Chapter 14
Chapter Fourteen
Stupid Mistakes
Back in Linden, Mal’s mornings were generally uneventful.
He would often greet the sun with a groan as it streamed in through the window of his childhood bedroom right at eye level and roll over to press his face deeper into his pillow, claiming a moment of peace before the patter of little feet began or a clamor rose from the kitchen as Vic attempted to cook breakfast.
Inevitably, Mags would burst into the room, making a flying leap onto the mattress to rouse her uncle and then leading him by the hand toward the kitchen—allowing him no time to pull on a shirt, though the mess of scars across his chest and back had mostly faded over the years and no longer earned so many questions from the girl.
Meanwhile, he would half listen as a stream of words flowed past his ears from Rodric about some game or other he had been playing with the neighbor boy across the creek.
Mal wouldn’t even attempt a response until he was at least on his second cup of tea, a splash from his flask sometimes added on a listless morning.
He would kiss Derry’s favorite doll good morning as she held it up to him.
Ruffle Mags’s pale hair or Rodric’s golden head, whichever he could reach as they orbited the adults in the cottage, and rub his eyes with his other hand as he contemplated how best to spend the day.
Fishing at the creek, perhaps, or better yet, waylaying a wagon brimming with silkweed that was bound for Mayfair proper.
He didn’t smoke the stuff himself, but there was good money to be had from shipments like those.
Later, he would consider a call for tea at the Widow Isabel’s that would surely drag on longer than he’d like.
In sleepy Linden, there were no moments of gut-wrenching fear, no glittering promises of riches and the protection they could provide.
To some, such days might hold a sense of understated luxury compared to their current demanding circumstances—swapping well-tended hearths for restless campfires, favorite hand-thrown mugs for battered tin cups, quiet strolls along neatly kept village paths for the drudgery of splashing through stagnant water.
Yet Mal was more awake out here, more alive breathing in the humid air and sweating it out in this unfamiliar territory than he ever had been in a cozy town too small to contain his ambitions.
Even if they might be traveling in step with Rhun’s ghost, the man as much a mystery to Mal in death as he had been in life.
At least this morning was, if nothing else, filled with purpose.
They were finally gaining ground again—Little Griff’s hooves leaving deep impressions in the softening earth—toward ancient barrows brimming with riches, even if they wouldn’t get to keep what they found.
Mal kept unfolding the map, turning it this way and that as if doing so might give him a better sense of direction toward Rhun’s elusive X deep in the heart of the Mire.
The edges of this swamp weren’t so different from the Wyrmwood closer to home. Mal even recognized a few of the birds making calls to one another. Sometimes Griff whistled cheerfully back at them in imitation of their unique sounds, and Mal caught his eye, impressed. Bards and their party tricks.
They had already seen two or three rotroses, the luminous scarlet-red flowers that shunned the sunlight and whispered seductively to passersby to entice them down to their level so they could consume flesh with their acid.
The trio gave the bloody blossoms a wide berth, and Mal hummed softly under his breath to help drown out anything he didn’t want to hear as they passed, occasionally rubbing the mule’s neck to reassure him too.
He also spotted a handful of the dark queen’s actual servants at a distance, phantoms whose eyes glowed green—something he now recognized as the mark of her enchantment, her command over a creature or spirit.
They leered at him, all ephemeral bony limbs and silently screaming blackened lips.
Each time he happened to catch a glowing eye, the spirits mouthed something at him and held up their fingers—or what was left of them—counting down the time he had remaining to reach the treasure.
It didn’t rile him, much, beyond the uncomfortable prickling of the feathers on his arm.
He knew the terms, he knew the time, and this was the sort of behavior he expected from dead things—unlike the shadow that continued to follow them, whose eye color he couldn’t begin to guess.
For now, however, the most curious sight afforded to him was Griff, who pulled off his dark, sweaty shirt when they stopped for a moment by a clear-enough-looking pool to give the mule some water and rest. Last time he saw the other man like this, Mal’s eyes had been entranced by the way Griff’s muscles contracted as he raised his splitting maul to hew another piece of wooden beam.
This time he noticed other things too, like the thin dark line of a recent scar that started below Griff’s navel and disappeared past the waistband of his pants.
The scar he was responsible for.
Griff was close enough that he could have run a finger along the uneven surface of the mostly healed wound. But he wasn’t na?ve enough to think that a simple touch, even one that meant everything, could erase his part in what had happened there or ease his own guilt.
He deserved to feel guilty about that forever.
Griff loved him, and he had nearly been the death of him. Still might be. The Mire wasn’t exactly the kind of place anyone went for a relaxing vacation. Or went at all.
Mal was just about to glance away when Griff caught him staring, and their eyes locked. “I got stabbed in the Wyrmwood,” Griff said, running a hand down his stomach, “by not-bandits. Wynnie handled it.”
Mal wanted to drop to his knees and beg forgiveness.
He wanted to tell Griff what he had done and how much he hated himself for it.
How he never would have imagined that Griff would be a target, or else he would have fought to secure protection for him long ago.
Not that he was exactly high up enough to demand that much of Kage.
This life-or-death hunt in the Mire was the best he could negotiate.
But with those green eyes looking so warmly into his, he could barely make a sound. Even Griff seemed to find the prolonged silence strange after a time, so when Mal got his tongue working again, he said lightly, teasingly, “How about that. You and Wynnie finally have something in common.”
Their former guardian had a scar in about the same place.
Hers was from an orc attack that had left her with her guts spilling out between her fingers, and still she had stayed on her feet until the fight was won.
She had beaten the infection that followed, too, and returned to the world no worse for wear except for a new mark on her already thoroughly decorated skin.
Griff shook his head, turning to the mule as it twitched its ears to swat away a cloud of hovering midges, and gave the creature an affectionate scratch on its hindquarters.
“Figures if I got something from her, it wouldn’t be her sword skills or the stare that can frighten off anyone who crosses within a mile of her. ”
Mal chuckled darkly, though he didn’t really feel like laughing. He slapped a mosquito whining too close to his ear with extra vigor, but that did nothing to ease his misery.
“Hey, Griff,” Alys cut in as she tied her damp, sweaty hair into two topknots on either side of her head in Vic’s usual style. “Speaking of scars, I’ve been thinking: I want you to train with me. I want to teach you some proper sword work.”
Mal thought it was an excellent suggestion. He was, of course, trying to keep Griff safe, but maybe Griff himself could help more in the effort. Especially if Mal failed and didn’t make it back with the others.
Griff, however, seemed to take offense. “I’ve trained with Wynnie and Vic, same as both of you,” he protested, sounding more confused than hurt. “And I trained in Stormveil too. And with the Wardens. Just because I don’t like hurting people doesn’t mean I can’t, if the occasion arises.”
Mal had never thought much of the elves.
Why care about a race of beings who thought they were too good to even live among everyone else and let the world go to shit while they watched from on high?
He glanced at Griff and said matter-of-factly, “Clearly you need her help. You almost got gutted in the Wood. And we all know how you handled that mule heist.”
“You want to stay with Mal, don’t you?” Alys pressed, as if she had overheard at least some of their private exchange, or guessed at Griff’s feelings more easily than Mal had.
“There are things out here worse than what’s in the Wood, so I need to know you’ll have our backs if we find ourselves in over our heads—which means fighting dirty, like the elves and Wardens never would have taught you.
” Softer, her eyes glinting with meaning, she added, “The last thing I want is to lose you again, least of all to a stupid mistake.”
“Fine,” Griff sighed, clearly outmatched, and likely lacking the energy to argue after several hours of riding and ducking to avoid low branches. “I’ll train with you, Alys.”
He didn’t suggest that Mal join in, and Mal didn’t offer. The last thing they needed was to raise blades against each other, even in a practice setting, after all those years of swinging fists. It would feel too real.
“Good, then.” Alys smiled at her protégé. “You’ll be a regular legend in no time.” Finished with her hair, she started unbuttoning her shirt—an old work shirt, patched at the elbows, one she had borrowed from Mal’s pile as usual—letting the uncovered skin breathe without a hint of bashfulness.