Chapter 30
The house was too quiet. Everywhere Inej looked, she saw Manu. There wasn’t a room she could be in that didn’t have a memory of him. She didn’t want to think about him—or their conversation from that morning—but that was all that was on her mind.
She stared at her bed for a long time, recalling how he had fallen asleep on her.
She had liked it. Too much, actually. There was even a memory of him tugging her onto his chest. At least she thought he had.
It might have been a dream. How was she going to climb into that bed now when his memory was all around her?
Worse, what would she say when he returned? He would want to finish their conversation, and she wanted to know what he had been about to say. What did he want? Was it her? The thought filled her with both excitement and dread.
She needed to start with what she wanted. That was easy. She wanted the abductions to cease and for those responsible to be caught and punished. Therein lay the problem. Because Manu might be one of those people.
“What if he is?” she asked herself. Inej shrugged. “Then justice should be served. But if he isn’t…?”
Gita had every reason to lie. Everyone always had some reason to lie.
Inej leaned against the doorjamb to her room, her gaze still on the bed.
What if Gita had lied? She had said elves couldn’t get to the Peaks, but based on what Manu had said, they came all the time.
If Gita was dishonest about that, the only conclusion Inej could come to was that Gita had needed her to find Manu.
Because he helped humans who were stranded.
It sounded reasonable, but that was assuming Manu was honest.
If he was everything Gita said, why be so nice to her? She was no one. Why not put her with all the others he kidnapped? Why take her to his city, give her food, shelter, and clothing? And a job she loved. Why take her to his bed and tell her the story of Shaldorn?
Maybe to see if she was working for the other side?
That, too, sounded plausible.
How would she ever figure out the truth?
She couldn’t exactly lay it out to Manu to see what he might say.
Nor could she ask around. Manu’s people were loyal.
It would get back to him, which would be like her asking him herself.
She also couldn’t check the things Gita had told her.
Even if she had thought about questioning Gita before heading out to the Peaks, she likely wouldn’t have gotten answers.
Inej wouldn’t have known who to ask or how to prove if any of it were true.
She had gotten tangled in a snare so thick and unclear that she wasn’t sure she could untangle herself.
She could leave, but that would only save her for a short time.
If the wolvites or weather didn’t get her, she was sure the Masters would.
Her one and only choice was to remain in Navara. Yet, it felt wrong.
The click of the front door opening yanked her from her musings. Manu was back, and she was no closer to knowing how to finish their conversation than before. She looked down the hall to the door, expecting to see someone, but the corridor was empty. A shiver of apprehension slid down her back.
A cacophony of voices rose from outside the house.
She hurried to the door and yanked it open to see a crowd gathering.
Shock reverberated through the mass. She stepped out onto the landing to see what was happening when the wailing began as it had the previous night.
Inej steeled herself as she gathered with others along the street to watch the procession of elves carrying stretchers with unmoving bodies.
One passed right in front of her. She couldn’t take her eyes off the clusters of ice or the bluish tint to the skin.
The elf was dead. Were they the ones who had left with Manu?
She swung her head back to the entrance, fully expecting to see him coming in covered in blood again.
She studied every face on the stretchers, silently rejoicing when none was his.
There was one more stretcher being carried in.
She thought to see Manu walking beside it.
Instead, she found him on it. The men carrying him hurried past her, giving her only a glimpse of his face with his eyes closed.
His skin was pale, but it didn’t have the bluish tint.
And they were racing him to his house. But there had been so much blood in his hair and on his face.
“What happened?” she asked, hoping someone would tell her.
But everyone seemed to be as shocked as she.
With the last of the dead and wounded brought in, people began preparing for funerals.
She stood helplessly, watching it all. She wanted to do something, but she didn’t know any of the families to help with the burials.
Her head turned to Manu’s home. Would they let her in if she went to him?
She didn’t want to try to find out. Inej returned to Jalall’s house and softly shut the door.
She leaned her forehead against it as Manu’s image flashed in her head: him lying so still and bloodied.
He had always been larger than life and strong.
He might get hurt, but nothing serious. She turned and put her back to the door.
He wasn’t dead. Nor would he die. He was the leader of Navara, and his people needed him.
You came to kill him.
The thought came unbidden. Inej put a hand to her belly and another over her mouth as she closed her eyes. She had come to end his life. The poison was still tucked under her mattress, waiting.
The hate and anger that had driven her into the mountains had simmered to banked coals.
She was confused. The facts were muddied.
How could she take someone’s life—anyone’s—without knowing if they were responsible for the abductions?
The doubt would eat her alive. Some undercover agent she’d turned out to be.
She dropped her arms and pushed away from the door, needing to do something to occupy her time until she could get word about Manu. A long bath might help. Then, she’d get into bed early. She likely wouldn’t sleep while worrying about him, but the attempt had to count for something.
Inej was halfway to her room when she heard someone behind her. She started to turn when she saw a flash of bronze magic right before it slammed into her. The force had her careening into the wall, where she bounced off and into the other side of the hall as another strike brought her to the floor.
Her mind screamed for her to get up and run. Something was burning. Debris was falling around her as if in slow motion. She looked toward the kitchen and used her arms to pull herself toward it. Footfalls thumped ominously behind her. Her attacker was still there and coming to finish the job.
She didn’t try to see who it was. It didn’t matter.
There was no way she was getting out of this alive.
Her fingers curled against the smooth stone floor, and she dug in as much as possible, pulling her body forward.
She had been hit, but oddly, she didn’t feel any pain.
Maybe she was already dead and just didn’t know it.
A boot pressed into her back, pushing her down and ending her pathetic attempt at escape.
She was the only human in the city. How else had she expected this to turn out?
She had believed she was safe because Manu had said she was.
She knew better than to get comfortable, and she was paying for that now.
Her cheek was pressed to the cool stone, and she found her gaze falling into her room and onto the bed, where the previous night had been the closest thing to paradise she had experienced.
Suddenly, the boot was gone. She heard the reverberations of someone running, but it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered anymore. At least now, she no longer had the weight of whether to take Manu’s life. Death tended to erase such complications.
She heard a voice as if from a great distance. She couldn’t tell much about it, and there was no point in answering. Her eyes closed of their own accord, and she felt herself drifting.
Something nudged her side before shoving her onto her back.
She was yanked back to the living by the pain that ratcheted through her body.
There had been no pain in the place where she’d drifted.
There was just darkness and quiet. That’s where she wanted to be.
She clung to it, pushing the agony away.
A voice came, joined by a second. Was there a third? She couldn’t bring herself to care. They weren’t attempting to help her, and that was okay. They were her killers. Her soul still lingered, though she wasn’t sure why. She was ready to go and get away from the horrors.
Not everything had been bad. There had been Manu.
The pain was there, but it was fading, becoming a distant memory.