He glanced past the captain to Siora behind him. In the shadows cavorting around her, she looked paler than the moon, her mouth thinned to a grim line. “Don’t run,” he warned her.
She shook her head, and her eyes narrowed. “You either, cat’s-paw.”
The Kraelian captain flashed a full grin before standing. “Wise decision. Let’s see which of you keeps to it as the night wears on.” He rose and strolled away to join the others around a communal campfire.
Gharek’s stomach rumbled at the idea his captors would soon cook their supper over that fire. He hadn’t eaten since before Siora walloped him with the branch to break Midrigar’s bewitchment and then stole both his horse and his supplies. Nor was there any guarantee he’d eat anytime soon. He glared at Siora, who divided her attention between him and the guards set to watch them. Her gaze finally settled on him and stayed, as steady and far-seeing as he remembered when she still served in his household.
“Why did you save me?” She tilted her head to one side. “When I left you in the forest, you warned me there was no debt.”
Were he driven simply by the revenge he’d promised, he wouldn’t have done so. His fury over her treachery still threatened to swallow him whole, even after all these months. Fury and anameless hurt that demanded recognition he struggled not to acknowledge. But it was Estred’s grief that had sent him after Siora, not his revenge. Her grief and his promise to her that he’d bring back the wayward nursemaid and make her beg his daughter’s forgiveness for abandoning her had sent him on his search. If he had to drag Siora back in chains to the home of those who took care of Estred while he traveled, then so be it.
Siora believed he’d chased her for the opportunity to kill her, and he’d entertained the idea more than once, especially during those first hard weeks when he’d taken Estred and fled Domora, terrified they’d be caught—he executed for his crimes and Estred executed for the offense of being his offspring. That or for offending the delicate sensibilities of those who believed only the undamaged and unblemished had the right to live. He’d spent many a sleepless night rubbing his daughter’s back while she cried in her sleep and muttered Siora’s name. It was during those times he sank into the black depths of silent rage and wished the nursemaid dead.
“Why did you save me?” she repeated.
“Because you’re more valuable to me alive than dead, and you owe Estred,” he snarled. “And for the moment the why doesn’t matter. We’re both someone else’s captives now. If you pray and believe in the compassion of gods, now’s the time to act the supplicant and beg for their help.”
A puzzled frown creased a line in her brow. She didn’t flinch away at his waspish reply. “Do you know this Zaredis?”
His shoulders were killing him, and he shrugged in his bonds to try to ease the ache in his joints. “Only by name. If he’s anything like the mistress we both once served, you and I are already walking corpses.” And they’d beg to die by the time it was over. Hepushed the thought away. For the moment there was nothing he could do, no plan he could make until he could judge who pulled the puppet strings in this scenario.
He focused his attention back to Siora. “I would ask you the same question. Why did you save me?
She didn’t hesitate. “I already told you. For Estred, who needs her father.” The frown line between her eyebrows smoothed out, and her expression and voice softened. The regret in her eyes shone like guttering lamplight. “How is she?
He twisted the knife. “She grieves and she fears.” Her eyes turned glossy at his answer, and he offered her the barest hint of a cold smile. “You make little sense. You betray me and her to help the draga—supposedly for Estred’s sake—then risk your life to save me from whatever thing sleeps in Midrigar, knowing that I’ve hunted you all this time and thinking I mean to kill you. Again for Estred’s sake, but thanks to your actions, I lost everything I’d built for her in Domora.”
His daughter was safe—as safe she could be—with a relative of his steward in a town some distance from Domora. They’d agreed to watch over Estred for a handsome sum that bought not only their care but also their silence regarding her fugitive father. No doubt it also helped that his steward let his relatives know that with the generous payment came the surety that if they failed in their task, they’d pay with their lives. The cat’s-paw didn’t hesitate to dispatch those who crossed him, especially where his daughter was concerned.
A snide voice laughed at him inwardly.And yet Estred’s nurse still lives.
Melancholy had joined regret in Siora’s gaze. “My father diedin the Pit during one of the melees for the Rites of Spring years ago. I was Estred’s age at the time. He was a good man. Strong, protective. He loved my mother and me, and when he died, we were broken.” The light from nearby torches caught the telltale sheen of tears in her eyes. “I can’t help every fatherless child, but I can try to help one, and Estred shines with you as her parent.”
If he wasn’t bound like a trussed pigeon, Gharek would wrap his hands around her neck and squeeze from pure frustration. “Then why did you turn against us when I had the draga in my trap? His blood might have helped my daughter, given to her what she was robbed of at birth.” If the draga had been honest—and Gharek believed him, despite his innate suspicions—his assumption about the blood was despairingly incorrect.
Siora sighed. “You know that isn’t true. If it were, Malachus would have offered you his blood willingly. You can’t even say it aloud, can you? She was born without arms, lord. A burden yes. A struggle through life, but she’s undeterred and has risen above that limitation, yet you’ve been so blinded by what you see as her lack that you almost got yourself killed facing a man who was something other than human and far more dangerous.” Her distant gaze now did its best to peel away every one of his defenses and see beyond. Gharek didn’t look away. She’d find nothing. Just hollowness.
“Why,” she continued, “must you hold an old woman with the mind of a child hostage and put your own life at risk fighting a draga in order to change Estred?
His cackle held an edge that would do any sword proud. “First, your belief in a draga’s generosity is ridiculous. And second,because we live in a world where a girl who eats with her feet is hardly seen as human, much less accomplished. Have you forgotten how you ended up in my service in the first place?” The reminder of that moment, when he’d raced through the streets of Domora hunting for his errant daughter, half mad with terror, made his heart seize in his chest. He’d never forget hurtling into an alley, drawn there by a shouting crowd, knowing what he’d find, and made sick to his soul.
Estred was there all right, cowering and frightened and sobbing as the good citizens of Domora threw stones at her. She’d come away from the ordeal with only a single cut to her cheek thanks to the incautious bravery of a beggar woman hardly bigger than Estred herself who’d used her own body as a shield. Bloody, bruised, and smelling worse than a public piss pot, Siora had entered his household for a bath, food, and physicking and ended up staying as Estred’s unlikely nursemaid. She stayed long enough to gain his daughter’s love and Gharek’s reluctant trust. Then cheerfully set fire to both before running away.
“I’m through talking,” he declared, and closed his eyes against the sight of her.
She was relentless. “What purpose will capturing me serve? What is so important that you’ve put your vengeance aside yet still hunt me across the Empire?”
Gharek kept his eyes closed. “You will come back with me, willingly or not. You’re going to face Estred and apologize for leaving her. You will get down on your knees, assure her it wasn’t her fault that you left, and beg her for her forgiveness. And if she bestows that forgiveness on you, you will leave us and never showyour face again.” He opened his eyes and turned his head to stare at her. “If you do, I will hunt you once more, and this timeit willbe for vengeance.”
All the blood had drained from her features, leaving her as pale as the dead. A hollow bleakness filled her eyes, and the muscles in her throat tightened convulsively with the effort to speak. When she finally managed to push the words past her lips, her voice was barely a whisper, washed out and unsteady. “Estred thinks it’s her fault?” She didn’t wait for his answer. Her eyes closed and her jaw tightened even as tears cascaded in rivers down her cheeks. “I never wanted that,” she said in the same whisper, shaking her head. “I didn’t know...”
He was merciless. “And obviously didn’t care.”
“That isn’t true!” She darted a glance at the soldiers set to guard them. Both scowled at her.
Gharek didn’t reply and she didn’t continue. The silence between them was an ocean neither chose to cross, at least until one of the Kraelian soldiers approached them. Gharek watched warily as the man drew closer with two bowls from which tendrils of steam meandered to fade into the night air. His mouth watered at the enticing smell coming from those bowls, and his belly sent up a series of growls that could be heard across the encampment.
The soldier thrust both bowls and their spoons at Siora. She grabbed them with her bound hands before the man could drop their supper carelessly into her lap. He pointed to Gharek. “The captain says you both stay tied. You’re to feed him his share.”