Chapter Thirty-Two. One Final Parting Gift.
Thirty-Two
One Final Parting Gift.
I’m sitting on the stoop of the house next to the saddle, our packs, and his surcoat when Merc finally returns.
I don’t look up at the man or the horse, because I’m afraid of what’s showing on my face.
With me no longer hiding behind a hood or a veil, I’m going to have to work on composing myself when I’m anything but composed.
And I’m not talking about what I found upstairs. No doubt he saw the bloodstains on the first floor, too, and as if more would be a surprise?
Merc clears his throat. “You look ready to go.”
Getting to my feet, I brush off the seat of my makeshift pants and glance back at the door. “I collected any food that seemed remotely edible in a sack, and I found two water bladders and filled them. But I’m not sure whether we shouldn’t leave it all behind—”
“Don’t worry about the symbols.” The horse shakes his head as if in disagreement. “They don’t mean anything.”
Is he serious? “Only enough to ensure the violent deaths of every living thing here.”
“I’m referring to whether we should be concerned with contamination. All three of us drank the water last night. Dark magic goes there first. If this place was actually cursed, we’d feel it by now.”
“Or be dead,” I say with horror.
“And we didn’t eat any of the crops that were poisoned.”
“I thought … that was frost.”
“No. All the grass is still alive.”
Fates. But at least he sounds like he’s back in control, as if whatever happened at that field was left behind with the ruined vegetables and wilted leaves.
“We’re in this together, Sorrel,” he says brusquely as he saddles up the chestnut.
“At least until the Badlands.”
There’s a pause. “Yes, that’s right.”
I nod, as if we’ve reshaken on our agreement.
“I’ll just be getting my things, then—”
“They’re right here.” I’m surprised he hasn’t noticed. “So. Shall we saddle up?”
He says something that I don’t catch, and then he’s over at the pile I made of his things.
With sure hands, he takes off the shoulder holster that mounts the broadsword on his back, pulls his surcoat on over the steel mesh on his chest, and then restraps the weapon’s heavy weight.
While he’s tying his pack on the side where it was yesterday, I go to put on my own, and stop as the wool coat I’ve been wearing since last night registers.
My eyes shift again to the S and P marking by the entry.
Before I can think too much, I take the coat off and go back into the house. As I return it to its place on the peg, I take a last look around. My eyes linger on the bloodstains. I don’t want to wear the clothing of a dead man, as if a violent mortal event is something you can catch, like a cold.
Back outside, I feel Merc watching me as I pick up my pack and put it on.
I don’t wait for him to help me onto the chestnut.
With a move that feels practiced, even though I have no conscious recollection of doing it before, I jump, find the stirrup with my left foot, and swing my right leg over the horse’s rump.
My weight finds the back ledge I was on before as if I were made for the saddle or the latter was made for me.
“Well, you’ve come a long way.”
The comment is a throwaway from him, made as he puts his boot where my slipper shoe just was and mounts by swinging his leg forward, over the mane.
As he unsheathes his broadsword and sets us off, the words linger.
I start to think about all the things I’ve done that I couldn’t possibly have imagined as recently as a day ago: I’ve swum to freedom, I’ve ridden a horse—I helped kill a balas, for fate’s sake.
I’ve eaten meat, traveled a great distance, run when I had to, hidden when I needed to, survived the forest, the night, the daybreak …
My own panic.
My no longer hiding my face.
And I’ve been kissed.
I’ve also lost the only friend I’ve ever had, the only home I’ve ever known, and the relative safety of the village wall. And my own past, as well. Or at least … what I thought it to be—
No, I still have that. Because I refuse to believe anything Mr. Lewis told me or charged me to do.
As we link up with the road we will take to the Badlands, I remember the night I was out in the rain, all alone, trying to get to Mare’s and being sidetracked by the farrier.
I had no idea the wild changes that were in store for me.
And now I’m pressing forward into a territory that even the village blowhards spoke of with fear in their voices.
With a man who’s a dangerous stranger. Well, not really a stranger anymore.
While I consider my current reality, the strangest conversion takes place.
Before all this, the sole strength I had was rooted in the gift I’ve never understood.
It’s only ever been in my dance with the deaths of others that I’ve felt powerful.
Outside of that, I was indeed a mouse among rats, weak, scared, scampering for cover in hopes of being left alone, yet painfully lonely in my exile.
But I had it all wrong. My gift doesn’t give me strength: I felt that way when I used it because it was the only time I claimed my own power.
This horrible journey is forcing me to find resilience.
So I have been strong.
Which means …
I am strong.
And as I look out ahead of Merc’s shoulder, at the road that continues past the burned settlement toward the mountains, I know that where we’re headed next, things are just going to get ever more dangerous and deadly.
Bring it on, I vow as a curling aggression settles in my gut.
Bring. It. On.