Chapter 22 Odessa
Twenty-Two
Odessa
For two days, I’d answered countless questions about Lyssa, most three or four times.
Where Thora had mostly avoided me after the cave ginger bogs, she was my constant companion now, riding at my side as we traveled through Laine toward Genesis. From sunrise to sunset, as the mountains on the horizon grew larger, she’d interrogate me for information.
My father would undoubtedly reprimand me for being so forthcoming with a woman whose allegiances were entirely unknown. But I had a feeling even the Gold King would find Thora intimidating.
I couldn’t have ignored her questions if I’d tried.
I’d told her about each of my encounters with an infected monster, from the marroweel on the Krisenth Crossing, to the pack of bariwolves wreaking havoc on the Turan people, to the tarkin mother that had abandoned her cubs.
And I’d told her about the Guardian’s hunting parties and their futile effort to purge their kingdom of the infection.
Thora knew everything I was willing to share.
But she didn’t know that the Guardian, the crown prince, and my husband were all one and the same. She didn’t know that Evie was King Ramsey’s daughter. And she didn’t know that Luella was responsible for the very elixir that had contributed to the infection.
I still believed Luella’s intentions had been pure. She’d set out to create a medicine to protect her children, to make them stronger. If Ransom hadn’t been bitten by that bariwolf, she would have succeeded.
“I’m not sure if I believe you about the migration,” Thora said. “But I do believe you’re telling the truth about Lyssa.”
“Thanks?”
That might be the closest thing she’d ever given me to a compliment. I’d take it.
Thora held up a hand, slowed her horse. I did the same as she brought her fingers to her lips and whistled.
The Mavins circled around us, their expressions stern.
“Jodhi, Mathias, Golding, and Dair, with me. The rest…you have your orders.”
Orders? What orders? My eyes widened as one by one, the Mavins scattered, leaving only six horses on the road.
“Um, where are they going? They’re coming back, right?”
“No. They have another task,” she said. “Though I expect your father to pay their thousand zillahs as if they’d escorted you to Quentis. It’s not their fault the Turans have been concealing a plague.”
Damn. I really liked the idea of traveling with eleven warriors, not five.
“Don’t look so worried, doll.” Jodhi chuckled. “We’ll keep you safe.”
“Let’s go.” Thora jerked her chin toward the road and mountains in the distance. “I want to get to the edge of the skeleton forest before dark.”
What in the shades was a skeleton forest?
I swallowed that question as we took off riding.
Thora took the lead, riding alone. Apparently, her interrogation was finished.
Jodhi and Mathias went behind her while Evie and I followed with Golding and Dair watching our backs.
It was nearly dark when we crossed the invisible border of Laine into Genesis.
Thora led us toward a towering formation of rocks with a split down the middle, the opening creating a cave. There was already a fire ring in its center and a stack of branches left behind. We weren’t the first to spend a dark night in this place, and I doubted we’d be the last.
Our campfire circle was considerably smaller with only six saddles, but at least we had shelter.
Thora and Mathias sat to my right. Golding and Dair to my left, their bedrolls touching. And Jodhi across the fire. Always watching. Always smirking.
Faze sat beside me, gnawing on a piece of dried meat.
Evie was asleep and curled into my side, her body shivering.
Each night seemed to get colder than the last.
“Here. Use this. Dair and I will share.” Golding tossed me a thick pelt.
A ruby-red pelt with pink stripes. A tarkin pelt.
These pelts were prized among the rich. But I doubted Golding had paid the lofty price to buy this hide. No, he’d likely killed a monster and skinned it himself.
It took everything I had to spread the fur blanket out over my lap and cover Evie. In the morning, I’d make sure it was folded and returned to Golding before she woke up. “Thank you.”
Dair laughed at something in the book he was reading. He leaned closer to Golding, holding out the page. The two bent their heads together, sharing an intimate smile, and then Dair put the book aside and rested his cheek on Golding’s shoulder.
I hadn’t realized they were a couple. Every other night, they’d kept their distance, sleeping on opposite sides of the camp circle.
Except now the other Mavins were gone. And maybe this meant they no longer had to hide.
“It is forbidden,” Thora said, gaze locked on the fire, reading my thoughts. “When we join the Mavins, we vow to give up all ties. Past. Present. And future. But some bonds cannot be broken or ignored.”
The night I told the Mavins about the migration, one of the men, Mose, had left to warn his family. He’d said to hell with the rules.
“What are the Mavins?”
“Mercenaries, doll,” Jodhi answered.
I had a hunch that name was simply part of their illusion, intended to keep people at a distance. “Who are you really?”
“Shackled,” Mathias answered, running a hand over his auburn hair.
“To who?” A king? The Voster? “Salem?”
Jodhi’s mouth flattened. “If you know what’s good for you, you’ll forget that name. And you’ll never speak of what you’re told or what you see tonight.”
Meaning, I’d never tell anyone about Golding and Dair.
“Salem gives…incentives,” Dair said. “For keeping one another on the path.”
“You mean the other Mavins would tell him about your relationship?”
“Yes. If it meant their own debt was lessened.”
“Oh.” So much for loyalty among companions.
I couldn’t imagine any of Ransom’s rangers betraying the trust they had with one another. Tillia knew Zavier wasn’t truly the crown prince, and that was a secret she would be willing to take to the grave.
“Who is Salem?”
Jodhi stretched out his long legs, crossing his ankles as he laced his hands behind his head. “Our employer, for all intents and purposes. We are each indebted to his service. And until that debt is paid, we are his to command.”
“What does he make you do?”
“Whatever his black heart desires,” Golding muttered. “The bastard.”
“You hurt people for him?”
Jodhi chuckled. “You really are naive, aren’t you, Princess?”
I guess so.
“I’ve been with the Mavins since I was fourteen,” Mathias said.
“My mother worked at a brothel. She had the misfortune of servicing Salem one night and fell pregnant. He isn’t the fatherly type.
So he went to kill my mother before the baby was born.
I stopped him from cutting open her womb.
Begged him to spare her life. He agreed, but only if I paid him a thousand zillahs.
I didn’t have even a darric to my name. But he offered me a deal for repayment.
I earned this star tattooed on my face and have been in his servitude since. ”
“I’m sorry.”
Mathias shrugged. “It’s not all bad. He uses my mother and sister to keep me in line, which means it got her out of that brothel. I don’t see them often, but whenever he threatens to kill them, at least I know they’re still alive.”
“And from time to time, Golding and I have nights like this,” Dair said. “Nights when we don’t have to pretend.”
They might not have had loyalty and secrecy from all the Mavins, but they did from Jodhi, Mathias, and Thora.
“We all have our own stories,” Golding said. “But you get the idea.”
“Do you owe a thousand zillahs, too?” I asked.
“Two.” He touched the stars on his cheek.
“Does this mean that once you receive the payment from my father, you’ll be free?” I asked Mathias.
Jodhi laughed, the sound so loud it made Faze sit up straight. “Salem takes a cut. You give us one thousand zillahs, we’ll be fortunate to see even half of that.”
“Enough talk of Salem.” Golding kissed Dair’s temple, then leaned back against his saddle and closed his eyes.
Salem had no intention of letting them go, did he? And I suspected if he found out about Dair and Golding’s relationship, they’d each earn another star on their face.
Jodhi had three. Thora five.
In the journal, I’d read that she abandoned her armor and leather in the desert. Did that mean someday she’d be free of the Mavins? Did that story have anything to do with Brother Skore telling me to find a warrior?
“Do you know any of the Voster?” I asked.
Thora turned to stare at me, her persimmon starbursts glowing in the firelight. “Never speak of the brotherhood in my presence again.”
So…yes.
She stood and, without a word, stalked out of the cave.
Dair went back to reading as Jodhi kept on smirking.
Gods, I was tired of the constant attention. Of the staring and scrutiny. “What?”
“How do you like that pelt? I assume you know it’s tarkin?”
I ground my teeth together so hard my jaw hurt. Why couldn’t he have been one of the Mavins to leave?
“You can’t keep him,” he said.
I reached for Faze, stroking the soft fur between his ruby ears as he kept chewing on the meat. “It’s not your concern.”
“If it’s for the girl’s sake, she’ll only get more attached. And like it or not, doll, he’s a monster. Get rid of him before he does something you can’t undo.”
Jodhi was wrong. There was more to Faze than claws and fangs.
He wasn’t a mindless beast, dominated by the instinct to hunt and kill. There was magic in my little monster. Magic in the comfort and love he gave to Evie. Magic in the way he seemed to understand my moods and emotions.
Faze could have escaped into the wilderness countless times on this journey, but he’d stayed, tucked and squished in his carrier as our companion.
“I don’t expect you to understand,” I said. “And like I said, it’s none of your concern.”
Faze’s ears turned, and he straightened, his meal forgotten.
Jodhi opened his mouth, ready to wield his sharp tongue, but before he could speak, a faint sound came from the distance.
A series of clicks.
My heart stopped.
Bariwolves.
Jodhi pressed a finger to his mouth, standing as Dair nudged Golding, and then the pair of them did the same. Mathias picked up his bow and quiver of arrows.
I reached for my sword, hand trembling as I shifted out from under the pelt and got to my feet.
We stood, motionless, ears trained to the night, but the clicks never came again.
“You heard that, too, right?” I whispered.
Dair and Golding both nodded.
A moment later, Thora stepped into the cave, returning from the forest. Her expression was stone, her eyes hard.
“Bariwolves?” Jodhi asked.
“I fucking hate Genesis. This godsdamn kingdom is crawling with wolves.” She snatched her ax from beside her saddle. “I can’t tell how many. They’re too far away. Stay close to the fire. Let’s see if we can’t bring the horses inside.”
I gulped as Golding, Dair, and Mathias followed her out of the cave.
A fire might keep a normal monster away, but if these wolves had Lyssa, not even the flames would scare them off.
I signed the Eight and sank down beside Evie.
“Don’t worry, doll. You’re safe.”
No, we weren’t.
I closed my eyes and traced the scar on my palm.
And as Evie slept, I spent the night praying that Ransom would find us.
Before it was too late.