Shadow’s Lure (35 page)

The snow came to his knees as he stood up. Trees extended all around them for as far as he could see through their branches, save in one direction—east if his bearings were right. There, a gentle slope allowed him a view of a great expanse of woods extending to a broad, white plain. In the distance loomed the gray walls of the city. It must have been eight or nine leagues away.
Not quite where I was aiming, but it could be worse
.

But now he had to decide what to do next. Where should they go? Back into the city was out of the question. The streets would be crawling with patrols in force. That left either heading to the old manor house where the outlaws had originally convened, or remaining here and hoping someone found them before they froze to death. Neither option did much to raise his spirits.

Caim knelt beside Liana in the snow. Her eyelids fluttered as one of her hands came up to her head. He caught it before she touched the injury.

“Easy,” he said. “You’ve taken a nasty hit.”

Liana focused on his face, and for a moment Caim was taken to another time and place, only he had been the one on his back, opening his eyes to see someone leaning over him.
They’re nothing alike, Josey and this girl, and yet …

Biting back on feelings he didn’t want to dwell on, Caim helped her sit up.

“What happened?” she asked. “Where’s Keegan?”

“We’re safe, a few miles from the city. And Keegan is with the others.”

She looked around, then winced as the movement tugged at the wound to her head. “I don’t see anyone.”

“No, we’re alone.”

Should he tell her how they’d gotten here?
Better not. She’d probably run off screaming through the woods
.

“I don’t understand.”

“It’s okay. But we need to start moving.”

She was shaking. Caim wrapped his cloak around her and started to pick her up, but she reached out to stop him.

“I can walk.”

“Be still,” he said, a little gruffer than he intended, but it worked.

She let him lift her. His arm burned with the effort, but she was light.
Probably undernourished. Times have been harder up here than anyone realized
.

“Point the way back to the old house,” he said.

“They won’t go there.”

“Good. Then where?”

She looked up at the sky. They stood like that, her lying in his arms, until his leg started to ache.

“Liana, if you—”

“The castle.” Steam wreathed her mouth as she exhaled. “That’s where they’ll go.”

“All right. Which way?”

She pointed west, and Caim started walking through the snow. Crystals of ice flew into his face, and the buzzing had taken up residence in the back of his head again. Northward, it tugged him, always northward. What awaited him there? Whatever it was, it would have to wait. There were mysteries enough right here, and he intended to get to the bottom of them. What had happened to Kit, for one. He needed to find her, but how? Was her disappearance connected to the buzzing he felt coming from the north?

Uncertainties spun around in his head as he marched deeper into the hills with the girl cradled in his arms.

The blizzard came out of the north. The few stars visible in the overcast sky flickered and went out as the snowfall thickened and fierce winds howled through the trees. Visibility dropped to mere yards, and then to nothing.

Caim stopped in the lee of a large oak tree, with the snow piling up around his legs. His arms and lower back ached from carrying Liana for the better part of the night. She had drifted into unconsciousness sometime before midnight, and now he feared for her recovery. With a head wound, out in the cold, her chances were dwindling. And he had no idea where they were. Bowing his head against the oncoming wind, he set off again.

As he trudged through the snow, his thoughts returned to the prison, and the woman at the gate. Eyes dark as the ocean depths, long hair like spun filaments of onyx; he couldn’t shake them from his mind. But even as he turned her looks over and around in his head, everything he knew screamed that she could not be his mother. All his good memories from his childhood, all the love he’d felt, revolved around his mother. His father had been a firm influence, a hard man and stern, difficult for a child to understand. But his mother had been his entire world. That she could change so much … it was unthinkable.

What of me? Would she recognize the man her son had become? And if she did, would she even care?

He’d made hard choices in his life, choices that had led him down a path of bloodshed and fear. What mother would be proud to call him son? Better to have no son at all than a cold-blooded killer with nothing to show for his life except a parade of corpses.

Burdened by his thoughts, Caim made it another candlemark or so before he couldn’t go on any farther. His legs were stiff, his feet were numb, and he had long since lost his sense of direction. They could be marching in circles for all he knew. He gazed down at Liana, nestled against his chest. They had to get out of this weather.

Looking around, he sought out the tallest tree. He walked about two hundred paces before he found one that would suit. Setting Liana down in a drift, he used his arms to carve out a cave under the lowest branches. He dug until he reached the ground and then he went back out to retrieve his charge. He laid her at the back of the little den and used his body to block out the wind. Caim reached for the pouch at his belt, intending to try to start a fire from the sodden needles, but his fingers were frozen into claws, and he was too tired to make the effort. He collapsed on the cold ground and closed his eyes. Just for a moment.

A voice came to him in the quiet of the night, recalling a voice from a long time ago.

It was late and he was supposed to be sleeping, but the shapes crawling across the ceiling of his room were too interesting. Where was his friend? She usually came around when he was alone, to play with him or sing songs, or tell him stories. He liked her stories best of all. He didn’t really understand them, but they filled him with wonder and a desire to see what lay beyond the woods and fields of his home.

The door opened. He heard its creak distinctly even though he couldn’t see over the side of his cradle. He listened. Then a mass of dark hair blocked out the ceiling. Its tendrils cascaded over him, full of his mother’s smell. He reached up, but she caught his wrists. He giggled, hoping she would pick him up, but a pillow came down over his face. He batted to knock it aside, but his laughter turned to a muffled gasp as the plush surface filled his nose and mouth. He couldn’t breathe. He hit the pillow again and again, but it wouldn’t move. He was too small. His tears wet the underside of the cushion, mashed against his face.
I’ll be good, Momma! I’ll be—

Caim jerked upright, his chest constricting with the need to breathe. He gasped as cold air hit his lungs. The tugging sensation throbbed in the back of his head. He took deep breaths until it faded to a dull buzz.

It was dark. Turning, he looked out through the narrow tunnel. Snow was still falling, but not as heavy as before, and the wind had died down. Then he heard something else. A keening moan, like an animal, or perhaps a woman’s cry. Caim froze.
Just the wind playing tricks on me—

The moan rose again, louder this time, and nearer, as if it came from right outside the shelter. It was definitely a woman. Caim started to poke his head out, but a faint voice stopped him.

“Stay.”

Caim leaned down over Liana. “What?”

“Don’t go.” She swallowed with some trouble. “The voice. Not real. A lure …”

Caim scooped a handful of snow from the wall and placed a pinch on her lips. Liana sucked it into her mouth greedily. As he fed her more, the lonely moan rose again outside the shelter. What awaited him out there? The answer lodged in his gut, even though he didn’t want to acknowledge it.

Liana wrapped her fingers around his hand. Her eyes were half closed and lined in purple smudges. Looking down at her, he let his gaze trace the soft contours of her lips and imagined how soft they would feel. Her gaze was frank as she reached up and touched his face. It would be easy to fall for her, to lose himself in her eyes and her body, and banish his personal demons for one night. The passion stirred in his blood, so similar to the killing rage.

Caim eased back on his heels. Liana frowned, but didn’t say anything. He was grateful for that, because he didn’t know what he would do if she pressed the issue.
Run out into the snow like a coward and freeze to death most likely
.

With a sigh, Caim settled down behind her and wrapped an arm around her middle. She didn’t protest, and he tried to think about the snow—cool, cool snow—as she scooted back against him. The wind battered their tiny shelter. He and she were maybe the only living souls for miles, lost in the middle of a trackless wood, but as long as they lived there was hope. He let that thought warm him as he pulled his damp cloak over them. Things were spinning beyond his control. Everything had been simple before he got himself entangled with these amateur insurrectionists, and now he was having a difficult time cutting free of them. Every time he tried to walk away, some new obstacle crept onto his path.
Is this payback for all the evil I’ve done in my life? Kit, where are you?

Outside, the voice had ceased its lament.

C
aim slapped at the insect crawling across his face and groaned as a pain erupted in the palm of his hand. He opened his eyes.

He was lying in the burrow he’d dug in the snow. Liana curled up against him. The warmth of her body reminded him of the last time he’d been this close to a woman. Moving slow so as not to wake her, Caim scooted away and sat up.

Muted sunlight sketched the inside of the shelter. The ends of the branches poked through the carved-out roof above them. What he thought was an insect in his semi-dream state turned out to be a maddening itch down the side of his face. He probed the skin with careful fingertips. The cuts were healing, but the scars would be bad. Or good, depending on your point of view. Scars kept away bravos spoiling for a fight, and women liked scars. Some did, anyway. The kind that might fancy a roll in the snow with someone like him.

Caim drew his right-hand knife. The blade was charred from guard to tip. He ran his fingers along the length and felt a myriad of tiny imperfections in the metal. It was ruined. A waste of a good knife, and he hadn’t even gotten the satisfaction of killing its target. His upper lip twitched at the thought of the witch, whatever she was. He didn’t even know, except that he wanted to stay clear of her, for now and for good. He had enough problems already. He glanced over at Liana, but she was still fast asleep.

He put away the knife and held up his hand. The skin of the palm and the undersides of his fingers were red and puffy like he had been burned. While he probed the tender flesh, his forearm began to throb. Caim peeled off his jacket and rolled up the sleeve of his shirt. He couldn’t help hissing at what he found. The bandage wrapping his forearm was completely soaked through with yellow and red stains. He smelled it even before he started tearing off the binding. The wound underneath was a raw hole oozing pus and blood. Caim clenched the muscles of that arm, making the wound yawn wider. He was at a loss. He didn’t have access to doctors, not even a decent army barber, and he knew next to nothing about healing herbs. If the wound festered for much longer, he might lose the whole arm.

Caim sat back against the snowbank and wondered what to do. He could try to sear out the infection again, but he would need a fire for that. He looked up and was taken aback by the mass of shadows clinging to the roof of the shelter. He hadn’t noticed them before, but an idea came to him. It had worked before; it might work again. Caim reached up with his burnt hand and caught hold of a shadow. Chilling cold seeped into his injured hand as it wriggled between his fingers.
This is crazy. I don’t have the first notion of what I’m doing
. Before he could stop himself, Caim pushed the little darkness into the mouth of the wound. He gasped as the shadow squirmed inside his flesh. There was a moment of biting pain. Then, just as he started to dig it back out, the pain ceased. Caim sat back in amazement. The bleeding had stopped. He flexed his forearm again. It didn’t ache as badly. He grunted in spite of himself, and Liana stirred.