33. Reznyk
Chapter 33
Reznyk
THE PERFECT TRAP
I climb the mountain like someone’s chasing me. By the time I reach the ridge, my muscles are screaming, blood pulses as it oozes slowly out of scrapes on my knees, courtesy of a large boulder I didn’t notice until it was too late, and magic hisses and spits under my skin like it’s trying to scold me. The sun sinks into the west, filling the sky with its fire. The crimson glow of the dying sun makes the stones of the keep look like they’re streaked with blood. I ignore it all. None of it matters.
Was it all calculated? Her casual flirtation, her wit as sharp as a dagger, that irresistible combination of ferocity and vulnerability, the way she could go from looking like she wanted to punch something to looking like she was about to cry on the turn of a coin. Was it all an act?
Godsdamn it. I grind my teeth until my jaw aches. A friend and a lover. Someone who made me laugh. Someone who made me feel safe enough to talk about things I’ve never talked about before, to share secrets better left buried.
That woman was the perfect trap.
I kick open the door of my cabin. It swings inward, creaking slightly. Xavier lifts his head from his place on the hearth.
I gasp like I’ve been punched in the gut.
Her memory is everywhere.
There’s the plate Kira used last night. Her bedroll pushed against the far wall. The jumble of blankets on the bed where we made slow, sweet love not even a day ago. There is a word for it, some horrible part of my mind whispers. A word for a friend who’s also a lover, for a person who shares your bed, your dishes, your home. Someone who knows the very worst about you but doesn’t run away.
Wife.
My mouth tastes like blood. I gag, then spit through the open door. It wasn’t just that she seduced me. Hells, I’ve seduced plenty of women in my time, and a few men too. I’ve stolen shills and information, and once even a set of vault keys. That’s all part of the game; my body is another tool at my disposal.
But Kira didn’t just seduce me. She won me over, godsdamn it. She made me fall in love. And then she robbed me.
I rock back on my heels and blink as my vision swims. Why, damn it? She could have stolen the amulet her first night here, or the first time I left her alone and climbed to the meadow. Why wait until after we?—
I spin around, barely making it through the door before retching again. There’s nothing in my stomach, so what comes out is a thin stream of bitter emerald acid. I stare at it for a long time as a glorious sunset throws itself against the indifferent mountains. My mind slowly stumbles over what I’m going to do next.
Yes. Good idea.
I reenter my cabin like a rampaging army. I grab the plate Kira used last night, the bundle of flowers drying above the hearth that she’d been substituting for tea. I rip the blankets from the bed, all of them, and kick her bedroll through the door. I take everything she held, everything that smells like her, and throw it into a heap on the grass.
And then I send fire magic into it.
The fire is slow to start, the magic strangely unresponsive. I’m trembling by the time flames finally start to lick their way up the mountain of bedding and clothes and plates and cooking pots. I sink to the ground before the pyre, pull my legs into my chest, and stare at the flames as they consume everything Kira touched.
Another whisper of magic tugs at my consciousness, the lupine pull of the wolves. I turn toward the mountain I named for myself and see the old male wolf in the distance, watching me with eyes that gleam in the last of the light. I nod at him; he ignores me, as usual. His pack follows, walking slowly, nervous around the scent of smoke, close enough that I can see the shimmer of their eyes in the fading light.
When the wolves vanish over the ridge, I let my head drop onto my knees. The fire crackles and hisses. Wind rustles the pines below the ridge and sings over the broken stone of the ancient keep. My knee aches where it met the granite of the mountain. Magic settles over my skin like a heavy cloak.
Something prickles the back of my neck. It’s cold, like a snowflake melting on my skin. I lift my head slowly.
The old god sits on the grass between me and the keep.
Their body is small tonight, with delicate paws and a large tail, like a fox. They’re so dark they look like a hole punched straight through the face of reality. Their silver eyes stare at me, moonlight reflecting from the bottom of a well.
My heart catches before staggering on. They’ve never come this close before. I open my mouth, but words don’t form.
I think of all the things I want to tell them, all the apologies I should make. The horrors I’ve seen, the blood I’ve spilled, the crushing weight of those memories.
The black hole in my chest where my heart should be.
My eyes sting. The old god’s body swims through a haze of tears, small and still and perfect, sitting on the grass and watching me with wide silver eyes. I swallow, part my lips, but my throat closes tight around whatever words I might say. I have nothing to offer this ancient creature of pure magic. Nothing but my broken self and the stolen magic trapped inside that I can’t shed.
“I’m sorry,” I manage to whisper.
The old god tilts their head to the side and blinks, blackness swallowing silver, silver emerging again.
“Don’t you want to kill me?” I ask, as my tears make the world swim and the magic trapped inside my chest hums, low and soft, like a mother rocking her child. “I deserve it.”
The old god twists their head to stare at the mountains. Something that looks like steam rises from the shifting corners of their body. This close, I hear their breath, a slow, even rasp, like wind through leaves.
“You should hate me,” I say. “For—for everything I’ve done.”
I stare at my hands in my lap, expecting to see rivers of silver blood. But they’re empty, holding nothing but the night air. Kira’s words come back to me as a whisper. They just look like hands to me .
I turn back to the old god. Their body ripples in the moonlight.
“I hate myself,” I admit, although my voice breaks when I speak. “I should die for what I did.”
An owl cries from the forest below. His haunting call hangs in the air between us. The old god’s head shifts, then tilts upward. Their body lengthens and grows as it rocks back on its haunches, and now it looks more like a bear, sniffing the night air.
Slowly, they drop forward, falling onto silent paws that are now almost as large as my chest. Their great silver eyes blink once more, slowly. Magic flows from their body like water down a mountainside, making the flames of the fire flicker and dance. They turn and trot toward the ridge of naked stone, first on four legs, then on six, and then their body blends with the shadows on the mountainside and they are gone.
I stare at the spot where the old god stood for a long time as the fire crackles before me and the light of the rising moon bleeds across the sky. My body aches, my heart howls, but slowly, strangely, an odd sort of peace laps at the edges of my consciousness.
I’ve lost everything. Again.
But there’s a certain liberation in knowing you’ve lost, that it’s not worth fighting anymore. I drop my head to my knees and let out a long, slow exhale. Xavier makes a chirping sound from the door of the cabin, as if he’s asking me why in the nine hells I’ve just burned all the blankets I have.
“It’s complicated,” I mutter into the darkness.
A flicker of annoyance drifts across my magic, radiating from Xavier, the resident king of annoyance. I lift my head to stare at the flames.
“It’ll be fine,” I say, talking to the cat and not to myself. “I’ll just go into the keep, find something else we can use?—”
But my voice fades, because now I’m picturing the keep. Not the second floor, that great jumble of junk that’s probably hiding at least a few more moldy old blankets, but the root cellar. Something in the fire hisses, then releases a great stream of sparks. I think of the potatoes down there, the handful or two of carrots, the stack of turnips and beets.
Kira was right. It’s not enough food. My breath catches like there’s something lodged in the back of my throat. It was never enough, and I knew it.
Because that was my plan, even if I didn’t admit it to myself. I wanted to die here, quietly, in the snow, releasing the magic caged inside my body. And releasing my spirit to follow the wolves forever.
Something shoves my arm. I turn to see Xavier aggressively rubbing his head against my elbow. There’s a strange rattling coming from the ragged old tomcat, and it takes me a moment to recognize it as his ugly rumbling purr. I cup his chin, then run my fingers down the soft velvet of his back. If my spirit chases the wolves, who will light the fire for this ragged old bastard?
“Xavier,” I whisper into the gathering night. “I’ve got to get more supplies.”