Chapter 22
TWENTY-TWO
Two things have stuck to me in the hours since.
Samick, and that crimson stare.
The warriors have bunched off to campfires all around the foggy cemetery, and some have made their disinterest in the returning warriors pretty clear.
One of them is Samick.
Like so many others around camp, he has taken to his own campfire, joined by Arwyn and Mika and Shark. Other fires, wedged between headstones and tucked onto packed-dirt paths, are littered with fae warriors who apparently couldn’t give less of a shit about the strays.
The revelry at the campfire closest to the mausoleum is where the strays are celebrated.
Wine bottles are passed from hand to hand, grins are stained purple, and the strays—minus Arwyn—are basically holding court down there.
But every other moment, that fucking fae looks at me, seething at the protection around me, Samick and Arwyn, maybe Mika and Shark, too.
He’s stewing in it too, getting his ass handed to him. He must’ve felt close.
Another second, and he would’ve made it to me before Arwyn blocked him—because Samick turned his fucking back on the fight.
That simmers in me.
It’s a storm brewing, swaying side to side, and I throw my dark glare over at the cold one.
So maybe to say he hasn’t left my side is a bit of an exaggeration. Really, he hasn’t left me with anyone else since the fight, but he has wandered to the headstone, as far as the tether allows, like he can create some space now that Arwyn is back—even if Rust is a lingering threat.
That stare of mine turns darker, hollower.
Half-perched, half-leaning on a headstone, Samick brings a pinkie-sized knife to the sleeve of leathers.
I don’t know where he got the leathers from, but I know it wasn’t from his satchel. He just had them, and I have a sneaking suspicion that Shark had something to do with that, that when he crept back from the direction of the carts, he might’ve brought something that doesn’t belong to him.
Not that it bothers me.
I just have my suspicions that the stolen leathers are the leathers that belong to the dead warriors, the ones who passed on the carts.
Now, Samick works with the materials—the cut leather strip and the wool-like clump that rests on his lap.
I watch as he pinches the strip of leather between his fingers, then starts to weave a needle and thread around the edges.
The face I make is unkind.
Not that anyone notices.
I’m a ghost in the cemetery, invisible and apparently insignificant, because no one even looks my way.
Not even Samick.
Arwyn murmurs something over the flames of the campfire. The soft pink of Samick’s lips spread around a lazy smile—and it startles me.
For heartbeats, one, two, three, I’m struck by it.
I’ve never seen that before.
Samick smiling.
The soft grin reaches the pallor of his eyes, but he is still frost, and it’s a striking contrast. The smile is relaxed, effortless, and surprisingly it suits him.
But it’s fleeting, quick to fade, and he returns to being a frosted-over marble statue in a cemetery.
His left boot is some inches off the grass, and it dangles, his other boot planted firm. Behind him, the rows of memorial stones loom above the blend of darkness and faint firelight.
The coils of light ribbon over him, glittering the fine chains draped over his shoulders, highlighting the caked, dried blood smearing his leathers, and warming the soft hue of his hair. Strands fall into his face, like spirals of sawdust in winter, and the tips graze over his brow.
That wisp of a smile returns at Arwyn’s murmur and scoff, conversation I don’t understand, but the faint smile suits him, even if it was only a whisper, so quick to come and go that I almost doubt I saw it a second time.
If I ever was stupid enough to be attracted to a dark fae, then he would be a contender at first glance.
That ice thaws for the briefest moments in time, snapshots of small smiles, but then he’s cold again, flesh turning to stone.
I don’t particularly consider the fae around me attractive in any way. There’s just something that bit off about them. Like deformed people. Stretched and elongated.
Frankly, they creep me out.
But if any of them were sort of attractive, then it would be him, under the generous light of the campfire, washing over him and his hands as he sews the wool to the leather strap, and he speaks in soft murmurs back and forth with Arwyn.
I decide Arwyn is not as pleasant looking.
Sure, he has long, thick lashes I would have sold a soul for. Not my own soul, obviously, someone else’s. But his complexion has this matte sheen to it, a sort of textured granite stone, and that matches the greyish hue of his eyes.
I wonder if they change colour like Samick’s. White to green, or in his case, white to grey.
Right now there must be no threats—even Rust’s frequent glances from further down camp don’t concern them, at least not for the moment—because there are no frosty eyes around this campfire.
I don’t keep the same assurances they do.
The cemetery will be our home for what will feel like a few nights. And I’m not convinced Rust won’t take another shot.