Chapter 31 #2
Then it landed – that Belloc and company had to spend the night somewhere, too. That they had been ahead of us. That they might just have reached this cave two hours ago, camping right around the corner of that hollow entrance.
My hand strayed to Uruz’s hilt. ‘They might give us less of a fight if we catch them mid-dinner.’
‘Which only works if they don’t have anyone on the lookout,’ he muttered, eye narrowed at the cave as if Jay might emerge and wave at us any moment. ‘We’ll see. Stay away from the sea as much as possible – I might use it.’
Steaming, bubbling water.
I remembered the scalding geyser in the Brainne marshes and resolved to stick close to the cliffs.
We rode quickly – no use in waiting and giving any potential sentries more time to discover us.
There was no sign of horses, no sound of voices, no hoofprints in the sand when we reached the other side of the bay.
All the same, I dismounted without taking my gaze off the cave, fingers tight and ready to sign eihwaz at anything that moved.
Flames were flickering on Durlain’s fingers, too.
Our eyes met. He nodded, stepping aside as the fire flared suddenly brighter in his palm; I slipped into the cave in the same moment, taking care not to turn myself into an easily targeted silhouette by standing between his light and whatever awaited us inside.
Jagged black walls rose around me, an irregular, sandy floor. A faint smell of salt.
No Belloc.
No birds.
I didn’t loosen my fingers as I took two more steps forward, scanning the shadowy cracks in the walls and the pillars of obsidian towering from floor to craggy ceiling. No one seemed to be hiding behind them. There was no one in the back of the space, either, where—
I faltered in my place.
Where there was a pool.
Water gurgled from a crack in the rocks and into the basin beneath, the stone edges of that hollow smoother than anything else in the cave.
Rocky pillars stood guard around it. The water surface steamed very lightly, but there didn’t seem to be any volcanic activity within the pool itself: no bubbles or vents, none of that giveaway sulphur stench. Just …
Just a bath.
I’d had only cold water to wash with for over a week now, and my skin seemed to curl outward at the sight, the dust and sweat suddenly itching on every inch of me.
‘Don’t get carried away,’ Durlain said behind me, and bright white reflections of his fire dulled to a warmer gold as he reined in his magic. ‘I’d like to have some wards on this place first, if it’s not too much trouble.’
Still that unpleasant tension in his voice – I wasn’t sure what to make of it as I turned and met his gaze.
Was it nervousness? But he hadn’t been like this at all last night, when it had been just as likely that our pursuers would show up and find our horses below our hut …
so perhaps it had to do with this cave? With our nearness to Mount Garnot?
With the confrontation looming over us, and the possibility of failure?
I bit back my initial, significantly more unpleasant retort and settled instead for a flat, ‘As you wish.’
He did seem a little taken aback by that.
I made for the dusky cave entrance without another word, shooed the horses inside, and left it to Durlain to unsaddle them as I examined my surroundings.
Best not to leave any overly visible rune marks on the floor – people tended to get unpleasant about them, and I didn’t want any innocents to get in trouble over my magic.
But the jagged, irregular walls were perfect; I could quite easily hide my scratches in the shadows.
Algiz, sowilo, kaunan. Algiz, ansuz. Protections to keep the firelight and the sound of our voices from carrying.
I hesitated, then scratched a third spell into the rough stone – the same shield we’d found on the standing stones around the Dawn House.
Nothing to see for those who didn’t expect to see anything; if Belloc rode onto the beach in five minutes without expecting to find a cave, I hoped that meant he would never even notice the entrance.
Sheathing Wunjo again, I turned and found the horses unsaddled, our bags unpacked, a small fire burning without fuel on the sandy stone floor.
Durlain sat propped against the wall beside the flames, the planes of his face catching the light like a knife-edge – his features all pale stillness and cold precision, as if sculpted from shadow and glass rather than human flesh.
No smiles, now. No subtle, skilful seduction.
Either the matter of his regret had been decided to our disadvantage, or it was simple trepidation – one more night before we reached our destination, one more night before we could fulfil the first part of our bargain.
‘We should probably come up with a strategy,’ I said, trying to convince myself that the latter explanation was by far the most likely one. ‘For tomorrow.’
His jaw tightened.
But all he said, gaze aimed at the flames, was, ‘I’m perfectly aware, thank you.’
Death’s fucking arse. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘Nothing.’ He bit out the word as if the question itself had been an insult – thorns and brambles woven into the stiff set of his shoulders, the hard line of his mouth. ‘It’s called thinking. If you’re unfamiliar with the concept—’
‘Oh, fuck off,’ I cut in, louder than I should have. ‘If you were thinking, you’d know you’re not going to fool me with more of the same old sneers. What is it?’
There was one beat of ice-cold silence.
It slid down my spine like a drop of meltwater, a single, agonisingly slow shiver that contained everything I couldn’t bear to hear him say. That he should never have touched me with a finger. That this had been nothing but a shameful mistake. That all of last night was an embarrassment to him.
Then – eye meeting mine with blank, regal detachment – he curtly said, ‘Nerves.’
Liar.
‘Really,’ I said, fighting to keep my voice level.
It wasn’t exactly relief, the abrupt loosening of my guts.
He was too guarded for relief … but he could also have hit me straight in the heart in that moment, and he’d known it, and he hadn’t.
That had to count for something, didn’t it?
‘Need me to hold a knife to your throat to cheer you up?’
His jaw twitched. ‘Thraga, don’t.’
‘Don’t what?’
‘Pretend we’re …’ A frustrated flick of his hand. ‘This. Friendly.’
‘Friendly?’ My voice cracked. ‘Friendly? We were half an inch from fucking last night! You told me that you—’
‘Yes,’ he snapped, ‘and evidently that was a terrible idea, so let’s not dwell on it, shall we? We need a strategy, as you so helpfully reminded me. I suggest we focus on that.’
A terrible idea.
And there it was.
It had been a terrible idea. It hadn’t felt like it, though, and clearly it hadn’t to him either – not when he’d kissed me, or when he’d told me he wanted me, or when he’d held me through the night.
Even this morning, his mood had been one of reluctance, not this poison-edged deterrence …
so what in the world had happened during the few hours in between?
‘Why?’ I said hoarsely.
He pressed his lips into a thin line. ‘Beg your pardon?’
‘What was so terrible about it?’ I gestured half-heartedly at the roll of blankets by his side. ‘I don’t remember you minding—’
‘Pragmatics,’ he snapped, dark eye flashing. ‘It seems to have gotten you all confused about the situation, for a start.’
‘Me? You’re saying I’m the one who—’
‘You haven’t even worked out what to do with your Lark yet.’ That old, scornful sneer was back at the name, and it felt like a sneer aimed at me – not at Aranc and his appellations or at the man known as Leif Estridson by life. ‘Have you considered that might be a helpful first step before you—’
‘I already know,’ I said.
He stopped talking mid-syllable.
‘I don’t need him back.’ Bewildering, to speak those words out loud and feel so little over them – an irrevocable declaration, but painless, a door I was glad to slam shut behind me.
‘It’s a relief not to have his blood around my neck, if you want to know, and it’s even better to not hear his voice in my head all the time.
So if that’s your only reason to get yourself all twisted up about my tainted honour, I suggest you get off your high fucking horse and start doing whatever it is that you want to do again. ’
For a single flash of a moment, there was nothing but void in his eyes.
It was the look of a man punched right beneath his midriff, that timeless, breathless instant in which the pain hadn’t yet landed and the consequences had yet to come crashing down – a single heartbeat in which I thought he might crack, might look away, might slump against that rough wall of rock and tell me what was truly bothering him.
Just a moment.
Then his lips curled, and not in joy.
‘Remarkably convenient, isn’t it?’ His voice was quiet, each word placed with the care of a knife being set upon a table. ‘That you allegedly made this never-mentioned decision days ago, just when you find yourself champing at the bit to fuck someone else?’
I stared at him.
Stared at those vicious lips that had kissed me utterly senseless last night, those sensuous lips that had always been carved to cut rather than to comfort, and no longer heard anything but the ringing in my ears.
Champing at the bit.
This had to be yet another hell-cursed act of his, a last rational sliver of my mind realised – it couldn’t be the truth he’d hidden behind last night’s vulnerability, because that hadn’t been a shield.
That hadn’t been a weapon. This thick, flagrant disdain, this calculated kick in the teeth – it had nothing, nothing to do with the Durlain Averre who’d wanted me, who’d sat by my bed at night and told me to fight back.
But even if it was a lie …
Did that matter?
Even if this was a mask, he was still the person who’d decided to put it on.
‘You,’ I managed, voice strangled and hoarse as if I had been the one on the receiving end of a fist to the stomach, ‘are vastly overestimating the appeal of your own dick.’
He blinked.
I was already turning.
‘Thraga.’ Sharp and urgent, a scrape of moving limbs. ‘Thraga, don’t—’
My fingers swept behind my back. Naudiz, ehwaz. Taking speed, and the footsteps behind me staggered, faltered, as I broke into a sprint.
‘Thraga!’
Too fucking late.
He wasn’t going to see me cry. He was not going to see me cry.
I burst into the cold, starless, sulphur-tinged night with thorns in my throat and a fire behind my eyes, nothing but that simple fact left to cling to.
Damn it all, I was not going to bawl like some heartbroken maiden for him to see.
I’d fight. In just a minute, I’d fight. But the cliffs were a blur, the sea a swathe of shadows, and I had to calm down first – had to get away, away, away from those poisonous words, take some long deep breaths, and—
My foot caught behind something.
Movement stirred in the shadows of the cliffside.
A human body moved – a foot had hooked around my ankle – and I was still stumbling as the realisation hit, the wordless and all-consuming oh fuck—
A solid shoulder broke my fall.
A fever-hot hand locked around my neck.
Feet kicked my knees from under me. A scorching palm stifled my cry. Other fingers clawed at my sleeves and wrists, yanking my arms apart …
‘Will you look at that, boys,’ Belloc’s deep voice drawled, quiet but gleeful against my temple. ‘Our little bird has returned to her cage all by herself.’