Chapter 38

“This one is well stocked,” Zali calls from within the wreath of tall, black stones three times her height. Lanterns are strung around them that she’s taken the time to light, creating a stark barrier that pushes back the gloomy press of evening.

“Good,” I say, dragging two limp rabbits off Ale’s back. “I’ll get a fire going.”

Tethered to a tree that’s caught in the light spilling off the stones, Ale slurps at the bubbling brook while I scan the dense forest that’s losing more light by the second, shadows spilling from its confines.

I shiver and edge between a gap in the stones, pausing, running my hand over the white marks slashed across the smooth face of the one to my left—a Vruk’s failed attempt to break down the barrier and get to whoever was hiding within. I look to the trench dug into the soil surrounding the outer base, as though the beast tried to gore down enough to tip the massive monolith. But these stones are pierced so deep into the ground, it’s as though they’re rooted to the world’s core.

Some even believe they were thrown down by the hands of a God.

I step within their stony clutch, lump the rabbits by the firepit, then kneel in the grass, using my dagger to till some soil before flicking a stare at Zali. She’s bent over, plucking watercress from the brook that weaves through the space before cupping her hands full of water and splashing her face, dragging droplets through her hair.

I swallow, rip my stare away, and dig my fingers into the soil.

A full-body shiver ignites my skin …

Fuck.

I almost groan, letting my eyes shut, drawing from the earth in greedy gulps, as though chugging back a bottle of rum.

A krah shrieks across the sky, snapping me out of my reverie, and I clear my throat, glancing again at Zali before sifting through the soil for spuds and pulling out a few the size of my fist. “You were right,” I say, brushing the dirt off their skins. “It is well stocked.”

Nothing beats a whelve when you’re bone-weary from riding for days with a smart-witted, strong-willed woman bouncing up and down between your thighs because her horse got eaten by a Vruk.

All that considered, these piles of rock dispersed across the continent are the only thing I’ll thank the fucking Gods for.

Shirt rolled to my elbows, I dip the spuds in the chilly current and rub them down, watching the object of my welling frustrations as I do. Hair falling in a strawberry ripple, she crouches before the bushes planted at the base of one of the stones, using her dagger to hack off some rosemary stalks with a fierceness that’s too captivating.

She looks over, striking me with that bold stare, brow raised. “What … do you not like rosemary?”

“On the contrary,” I tell her, pushing to a stand and stalking toward the unlit firepit in the center of the space. “It’s becoming my new favorite thing.”

Her cheeks redden, and she quickly looks away.

I build the fire, then get to work filling the heavy cauldron with water while Zali digs through the metal chest bolted to the ground. She pulls out bowls, spoons and knives, then chops up the spuds while I skin the rabbits I caught earlier and keep the fire blazing.

We sit on stumps on opposite sides of the fire, silently watching the flames lick at the bottom of the blackened pot while the liquid bubbles away, filling the air with the hearty smell of rabbit stew. The last of the evening light drains away, scattering the sky with a litter of stars.

“It’s got that feel, you know?”

I look up, catching her intense stare. “What do you mean?”

She drags her fur shawl tighter around her shoulders, the flames reflected in her unblinking eyes. “That something big is coming.”

“I’m still stuck on the last big thing,” I mutter, leaning forward to dig my spoon into the pot and give it a stir, drawing deep on the rich bouquet of sage and rosemary.

“Do you …”

She pauses, and I raise my eyes to hers. “Do I what?”

“Have much memory of the time before?” The words thunk into my chest like stones, and she shakes her head. “I’m sorry, that was rude. You don’t have to answer that.”

I drop my stare back to the stew, stirring, lifting a small strip of meat and blowing on it. “Not as much as I would like,” I say, pushing away images that have never rubbed out.

Women running, then thudding to the ground—shot with whistling arrows that ripped through their chests. Men howling for their mates and children, their hoarse cries cuffed as pronged shackles clamped around their necks and wrists.

I toss the meat back in the pot without testing it. “I was only five when my family was rounded up and checked over for any marks or strange scars … the females slain and hacked to bits.”

“Oh, Baze …”

Another stir, and I scrape the spoon across the bottom to make sure nothing’s getting the chance to burn. “I was torn from the cold clutches of my dead mother by the man who became my … captor, for lack of a better word,” I say with a careless half smile that’s a lie in every way, shape, and form. “He became all I knew until Rhordyn came along.”

A long silence slips by while I continue to stir the stew, though my appetite has gone. If anything, the thought of eating makes me want to heave.

“I never heard the full details ...”

“It’s not something I ever talk about,” I mutter, dropping my spoon in my empty bowl and lumping another log on the fire, making the flames dance.

“How long?”

The question is choked.

I glance up into Zali’s russet eyes flecked with gold, her bottom lids heavy with unshed tears. “How long what?”

“Were you kept for?”

“Long enough that I forgot the feel of soil beneath my feet. The taste of fruit. He fed us with a single beam of sun and not much else. Liked us limp when he feasted.”

She sucks a sharp breath.

I lean back, crossing my arms as I watch the flames whip at the base of the pot as though they’re desperate to crack through its hard outer shell. “I hated Rhordyn for killing him,” I admit, remembering the times I clawed at him like some broken animal, begging him to take away the pain.

Remembering the way I fought him and wished it was he who’d died. Or that he’d struck me out at the same time he’d struck him.

“Then Rhordyn put a sword in my hand and told me to break something else so I’d stop breaking myself. So my insides could have a chance to heal.”

“Did you, though?” she whispers, her voice too soft. “Heal?”

I clear my throat, kicking a throbbing ember back amongst the pit from where it had been spat out onto the grass, thinking back to the spike of pleasure I would feel when my skin was punched through with the unrelenting pierce of those drugging canines …

My captor. My torturer.

My rapture.

He was—in some fucked-up way—my family.

But he was also a monster.

I watched my friends wither beneath the crunch of his teeth. Told myself he’d never do that to me, even though a part of me knew one day he would. One of his friends would. He’d lose control. Lose interest. I was nothing more than a pet who served a purpose until my blood was no longer bright enough for him to enjoy.

I pat my pocket, searching for my flask, then dash my hand through my hair when I realize it isn’t there.

Did you, though? Heal?

I offer Zali a wry grin, brows raised. “Apparently not.”

She gives me a smile that doesn’t meet her eyes, and we fall into a stretch of silence, the sparks from the fire a crackling distraction to my staggered thoughts.

The clop of hooves stirs my nerves.

Zali swivels on her stump, staring out into the forest as my gaze flicks to our swords leaning against our packs on the other side of the fire. Too far away to reach without causing a scene.

“No need to startle,” a deep, raspy voice calls through the darkness. “Just a friendly traveling merchant looking for a place to spend the night on this lonely forest trail.”

The clops grow louder, and I see a bobbing light, its intensity growing until a white horse comes into view through the window between two stones. A man leaps off the side of the well-packed saddle dressed in a red merchant’s robe, the thick trim around his hood storm-cloud gray.

Shulák.

My heart jumps a beat, my hand threading down the side of my boot.

To my small, concealable dagger.

“They’re not all the same, Baze. You know that,” Zali whisper-hisses. “Let me do the talking. Do you understand? You’re mute.”

The man untacks his horse, lifting his saddlebags off its back before he tethers it to the tree beside Ale.

My hand tightens around my dagger, a savage fury popping through my veins.

“Do. You. Understand?”

My gaze whips to Zali, and I flash her a smile that’s all teeth. “Clear as crystal.”

Frowning, her eyes drop to my hand still pinching the hilt to my dagger.

I relax my hold, straighten my spine, and flick my hood up as I fold my arms and narrow my stare on the bubbling pot of stew.

The brutish man eases between two stones, walking with a stiffness that suggests he hasn’t climbed off his mount all day, his robe swishing around him as he moves closer to the flames. His face is a little strained around the eyes, jaw covered in a thick, black beard. He flips his hood, and I wince at the sight of his bald head—at the mark on his forehead.

He laughs low, face beaming as he takes in our boiling meal. “That, my friends, smells delightful.” He spreads his arms wide, looking between us both. “Do you mind sharing this whelve with a lonely merchant on a crisp night?”

Do you mind fucking bowing for the Eastern High Mistress?

Maybe he doesn’t recognize her. Even so, I twist further around, look him up and down, then lift a brow at Zali. She seems to purposely avoid my stare.

“Of course,” she chirps, offering him a small smile, furs still wrapped tightly around her shoulders.

The man looks at me and I give him a wink.

“He’s mute,” Zali offers, swifter than she strikes a blade.

“Ahh.” He nods knowingly. “Hardly surprising with this world we live in. See some horrors on the road these days.” He looks to Zali again, gesturing to the spot between me and her. “May I?”

At her nod, the man sits, warming his hands near the flames.

“Mind me asking where you’re headed?” she asks, reaching to stir the stew.

“I’m just traveling from village to village, spreading the words of the stones and selling my wares.” He rubs his hands together, then reaches into the folds of his cloak, revealing a leather pouch he digs through. “Saje?” he asks, brows raised as he stuffs a pipe full of the dried buds I haven’t tasted in years. Part of a bygone era I stumbled through blindly on a cloud of lapsed judgment before replacing one vice with another.

“I have this spare pipe you can have for half price in exchange for sharing your stew? I haven’t had meat in over a week,” he says, tamping more of the saje into his pipe. “Not the best hunter, you see.”

He extends it in my direction, and I waver, half tempted to accept before Zali butts in.

“He doesn’t smoke,” she says, hooking my stare with a narrowed one of her own, and I raise a single brow. “Gives him the shits. I’m the one who has to travel with him.”

I bite down on a few choice words I’d love to throw at her.

“Fair enough,” the merchant chuckles, rolling his eyes at me.

I return the gesture.

He gets to work lighting his pipe, puffing from it, blowing the excess toward the sky and dousing us all in the sweet, potent scent.

“You got anything else in that bag?” Zali asks.

I take the spoon off her and crouch before the pot, occupying my hands with filling our bowls.

“Like what?” I hear the eager lilt in his voice.

Zali prods a withered branch at the fire. “I don’t know ... candy?”

The man draws a long puff from his pipe, then looks at Zali with a knowing glint in his eye. “That’ll be the answer to your ... sublime complexion,” he says, and I can tell by the tone of his voice that he’s no longer picturing himself at the bottom of the food chain. An intruder in our camp.

Zali passes him a shy smile. “So?” she asks, tilting her head, voice hooked with an air of desperation.

“Hard to come by these days.” Another puff, and the man reaches down, taking her serving of stew with both hands.

I still, stare flicking to Zali who stabs me with her own and the faintest shake of her head.

This no talking business is really pinching my fraught, sober nerves.

I bite my tongue so hard it bleeds, handing her my own bowl as I watch the merchant slurp at the broth, then stuff his mouth full of the rabbit I caught. “There was a surplus of it for a while there,” he swallows, then fills his mouth again. “But now …”

“Which is why I always ask,” Zali purrs, then takes a delicate sip of her stew.

To him, she probably looks harmless.

Desperate.

Not at all like she could carve him into six chunks in a matter of seconds.

“Well,” he says, slurping back the remainder of his meal in three deep gulps, wiping his beard with his arm. “You’re in luck. However ...” He drops his bowl on the ground between his feet and groans, stretching.

“However?” Zali whines, her eyes twin wells of desperation.

“It’s going to cost a lot more than a simple bowl of rabbit stew. Delicious as it was.”

Zali sets her bowl down and digs beneath her furs, through her robe, pulling out a heavy pouch and tossing it at the man.

He snatches it from the air with a swift hand, loosening the tie, tipping the cascade of gold coins into his palm.

His eyes flare.

“Well,” he breathes, placing his pipe on the ground and stuffing the coins in the sack, not even bothering to count them. He’s probably holding a small fortune—enough to build a bunker large enough to protect an entire family and then some. “I’m at your whim.”

He stands, stepping over the log and scurrying toward his saddlebags, looking far more agile than he did when he entered the camp.

I let my gaze fall into the pits of Zali’s—hard and unblinking. The stare is ruthless, drenched in bloodlust, sending a spike through me that electrifies my fucked-up soul. “And did you harvest it yourself?” she asks, holding my stare.

“Most of it I got from Madame Strings,” the man chimes as he rummages through his pack, and I hear the clink of jars banging against each other. “She’s based in Parith most months, but she’s the only truly reliable source these days. I do, however, have one small jar I harvested myself.”

Fire flares through my veins.

Not the best hunter, you see.

What a fucking lie.

Zali nods the slightest amount, and I slide the ring from my finger, feeling my shell split apart.

She doesn’t blink. Doesn’t tear her gaze away from the ghastly sight that is me.

I pinch the hilt of my blade and stand, taking five silent steps toward the man, placing myself at his back.

He pushes up, spins, and only has a moment to take me in through his widening eyes before I slash my blade across his throat with a snarl. He wavers, mouth gaping as his life force bubbles from the deep gash preventing him from drawing breath. Then he crumbles in a convulsing heap at my feet, the three jars packed with tiny, crystal thorns scattering amongst the grass.

Looking down my nose, I watch the life drain from his eyes until he finally stills.

I feel Zali’s hand settle on my shoulder. “Baze—”

Sniffing, I pluck up the jars and charge toward the brook. “Found you a replacement horse,” I mutter, rinsing the blood off. “So long as it makes it through the night.”

“Yes,” Zali whispers, and I jolt when I realize she’s crouched right beside me.

She grabs one of the jars and helps me clear away the blood before I relieve her of it and move to the fire.

Popping the cork on the first, I reveal the stash of crystal thorns that harbor their own light, radiating every color of the rainbow. I have to bite back my urge to vomit or scream or … something as I scatter them through the flames, watching the fire flare with an array of pastel hues, whispering the ancient words of release.

I have no doubt in my mind that the souls packed into these tiny jars didn’t die with full hearts—meaning I doubt any of them passed through Kvath and into Mala.

That thought ...

It’s too heavy to bear.