"Arun, no!" I shouted up to him. "Don't be stupid."
"You promised," he yelled back.
I had no comeback for that. It was true that I'd promised to take him with me wherever I went. That I wouldn't leave him behind. But couldn't he see that he was the one doing the leaving? It would be better this way. He would be safer, and he would be able to keep Kaem safe, no matter who she was. It was what he was good at. I was death personified; he was life.
Maybe not for long, though.
He stepped off the railing, one of his wrists wrapped in a rigging rope.
I gasped but didn't cry out, not wanting to distract him from whatever his idiotic plan was.
The rope swung him in a wide arc until he smacked against the hull, grabbing the empty hull net, and releasing the rope. The wide-eyed sailors above reeled it in. He shimmied down until he was at the bottom, as close to the ground as he could get, though it was still very far up, and then let go.
His fall somehow lasted both a split second and an eternity. He was on the ground and the Wind Wraith was disappearing into the clouds in the blink of an eye. When I reached him, he was immobile on the ground, a heap of limbs.
"Arun." I rolled him to his back only to find him staring up at me, grinning. "Asshole."
He winced when my fist connected with his chest. "Ow."
"Serves you right. What were you thinking?"
He tugged me down on top of him and I let him. "That elves live very long lives, and I didn't want to spend a single moment of it without this." He pressed his mouth to mine, squeezing me tight around the middle as if still afraid I would run away and leave him here.
I shifted and he grunted. "What is it?" I asked against his mouth.
"Pain," he groaned. "I mean, I jumped out of an airship for you."
"Come on." I stood and held a hand out to him.
He stood slowly, like an old man first thing in the morning, stretching his back and grunting. "Where are we going?"
"To kill Savarah."
"Where will we find her?"
"We won't have to." I smiled and turned east, heading back to the cabin. It seemed appropriate that this place which had been a safe haven for the Suun heir for so long would be her final resting place. "She's going to find us."
Chapter 24
The cabin was a welcome respite after days in the open, always sleeping with one eye open and watching for threats stalking us through the grasses. It was just as we'd left it, our footprints undisturbed.
"We should rig some traps and alarms," Arun suggested as we crossed into the garden, the gate creaking. "Especially if we can't draw our weapons inside the protection zone."
I thought it was a good idea. Though the protection spell had weakened, it was still strong around the house, fed, I thought, by the priest's sacrifice. Her blood soaked the ground and kept this place safe. If Kaem and her sisters had never left, maybe their story would have had a different ending, and so would Estrid's. But they'd been afraid, hunted. I couldn't blame them, not really.
While Arun set to work sharpening the fence posts into stakes, I scoured the house for anything I could find—wire and hooks that had been used for fishing, tin cups and an iron bell, spring-loaded mouse traps that had never been used. A cabinet full of potions and powders revealed a jar labeled "galestone" which I gleefully grabbed, giving a little squeal of excitement.
When I came back outside, Arun had already dug a couple of holes at the garden's entrance and set the stakes upright inside of them, then covered them with straw. I helped him rig a couple of tripwires using the wire and tin cups, and we set up a few more spear traps around the house.
"I never thought I'd be using hunting snare traps to kill ur’gels," I said offhandedly as I tied off a hair trigger that held back one of the stakes.
Arun touched the wire, testing its tautness. "I never thought I'd even see an ur’gel in real life. They're just storybook monsters from my childhood."
It was nearly dark by the time we finished, and thunder rolled overhead, the dark grey clouds blocking out any light from the moons or the stars. I would have felt better if I had been able to search the stars for Estrid. If I could feel like she was watching over me.
Instead, I went inside with Arun and we built a small fire in the hearth and warmed up a portion of stew we'd found stored in the icebox. It was good and warmed our bellies. The rain began to fall, the drops loud on the thatched roof, making conversation pointless.
Arun went to bed while I stayed up, whittling a few more stakes out of spare posts that had been stacked against one wall. I felt restless, afraid to sleep because of what might come to me in my dreams, and because of what I might wake up to. Savarah's cruel smile. An ur’gel's hand around my throat. The end of my world.
Thunder crashed and I jumped to my feet, the ground shaking. I padded on bare feet to the bed at the back of the house, climbing under the furs beside Arun. He grunted and shifted, rolling automatically to the side so I could fit myself in against him.
Instead of closing my eyes, I stared at him until he blinked back at me, roused from sleep by the sheer force of my will. Without saying anything, I tipped my head up and kissed him.
He didn't miss a beat. His arm tightened around me, while his free hand slipped under my shirt, exploring the hard lines of muscles and the subtle curves of my hips and breasts. I pressed myself against him, wanting more. If this was to be the end, our last normal night, then I wanted all of him.
He rolled, pinning me beneath him. I closed my eyes, focusing on the solid weight of him on top of me, pressing me into the thin mattress, grounding me in the here and now. I wanted to lose myself in the moment. To let his wandering kisses erase the stain of grief and the fear of what the next day, or the day after, might bring.
As if he could feel the direction of my thoughts, he tried to pull away, but I fastened myself securely around him, my teeth grazing his shoulder threateningly. He chuckled, a deep, throaty growl that reverberated between us, and dropped his face to my neck, tracing kisses steadily and deliciously downward.
Sometime later, we lay in a sweaty pile of limbs. Outside, the storm had tapered off into a pleasant shower that tried desperately to lull me to sleep. The furs had fallen to the floor, but neither of us moved to retrieve them. His breathing grew steady and deep, and I thought he'd fallen asleep until I felt a callused thumb forming lazy circles on my palm. I looked over at him from where I lay in the crook of his shoulder.
"Hi," he said, his voice deep and rough.
"I don't hate you," I whispered, knowing I should have said that earlier.
"I know."
"And I don't hate what we did."
He cleared his throat. "I don't either."
Sleep came easily after that, in spite of the looming threat, and when I closed my eyes, it was Estrid's smiling face that appeared behind my eyelids.
I woke up tucked against Arun, his body curved around mine. The sound of a bird chirping beyond the window signaled it was morning, and that the rain had stopped. I realized this was what it would be like to be normal. To fall in love, to share a home, to wake up beside each other every morning with nothing ahead of us except our daily chores and finding excuses to sneak off together, just the two of us. We could buy a plot of land outside of Bor'sur, within walking distance from my father's home.
But that was just a useless dream. It would never be our reality.
When I made a move to sit, Arun pulled me back against him, nuzzling his face into my neck.
"We should get up."
"Yup," he said sleepily.
"I have to get dressed."
"Nope."
I pushed him away and he fell back, laughing. It was such a common sound, but one I wanted to commit to memory.
As we dressed, he talked about the cabin and how we could fix it up, the slight changes we could make to make it more livable. How easy it would be to replenish the garden. I realized he was stuck in that same in-between place w
here I'd been when I woke up that morning.
I had just finished buckling on my leather vest when there was the faint sound of jingling bells.
I froze. "Shhh," I insisted.
Arun looked up at me mid-sentence, his hands on his boot laces. "What is it?"
It could have been the wind, or an animal disturbing the trip wire. But I didn't think it was. Even with the necklace on, I could feel her. "Someone's here."
He raised his eyebrows. "That was quick."
We made our way to the front of the house and tugged a curtain aside, peering out through the small window by the door. It was Savarah, flanked by three ur’gels. All three of them had black, leathery wings tucked behind their backs, the tips poking over their heads. While they had a humanoid look to them, they had the blue-tinted skin of their race, and two of them had abnormally long limbs, like ponies standing on their hind legs. The third was larger, standing several feet taller than Savarah, and barrel-chested. The four of them surveyed the cabin and the yard, looking reluctant to come any closer.
Arun let the curtain fall closed. "What do we do?"
"This is why I didn't want you to come."
"What are you talking about?"
I steeled myself, turning to face him. "I'm going to kill her, no matter the cost."
"I know, that's what—"
"Even if it costs me my life. She must die for what she did to my sister. Before she can do that to anyone else I love. I will die to save them. To save you." As soon as I said the words, I realized what they meant. I was finally willing to die for my own lost cause.
Before Arun could respond, Savarah's voice interrupted us. "Frida Suun? Are you in there? Won't you come out to play?"
I wasn't going to slink around and try to escape. I was ready for this. Ready to meet her head-on.
I opened the door. "Savarah. How good of you to join us."
Her smile was dazzling. "I think maybe we've gotten off on the wrong foot."
"You think? You think turning my siblings against me and poisoning my friend was the wrong foot? I have to agree."
Her blue gaze flicked to Arun. "Good job finding that cure, by the way. Only you." She shook her head as if impressed.
"I wouldn't have let you take him. How did you think you would win me that way? By hurting the ones I love?"
"Perhaps I went about things all wrong. But you have to understand, when I heard about the girl with the star beside her eye and Onen Suun's blood in her veins, I had to find you. But I had just escaped from the prison. The slavers picked me up and turned me over to the elves on Fairlow. Laurel Trisfina was putty in my hands, and his daughter was even easier to manipulate. Her bleeding heart was my ticket to Barepost. To you."
It had never been about Arun at all. He'd only been a happy accident. "But you left."
"I never expected to see Beru." She laughed. "The only other person outside of the Barren Wastes who could recognize me, and I run into him on a Bruhier cliff. Foregin has a twisted sense of humor, I'll give him that." She spoke as if she knew the god of fate, and for all I knew, maybe she did.
"Why didn't you just kill me and get it over with?"
The ur’gels beside her were getting restless. Savarah held up a hand and they went still. "Oh, no, Frida darling. You are far too powerful, no, too pivotal, to waste in death. You have a choice to make, and that choice will affect the rest of the world."
"Light or dark." I spoke in a low voice, but she still heard me.
"That's right. Choose the light and I'll make everyone you love suffer, and I'll make you watch until you're begging me to end it for you."
"What if I choose the dark?"
Her lips twisted together before she answered. "Did you know I felt your rage? I heard you calling to me. I almost came. Not to kill you, but to convince you to use your rage to set the world on fire. Use it to free Dag'draath, not imprison him."
I shook my head. "I would never choose the dark. You and I will never be on the same side. Nothing you say will convince me."
"Shame." With a flick of her fingers, she waved the ur’gels forward. "Get the elf. Leave the girl for me."
One of the smaller ur’gels stepped forward and fell, his leg disappearing into one of Arun's spear traps. He screamed and jerked his leg out. It was covered in black blood.
Savarah looked down at him with disdain. "Carefully," she said, raising an eyebrow, unaffected by his screams.
An arrow whistled past my ear and buried itself in the ur’gel's temple, putting an end to the screaming. He toppled sideways. I turned to Arun with wide eyes.
He shrugged, his bow in his hand. "I don't think the protection spell applies inside the house."
Well, that was a game changer. I pulled my ax and sword to test Arun's theory and wasn't zapped into unconsciousness.
The other two ur’gels advanced into the yard.
"I've got this," Arun said, stepping around me and leaving the safety of the house. "You get Savarah." Then, to the ur’gels, he crooked a finger. "Come on, boys."
Savarah waited for them to pass through the yard before advancing herself, her eyes on me and on the ground in front of her. I knew she wasn't one for hand-to-hand combat, but she didn't have much of a choice here. She couldn't use her powers against me because of the locket, and she couldn't draw a weapon outside of the house.
There was a crash beside me, and I turned to see the other smaller ur’gel caught in one of Arun's traps. That moment of distraction was all Savarah needed. She dove, tackling me back into the house, knocking my weapons from my hands.
She straddled my hips and drew two small knives that she slashed at my face. I bucked my hips to try to get her off, but she was immovable. Her knives left dozens of small, stinging cuts on my arms and hands as I fended her off. I wasn't able to get my feet under me or my hands on my own weapons. Instead, I reached up and pressed my thumbs into her eyes with a growl.
She howled and grabbed for my wrists, and then finally rolled off me when I didn't let go.
My fingers scrambled against the wooden slats of the floor and closed around the hilt of my sword. As Savarah rolled to me, her knives raised, I plunged the sword into her chest, shoving with both hands.
I never forgot what it felt like to kill another person. It was always the same. It wasn't like slicing through a strip of beef. The body resisted, bones and muscles holding on until finally, under an intense and unexpected show of force, they snapped and broke and died. Savarah might have been immortal, but she was still human.
Savarah's eyes went wide, the blue pools tearing up as she stumbled back, taking my sword with her. Her hands wrapped around the hilt of the sword, which was right against her chest. Her mouth dropped open in surprise when she looked down at it.
But when she looked back up at me, her look of surprise morphed into one of amusement.
She wasn't falling over dead.
She was pulling the sword out of her chest, but blood wasn't pouring down her dress and pooling on the floor. She flipped it back and forth in front of her, examining the blade which was painted red with her blood. I was the one with the look of surprise on my face now, and she laughed when she saw it.
"You can't kill me that way, little bird."
And then she brought the hilt of the sword down against the side of my head with more strength than I knew she had.
I slid to the ground, fighting unconsciousness.
She knelt and touched two fingers to my throbbing forehead. "My parting gift, dear Suun. Until we meet again."
The last thing I saw were her slippered feet walking away before the world went black.
Chapter 25
I took a deep breath and when I exhaled, my breath was a white cloud in the cool air. The rabbit hung from a branch just ahead of me, his paw ensnared in one of my traps. I freed it, slit its throat, and hung it from my belt with the others. I wove through the woods, following a well-worn trail, and emerged in a clearing where a two-story cabin sat in the middl
e of a tended yard, smoke pouring out of the chimney. Home, I knew, even though another part of my brain knew I had never seen the place before. Every part of me, though, recognized that a warm hearth waited for me, and I picked up my pace.
A woman who was kneeling over a raised garden box stood when I reached the gate and turned to me, brushing her yellow hair back over one shoulder.
"Frida," Estrid said, "you brought dinner. I was just picking the vegetables for the stew." She had a basket balanced on her hip, full of carrots, onions, and celery.
My mouth opened, but no sound came out as my mind warred with itself. She was gone, dead and burned, but here she was, standing in front of me. I reached out and touched her cheek.
She laughed and grabbed my hand, shoving it away gently. "What's wrong with you?"
There was a noise behind me, and I turned to find Erik emerging from the woods, his arm around Aysche, whose belly was swollen with child. Another child was hiding behind her skirts, a miniature version of Erik peering out at me with big eyes.
Seeing me staring, he held up a brown paper bag. "I brought the wine." He shoved the wine into my hands and took the strap of rabbits from me. "I'll get these ready while you three catch up." He cut through the garden toward an outbuilding behind the house to clean them.
Aysche stopped to hug me, her bony arms strange around my shoulders.
"Mama." The little boy tugged on her skirts.
She knelt and turned to him. "Yes?"
"Mama, I'm bored."
She smiled indulgently at her son and stood, turning to me and, strangely enough, putting a hand on my abdomen. "Don't worry, it won't be long before you have another little one to play with."
Mouth agape, I looked down at myself and saw the gentle roundness to my otherwise flat stomach.
"Let's go inside," Aysche said, grabbing my hand. "You shouldn't be out here too long in the cold. I can't believe he still lets you hunt."
He? He who?
But I knew.
I knew before the door opened and revealed two men sitting at a dining table with a game of cards between them. One of them was an older man with grey hair and a long beard—my father. The other … he was softer, his face a little rounder and his hair a little shorter. He didn't wear any weapons when he stood and crossed the room to greet me, arms outstretched.
Finding the Suun Page 13
