Journey Of Thieves (Book 5) (14 page)

One night when we made camp at a halfway point, I was startled to realize we were in the exact place I had seen in my visions. The spot where I had seen Terrac’s suffering. As I knelt at that shallow pool to refill our waterskins, I had the strange sense of stepping from dream into reality.

Terrac was building a campfire—the desert temperature could drop surprisingly low after sundown. Even though his arm was obviously troubling him and he had to work one-handed, he wouldn’t allow anyone to help.

I found myself alone with Hadrian and remembered with a pang that I owed the warrior priest an apology.

“Thank you for looking after Terrac when he was ill,” I told him. “I ran out of Swiftsfell without a word to you, and you’d be within your rights to be angry.”

Hadrian looked surprised. “My tending Terrac had nothing to do with whether I was angry at you. I did it because it was right and because he is my friend.”

“Yes, of course. I only meant—”

He cut me off. “While we’re on the subject, why did you leave in such a hurry? I can understand your feelings at losing your grandmother, but that doesn’t explain why you didn’t come to me and ask for my help.”

I could not meet his eyes. How could I tell someone important to me that I hadn’t trusted him to do what I needed? “I, um, guess I wasn’t thinking clearly.” And then, because I knew he could sense the lie, I amended, “I was afraid you might try to persuade me against my rash course. I thought you would call it a foolish, reckless quest.”

“Of course it was foolish and reckless.” His mouth twitched. “But when has that ever stopped me from supporting you?”

He was right, and I had to laugh.

I walked away, relieved to know that despite my mistake my relationship with Hadrian was right back where it had always been.

But seeing Terrac at work, I quickly remembered I still had fences to mend.

“Let me do that,” I said, snatching a long stick out of his hands and snapping it in two for the fire.

“I’m not helpless,” he grumbled.

But he didn’t stop me from taking over. Even in the cool of the evening, with the sun dipping beyond the horizon, there was sweat on his brow, and he seemed out of breath. I had seen that he continued to tire easily and his arm seemed to pain him often. He absently massaged it now while watching me build up the fire.

When I had finished my task, I said, “You know, I still haven’t seen the injury.”

He slowly unwound the bandage on his hand.

I almost gasped when I saw the bite area but forced a bland expression. It had never been a pretty hand since the Skeltai had severed those fingers. But now there was a large circle of black and blue like a great bruise covering the back and at its center the twin punctures where the viper’s fangs has pierced flesh. Terrac’s veins stood out rigidly, dark blue lines traveling as far up his arm as I could see.

“Is it very painful?” I asked, trying to sound casual.

He was watching me. “It was. But most of the pain is gone now, and it just feels numb all the time. Anyway, you haven’t seen the worst.”

Carefully and with only one hand, he peeled off his shirt, revealing the ugly blue veins extending all the way up his pale arm and into his shoulder. The arm seemed unnaturally thin and withered.

My eyes stung, and I blinked quickly. “Will you lose the use of your arm?”

He shrugged. “Hadrian thinks it will grow no worse. But whether it will improve, we cannot know.”

“Well, at least you are lucky to be alive.” My voice was falsely cheerful.

“And am I lucky to be maimed, maybe for life?”

I said lightly, “You always were one to whine about little injuries. I’m sure you will be fine in a week or two.”

“Even if I’m not, I would do everything the same again if I had to. Except for grabbing that viper, mistaking it for a piece of firewood. I wouldn’t do that part over.”

“Maybe. But I hate that all this happened on account of me.” I hadn’t meant to say the words. They just slipped out.

Terrac glanced at me. “Well, what are fiends for?” he asked, dragging his shirt on again.

I winced because it felt like an opening to continue our conversation from before. Neither of us had directly referenced our fight from before the Swiftsfell attack, and I wanted it to stay that way.

So I changed the subject. “I’m going to ask Hadrian how much longer we have to wait for our supper.”

“I think he’s trying to stay out of the way so we can settle things.”

“Really? I didn’t know there was anything to settle.”

“You aren’t going to make this easy, are you?” he asked. “Listen. With all that has happened, I’ve had time to think about our fight. And I think I understand now why you overreacted to my reports to the Praetor. It was the secrecy of it that made you feel betrayed. I should have told you what I was doing from the beginning.”

I stifled annoyance at his description of my “overreaction” and said, “I think enough has been said about this. I would prefer to put it behind us.”

“You mean I am forgiven?”

If only it was that easy to restore trust that had been too often betrayed. I swallowed, almost wanting to say yes. But what came out was, “We are friends again, as we used to be. I think that’s all I can give right now and all you can fairly ask.”

He wasn’t pleased at that, I could tell. He said, “In time, it will be like nothing ever happened. You’ll love me as before.”

I didn’t tell him that a little piece of me loved him still. “I don’t think so.”

“If you give me a chance to prove you can trust me again—”

I did not allow him to finish. “There is one favor I want from you, Terrac. If you are serious about your apology, you could strike any mention of Swiftsfell or its inhabitants from your report to the Praetor. If you must act as his eyes, tell him about the rest of our travels. Anything that happens from here onward. But do not tell of my grandmother or the magicker community here.”

Terrac hesitated, and I hated that he did. “It is the kind of thing he will be most eager to hear.”

“But who knows the length of his reach or the level of his influence with the praetor of this province?” I protested. “Cros has always been a safe place for my kind. But Praetor Tarius despises natural magickers, and there is no guessing what trouble he might make for the people of Swiftsfell if tales of them reach his ears. He killed my parents years ago. Do you want to be responsible if he brings harm to others?”

Terrac nodded. “All right. I will leave Swiftsfell out of my report. Will that resolve the trouble between us?”

“It will make us friends again.”

If it wasn’t exactly the answer he wanted, he shook off his disappointment. “Then it is worth it. Friends again.”

He offered his good hand, and I shook it, surprised to find myself smiling. Our brief romantic relationship might be over, but at least we had salvaged our friendship, something I was relieved to have back.

“This does not mean I won’t be watching you like a hawk in the future,” I warned, only half joking. “First this and then that time you stabbed me in the back when I first came to Selbius…”

“That was
years
ago,” he protested, and we fell into good-natured bickering while the desert moon rose above.

Our return to Swiftsfell was greeted with a tepid reception. The magickers had been busily rebuilding after the recent attack on their village, and they were fearful my actions might bring down more Drejian wrath upon them. But I reassured the village head that my destruction of the dragon, Micanthria, and of the Drejian queen would not be met with reprisal.

The announcement that I had negotiated peace with the queen’s heir on behalf of the magicker community was met with enthusiasm. Hadrian immediately pledged himself, Terrac, and me to stay some weeks to help with the reconstruction and replanting. This pleased Calder and the other locals so much that, despite their newly limited resources, they threw us a small feast of celebration on our first night back.

After the feast, I slipped away from my friends. There was something I needed to do, something they could not help me with. I stopped briefly at Myria’s home, strangely silent and empty now, and left my weapons there. Except for the bow. I brought that, not for protection but because it offered comfort and familiarity that I had need of just now.

I saw a group of barefoot children playing outside one of the neighboring houses, and I paid one of them to act as my guide. She was a dark-haired, agile little girl who scrambled across the village’s swinging rope bridges and rocky cliff paths as easily as a young mountain goat. I followed slowly and with more caution.

Dusk was falling, and the first fireflies were twinkling like stars when we left behind the lights and sounds of the village. My small nameless guide led me up a path carved into the side of the rock. It wound upward and was well maintained, with convenient steps and rope railings to prevent a clumsy fall. The girl kept such a brisk pace that I was puffing and out of breath before I reached the end of the arduous ascent, where the path disappeared sharply around an outcropping of stone. The little girl beckoned impatiently until I rounded the outcropping and found myself on the ledge of a deep chasm.

Here beneath the partial shelter of the rocks meeting overhead was Swiftsfell’s equivalent to a graveyard. There were rows of niches built into the sides of the cliff, each shelf just long and wide enough to accommodate a single body. Some of these stood empty, awaiting future occupants. Others had been sealed up with the same clay mixture the people used to build their homes, preserving the dead from the elements and whatever scavengers might reach them at these heights.

The little girl showed me to the recess where Myria had been laid to rest, then left me. The niche was freshly sealed up, and chiseled into the rough clay surface was a symbol that I supposed represented Myria.

I traced the inscription with my fingers, thinking that now I was here I did not know what it was I had come to say.

“I wish I had got the chance to know you better,” I whispered. “There was a great deal I would have liked to ask you, about my mother, about our family.”

To have finally found a living relative only to see her snatched away so soon seemed incredibly cruel. But at least I had avenged her and ensured the ones she loved would have a safer future. There was comfort in that.

So I sat down beside Myria’s resting place and told her everything about my journey to the territory of the Drejians. About my defeat of Micanthria, my experiences among the Drejian people, and how the dragon-scale amulet Myria had given me had eventually helped me win the trial by combat and save my life. The augmenter felt heavy around my neck as I confessed how I had cheated and broken my word in order to defeat Queen Viranathi.

I also told about Martyn and how I had promised him as he lay dying that I would locate and watch over his little brother. I still had no notion how I would carry that out but supposed it was a problem that would have to wait until I returned to my own province. As would the mystery of who had hired Martyn, lying to persuade him to destroy me.

It was a relief to pour out so many thoughts I hadn’t spoken aloud before.

“And here’s another thing,” I said into the stillness. “I have my bow back again. Funny how it fell into Martyn’s hands and traveled such a distance to make its way back to me. I am not sure how to feel about that. I have been too much influenced by its whims before, but maybe I’ve grown stronger since then and it will not affect me as it once did.”

The bow, resting in its place across my back, grew warm at the mention of its name, and its soft glow filled the empty chasm. I realized darkness had fallen. The rocks above blotted out the moonlight, and there was only the golden illumination of the bow to light my way.

Feeling an urge to return to the warmth and companionship of my friends, I said a final farewell to Myria and made my way out of the chasm.

The cries of the gulls soaring overhead break into my thoughts. Until we arrived at the coast, I had never seen seabirds or imagined the vastness of the ocean now stretched before me. I am still awed by the sight, even though I have traveled far these last few months and seen so many new things.

After departing Swiftsfell, Terrac, Hadrian, and I spent the following seasons visiting all the provinces. We saw the snow-capped mountains of Kersis and the forested hills of Camdon. Wherever we went, Hadrian looked for magicker communities and asked for their stories and histories, cataloguing them in his book, which has grown very thick.

And when we finished our tour of the provinces, we set out for the kingdom itself—Lythnia. To reach it, we had to cross the mountains of Arxus, reentering Drejian territory. But although I felt a pang of unease at their nearness, we had no trouble from the Drejian people.

Now, walking along the moonlit shore of the Lythnian coast with the pebble-strewn beach beneath my feet and the roar of the ocean in my ears, I set aside thoughts of Drejians and everything else I’ve experienced over the past year. The future looms ahead, and with it the end of my freedom approaches. The Praetor’s words ring in my head.

“One year hence, you will return to my service and take up the duties I set before you.”

My time is almost past, and I will soon return to my province. There is no question of breaking my oath to the Praetor, for if I did, my friends would surely suffer for it. I have only a few weeks of freedom left. Hadrian wants to spend that time studying the magickers of this new region, for he has heard rumors of powerful dryads living in the near forest of Treeveil.

But home beckons, and my mind drifts from this foreign place. In my head, I pretend I’m walking shady, forested paths and breathing the mingled pine and earth scents of Dimmingwood. I am ready to go back.