43. Reznyk
Chapter 43
Reznyk
WHAT DID YOU DO?
M y wards don’t just go off. They shatter.
It hits me like a punch to the gut. I sink to my knees, air rushing out of my lungs. Even as I reel from the punch of magical energy, I can’t help but notice how very cold the ground is this morning through the thin layer of frost the sun has yet to burn away.
“What happened?” Matius snaps.
He’s at Tholious’s side in an instant, one arm around his lover’s shoulders. Tholious meets my gaze, his eyes wide and his face suddenly pale. One of the mugs rolls slowly across the stones, leaving a steaming trail of tea.
“Something’s coming,” Tholious whispers.
“Magic?” Matius asks.
Tholious nods. Matius’s lips pull back in a snarl.
“It’s them, isn’t it?” Matius growls.
“Shit,” I pant, as I struggle back to my feet.
I knew it was coming, and still, I’m surprised. Just like with Kira. Damn it, you’d think I would know better by now. I turn to the two men who must have led the Towers here to betray me and try to summon the rage I should feel.
But rage doesn’t come. It’s like trying to throw one of the weapons I used to make out of magic into the heart of a living creature. I hesitate, grasping for the way I know I should feel.
It’s so cold in the shadow of the keep this morning. In the pale morning light, Matius and Tholious look less like assassins from the Towers and more like two boys who lost their way in the forest and turned into strange, wild men.
“What did you do?” I finally say. I mean it to sound like a threat, but it comes out as a sigh.
And then Matius pulls out a knife.
It winks in the sun, bright steel shattering the thin light around it. I take a step back without thinking. I didn’t even notice he was carrying a knife; yet another reminder of how far I’ve let my guard down around these two.
“Did you do this?” Matius snaps.
He takes a step toward me, raising the knife. Magic simmers across my skin.
“Did you sell us out, you pathetic son of a bitch?” Matius screams.
The edge of the blade trembles as it moves closer to all sorts of places I’d rather not have a blade. Before my brain can sort through the jumble of questions pulsing inside my skull and pick one to force through my mouth, Tholious steps forward and puts his hand on Matius’s shoulder. Tholious makes a soft sound, like a purr, then leans forward to whisper in Matius’s ear.
“It’s not him,” Tholious murmurs.
The knife doesn’t move. Matius’s eyes flash at me like lightning arcing across the underside of a thunder cloud. I open my mouth, but I still can’t get anything to come out.
This is the bastard who set me up, right? Tholious and Matius have to be the reason something with enough magic to shatter all my wards just crossed into this part of the Daggers. So why the fuck is he pointing a blade toward my throat?
“Maybe he made a deal,” Matius growls, but there’s a tremble in his voice that echoes the subtle shake of his blade.
“Hells,” I snap. “And you said I have trust issues.”
Tholious makes that sound again, the little purring noise. “No,” Tholious whispers. “He hates the Towers as much as we do.”
Tholious turns to me. His eyes shine like chunks of ice. He’s staring at me like he’s asking a question, but that would be absurd. All of this is absurd.
“Of course I hate the Towers,” I spit, answering his unspoken question.
I’m about to continue, to point out the fact that they must have set me up and not the other way around, but Matius makes a sound like he’s been punched in the chest. A moment later, the mercenary sinks to his knees. His knife falls, stabbing the cold ground. When he looks up at Tholious, it’s with a strange, pleading expression I wouldn’t have believed his face was capable of making.
“It really is them, isn’t it?” Matius whispers. “It’s the Towers.”
Tholious flicks his head to the side, the barest suggestion of a nod, and then he sinks to the ground beside his lover and wraps his arms around his shoulders.
“I’m sorry,” Matius whispers in a voice I’m suddenly certain I’m not supposed to overhear. “I promised we’d outrun them.”
“Don’t take this on yourself,” Tholious replies as he sinks his head onto Matius’s shoulder.
Well, this is awkward.
I take one step back, then another, until I’m well out of earshot for their strange, whispered, huddling conversation. Hells, they’re really committing to this act. They’re almost as good as Kira.
My chest aches. Pain comes in waves, like an echo of shattering magical wards. I remember the look on her face that morning. She was standing right here, the amulet in both her hands, almost like she was offering it to the sun. Or gloating about her discovery.
Or bringing it to me, some traitorous part of my mind whispers. But why would she do that? To shove it under my nose and ask why I’d been lying?
I can’t stop the flood of images that tumble through my head. Kira with her hair pulled back, grinning at me as the light of my fire caressed her cheeks. Kira spinning in the meadow, her arms flung wide, as wild and free as any of the creatures of the Daggers. It’s only too easy to imagine Kira flinging open the door of the cabin, slapping the amulet down on my table, and saying something sarcastic and teasing and perfect about forbidden amulets and secret hiding places.
My eyes burn. I force them closed and turn to the wind, focusing on the sting of cold air against my skin. That never happened. The Kira I knew, or thought I knew, was a fiction invented by the Towers. She was a tool, a weapon pointed directly at my weakest parts.
And she broke me. All she had to do was make me forget who I am, and what I am. She opened the door to another world; I’m the fool who thought I could walk through it. After everything I’ve done, I still thought someone could love me.
Gods, I should know better by now.
Someone coughs. I blink open my eyes, then run the back of my hand across my face. Hopefully they’ll think it’s just the wind that’s made my eyes water.
“We need to go,” Tholious says, soft and low, like I’m an animal he’s afraid of spooking.
When I turn, a shadow flickers across the man’s face, there and then gone. It’s less than a heartbeat, that little ripple of hesitation, but it makes me pause.
He doesn’t completely trust me. Despite his reassurances to Matius, some part of Tholious thinks I might have actually called the Towers down on my own head just to be rid of the two of them.
Because I’m a monster. And that’s what monsters do.
I sigh. Then, because it has to be said, I say it.
“They aren’t here for you,” I declare.
Tholious stares at me. His eyes are wide. For a moment, he looks almost startled.
“They want the Godkiller,” I say. “Not you.”
Tholious frowns. Wind ruffles the edges of my cape. A hawk screams as it circles over the forest of shifting scarlet and gold.
Magic trembles across my broken wards, moving fast and straight at me. It’s not Fyrris, at least, who broke the wards. I don’t think it’s a human. But one of the Towers’s ravens would be just as dangerous to Tholious and Matius. I narrow my eyes at the rising sun.
“Get inside the cabin,” I say. “Lock the door. Pull the shades. They’re coming.”