He woke, still in darkness but in open space instead of under a canopy of trees. Above him the vault of a star-filled sky arched toward a limitless distance, vast and quiet.
It was quiet in his head too. No drumming dirge, no roar of demand to obey. His muscles were loose, his spine no longer a bowstring being relentlessly drawn by an unseen archer. His chin and jaw throbbed and his cheek stung. He soon discovered that while he was no longer shackled by sorcery to the eater of ghosts, he was tied to the spokes of a wagon wheel. He’d been given enough rope to move his arms and wiggle into a sitting position if he wished, but not enough to stand.
His life had never been one of ease, even when he lived in his luxurious house funded by his role as the empress’s cat’s-paw. He’d found himself in more than one bad scrape through the years, but these last several days had been a... challenge, and he was growing heartily sick of finding himself knocked unconscious and bound.
He took stock of his surroundings and cursed under his breath. Wagons parked in a semicircle, their brightly painted boards obscured by the night. Even if Gharek hadn’t recognized Malachus’s stoic visage just before the draga punched him, he’d know by the wagons that he was among free traders. Lucky him.
“You’re awake.”
Gharek turned his head to find Siora sitting next to him. She’d lost the petrified expression of someone staring into the jaws of a wolf, though she was still pale, even under the soft golden glow of a nearby lamp.
He managed to raise himself to a sitting position with her help. The throbbing in his head no longer came from the sorcerous voice, for which he was grateful. This was probably the first time he was happy to suffer from nothing more than an innocuous headache.
“Where are we?” he asked. His throat felt dryer than a desert. A nearby road ran into the distance, hard-packed earth rutted and pock-marked over time by the roll of cart wheels and the step of hooves.
Siora’s fingers combed through his hair, a gentle soothing caress that made him want to lean into her touch. “Just off the trade road between the cursed city and Kraelag,” she said. “The forest is on the other side of the wagons. The free traders brought you back to their camp. The ghost-eater’s spell doesn’t work at this distance.”
He wanted to bellow his frustration and offer thanks at the same time. The first, because they were in a worse position and farther away from Domora than when they started out from Zaredis’s encampment. His thanks he’d hold back for when he spoke to one of the free traders. They’d likely expect a generous helping of groveling as well. Considering his run of luck so far, it would probably be Malachus he’d have to thank and grovel to. Never before had he found himself in the conundrum of being grateful to someone for punching him in the face, but it had broken the spell that bound him to the eater of ghosts.
“There has to be a better way to break such enchantments than being struck in the head with a tree branch or smashed in the face with a fist,” he said, his voice souring as another pain knifed from his face to his temple.
Memories of their flight out of Midrigar filled his mind—his command that Siora leave him behind and her flat refusal to do so. “You are incomprehensible. Why didn’t you leave me in the cursed city? That thing with no face almost caught us thanks to the spell. Were you affected too?”
She nodded. “This time, yes, though not nearly as strongly as you. It was just a voice in my head and an itchy tug on my backbone.” She stretched her tunic over her knees, hands smoothing out wrinkles. “As for why I saved you, my answer remains the same.”
“Estred.” The knowledge comforted and stung at the same time.
“And you.” Her mouth quirked into a slight smile. “Believe it or not, cat’s-paw, you’re worth saving.”
When she’d turned on him in Domora and helped the draga, Gharek had seen her actions as a betrayal not only of him but of Estred as well. Even when she gave her reasons for doing it, hedidn’t believe her, couldn’t grasp what would move her to plant a knife in his back when he’d offered her home, hearth, and safety in his household. She’d risked his wrath and his vengeance and gave up creature comforts for the streets and possible starvation, then rescued him twice when it benefited her most to let him die. He hadn’t wanted her help when she volunteered to accompany him to Domora, undaunted by his antipathy toward her.
All for Estred. A child not her own and whom she’d only met while trying to protect her from a vicious mob. Siora was not his daughter’s mother, but for one bright moment of clarity, Gharek wished she was.
That inner revelation altered something inside him, blunted the fury he’d lived with since he reunited with Estred years earlier, broke the splinters and sweetened the bitterness a tiny amount. He was still a man hollowed out by his history and his deeds, but in the abyssal black of his spirit, a light flickered to life—one of guilt, of regret. He didn’t try to snuff it out but embraced it where it danced along the edges of his soul and burned the edges of the numbness reigning there.You’re worth saving.
How wrong Siora was.
“What are you thinking?” Her question held an odd, breathless note.
He didn’t know how to answer her and lost his chance when a tall figure strode toward them, backlit by the communal campfire not far behind him. It made him featureless until he stepped into the circle of light spilling from Siora’s lamp.
The draga.
Gharek tensed, preparing for another nasty hit to the face or even a more involved beating. He wouldn’t take it passively thistime. His hands were tied but his feet and legs weren’t. He could still do significant damage to an opponent, even if he was outmatched in strength by a draga posing as a man. Malachus, he noted, stayed just out of range when he crouched in front of him.
“I’m not much of a believer in fate,” he said, those dark eyes shifting briefly from Siora to pin Gharek once more. “And I’ve half a mind to think Siora is lying when she tells me she’s here with you by choice, cat’s-paw, especially considering what I heard you threaten when we last met. It seems, however, our paths were intended to cross again, this time as possible allies instead of adversaries.”
“Why in the gods’ names would you return to the Krael Empire, draga?” Gharek, along with everyone else who hadn’t seen it firsthand, had heard the tale of the draga, a prize to be captured and butchered for the empress. The prize, however, had changed the game on Herself, destroyed battlements and killed Dalvila in a way every bard in the land earned their supper money recounting in taverns these days, then flown away not to be seen since. Or so most believed.
Malachus shrugged. “My family is here, so I’m here.” As he made that statement, a woman joined him, and Gharek silently groaned when lamplight shone on her features as well.
Halani. The pretty free trader woman with the round face and melancholy eyes. He’d abducted her mother, Asil, as a hostage and turned Halani over to those who planned to deliver her to the empress as a gift from the cat’s-paw. Those gray eyes, like rain clouds, weren’t sorrowful now, but steely and utterly unforgiving. “Were it not for the fact I’m not a murderer like you, and that your womanrisked everything to help Malachus save my mother, I’d toss you back into the cursed city and rejoice in your death,” she said flatly.
“And I’d not blame you,” he replied. Her eyes widened for a moment before narrowing with suspicion. “My reasons were misguided, though not based in cruelty for cruelty’s sake, as it might have appeared.” Her derisive snort and thinning lips told him her opinion of that statement. She thought he tried to cajole her, to justify what he’d done. “I regret few things, but I do regret taking your mother and delivering you up to the empress. I won’t ask your forgiveness, as it isn’t earned or deserved, but know you have my apology, sincere in every way.”
Her obvious contempt didn’t lessen, though for a moment a thoughtful gleam entered her eyes before fading away. She turned to Malachus, and Gharek understood why the draga had returned to a land where he was valued for his parts, not their sum. Halani was pregnant, her belly gravid, and the hand she rested lightly on Malachus’s shoulder spoke of far more than platonic affection. A half draga child. How extraordinary.
“I won’t physick him like I did Siora,” she announced. “And I don’t want Mama anywhere near him, but I can bring what’s needed so that Siora may see to his scrapes.”