Chapter 28 #2
Before he could voice any of this out loud, Alys said suddenly within the bounds of his awareness, “I dreamed about Papa last night.” Her voice was heavy as she met his searching gaze.
“His last moments.” Her eyes shifted to roam over Griff’s face as she spoke, following the curve of his cheek, the angle of his jaw.
“I was going to tell you sooner, but—I wanted to tell you together, if I could. You look so much like your father sometimes, Griff. Like Uncle Seimon,” she continued softly.
“Not just like him of course, but—like a Warden. The way you carry yourself. The wraith must see it too. Maybe that makes it angry.”
“Speak up,” Griff urged her, signing for Mal’s benefit all the while. “Louder, for Mal.”
“It was like when I dreamed about what happened to you in the Wood, Griff,” Alys continued, louder.
“It felt that real; I felt a burning—here.” She touched a shaking hand to her throat, sliding her flattened palm down to the center of her chest. “The wraith must have drowned him. It tricked him. While his friends were sleeping, it made him see … me. Or what he thought was me, slipping into the lake, and he dove in after me and never came up. When he realized what was happening, an invisible hand held him down, and …” She shook her head, pausing to steady herself.
“You both know how he was. It was probably easy to confuse him, since he didn’t know real from his daydreams most of the time.
But … that’s not going to happen to us, is it? That’s not what we signed up for.”
Now she turned her gaze back to Mal, her eyes fully present and damp.
“Nope. No way,” Mal said hotly. He filled them both in on what he had just realized about the wraith and its allegiance—or lack thereof—though only Alys would truly understand the significance.
Then he raised his voice over the eerie singing, making sure every spirit and raven hiding out in the dusk could damn well hear him.
“That wraith can try all it likes to get rid of us, but we have the spirit blade and we aren’t afraid to use it, so we’re going to succeed no matter what anyone else wants.
We’re going to show everyone what we’re capable of, even if they’re all fucking betting against us.
We’ll grab the treasure at dawn, and then we’re out of here. ”
“Of course. You’re right,” Alys said, forever on his side.
But she and Griff both looked so worried that Mal had guilt burning his throat instead of whiskey as he tried to lighten the mood, to ease some of the lines from their troubled faces as he glanced at the cookpot near his bedroll.
“What’s with the turtle, by the way? Does turtle soup have some curative properties I don’t know about? ”
It was Alys who answered. “It’s not for eating. You kept asking for it.”
Mal pulled the pot a little closer, treating the creature with a fair amount of gentleness as he picked up it up by the shell with both hands to greet it eye to eye.
“I don’t know what that was about,” he admitted, unable to remember much of the past few days.
“But there was a turtle … a puppet … back in Thrallkeld that my friend Ella liked. Guess it was some weird dream.”
“I named it Muffin,” Alys said, sounding calmer. “An early birthday present, I suppose.”
“What was that?” Mal asked, frustration with his hearing flaring anew as he scowled at the empty cookpot.
“Muffin,” Alys shouted. “The turtle—is named—Muffin!” Apparently getting frustrated herself, she added, “You’re going to need an ear horn!”
“I won’t. I’m fine,” Mal said in his usual dismissive way.
But then he tried for teasing, hoping to reach some easier place between them tonight after how hard the past few days must have been for her.
“You sure you don’t want to name this thing Leo the Second?
Looks a bit like him when you stare at it dead on. ”
Alys laughed, however reluctantly. Mal couldn’t hear it, but he saw her smile and the slight shake of her shoulders.
Encouraged, he tried again with Griff, wrapping an arm around the other man’s waist. “So, Mister Healer … going to look at these stitches for me after I eat?”
“I thought it was Mister Foreman,” Griff murmured, the words decipherable only because he kept on using sign language. And though his upset still showed plainly on his face, he added, “I made something for you, by the way. While you were out of it.”
He leaned away from Mal for a moment, grabbing something lying just a few feet away—Alys’s sketch pad. He hesitated, then pulled off a scrap of paper and handed it to Mal, who recognized the words and markings right away as Griff’s work. He studied it closely.
It was a blueprint. For a house.
Fit for a king.
“It would be a lot of work,” Griff said as Mal held the paper to the firelight.
It was more than anyone had ever given him, and it hadn’t cost a thing.
“I’m sure it’s a long way off,” Griff continued, the nerves evident in his voice, “but … I thought we could add to it, change it together when we have ideas. We’ve got plenty of time.
Plenty of room to dream—if we’re still alive.
” His eyes glistened as he added, “I could be back in Linden right now with Liam, planning a wedding. He wouldn’t ask me to risk life and limb for some gold when we make plenty of money working our boring straight jobs. ”
Mal pulled himself from Griff’s embrace, stung by the mention of Liam and weddings.
Griff had been engaged to the locksmith and not bothered to breathe a word about it.
Typical. Betrayal. Had he been thinking of going home on his own while Mal was out cold?
It seemed just like the sort of thing Mayfair’s Most Eligible would do, having a second option in his back pocket. Not fully choosing Mal, even now.
“The point isn’t to get rich anyway,” Griff went on, signing the words and then flexing his now-empty fingers as if they already missed Mal’s warmth.
“The point is to come home to each other. I don’t give a damn about the money.
That’s why I’ve been training as a Warden—to make the world a little better and safer.
To protect our future.” He sighed. “Or at least I was until the stabbing forced me to take a step back. And look, I know you’re not their biggest fan, but you’d be safer doing your, uh, odd jobs if I could throw the heat off you and keep the Wardens’ focus on the things that really matter, like making sure Wills doesn’t stab anyone else in the Wood. ”
Mal didn’t voice any of the questions about Liam now running through his mind. Refused to have that name on his lips. Couldn’t bear to know.
Instead, he asked, “You want to—what? Be a Warden while also being with me?” He didn’t need any words repeated this time.
He only questioned it because he didn’t want to believe it any more than he wanted to think about Griff running back into Liam’s waiting arms. “You seriously think that could work? The elves really have turned you daft, because I thought you were putting all that behind you when you chose me.”
He was so different from Mal: the elegant, elf-loving, dragon-slayer’s son. Too different. Griff was too good for the likes of him.
The eerie wailing reached an earsplitting crescendo and suddenly stopped.
Even Alys was silent and watchful, some fresh worry shining in her wide eyes by the glint of the firelight.
“Must be nice,” Mal said, his eyes sliding away from Griff’s and into the raven-crowded trees.
“Never having to worry about where your money’s going to come from or if you’ll even make it back from the next job.
I don’t have your training, Griff, and I don’t have your skills.
My options are limited.” He palmed at his stupid, useless ear as he narrowed his eyes at a stunted tree.
“Your father was the biggest hero. You’re the one with the big legacy.
I’m just the sad orphan who’s been trying to hold on to the only people I’ve known all my life, and even that doesn’t seem to be working out for me. You want to be with me? The real me?”
Griff nodded without hesitating. He seemed sincere, and he had sketched out plans for a future with Mal, a space they could fill together.
Space where Mal shouldn’t be. Griff only loved him because he didn’t have a clue what Mal had done.
What bargain he had made to try to regain some sense of balance in his world.
His throat was tight, his insides white hot with anticipation of the hurt he knew was coming, but he managed to say hoarsely, “Well then, you’ll have to say goodbye to those dreams of living up to your daddy’s good deeds forever, or else end things with me now, because you can’t be a Warden and have any kind of life with me. ”
Griff’s gaze turned wary. “Why would that be such a problem? I know you don’t like them, but—you like me.”
“Well, let’s see,” Mal said, letting out a hot breath as he gently set those blueprints down.
He hadn’t earned the right to look at them.
“Rhun was one of them, but did they ever bother to help Wynnie after he disappeared? Ever swing by the cottage to check on any of us? Didn’t think so.
And his friends must have known about this rogue wraith and didn’t bother to warn anyone.
If you think they’re all really so perfect, then I have some property up by Deadman’s Dike you’d love to purchase too, and it definitely wasn’t built on top of any old graveyard. ”
Griff was silent, watching him.
Even so, Mal could hardly find the words to continue. He put a hand on the scrap of parchment with the blueprints, even though he didn’t pick it up again.
“The world will never be safe, no matter how many heroes take up arms,” he finally went on.
“The job seems to have a pretty high mortality rate, too, from what we’ve seen.
Your life would be a drop in the bucket, and for what?
I figured out a long time ago that good intentions don’t stay the blade.
Power does. And if the best and bravest lose the fight …
I’ll crawl through the dark and make us a home in the shadows if it means we survive. That’s a victory too.”
“I don’t disagree,” Griff said, speaking more slowly this time, louder, and shaping signs with his hand.
“I … I’d choose that too.” He sounded as surprised to be speaking the words aloud as Mal was to receive them.
But then, with more confidence, he added, “And I’d rather be yours than be a Warden.
The training was always something I had to work at, but being with you?
It feels as natural as … well, as being me. ”
That was all the encouragement Mal needed to continue.
“Good, then, because Wardens are also deathly allergic to boundaries. The amount of times they turn up where I am, you’d think they were as interested in my private affairs as Old Man Corbyn—you know, the Linden Bedroom Creeper.
Everyone has an agenda. We both know that,” he went on, stalling.
He had to tell Griff about his part in the attack now, before he had their whole life mapped out just to have to burn Mal off the page.
“I don’t care that Wardens like playing hero, because they’re lying to themselves when they act like they’re so much better than the rest of us.
I doubt most folks would flinch at seeing me bleed.
That’s just how things are. But Wardens act like you ought to enjoy the stabbing if they tell you that it’s for your own good. ”
He finally drew a breath and brought his eyes back to Griff’s, tired of staring at restless raven’s wings and searching for shadows.
“If your heart is really set on this Warden shit, we’ll figure it out.
We just … won’t be able to talk about work at all.
Certain parts of our lives will have to stay really separate, more separate than I’d like, so I don’t end up in prison or hanged or anything else that keeps us even further apart. ”
“Why is that?” Griff pressed, his features once again drawn with caution.
Alys rose abruptly and headed toward the teakettle—giving them space again, Mal guessed as Griff laid a hand on his leg.
“Why can’t we talk about everything?” Griff went on, confusion and hurt in every line of his face. “If I wanted separate, I wouldn’t have come all this way, and I wouldn’t have felt my world collapsing when I thought we were about to lose you.”
Mal’s fingers crept toward Griff’s. This might be the last time he got to hold his hand, and he wanted to remember what it felt like, even if he’d wish like hell later that he could just forget.
Out of the corner of his eye, he realized Alys hadn’t grabbed the kettle after all.
She was wielding her sword, watching the approach of something he hadn’t been able to hear, a shambling creature that stopped at the edge of the ward marking their camp border.
It was another dead orc, another revenant, bigger than the ones they had fought near the chest of silvers and missing an eye.
“Why?” he echoed Griff, his mouth still impossibly dry even after a sip of tea.
Alys could handle the revenant for now, and if he didn’t get the words out, he was afraid he would never find the courage again.
He owed Griff this; the knowledge, and the freedom to choose him or turn away after. “Because I’ve still been working for—”
“Mal Pryce!” the pale orc thundered, a fetid stench wafting over them as it opened its mouth awkwardly, like some kind of puppet.
The voice issuing from its desiccated vocal cords was too powerful to belong to such a lowly creature, and Mal knew immediately who was speaking to him, but he sure as hell wasn’t about to bow as the orc’s remaining greenish eye burned into his.
“What’s taking you so long? Bring me my treasure, wraith be damned, or your soul and Sayer’s are mine, and I’ll make you watch while I put more knives in him than your flimsy plan ever did. ”