Chapter Fourteen #5
Taio closed one of the lamp’s shutters, darkening the side of the room housing the window.
He was clever and careful. I liked that about him.
I brought the bowl over and offered him some of the tangy vegetables.
He ate them while I took advantage of the light to look about the cabin.
Everything inside was in order. The beds were made, the bowl we’d found set out to dry.
Whoever had lived here had not left in a hurry or been attacked inside the cabin.
Perhaps they’d gone out and never returned.
I opened one cabinet against a wall and a few moths fluttered out.
They must have been feasting on the clothes inside the cabinet because only tatters remained now.
I closed the door again and opened another cabinet on the wall across from the window.
A large metal pail sat inside, one large enough that Riah might have been able to fit.
But this wasn’t a bathtub, though water sluiced over the edge and trickled down.
I looked up and realized the cabinet opened to the outside via a small opening.
Rain drizzled into a funnel that emptied into the pail.
Beneath the pail were metal slats where excess water drained out so as not to flood the interior of the cabin.
A ladle had fallen onto the drain, and I lifted it and dipped it into the water.
I sniffed the contents of the ladle then tasted the water.
It had a slightly metallic taste, but it was clean.
Some of the people living in the outerlands had cisterns like this one.
They needed to have water available in case they were surrounded by Hollows and forced to stay inside.
A small cistern like this one meant they didn’t have to venture out to a well in times of emergency.
I found a pitcher and ewer sitting nearby and filled both.
Then I fetched our flasks and filled those as well.
Taio made a face at the water, but he drank.
I dunked the towel I’d found into the basin, wrung it out and ran it over my face.
The cool water felt good on my skin, even if it was so cold it gave me goosebumps.
I wished we could have built a fire, but the smoke might attract Hollows.
At least we had blankets from the beds to keep warm.
I took our bedrolls and hung them over a thick length of twine that ran from one side of the cabin to the other.
They could dry out overnight. We should probably hang our clothes up to dry as well.
I glanced at Taio, who was watching me. Well, no time for modesty now. I removed my belt and set my skullcrusher within reach. Then I toed off my boots and hung my socks on the line. Next, I reached for my tunic.
Taio was up and at my side in an instant. “Why do you do this?”
“My clothes are still wet. If we hang them now, they’ll be dry by morning.” Since Hollows were less active in the day, if we could avoid attracting their notice for the next few hours, they should wander away and do whatever they did in the light when the sun came up.
He nodded. “You are right.” He fetched our packs and handed me mine.
Normally, I liked to keep everything together and ready to go, but almost everything inside was soaked.
I pulled out my spare clothing and hung it then emptied the rest of my belongings, setting them out on the floor to dry.
My skullcrusher I’d keep close at hand. Taio had emptied his own pack and hung his own things.
Now he went to the closest bed and shook out the mattress and blankets.
He threw one blanket over his shoulder and handed another to me. “So you do not feel cold,” he said.
Then he stripped off his tunic, revealing his muscled abdomen and the drawings on his chest, neck, and arms. I was staring and averted my gaze before he had the garment over his head lest he catch me ogling him. This was about survival, not seduction.
I pulled my own tunic over my head and hung it on the line, cutting my eyes to the side to see if I could catch Taio looking.
His gaze was averted. Unfortunately, he had chosen that moment to lower his trousers, and I had a flash of slim hips and muscled thighs before I looked away.
I removed my leggings, hung those, and shivered while I finally stripped off my undergarments.
I wrapped the blanket Taio had given me around my shoulders and dipped the towel in the basin with the water from the cistern again.
I wished I had the means to take an actual bath, but I’d washed this way hundreds of times on patrol.
Using my small piece of soap, I was soon reasonably clean.
I pulled the blanket tight around my shivering body and emptied the dirty water in the drain under the cistern.
Then I rinsed the basin and filled it and the ewer again.
“May I?” Taio asked. He indicated the water I had carried back.
“Of course.” I handed the materials to him, then offered my soap.
He lifted his own from the contents of his pack he’d spread out.
I turned my back to give him some privacy and made myself busy sniffing at the material of the blanket.
The fabric was soft but had the musty odor that came from long years of disuse.
I heard the soft splash of water as Taio dipped the towel into the water and ran it over his body—his long legs, his slim hips, that muscled abdomen.
I inhaled sharply.
“Mara?” Taio asked, sounding concerned.
“I’m fine,” I said, glad we were whispering so he wouldn’t hear how my voice trembled.
More splashing and the faint scent of lemon reached me.
I tried to hold my breath so I wouldn’t imagine the water dripping over the elegant markings on his arms or the beautiful cat on his chest. I really did not want to think about droplets of that water sliding down his chest, over his taut belly, and down to that part of him I had yet to see.
Taio moved past me, and I shook myself out of my imaginings.
With his blanket tied about his waist, he emptied the water in the drain and refilled the receptacles.
I returned to the window to carefully check the situation outside.
He was sitting on the floor with the blanket around his shoulders and the lamp flickering beside him when I determined the Hollows outside hadn’t moved and had not been joined by others.
The pack had either moved on or, more likely, was out of sight.
I could occasionally hear their grunts and hisses.
Carefully, I lowered the corner of the curtain again, and made certain the entire opening was closed.
“I’ll take the first watch if you want to sleep,” Taio said as I moved across the room, skirting the chairs that circled the place where the table had been.
“I’m not tired.” I was extremely weary, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep yet.
He patted the ground beside the lamp. I shook my head, lifted the lamp and carried it to the small table beside the bed Taio had shaken out.
If we couldn’t be warm, at least we could be comfortable.
I climbed on top, sitting crossways on the bed, and leaned my back against the wall, my feet hanging over the edge of the mattress.
Taio joined me, sitting beside me. I sighed, the lumpy mattress a thousand times more comfortable than the ground under my thin bedroll.
Taio rested the back of his head against the wall and let out a long breath.
He’d comforted me after Finnrey’s death.
Now it was my turn. I’d never been good at this sort of thing, but I could follow Taio’s example.
The first rule seemed to be not to ignore the emotions.
“Are you worried about the others?” I asked in a whisper.
I didn’t want to take any chances the Hollows outside would hear us.
“Yes. They have no place to hide.”
“The majority of the pack came for us.” I hoped that sounded reassuring.
“Did it?” He looked at me, his blue eyes dark in the low light. “Out there, the Twilight Men are not the only danger.”
Gaz. Gaz and Nize were still out there. I wondered if they’d been close enough to draw some of the Hollows after them.
Even though they’d betrayed me and caused Finnrey’s death, I didn’t want the Hollows to eat them.
I didn’t wish that death on anyone. “Gaz wants you,” I whispered.
“He doesn’t care about the others.” This was true, not false hope.
“He will kill them because they protect me,” Taio said. “I know how this works.”
I looked up at him. His voice had been hard, and I saw the way his jaw was set. I tried very hard not to think about the parts of him below that jaw, covered only with a thick blanket. We sat close together, and I was beginning to feel warmer now. “What do you mean? How what works?”
He looked away from me, his gaze on the far side of the room. But I didn’t think he saw the table pushed against the door. His eyes had a faraway look that told me he was seeing something else. “Revolt,” he murmured. “Betrayal. I know these things.”
“What happened?” I asked, my attention instantly caught. I knew so little of Zulen that I was hungry for any scrap of knowledge.
“A decade ago, when I was ten and five, my best friend betrayed me. He came to my chamber in the night to slit my throat. I stopped him.”
I drew in a slow breath. “How did you stop him?”
Taio looked at me. “A wood carving knife in his heart.”
I put a hand on Taio’s arm, and he withdrew his hand from the blankets and covered mine.
His hand was warm over my cold one. I watched as the blanket slid off his shoulder, revealing the large cat he had permanently inked there.
The last lion in Earsleh had died years ago, but I remembered seeing him when I was very small.
He’d moved so gracefully, and the drawing on Taio’s body moved that same way in the flickering light.
“My brother was close to death. The rebels hoped to kill Omira and me and destroy my family.”
“Why?” Palace intrigue was nothing new to me, but as far as I knew, no one had ever tried to kill my father or any of his children.
My father was loved and respected. He had always embodied the values of our people.
Perhaps that was why Gaz’s revelation about the king being behind the plot to kill Taio had so shocked me.
I expected better from my father. All of us did.
Taio blew out a breath. “We are a peaceful people,” Taio said. “We dance, we make music, we sing, we create. We do not believe in harming any living creature. We revere nature.”
“Like that cat?” I pointed to his shoulder.
He glanced down at it. “The lion is the symbol of my family. These cats still live in the mountains to the north, where the Twilight Men cannot reach them.”
“In Earsleh, we believed your people perished because you did not fight the Twilight Men.”
He nodded. “Many died, but we are allowed to defend ourselves. In my grandfather’s time, we pushed the Twilight Men to the north and the east and west. We pushed them across the rivers and now that water is a barrier protecting the capital.”
“What about the rest of the country?”
He shook his head. “Small settlements in the mountains, yes. Beyond that?” He shrugged. “I do not know. The capital has been cut off.”
This separation sounded recent, but I would ask about that later. Right now I was interested in the power dynamics. “If your people believe in peace, why did your best friend try to kill you?”
“He was part of a faction who advocate for war. They believe we must kill the Twilight Men or become their victims in time.”
“I think your friend was right.”
He smiled at me. “I do too, but his methods were questionable. His faction should have tried to persuade my parents. Instead, they turned to violence. In the end, once the revolt was put down and the rebels driven out or imprisoned, they got their way. Omira and I were sent to train to fight. My mother still hoped my brother would recover and grow up to lead. Omira and I would learn defense and protect him and the kingdom. I gathered others—Kintle and Yung among them—and we trained.”
“But if you are a peaceful people, who taught you to fight?”
He looked at me for a long moment, so long I felt my cheeks heat.
“One of your people, a warrior from Earsleh.”