“What is the matter with you, horse?” she snarled under her breath.
“You’re trying to mount from the wrong side. She isn’t used to it.”
Foot still trapped in the stirrup, Siora stumbled at the sound of Gharek’s slurred voice and lost her balance. She hung off the side of the disapproving, snorting mare for a moment before falling to land on her backside. The horse eyed her with contempt.
Siora leapt to her feet, picking sticker burrs out of her palm and off her skirt. She peered at Gharek lying where she left him, careful not to get too close.
He’d turned on his side to face her, his body contorted from her binding him. His face was obscured by the night, but she felt the weight of his gaze on her, a wolf watching the activities of a clueless sheep and deciding when best to pounce. He was awake and no doubt working furiously at the knots she’d tied. Time to leave.
“Where am I?” He sounded a little less groggy.
“Woodland outside the cursed city,” she replied, careful not to say Midrigar’s name out loud. To do so invited the attention of things best left unaware of your existence.
“You hit me,” he said.
She nodded, forgetting he probably couldn’t see the movement. She circled the mare farther away from him and this time took up a spot on the proper side for mounting. “I did. Whatever held you let go when I did so.”
He winced. “Gods protect me from saviors like you. You’ve made my life a misery with your brand of liberation.” Angry sarcasm had seeped into the groggy confusion muddying his voice. He wiggled in his bindings. “And you’ve trussed me like a pig.”
Wary, she widened the distance between them. “For my own protection. Were our circumstances reversed, what would you do?”
The thin, humorless smile he offered didn’t reassure her, nor surprise her. “Do you really want me to answer that?”
Siora cringed inside. He’d probably watch with a smile as the ghost-eater dragged her into the city and wave a casual goodbye. She expected such from him, but it still stung. She reached inwardly for stoicism and said, “It crossed my mind not to be so merciful.”
“What stopped you?”
One answer to that question she chose not to dwell on too closely. A second was much easier to espouse. “Estred.”
He jerked in his bindings, hands busily searching for the knots she’d made so he could untie them. “You aren’t worthy to say her name. You betrayed her when you betrayed me, and then you abandoned her. You cut your wounds deep, beggar woman.”
A clutch of bitter tears hurtled into her throat before seizing it closed. For a moment Siora forgot caution, forgot the urgency to leave and the risk she took in staying any longer. Estred had grown very attached to Siora in the months that they’d been nursemaid and charge. And Siora had returned the affection. Had Estred’sfather been any man other than the cat’s-paw, she would have stayed and braved his fury at her betrayal.
“You’ve hunted me for months now,” she said, proud of the way her voice sounded calm, even emotionless, though inside she was a turmoil of emotions. Gharek wouldn’t hesitate to turn any chink in her armor into a weapon. “For what? The vengeance you promised when I revealed the whereabouts of an old woman you abducted and used as bait in the hopes of carving up a draga disguised as a man?”
That fateful decision had altered the life courses of several people. She’d never wavered in her belief that it had been the right thing to do for all involved, but some nights, regret overwhelmed her and she wished fiercely that circumstances had been different. Gharek’s accusation only made it that much worse. Still, she defended her actions. “Your present fate is as much your fault as it is mine. Your daughter would be shamed by the idea that you’d shed innocent blood for her, and whether or not you choose to believe me, if I hadn’t told Malachus where Asil was, you’d be bones under dirt right now or a soot stain on the floor. And then where would Estred be? She may not have her nursemaid any longer, but she still has the most important person of all—her father.”
Gharek’s upper lip curled and his gaze in the thin lamplight nearly drowned her in its contempt. “Painting yourself the heroine? That’s rich. And you can take your golden sanctimony and shove it straight up your arse.”
Her fingers curled around the mare’s reins in a fist. She was tempted to throw all caution aside, step in front of him, and land a solid kick on his bound body for his remark. A glint in his eyes toldher he hoped she’d succumb to such an impulse. She’d be within reach then and, bound or not, he’d figure out a way to capture her. His words sliced sharp and no doubt sincere, but they were said with purpose. In the time she’d come to know the cat’s-paw, he never did anything without purpose.
She didn’t fall for his trap, turning instead to hoist herself into the saddle, this time from the correct side. The mare stood still as Siora adjusted her skirts. The stirrup lengths had worked well in helping her get into the saddle but were far too low to be of any use to her now that she was seated on the mare’s back. She’d have to ride carefully to keep from falling off. Beggars were lucky to own a pair of shoes much less expensive horseflesh, and it had been a long time since Siora had ridden a horse.
She tossed Gharek’s knife into a bramble bush not far from him. She hadn’t saved him from a Midrigar demon only to leave him completely defenseless. He’d figure out a way to retrieve the knife, bound or not, but by then she’d be far enough away that it wouldn’t matter.
“You’re stealing my mare.” Loathing melded with the anger in Gharek’s voice. “Not only a traitor but a thief as well.”
Siora tired of his insults. She’d been the unwitting accomplice to his imprisonment of an innocent woman. She’d known of his reputation but had willingly turned a blind eye to it. As a servant in his home, she’d learned more of the man than the henchman, had seen him as a loving parent, a fair employer, and even on occasion when he thought no one observed, a melancholy, vulnerable man. Those things had seduced her into the delusion that he was simply misunderstood or judged too harshly because he workedfor the empress. Guilt still rode her hard at such willful delusion; not because she’d turned on him, but because she hadn’t turned on him sooner.
She paused in guiding the mare toward the path leading out of the woodland to the trade road and Wellspring Holt in the distance. Her reasoning told her he was most likely using every tactic at his disposal to delay her long enough so he could free himself, recapture his horse, and kill her.
“Borrow,” she snapped back. “You’re welcome to her when I’m far enough away from you. And I’m no traitor. My loyalty was always to Estred, not you. Your fear for her has blinded you to compassion, to mercy, even to humanity. Estred needs her father, not the father you were becoming.” The more she spoke, the angrier she grew, the more indignant. The more reckless. “You had no right to abduct Asil and hold her captive. As for this mare, consider her repayment for saving you.”
“There’s no debt,” he snarled, making thrashing noises in the brush.
“So say all who feel neither guilt for a cruelty visited nor gratitude for a kindness offered.” Siora touched the mare’s sides with her heels to coax her into a steady walk away from Gharek.
“You can ride across the entire Krael Empire and you’ll never get far enough away, Siora!”