“This is…no, wait…Here is…the prison and…judgment? Punishment? of Sarkis of the Weeping Lands. Faithless in life, he will be faithful in death, until steel crumbles and all sins fade away.”
The scholar stopped and looked up, his eyes wide. The moment seemed suddenly trapped in amber. Sarkis saw the sunlight coming through the window, the dust motes dancing in it, the fall of Halla’s pale white hair over her face as the color drained out of it.
She turned and looked at him. Waiting for the denial or the protest or the explanation.
Sarkis met her eyes and said nothing at all.
That was enough.
I can’t believe I’ve been such a fool.
No. No, that wasn’t true. It was all too easy to believe it.
A man who took you away from your troubles. A man who said you were beautiful. Of course you were a fool.
Only a fool would believe such things could be true.
“Halla—” he said finally, when the silence between them had become agony.
“Why?”
“I led a mercenary troop,” he said. “I’ll not pretend we were good people, because we weren’t. There was a war, and we became…well. Indispensable. But our side was losing. At the height of battle, I changed sides.”
Halla stared at him.
Sarkis shrugged. “My loyalty was to my men, not to my employer. I was holding a citadel that I knew could not be held for long. The enemy offered me money. I saw a chance for us to survive.”
“And?”
“And if I had held out another two days, I would have been a great hero.” He smiled humorlessly. “Our allies arrived. They overwhelmed our position. Most of my men were slaughtered. I and my two captains—the Dervish and Angharad—we were dragged before the king who had trusted us.”
Halla put her hand over her mouth.
“He had the rest of my men hanged as traitors. A mercenary stays bought, that’s what separates them from murderers. But for the three of us, he had a more fitting punishment. Our deaths were bound to the swords, and the will of any who wielded us.”
“That is…quite a punishment,” said the scholar. Halla had forgotten that the man was even there.
Sarkis sighed, not looking at him. “For me, perhaps, it was just. But the Dervish and Angharad deserved a clean death, not to be bound into magic steel and forced to fight until the end of time. They followed my orders. Angharad told me it was a poor idea, but I overruled her.”
“I see,” said Halla. She didn’t want to feel sorry for him. He was a liar and a criminal and apparently a traitor.
She could all too easily feel sorry for Angharad and the Dervish. They had trusted him too, and look where it had gotten them.
Look where it got any of us.
“So there you have it,” said Sarkis. “The whole sordid tale.”
“I suppose you didn’t lie, did you?” she asked. “You just let me believe whatever I wanted.”
Sarkis shook his head. “That’s a coward’s way out,” he said. “I knew full well what you believed.”
“I believed in you,” she said softly. “I thought you were a hero.”
“I know.”
“I trusted you. I let you…”
She cut herself off. The night they had spent had been like nothing she’d ever felt, and now it was tainted. Everything was tainted.
“Halla…” He reached for her hand.
She yanked it away, shaking her head. She didn’t want to look at him. She was going to cry soon and be damned if she was going to cry in front of him.
“You could have just told me,” she said miserably. “You didn’t have to lie. I wouldn’t have cared. Why didn’t you tell me?”
She made the mistake of looking at him, and saw that his face looked as anguished as she felt. “Because for hundreds of years, I have died for wielders who thought that I was nothing but crowbait. An inhuman weapon or at most, a traitor who deserved a traitor’s death, over and over again. And then you came along and you…you were…” He lifted his hands and let them drop. “You were you,” he said finally.
“I was a fool.”
“No. You were kind and you were in a very bad situation and you wanted to believe the best of the man who saved you.”
“I should have known.” Her voice was as dull as a dying woman’s. “I should have known better. My fault for thinking a hero would have anything to do with someone like me.”
“Halla…”
“Go away,” she said tiredly. “Leave me alone.”
“I can’t,” he said. “I am bound to you until you die or sell me or give me away.”
“So that part was true?”
He nodded.
“Then you’re free,” she said. “I give you to yourself. You don’t need to serve me any longer.” She flung the sword down on the table.
“Halla, I—”
The pommel struck the table and the blade slammed into the scabbard. Blue light splashed around Sarkis and tore him away, even as he reached out a hand toward her.
“It’s real,” breathed Nolan. “He’s really one of them. He’s a servant of the sword!”
“Later,” she said. “Later.”
“But—”
“Later.” She turned on her heel. She had to get out of the room right now or she was going to cry and she didn’t want to cry in front of other people. She had her pride.
Really? And what do you possibly have to be proud of?
You’re nothing but a woman past her prime with a dead husband. You can’t take care of yourself. You had to hire a priest to get your own inheritance back from your grasping in-laws.
So you had a lover for the space of a night. So what?
Did you think he truly wanted you? Did you think he wanted anything, except to slake his own thirst?
“But Mistress Halla!” said the scholar, rising to his feet. “I have so many questions!”
“I’m going for a walk,” she said. Her voice betrayed her and she clamped her teeth down on her lip and stalked away.
Chapter 48
Silver faded. The sword was drawn. Sarkis materialized in the room, looking for Halla. He needed to say something—tell her something—anything—anything to fix the hurt he had caused her.
You were ready to spit her relatives on your sword for what they’d done. And you are worse than they ever were. She knew what to expect from them.
She trusted you.
Angharad and the Dervish trusted you, too. At least you haven’t left her gutted and trapped in a blade, so there’s that much to be grateful for.
The resignation in her voice had cut him more deeply than her tears. She had sounded as if she had given up. As if she had decided that she did not even deserve to feel anger at her own betrayal.
He wanted her to shout at him, to be furious on her own behalf. He wanted her to believe that she was worth enough to be angry.
I wanted a clean slate between us. I wanted you to know so that it couldn’t hurt us later. I wanted there to be a later.
He had no idea how to fix any of it.
I could fall on my own sword in shame…and then what? She’d be alone for a fortnight while I healed. And the great god knows what would happen to her in that time.
She was too trusting. She would trust the wrong person and end up bleeding in a ditch or worse.
Could they really hurt her any worse than you did?
He had to apologize. He had to find her. He had to make it right.
She…wasn’t in the room. Bartholomew looked at him, fingers wrapped around the hilt, holding the sword a few inches out of the scabbard.
“Where is she?” said Sarkis.
“Halla? I’m sure she’s fine,” said Bartholomew.
“I have to talk to her. Where did she go?” Sarkis turned away.
“It hardly matters,” Bartholomew said. “Her part in this is done.”
“What?”
“Her cousin will take care of her. We have other mat
ters to discuss.”
Sarkis was halfway to the door when the word cousin struck him. “What? That clammy-handed worm? What are you talking about?”
Bartholomew rolled his eyes. “For god’s sake, man, you know the woman. She’s a twit. She needs someone to keep her from wandering off a cliff, and for whatever reason, her cousin wants the job. You did your part, and now you can get on to better things.”
Sarkis saw red.
He was over the table before his sword had cleared its sheath, aiming for Bartholomew’s throat. “He has her? Where did he take her? Tell me or I’ll kill—”
And he stopped.
The sword hovered inches from the other man’s face, and Sarkis had an intense desire to twist around and throw himself in front of the blade.
He tried to move the sword, and found himself leaning forward, leading with his opposite shoulder, determined to get in the way.
Sarkis stared at his sword hand as if it belonged to someone else.
He reached out with his other hand, toward Bartholomew’s throat, and watched his own sword turn and press against his wrist.
And then he knew.
Bartholomew reached out, put his finger on the tip of the blade, and pushed it aside.
“She gave the sword away,” he said. “You heard her. And now I am the one who wields you.”
Sarkis went berserk.
The sword cut deep into his forearm, steel grinding on bone, before he flung it down.
Bartholomew jumped out of the way, eyes wide, as the servant of the sword fell down, thrashing violently on the floor. Rage warred with magic and magic had the upper hand. Sarkis clawed at his own throat with his bloody fingers, snarling, then slammed the back of his head against the floor and saw stars.
How far would the magic go to keep him from harming a wielder?
Apparently a very long way.
The world tilted and darkened. His breathing eased as the magic slowly decided that he was no longer a threat to his new master.
A door slammed. He heard footsteps as Nolan raced into the room. “What is going on here? What—no! You drew the sword?!”
“I did.”
“That wasn’t our agreement!”
“I didn’t trust your order to keep your end of the bargain,” snapped Bartholomew. “I required insurance. I will hand over the sword when I am paid, and not before.”
Nolan cursed.
The scholar knelt over Sarkis, lips twisted in annoyance. “If he dies, it will be weeks before we can draw him again and that will be time wasted. My order will hardly pay for a servant of the sword if they cannot at least see the servant first.”
Sarkis blinked the darkness out of his eyes and looked up into Nolan’s face.
He’s in it with Bartholomew. They planned this. This is why they came to the town. Not to help Halla at all.
He could do nothing to the wielder of the sword, but Nolan had no such protection.
Sarkis lunged.
His hands went around the scholar’s throat. Even with blood pouring down his left arm, even with it badly gashed, it was easy. Necks were so fragile, the windpipe right there, the jugular there, all he had to do was squeeze—
Nolan turned purple and gurgled. Bartholomew gasped and somehow had the presence of mind to sheathe the sword.
Sarkis’s curse was cut off as blue fire washed over him, freeing the traitor from his hands and taking him out of the world again.
Halla entered the house, feeling weary beyond all measure.
She had walked for hours, out into the lands around the town, and found herself at the same shepherd’s hut they had taken refuge in the first night. It looked as if it hadn’t been used since them.
She stared at the dark entrance, high on the hill, and thought, He got you away from Alver. That wasn’t a lie. He saw you safe to Amalcross and Archenhold. That wasn’t a lie, either.
He had thrown himself in front of danger, completely heedless of his own safety. Granted, he was immortal, but he still felt pain, yet she had never seen him balk at any injury. Yes, the sword had compelled him…but he could have been free of her at any time, only by asking.
The sword had not compelled him to hold her when she was shaken, nor to joke with her, nor to hold her hand.
You sound as if you are thinking of forgiving him, she said to herself.
It’s mostly my pride that’s wounded.
Pride is all a respectable widow has left. It was not the sword that compelled him to be kind to you, but it was not the sword that made him lie, either. Or seduce you.
Halla grimaced as she walked toward the door. She had not exactly been an unwilling party to her own seduction, had she?
She knew something was wrong as soon as the door closed behind her. The house was cold. There were no fires lit in any of the grates.
Dread crawled up into Halla’s throat. She went from room to room on the ground floor, but they were all dark and empty. The guest bedrooms for her great-uncle’s friends were bare, with signs of having been vacated in a hurry.
No Bartholomew. No Nolan. No sword.
No deep-voiced, sardonic swordsman with fierce eyes and gentle hands.
“They’re gone,” said a voice behind her.
She knew that voice. It wasn’t one she cherished.
Dear gods, it wanted only this.
She turned. “Cousin Alver,” she said grimly. “How very nice to see you.”
Chapter 49
“If you’re looking for that horrible guard of yours, he’s gone,” said Aunt Malva. “Gone off with Bartholomew and that scholar of his, and good riddance to him.”
“What?” said Halla blankly.
Sarkis? Gone?
Malva smiled. She was clearly enjoying this. “Oh yes. Bartholomew left in a hurry and came by to tell us where you’d be. Very kind of him. Very lucky for you.”
He left with Bartholomew? What?
The hollowness inside her began to expand. She’d thought to find Sarkis and forgive him. It seemed he had decided that it was not worth his time to wait around and be forgiven.
And here I am.
Right back in the place I started.
With these two.
“Surprised?” asked Malva. “I don’t know why. Men like that don’t stay in one place.”
Halla shook her head slowly. Blood roared in her ears. The events of the past few weeks began to feel like a long, surreal dream. Had she even known a swordsman named Sarkis? Where was Zale? She had her inheritance back, the clerk had confirmed it, but she was back in her great-uncle’s house and her wretched cousin and his aunt were here and she might as well never have left at all.
“Halla…” Alver said, stepping forward.
It didn’t matter how disassociated she felt, Halla wasn’t letting that clammy-handed little bastard touch her. She jerked back, eyeing him with disgust. “Why are you two here? I don’t care if Sarkis left—”
Liar. You care very very much.
“—I still don’t want to see either of you again.”
Something was rushing into the hollowness, filling it up. She did not quite know what it was. It felt like rage.
“Now Halla…”
“I don’t even know why you’re here.”
“Bartholomew told us to come,” said Malva. “He knew Alver was the only one soft-hearted enough to still want you.”
Halla stared at her, then broke into a high, braying laugh. She knew it was an ugly sound, and that was fine. She had no desire at the moment to be beautiful. “Do you think I care? I don’t want him.”
Malva flicked her fingers, dismissing this. “It hardly matters what you want. You clearly can’t manage your own life. You’ll come with us, and this will become a family matter again.”
“Once you’re carrying a child, it’ll be easier,” Alver assured her desperately. “Then you won’t want them to be illegitimate so you’ll understand that it’s best to marry me. We can put all this behind us. Mother said so.”
Halla stared at him for so long that he started to sweat. “Really, Halla…”
She began to laugh incredulously. “Are you daft?”
“You must be daft!” said Malva. “Carrying on all over the countryside with that—that barbarian! You’re lucky my son agreed to wed you at all, with that kind of scandal hanging over you!”
“Carrying on? Oh yes, there was carrying on!” Halla could hardly believe what she was about to say, but she suspected it was her only chance. “We carried on like you wouldn’t believe! He bedded me in half the inns from here to Archenhold!”
Alver recoiled, eyes the size of saucers.
“And I enjoyed it!”
“Stop this!” Alver tried to bellow, but it came out as more of a squeak. “I don’t want to hear such talk!”
“And I’m pregnant!” shouted Halla, throwing caution to the winds.
Aunt Malva stepped in and slapped Halla across the face.
Halla slapped her right back.
“Mother!”
“Are you going to let her do that to your mother?” said Malva, holding her hands to her face.
“No, of course not…err…Halla, I’m very sorry, but you can’t carry on like this…” He grabbed for her wrists.
“If you two get out of my house, I won’t have to!”
“This is not your house,” said Malva coldly. The imprint of Halla’s hand on the side of her face had left a blurry mark in her makeup. “It belongs to the family. It will not go to you to use like a whorehouse. You will go into the countryside where you cannot shame any of us.” She looked Halla up and down, lip curled. “If you are carrying that barbarian’s bastard, you’ll soon be properly grateful that anyone will have you at all.”
Alver managed to get hold of both her wrists. Halla twisted her arms furiously, but he held them fast. She took some small pleasure that he had to work for it, and sweat started to pop out on his forehead. “Halla, stop! I don’t—don’t want to hurt—stop that!”
“Tie her up,” snapped Malva. “Tie her up and put her with the other one!”
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