointed out. “Not without the dragon.”
My heart stuttered. Not a prince? Was that true, just because we were here now? “Is your brother not king if he’s not sitting on the throne?”
His arm tightened behind me. “I think we’re going to find out.”
The threat and possibility swirled in my mind. “Why is the king’s sword not an animdao blade? If it’s had such a long, illustrious life, shouldn’t it have gathered an aura of its own by now?”
His shrug lifted my head for a moment. “All the l’Thine kings since Ormonde have struck the sword hard and deep in the hopes of kindling an animdao blade. But neither deaths nor desiring does the deed. If that’s all it took, everyone would wield such a weapon. Even the Rokynd have no answer for the mystery. They say they can mine the coldest metal from the darkest earth, forge it in the brightest fire until it shines, but the animdao comes for reasons of its own.”
My own little animdao knife was tucked away in my boot, wrapped in its silkha so it wouldn’t bother Aric, but I wondered that it had come to me. What reason, indeed.
Still, a mystery that wasn’t mine, so I went ahead and fell asleep, my head cushioned on Aric’s shoulder, his arm never letting go.
I spent the next days digging out an old well with Lisel’s crew. I wasn’t the strongest, but I’d never minded tight quarters and filth so they sent me to the bottom to do the dirty work behind her indefatigable hewing. In contrast to the cramped space and clanging pickax, she was distant and quiet—mourning, I supposed, for her father and brother. When we took a break to let other hands heft out the rubble we’d cleared, I showed her an old coin I’d spotted in the detritus that had clogged the well.
She let out a rusty laugh. “Stuck down there in the stinking dark, and you manage to pocket a coin.”
“I’d give it back, but…” I flipped the coin in the air then disappeared it into my tunic.
She sighed. “If they tossed that coin for luck, it obviously didn’t work.”
“Maybe luck was just slow coming, and now we’ll have the chance they missed.”
Slouching back against the half-tumbled wall of the well house where we’d be somewhat shielded from the wind, she narrowed her eyes at me. “You don’t even believe in blessings.”
“Not much point in believing in coins either, right now, and nothing to spend it on. But I still won’t be throwing it back.”
She capped her muddy knees with even muddier hands and stared blankly at nothing. “I thought I’d be able to dig my way out of their judgement, eventually. But now…”
We sat for a while with just the sound of the wind, until a ragged cheer echoed up from within the well followed by the gurgle of flowing water.
Lisel gave me a crooked smile. “That’s something, at least.”
“Something good. And have you spoken to Ani?”
She blinked. “About what?”
“Your feelings.”
Blue eyes flaring in alarm, she recoiled. “No! I would never.” As I gave her a steady look, she sank deeper into herself. “Could never.”
“Forever and never are both really long, and I’m not sure we have that kind of time.” Not a prince anymore…
Her hands clenched on her knees tight enough to crack the wind-dried mud. “What would I even say?”
“The truth, maybe?”
She scowled at me. “I don’t even know what that is.”
Instead of laughing at her when it seemed so obvious, I considered. “From where I sit—”
“In centuries-old mud?”
I ignored that. “It seems to me that you admire her, yes?” When Lisel nodded, somewhat reluctantly, I continued, “And appreciate your time in her presence, even when we are dreading our impending demise by demon, also yes?” A more enthusiastic nod. “And you would like to spend more time with less impending demise, if she was amenable?”
“I would seek only to serve her.” She bit her lip. “But the lady might not want that.”
“Do you think she’d hurt you just for asking?”
“Not on purpose.” She gazed at me. “That makes me sound like a coward, doesn’t it?”
I shook my head. “I’d be afraid to ask too.”
“I don’t want to risk what we have for something that might never be. Not that we really have anything except the perils we’ve shared.” When she stared up at the pale sky, the blue in her eyes faded in a way that sent an uneasy premonition through me.
It made my tone sharper than I intended when I pointed out, “Maybe we shouldn’t have even bothered digging out this old well. If the source had gone dry, we could have gotten this filthy for nothing. Maybe we should just stay here and let Claeve have the High Keep. Maybe—”
She reached over to put her hand on my knee, knocking loose some of the mud. “Peace, Fei. I hear you.” She patted me before leaning back again. “Although how much of that are you saying to yourself, neh?”
I glared at her before repeating her words. “About what?”
She smirked. “Maybe most people are careful to look anywhere but the prince, but I’ve seen you two walk off into the dark together.”
I smirked back. “And I’m not dead yet. So will you listen to me about Ani? Your chivalry is true but it needn’t be silent.”
She winced. “Maybe.”
Before I could needle her more, the faint sound of commotion filtered to us through the empty streets. We glanced at each other in consternation and scrambled to our feet. But it didn’t sound like shrieking, from human or demon throats, so we cautiously approached.
Another wagon was coming through the broken gate. No, four wagons, old but sturdy-looking, and not marked with the High Keep’s vortix motif; these were from elsewhere.
“I hope they have food,” I muttered, starting to turn away to let others handle it.
But an urgent voice cried out, “Fei! Lisel!”
“Zik?” I spun around.
He was jumping down from the second wagon and racing toward us.
I caught him when he almost smashed into me, arms wide. “Zik! You got out! How did you get out?”
He was all but babbling, but when Lisel hunkered down with him, hand on his shoulder, we calmed him. “Nenzo is with me,” he repeated. “And Lady Dyania’s sister.” He swiveled to gaze anxiously at Lisel. “Will you go tell her?”
She nodded and rose. “I’ll get her now.”
As she hurried off, I squeezed Zik. “I’m so happy you got away. The passageway to the tower was blocked, and we couldn’t come for you. I’m sorry.”
He shook his head. “We saw the cracks. We sneaked through one gap that went all the way under the tower.”
I winced in remorse. “We should have looked for you.”
“You wouldn’t have found it—or been able to pass, ya. Nenzo only felt it because he’s Rokynd and knows the rock, and even we could barely squeeze through.” He grimaced. “Lady Morowyn is bruised and cut from the stone.”
“Lady Morowyn roused?” I boggled at him. “Your elixir worked?”
“The elixir gave her enough strength to rise, but Nenzo thinks it was the cry of the horde that woke her and the others.”
I swallowed hard. “And…where are the other sleepers?”
He lowered his gaze. “Demons.” When he shivered, I hugged him again, as if that could block the horrors he’d seen. “I was in the sleepers’ chamber when the demons poured in through the cracks, and I thought they’d get us for sure. But Nenzo guided us out. The prince’s quarters are destroyed, and Nenzo says the dragon is trapped within the black tower. Oh, Fei, it was bad, and we could only hold Lady Morowyn since she was the smallest and lightest.”
I squeezed him hard. “Zik, you did everything you could, more than many people would do. No bloodfire runes, no swords, and yet you saved Ani’s sister.” I hugged him until he finally squirmed.
“You’re dirtier than me,” he mumbled.
I pulled away. “Sorry. But you’ll have clean water—eventually—and so will the people who brought you.”
He jerked up straight. “I didn’t tell you! The people who found us on the road—Fei, it’s your family!”
I froze. “Who?”
He gazed up at me, his freckles practically vibrating with the delight of his news. “Your family! The Vaifaire? They’ve journeyed all this way to find you.”
“I…” My throat clogged like an old well after too much time had passed and all the water had flowed away. “But that’s impossible.”
His brow furrowed. “Nenzo said your animdao knife told him who they were. Not exactly in so many words, since knives don’t talk, ya. But after he gave the blade back to you, he reached out through his own ways to see if he might send word to your people.” Zik gave a very Rokynd shrug, as if that answered all my questions. “He didn’t want to tell you before, lest nothing come of it. But you must go to them now.”
“Go to them,” I repeated numbly. “But I thought…”
Thought they were dead. Though I’d always refused to think it aloud, in my secret heart, I’d believed they were dead. Because if they were dead, that would explain why they hadn’t come back for me. Did not, of course, explain why they’d left me in the first place, but…
I spun away from Zik. “It’s probably not them. Just someone else, some other road peddlers. How would a knife remember them when I don’t?” But Aric had said the animdao was woven from the threads of many auras across time—and apparently across distances that hadn’t been crossed…until now. “I have to get back to digging.”
He tagged along with me. “But I think it is your family, Fei. The animdao doesn’t lie, and they got Nenzo’s message.” He skipped a few steps to get ahead of me. “We found them on the road. They had been traveling to the High Keep but met the riders from Velderrey heading out to the other lightkeeps, so they knew to come here. Which is lucky, because Nenzo and I wouldn’t have known without them.” He smiled at me. “It’s like the threads are all weaving together for us.”
Considering we were trapped in a haunted ruin, with no place else to go, demons all around, I wasn’t sure I agreed with his assessment. But neither was I cruel enough, even in my furious bewilderment, to wipe that joy from his face. “I’m so happy you are here,” I told him, leaning a little too hard into the you, judging by the way his smile faltered anyway.
“Are you…not happy that they came?” His brow wrinkled. “But I thought you came to the High Keep trying to find them.”
I rubbed my head, not even caring about how muddy my hands were when the rest of me was equally mud-streaked. “Yes, I did, but…” I couldn’t exactly explain to him that I’d never believed it would happen. What were the chances, after all? True, the earthbone roads rose toward the Argonyx, but I had no particular reason to think my family would actually go there. And to find them here instead?
There was a reason why I was a thief, not a gambler. I would never have taken those kind of odds, even with weighted hedrons etched with every facet the same.
Instead of saying all that, I just shook my head at Zik. “Go find our lady,” I told him. “She’ll want to see you with her own eyes.”
With one more doubtful look, he scampered off. I’d told him to go, so there was no reason for me to feel abandoned. Again. I said I’d wanted to find them, so why was I being silly about them finding me? And maybe it wasn’t even them.
I managed to squander most of the day in fretting, and then, in the end, much as I fought it, I knew not to question chance and fate.
I might not believe in luck, but maybe luck believed in me.
With the day fading, I cleaned up as best I could, which wasn’t very well at all, considering that even though we now had water, we had to share among many, and I didn’t have clean clothes anyway. But I made sure the animdao blade was shallow in my boot, and, following the chatter of the camp, I homed my way toward the new arrivals.
They’d taken an empty, hard-packed spot, likely part of the old market square, although the rubble of fallen buildings had blurred the thoroughfares. Their circle of wagons looked tidy and cheerful compared to our ragged confusion of refugees. It was obviously the camp of road-wise folk who knew how to make a home for themselves on any patch of ground.
And a distant memory teased me: wagons very much like this, squeezed too closely together as night had fallen when we were still among some enormous trees, laughter and teasing as we made do, one fire in the middle, leaping scarlet and white, limning every edge of metal and the eyes of the burden beasts in shimmering gold. Beloved faces, steaming mugs of cider, a flute and the fiddle that played music as warm and brilliant as the fire, my eyes drifting closed but the embers swirling like dreams against the darkness of my closed eyes and the music carrying me away…
A wave of fury, hotter than that half-forgotten fire, flared through me. They hadn’t carried me away; they left me. And they’d never come back, not even to see if they might beg a free night or two to stay.
I wanted to walk away—I truly was going to walk away—but someone stepped out of the tidy ring of wagons, silhouetted against the campfire within. The swirl of her skirt swung to a halt as she stopped and stared toward me. “Fei?” Her tone wavered, making the short version of my name linger in the night. With a fire behind her, her face was hard to see in shadow, but the melodic lilt in that one syllable ricocheted through me.
“Feinan,” I said sharply. “Feinan no’Sevaare. Only my friends call me Fei, so you must be mistaken.”
“Oh, little niece, you have your mother’s spark. We’d know you anywhere.”
“Anywhere except Sevaare, apparently. Since you never returned there.”
Even as I said it, I wanted to kick myself. I should’ve just walked away. I should still just walk away. Except my feet seemed rooted, here, in Velderrey of all places. Ghosts and memories were heavy and tangling worse than any skein of thread.
The woman—my aunt, though she looked too old for my hazy memories—sighed as she half-turned back toward the light. “You’ve a right to be hurt. Will you come to the fire anyway so you can yell at us properly?”
I did not appreciate her attempt at gentle humor to deflect my anger—and I was angry, not hurt. But such a distraction was very much like something I would do. Maybe these were indeed my people.
Dragging my boots, as if they could get any dirtier, I trailed behind her into the circle of wagons. Curiosity had been my bane often enough; why change now?
Although there was plenty of space here in the corner of the ruined marketplace, the encampment seemed smaller than I remembered. Of course it was; I wasn’t that toddling child anymore. I glanced around, curious despite my simmering ire. I knew many of the freeheld road traveling peoples, since I made an effort to meet the ones who’d come through Sevaare. Not because I expected to find my family among them—not after the first few years, anyway—but because their news and their wares were always worth knowing. These obviously weren’t the wealthiest traders: the wagons were much repaired, the burden beasts smaller, with a rib or two showing. And there were no children around the fire, only older faces, as road-marked as the wheels.
A pang of something went through me, not sympathy, but maybe something like understanding, and I hardened myself against it. They’d made a choice when they abandoned me, made the choice for me. I wouldn’t forget that, nor forgive it.
One of the older men, who’d been speaking quietly with his neighbor in a melodic tongue, glanced over then rose slowly to his feet. “Khaedry?” His voice wavered more than my aunt’s. “Khaedry, a’laz, a’za.” He said something else I almost but couldn’t quite understand, then repeated the simple phrase that my memories finally translated. My heart, my love. “It can’t be. It can’t be…”
“It’s not,” my aunt said in the common language. “This is Feinan, her daughter.” She unfurled one hand in my direction, theatrical and elegant. “Your daughter.”
He flinched. And I did the same. Of course I knew I had a father and mother among the family I’d lost. But to see him face to face after all these years ripped open the wound beneath the scar beneath the armor beneath my nonchalance.
I stiffened. “You said I should come to yell at you for leaving me behind. I think I won’t even bother.”
I spun on my heel to stalk away, but the man, my father, called out plaintively, “Please… Feinan, stay. Just for a moment.”
My spine ached, unyielding as a column of obsidian, ready to shatter. This was what I’d wanted, wasn’t it? For them to find me and want me to stay.
I pivoted back slowly. In the heartbeat I’d been ready to flee, he’d come around the fire, barely more than an arm’s length away.
His gaze roamed my face. “You look just like her,” he murmured. “Even when she held her blade and her tongue, her glare could cut a man into ribbons—and he’d pay for her to slice him finer, weave him back up to her better liking.” He shook his head. “Though she despaired it would take all the spectrum threads in the Living Lands to patch me right, still she kept spinning, a’laz, a’za.”
Khaedry meant delicate one. That was not me. But apparently it wasn’t her either.
And he was speaking of her as if she were gone.
I swallowed hard. “I don’t remember her very well. Just that she was always telling me to hurry up.” Even as I said it, another memory surfaced, as shimmering and ephemeral as the bubbles in the prince’s dark pool. “And that she smelled like spindrift flowers.”
My aunt, who’d stayed hovering near us, chuckled. “You always took your own time.” The fondness in her tone struck me a harsh, glancing blow. “Khaedry used to say, if we gave you a pen and a pipe you might’ve been a scholar.”
“I always plucked the first golden blossoms of spring for her,” my father mused. “Sweet spindrift was her favorite. She liked to say the petals were the only gold we truly needed.”
I glared at them both. “And yet you abandoned me in Sevaare to wash mugs for an innkeeper and warm beds for extra coin.”
They both straightened. “No,” my aunt burst out. “That is to say, yes, you would work for him, but you were to be apprenticed when you came of age. That was the deal we made when it became clear you couldn’t stay with us.”
“And why couldn’t I stay?” I demanded. “Why would you leave your own family behind?”
My aunt drew a shaky breath, but my father held up his hand. His expression was stern, as if he thought he had the right now to scold me as a parent would. “We had no choice. You were the last child born to our family. You were so lonely…” The reproving set of his mouth wavered and fell. “You said you loved playing with the children in the towns and lightkeeps where we stopped, and you would wail and wave until the walls were out of sight.”
“Of course I liked playing with other children,” I said through gritted teeth. “I was a child myself. That doesn’t mean I didn’t want to stay with my family.”
He looked away. “It was hard, for all of us. So many siblings and cousins already lost from the road—or to it. I…” He straightened, seeming to force himself to look at me. “I didn’t want that to happen to you. I believed you’d be safer, happier in a home that stayed in one place, behind walls.”
“There’s as much trouble within walls as without,” I snapped. “The fall of the shadow changes with every turn of the road—but still the shadow is yours.” I recited the old freeheld travelers’ saying with a mocking edge to my tone. “And even if you truly believed I’d be happier in Sevaare, what stopped you from coming back to make sure?”
He looked away again, his spine bending in a way that made him look older than his years must be. “We meant to, but…”
“We should have,” my aunt said, her tone was steady, not apologetic but acknowledging. “But a fever stalked us for half a year. We sacrificed one wagon to the sickness and another to the healers. Worse, along the way, your mother succumbed. May her light shine everlasting.”
“A’laz, a’za,” my father whispered.
And so I would never see her again.
Fury and sorrow pulsed through me in an ague of regret. “Did she die missing me?”
My aunt didn’t flinch. “Every day. And your father was worse. The rest of us worried that if we visited you, he’d take you away with us again, after we’d already come to peace with leaving you.”
“Peace?” I almost screeched the word. “I hope you slept well in your warm wagons while I hid myself away from headthumpers and wondered where breakfast would come from.”
“We slept terribly,” my father said, his face averted. “Wondering when we were within the walls if we could pay for our next night, and fearing when we were without walls that the night would crack open to reveal the horde.” He shook his head. “We didn’t want that life for you, Feinan.”
“So you just took it from me,” I said. “Without asking, without giving me a chance. Why did you even bother coming to find me now?”
“Because…we’ve heard the whispers and we’ve seen the troubling signs,” my father said. “And we feared this might be our last chance.”
“The light everlasting has brought us together again,” my aunt said firmly. “So there’s no need to fight.”
I gave her a look. “It was the earthbone and the horde and a disloyal knife that brought us here,” I corrected. “And I suspect we will have more fighting than ever.”
I’d meant the jibe as an attack on them, but the reminder hurt me too. So much loss and still so much to lose.
But the pain gave me the impetus to pivot away and stalk out of the circle of wagons. Though my father called my name again, I did not look back this time—putting Aric’s warning to good use—and the warmth and light of the campfire fell away behind me. My eyes blurred with tears, and like a fool, I stumbled down a ruined side street into the darkness.
For whatever reason, the buildings and cobblestones here had suffered more damage than elsewhere, and my stumbling boots seemed to find every crack in the pavement. I cursed and cried as I went, until I collapsed against a crumbled wall in my own pile of mud and snot. “Why?” I sniffled. “Why did they leave me behind?”
“Because they are blundering fools who do wrong after wrong,” he said without any particular rancor, “the same as the rest of us.”
I didn’t bother raising my head from where I’d bowed it against my knees, but I wiped my nose on my trousers. “I guess you heard everything.” I finally lifted my head to peer at Aric blearily.
He crouched down beside me, his back to the same wall, and his shoulder against mine. “Zik came to me and said your family was here. I wanted to make sure…” He shrugged the shoulder that wasn’t against mine. “But I suppose that doesn’t really matter.”
“The reasons don’t matter,” I agreed with a sigh. “I don’t know why I thought they would. I don’t know what they could’ve said that would’ve made it better.”
He tipped his head back, staring up. The last of the light had faded while I’d been feeling sorry for myself, but somehow there was just enough glow left in his opaline eyes for me to see when he swiveled his head to look at me. “There was nothing they could say because you didn’t want any words or reasons. You wanted the one thing you can never get: the life you would’ve had with them.”
I gazed at him miserably. “They didn’t even say that they wished that could have been.”
He wrapped his arm around me, pulling me close to his chest. I tipped my head against him and wanted to cry.
But I couldn’t, not anymore. Maybe it had been too long. Maybe the sadness—and, yes, hurt—had calcified to anger, and now even that anger had cracked and flaked away like dried mud. Whatever could’ve been, was not, and neither regret nor rage would make it so.
He held me while I didn’t cry or speak, but after a while, even his big body couldn’t block the cold, cutting edge of the wind.
When I shivered against him, he murmured, “We should go back.”
I wanted to point out that, really no, we never could, but my reservoir of impertinence had apparently run dry. “You can find our way?”
“Yes. This is the longest I’ve been apart from her since they gave me to her, and I’ve wondered if her influences on me would wane. But so far they haven’t.” He levered me to my feet, keeping my hand engulfed in his. “I have a little lamp if you’d rather.”
“I might as well just keep stumbling through the darkness,” I said wryly. “No sense changing now.”
“I won’t let you fall,” he said, tugging me along.
Of all the people in my life to make that promise to me…
When we got back to our private, little shelter, he did light the lamp, setting it so low the glow barely reached the inner walls. But that meager light revealed the end of a thick blanket and a flagon of water, along with a a small pot of stew and a chunk of dark bread.
He settled me at the tiny meal but shook his head when I tore the bread in half. “I ate already.” When I gave him a skeptical look, he smiled. “I’ve been in consult with the king all day and you can be sure he did not go without a meal, so we all ate. This is for you.”
I slurped down most of the water first. It tasted like old coins. “From the well?”
“Thanks to you and Lisel and the others. We don’t have much, but we have water.”
Before I ate, I used some of the water to wash up a little, although there were deep layers to my grime that couldn’t be budged with just a quick splash. I grimaced at my nails. “How do you stay so clean?” I complained.
“Sitting around at my leisure with my liege,” he reminded me, nudging the bowl of stew toward me. “I think if any dirt deigned to enter our august presence, it would get so tired of our tedious discussions about what we’ll do with the fighting forces that haven’t arrived that it would dissolve in sheer boredom.”
I wrinkled my nose at him in sympathy as I worked my way too quickly through the meal. “That bad?”
“Mikhalthe is a brave man and a mighty warrior, and being a butcher has been enough since the horde has always come as a mindless wave. Battling Claeve will require strategy. Without the marshal…” He shook his head. “This is a different war now.”
When I bit my lip, there was more meat in my mouth than was in the stew, and my stomach churned with equal amounts of agitation and lingering hunger. “Certainly the king has other advisors. No’Maru, Lor Berindo and the rest of the lors. You.”
Aric sighed. “Do we trust what remains of the haloria? No’Maru has been even more circumspect than he usually is. He’s never one to stick his neck or his blade out farther than he can recover, which makes him if not a great fighter at least a long-standing one.” He shook his head. “And I know less and am trusted less than any other.”
I scowled. “That can’t be true, not anymore.” When he lifted an eyebrow at me, I amended, “It shouldn’t be true, not when our resources have dwindled this badly.” I squeezed the remaining crust of bread between my fingers, trying to soften it enough to squish around the bowl for the last smear of stew. “Have any of the riders returned from the other lightkeeps?”
He shook his head. “It’s too early to expect that. Mikhalthe posted riders at half-days out to relay messages, but we can’t really spare the sentries or steeds.” He gazed at me, his scarred eyes catching the lamp light and flashing back at me. “And there’s nothing you and I can do about any of that,” he noted. “Do you want to tell me about finding your family instead?”
I looked down at my empty bowl. Yes, that view was very familiar. I shook my head and then found myself answering anyway. “The wagons are so old and small,” I said, which didn’t quite make sense, so I added, “Compared to my memory, I mean. And my father and my aunt… They seem old and small too, and scared.” I shoved away everything in front of me. “All this time, I was waiting for them to come back and save me.” The words seeped out of me more reluctantly than groundwater rising in the abandoned well. “Seeing how they’ve struggled, I no longer wonder why they left me behind.”
He reached out to take my hand, curling just his fingertips under mine, as if he wondered if I would push him away like the other things. “They shared supplies from their wagons, and they were able to tell us of conditions on the roads where they’ve been. They could’ve detoured around when they saw this sorry place, probably wiser to keep moving. But they’re staying to do what they can.”
I glowered at him. “Don’t try to make me excuse them. No one would do the same for you.”
His lips quirked. “I believe you did exactly that.”
“Probably yet another reason to forget me.”
“I suppose that could be,” he drawled. “But obviously I don’t see the way other people see. And by belittling yourself, you are stabbing me too.”
Raising our joined hands, I scrubbed our knuckles against my forehead, muttering, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, you’re right.” I peered up at him over our tangled fingers. “Let’s not judge,” I urged. “Let’s just take what’s freely given.”
Even with the heavy blanket, the night was cold, and I was only as clean as a few splashes of icy, mineral-laden water from a half-dead well could make me, but I stripped naked so that he could see exactly what he was getting, which wasn’t much. And yet he took me into his arms as if that was all he wanted. His mouth was hungry on mine, his hands exploring my every curve like he hadn’t been there already. His breaths flared with an urgency as if he feared a time when none of his senses would be the same and only memories of this moment would remain.
I knew that fear myself, and I matched him hunger for hunger, touch for touch, until we fell back, hot and satiated.
“Now you’re dirty too,” I murmured with some satisfaction.
He brushed his lips over my knuckles before flattening my palm over the scars on his chest. Each of those blows he’d taken when bound to the dragon. “I’ll carry your mark by my heart,” he whispered.
My own heart froze and then raced. What did he mean by that? We were both just being fanciful, weren’t we?
By the time I would have asked him, his breath had evened out into sleep and lulled me the same, and I didn’t dream.