Slowly she took her position across from him, unable to find a way to express her gratitude. Jarrett gave the tiniest of nods, acknowledging her silent thanks.
He understood.
Chapter Thirty-Two
To say the two of them were sore was an understatement. All day they had sparred, breaking only in the mid-afternoon for a quick but silent meal.
Jarrett had recognized the look in her eyes when they started the fight. He had seen it in himself more than once. He knew all too well what it was like to be overcome with ghosts of the past and the only thing to be done was throw yourself into the only thing you knew how to control.
Part of him envied her. If she wanted she could march to the lower district and kill Simmons. Granted there may be a bit of trouble over the mysterious disappearance but he was certain she could cover her tracks. And that would be that for her. His demons were not so easily ended.
Jarrett looked toward Payton, who had sprawled on the floor again, spread in front of the fireplace, seeking its warmth. He could see her brow furrowed as she stared at the ceiling, a dark look on her face; a bottle of wine more than half gone next to her.
When they sat down to dinner – bread, cheese, and preserved meat – she had avoided looking him in the eye. He could practically feel the shame and embarrassment radiating off her. She was mortified at how she acted. Halfway through the meal, she broke into apologies, fear tainting her voice. Jarrett accepted the regrets and told her she needn’t explain. She had remained silent for the rest of the meal.
Almost as though Payton could hear his thoughts, she shifted. “Jarrett,” she sat up and was looking at him with an unreadable expression. “I’m so sorry about earlier.” Her blue eyes darted to where she had split his lip. A healing potion had taken care of the worst of their injuries but it hadn’t seemed to help assuage her guilt. “I didn’t mean to attack you like that.”
“There is nothing to forgive,” Jarrett repeated, doubting if she would believe him now any more than she did the first few times he said it.
Payton shook her head. “I just couldn’t get it out of my head,” she grimaced looking down. “What he did. Or technically what he tried to do.” She took another sip from the bottle.
Jarrett merely looked at her.
“You know what bothers me the most? They believed him and his bullshit story so easily. There wasn’t even a moment where they doubted it.” Her grip on the bottleneck tightened, her eyes dropping to his healed lip. “I guess I am a pretty terrible person. Today is a prime example.”
He stiffened; the thought was absurd. “Do not use the match between us today as a gauge, Payton. You were not yourself.”
“Wasn’t I?” she whispered. “That’s all anyone ever wants me for these days, my ability to fight, the fact that I don’t stop until I get the job done.”
“If that were the case and you thought I was an enemy needing killing, you did a poor job,” Jarrett retorted, half pleased to see the wry smile on her lips.
“I thought you were Simmons.”
A sneer crossed his face. “I think I’d rather be a brutish enemy.” He was rewarded with a soft laugh from her.
Even with that brief moment of levity, a faraway look entered her eye and she began to share what had happened. The more he heard, the angrier he got. At Simmons, at her family, at the entire situation.
“I just… I had to get out of there,” she whispered. Closing her eyes she shook her head. “But then I couldn’t get it out of my mind. Am I really such a horrible person that my family can easily believe that I’d run off with our hard earned coin without saying a word? That I wouldn’t talk to them about not taking Isiah or Sammy along? Or that the reason I would leave them behind is some petty thing like glory?”
“You are not a horrible person, Payton,” Jarrett said firmly, his mind turning to his own misdeeds of the past. Things that could never be erased. “If anything you are the opposite.”
Her blue eyes implored him with self-imposed guilt. “I attacked you. I could have killed you!”
Jarrett let a small smile creep across his lips. “I doubt that.” Payton stared at him, clearly unable to comprehend where he found the humor. “You would have had to win first and I don’t believe you did.”
She started to object and then stopped. Finally, a chuckle escaped her. “How do you do that?”
He smirked. “Skill, years of practice, and fierce determination that no one who calls themselves a warrior should be bested by a rogue in close combat.”
Her light laughter seemed to brighten the room. “No. You always seem to make me laugh. How do you do that?”
“Skill, practice, and fierce determination,” Jarrett paraphrased, pleased when it earned him another laugh and a full smile.
“You’re incorrigible.” Amusement laced her words.
He watched her lay back down, folding her arms and using her hands as a pillow.
“I have to say you’re better than Nyla or Takara,” she stated idly.
Jarrett’s brow furrowed in confusion.
“All it takes for you to get me to spill my guts is a good bottle of wine and just sitting there. Whatever you do, don’t tell Nyla that. She’ll be prying my secrets out of me left and right. My whole life story will be her entertainment for the week.”
Jarrett chuckled at the thought.
A comfortable silence passed between them again as Jarrett nursed the bottle in his hand. His mind kept turning back to his old master and all that her recounting stirred in him. Broodingly he glared at the fire, trying to drown out his thoughts; because of this, it took him several minutes to realize Payton was staring at him.
“What?” he asked, shifting under her gaze.
“Our half of the money was just about raised for Nyla’s trip. She said that she was just waiting on our share,” Payton started. “We’ll probably leave by the end of the month.”
“So soon?”
She nodded. “Nyla wants to be there and back before winter sets in. She says we’ll be gone at least a month maybe two.”
He had not expected her absence to be so lengthy. He was surprised to find that it bothered him. “What ever will the city do without its favorite sellsword monster hunter?”
She groaned. “Don’t call me that. I wish no one had ever heard of me like that. I just want… I just feel like I’ve never stopped running.”
Jarrett stayed silent, something clenching inside of his chest that he did not care for. He understood far too well what she meant. “What does it feel like? To stop running.”
She looked at him for what seemed like an interminable amount of time before answering. “I suppose it would feel like home. I haven’t felt that feeling since… since Aodhan. Since my mom…” Her throat constricted. “I’ve been doing nothing but fight for so long and that was never who I was before. Maybe it’s who I’ve become but… to stop running would mean feeling safe. At long last, waking up and feeling safe because I no longer have to fear that my brother will be taken from me like my mother was. Or that my family will break apart because we cannot stand her death.” She cleared her throat and shifted uncomfortably.
“Does Imeryn not feel safe to you?”
She gave a halfhearted shrug. “Somewhat. News of the war reaches us and it’s always looming. Always there. Always telling us that Sam might be in danger. Maybe one day it will be different. The Templars will be defeated, Sam and the rest of the mages will be safe from their disgusting psychopathic murder sprees and Imeryn can finally feel…” Payton swallowed hard. After a few seconds of just hearing the fire crackle, she looked to him. “At least it’s different for you. Right?
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “When I came to Imeryn I was being pursued by Hunters.”
The sheer aghast look on her face nearly wanted to make him laugh. “Hunters chased you all the way from Malvathar? Through Vaelorn?”
“The Hunters started in Vaelorn. I was betrayed.”
He supposed
he should not be surprised at the horror and disgust that she expressed. Finding out that Hunters were not only employed in your country of origin but were called in by your kinsman was not a happy thing.
Taking a long sip, he handed the bottle over and gathered his courage. Working his bracer off, he lifted his sleeve and turned his arm palm up. There on his wrist was the brand. It was just as vivid and horrible as the first time she had seen it only now she noticed there were scars along the edges of it as though Jarrett had tried to carve it off himself only to fail.
“Every slave is marked with it and it is against the law in Malvathar to hide it. Some owners mock their slaves by putting it on their faces. Most will place it on their arms. But some will mark in worse places. Breasts or other body parts that require nudity.”
He grasped his wrist tightly with his other hand, his fingers digging into the horrific tattoo he would never be free of. Part of him desperately wanted to conceal it again, conceal all that he once was, especially from her. But there was no hiding from it.
“When I first ran, I was not good about covering it and it made me easy to find. Easy to spot. Easy to turn in for a reward.”
“That’s… despicable.”
He did his best to reign in his temper. He knew her words came from a kind place but it was too simplistic to be described as such. “I became complacent them moment I left Malvathar borders, believing falsely that because only Malvathar had slavery, I was free the moment I left their lands. I learned quickly that people are foul and turned with talk of coin, no matter the nationality.
“My old master was livid at my escape and put a high price for my return at first. It attracted many Hunters. And those Hunters knew how to draw outsiders in for help. I learned the hard way not to trust anyone. And that I could not stop running.”
“How did you wind up here? As a guard?”
He looked at her, studying her. Her expression was full of empathy. “The farther from Malvathar, the higher the price to bring me back. Eventually, I ran too far.”
“That’s it? You get to Estaria and they just stopped following you so you set up roots in the first city you found?”
“Not exactly. I had a trail of Hunters after me when I came to Imeryn. They had been dogging me for well over a month and I was wounded and exhausted. They cornered me in the city. I fell. I thought it was all over but when I woke I was greeted by Takara. The carnage I made of the Hunters before they took me out drew attention. It drew her guards which caused all of us to get arrested. It led to them discovering the truth.”
“I hope Takara threw away the key to their cells,” she muttered.
“Indeed.”
“So Imeryn became your sanctuary.”
“I suppose. Takara eventually offered me a job. The Hunters stopped coming after a couple of months. Whether it was the distance that stopped them, the laws of Imeryn, or my old master quitting the contract, I don’t know.”
His jaw clenched. He did not like not knowing. It left him feeling trapped, like a caged animal. Never knowing if the Hunters might come back. Never knowing if his old master was just biding her time.
“That sounds… like a mix of shit and hell thrown into a handbasket waiting to drop on your head at any moment,” Payton said bluntly.
Jarrett surprised even himself by laughing at her reply. “Indeed.” He then bowed his head, smile fading. “However, I still fear that one day she may seek me out again. I do not know if my location here is known to her. But I do have protection here, a thin layer but it is protection none the less. I simply… do not know where else to run that she will not find me.”
“Wait… you stay because you are afraid if you try to leave she’ll come after you again. But you don’t know if one day she’ll just wake up and do that anyway?”
Jarrett nodded and took another long drink from the bottle but it was not enough. It would never be enough to drown that fear. To drown out the pounding of his heart.
“So you live in fear that at some moment that day will come? You’ll wake up and…”
“I’ll have been captured and returned.”
“Creators, Jarrett. That won’t happen. I won’t let that happen.”
He stared at her. “You’re saying you plan to stand by me against an unknown force of slavers and Hunters potentially sent by my old master.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Besides the fact it’s the right thing to do?” she said in surprise. “You’re my friend. Friends don’t leave friends to face evil bastards from their past alone.” They fell silent for a while only for her to look at him with concern. “Will you be alright? While we’re gone?”
“You needn’t worry for me, Payton. Hunters have not come for me in some time.”
“I didn’t mean… well, maybe I did mean that a little bit. I just…” she shifted, suddenly feeling very awkward. “You’re not a very social person. Takara says that before you started coming to game night, you never really did anything with anyone. That you were always withdrawn and apart from everyone else.”
He glared at her, anger churning at her audacity that he needed anyone but she wasn’t done.
“That sort of life… it’s not a life. If we leave… I don’t want to leave you alone like that.”
His gaze softened, something dark in him splintering away at those words but he did not know why. “I will be fine.”
She did not look like she believed him but thankfully she did not press. Instead, she offered him a smile. “Thank you.”
“For?”
“Letting me stay, forgiving me, listening to me ramble…” Her eyes met his. “Believing me. Just… thank you.”
Realizing she was ready for sleep, he inclined his head and stood. Taking the half-finished bottle with him, Jarrett went to his room and sat on the bed. His thoughts remained heavy. Holding himself apart from the people he encountered had become a habit. Years of training ingrained in him dictated many of his actions. Even now the things his former master had instilled in him were instinctual. The things his former master had done to him scarring.
Drinking down the bottle, he tried to drown away the thoughts, the memories, the fears, and questions. What would he do if Hunters came? What would he do if his master took him back? Would he ever be strong enough to escape again? The wine suddenly tasted like ash in his mouth.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Cold had seeped into her, waking her from a troubled, nightmarish slumber. Visions of hands grabbing her, pinning her, amid Templars attacking, and a wave of frigid ice all intermingled into a mess of confusion. It was a relief when she opened her eyes blearily to look about the dark room.
She was not sure why she had woken. The dream, while horrific, had not started her to that point yet. Exhaling, Payton shifted. And shivered. She blinked sluggishly. Why was she cold? It took more than a few moments for her to register that the fire had gone out. The blanket she had been using was simply not much use against the chill brought by the storm raging outside.
Sitting up, she looked to the pile of wood that should have been near the fireplace. Oh. She rubbed her eyes, brain slowly becoming more alert. She had moved them into the hall during their fight after tripping on them and getting a nasty set of splinters. Wonderful.
She could hear the bells of the Temple chiming three. It was way too early to exist. She did not want to move but it was too damn cold to sleep. If she moved off the other blanket she’d be on the floor and that’d be no help. What were her options? One, freeze the night away; immediately she dismissed it, there had to be a better choice. Two, get out of bed and get wood and hope she didn’t wake Jarrett as she rummaged in the hall near his room.
This was going to end in disaster, she just knew it.
Tiptoeing forward, she moved toward the hall. She wished she had stayed wrapped in her blanket, goosebumps were tingling down her arms and legs. She could hear the steady patter of rain against the walls and windows giving her a symphony
of soft noises to hide her footsteps in.
She got to the hallway and saw that the door to Jarret’s room was ajar, the firewood scattered along the path near it. A loud clap of thunder exploded just as Payton reached for the first log. She jumped, nearly cursing aloud. Glaring up as though she could see the Triad and scold them, she shook her head. Stupid storm.
Kneeling down, she began to gather the wood. Lightning lit up the sky, giving a flash of brilliant white light throughout the house, startling her. Her head shot up and landed on the figure she could see through the cracked door. The momentary illumination had given her a clear sight of him and it made her still.
He was shaking; tossing and turning as though in the throes of a nightmare.
Against the voice of reason, Payton set the wood she had gathered down. Ever so slowly she pushed the door open. As though to enhance the tension she felt coiling in the pit of her stomach, the storm raged on with thunder rumbling, lightning flashing, and the wind howling.
Payton bit her lip as she got closer. Empty bottles littered the floor near his bed and there were more on the side table. His sword and shield, all close enough that he could roll to his feet and grab it in one movement.
Wrapped in a blanket much like the one he had brought her, Jarrett seemed unusually small. He had curled himself into a ball, his face tight in taunt lines. Every few seconds he would flinch and shrink into himself, shoulders hunching up. Her heart ached as she watched him. She could just hear a soft mumble coming from him, slurred words that sounded like begging.
Before she realized what she was doing, Payton knelt by the bed. She reached out to touch him. “Jarrett?” she whispered his name.
He recoiled when her hand brushed his arm, not waking but clearly terrified.
Sitting back on her heels, her mind raced. She had never seen the warrior like this; she would reason no one had. He had always kept himself apart from the others, always on guard, always watching as though he expected an attack. Maybe he was. The thought had never occurred to her. Maybe Jarrett really was always waiting for an attack, waiting for the other boot to drop.
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