Chapter 32
Chapter Thirty-Two
Prizes
In the morning, when Mal woke at sunup despite his exhaustion, he turned in Griff’s arms to brush a soft kiss over the pale forehead of the man sleeping soundly beside him.
Then he disentangled himself as gently and quietly as he could, wrapping his own cloak around Griff so that he might not notice his absence for a while yet.
As he prowled around the smoldering remains of the fireside in search of the silver flask he had discarded sometime last night before bed to prove a point, Alys’s eyes fluttered open.
She blinked a question at him, and when Mal put a finger to his lips, she nodded.
One hand crept out of her bedroll to grip the cloth hilt of the broken sword—just in case any green-eyed ghosts were still lurking around and their queen got any funny ideas before they went to retrieve the treasure in an hour or two.
She kept up her silent guard as he tucked the flask into the inner pocket of his jerkin, close to his heart, beside Griff’s letters. With a golden dawn threading streaks of light through his hopelessly knotted hair, he slipped away to the nearby creek.
Picking a flat rock just wide enough to perch on, Mal sat with his bare feet touching the water, mud squishing between his toes, just him and his shadow—no extra one to speak of anymore.
No burning in the lines of ink feathering his forearm.
No eerie singing, just the booming call of an ordinary bittern.
There wasn’t even the flutter of a raven’s wing in the branches above. At least, none that he could see, and hearing was beyond him at this point. It was time he faced it.
Past time he faced a lot of things he’d rather not.
His usual headache was pounding between his eyes, begging for him to take a sip from his flask or at least pour a generous splash into some tea and make himself a breakfast toddy.
Out of habit, he unscrewed the cap. But remembering all the things he and Griff had agreed would be different from now on, he didn’t take his usual first sip.
Instead, he turned the flask upside down and fed it to the creek as he stared at his reflection in the water’s dark, slow-moving surface. The slightly crooked nose, the sneer that seemed permanently stuck some days, silver eyes narrowed in dislike or distrust.
He sat there until the sun began to warm him enough for him to lose his shirt, continuing to wear the same hard look as he studied himself in the water. Eventually, he threw a rock at his own face, shattering that reflection, and started to remember.
Dark holes. Lice. Living like a rat while he sucked the flesh from their bones.
Dreams of running Thrallkeld himself going up in flames.
The carving of his own flesh, the foreign sound of his screams echoing in his ears, the witch’s small, strong hands pulling him out of the tent where they had planned to carry out his execution.
Oblivion. One, two, three failed attempts at breathing, three sharp presses of those hands against his chest, and finally, the gasp as air rushed back into his lungs and his heart shuddered back to life in time for him to catch an echo of a few whispered words, a magic older than that of most of the elves who now lived in their airy sanctuary, as the witch brought him back from death.
Salve packing his grisly wound as Tansy, the witch, fought the infection there.
Knife flashing in the late afternoon sun, scraping down to his scalp as she cut off his long gold hair that was full of bugs and itching relentlessly until he hardly recognized himself—battered face, shaved head, nasty scar. For his own good. All for his own good.
He had walked the long road down to Thrallkeld alone. Challenged Renaud alone. Spent months healing in the witch’s hut alone. Traveled back to Linden to reclaim what was left of his life alone.
Maybe Griff hadn’t been there for him in Thrallkeld. No one had. But he had always been able to rely on himself. And he needed himself now more than ever, needed to choose himself again if he was going to keep choosing Griff too.
He didn’t hear the flask as it splashed into the water like a leaping fish.
But it came right back up again. He had unthinkingly screwed the cap back on after draining it, and now it was too light for the dramatic drowning he had envisioned for his faithful companion.
With a frustrated sigh, he stood and shed the rest of his clothes before diving into the creek.
The cold sent a shiver rushing over his skin as he swam a few strokes out to where the flask now bobbed tauntingly, gleaming more gold than silver in the morning light.
He tried to grab it, but it slipped right out of his bandaged hands a few times.
He muttered curses at it until he grasped it again.
He didn’t tip it to his tongue for a farewell taste. He unscrewed the cap and plunged it under the surface until there was nothing left to keep it afloat.
As bubbles rose and the flask grew heavy, he remembered some more.
Rhun, his stiff gait and his whispers, the odd times he would play music or help with dinner or take the boys on walks. The promises of safety and a love that would never leave—promises Mal never trusted after that, because love of such a kind was something he could only give to himself.
Kage, cloaked and hooded as he stood outside Mal’s window late one night, recruiting him into service at the not-really-a-tea-shop.
The nasty scar on Griff’s stomach.
What didn’t stay had never really belonged to him, he reflected as the flask finally dropped out of his hands and buried itself in the dark silt of the creek bottom, all his old hurts and mistakes swept over by the sea of memory.
Back on his rock, hunched over and hugging his knees, Mal thought about curses.
Some were real, woven by magic. But he had only been cursing himself.
Been doing it for years. His curse was little more than a feeling, one he’d conjured for himself while being haunted by too many wounds from the past.
Which made it his to break too.
It belonged at the bottom of the creek with the flask.
Rising up onto his knees, he drew his hunting knife and bent over the water.
And just as Tansy had once done for him, he cut his hair close to the scalp, hacking away until all his tangled problems and unbreakable knots were nothing more than a flurry of gold flakes on the creek’s surface.
He watched as the mess was swept along in the slow current, sometimes swirling in little eddies, while he felt the smooth, warm fuzz left on top of his head.
It wasn’t as even as he’d hoped; it would grow back choppy and unruly. But his. And fresh. Plenty of room for new growth.
He stood, pulling on his pants and shirt, and headed back to camp, where the others were picking through their dwindling rations for a quick breakfast, ready to press on to the lake that was glimmering through the trees to the east.
Griff’s eyes widened a touch as he took in Mal’s new look, a smile breaking over his face a moment later as he declared, “Change looks good on you.”
Mal, who hadn’t needed anyone’s approval of his new hair anyway, didn’t realize he was smiling until after he had slipped comfortably into the spot made for him at Griff’s side, leaning against the other man while he grabbed his share of jerky.
“Any tea left before we get going?” Mal asked hopefully, his expression catlike and contented as Griff rubbed his fingers over his fuzzy head.
The request wasn’t so unusual as to raise any eyebrows.
But when the flask didn’t emerge from Mal’s inner pocket to pour a healthy serving into the mug he was handed, Griff’s gaze lingered on him curiously.
“Alys,” Mal said with some effort, “would you do me—us,” he amended, thinking of how Griff never took him up on his offers to hit the flask and finally realizing what that must mean, “a favor, and go dump the rest of that bottle in the creek?” He pointed to the large amber bottle he had brought with them.
“I’m done with all that. Who wants easy, anyway?
Might as well dry out while we’re hauling this treasure back and my side is all fucked up. ”
“Can I hug you?” Alys asked, her voice thick.
He nodded, and she threw her arms around him for a moment before heading off to dispose of the bottle. Muffin, tucked into the top of her shirt, gazed warily at Mal and then out at the wider world.
As the two men watched the proceedings, Griff drew Mal in against his side and said for the third time in nearly as many days, like a deluge of rain after a drought, “I’m so proud of you.
” But a line of worry creased his brow all the same as he added, “But you’ll be more than thirsty soon.
It’s going to be hell. You’re going to sweat out what feels like that whole bottle and then some.
It’ll feel like you have the bad fever all over again by tomorrow, and probably for a couple days after that, speaking from experience.
It might mean an extra night or two of camping out here, so I hope that fits in your deadline. ”
Mal’s eyes glinted with his usual determination as he stood and then helped Griff to his feet, keeping the other man’s hand in his as he declared, “Well, let’s go make the most of today, and whatever happens after that will be tomorrow’s problem.”
And with a sore side and curious green-eyed ghosts watching from between the trees, counting down his remaining time again, Mal did things the hard way and started sweating out the whiskey as they found an old rowboat at the lake’s edge and cleared it for use.