Chapter Forty. A Dangerous Resolve.
Forty
A Dangerous Resolve.
The murder of the young girl spills into me on a series of body blows that I feel as if my own head and shoulders are absorbing them.
I fall back and put my arms over my face, but the sequence has been initiated and there’s nothing I can do to stop it, block it, swerve away.
Crumpling to the floorboards, I land in the position she will and hunker down, trying to protect myself against the attack.
That’s when the iron skillet comes at our head.
I look up through the crisscross of my forearms.
Clear as if it’s happening in the present, I see the man who stands over her, his paunchy face twisted in rage, his loose mouth open as he yells at her, the veins in his sweaty neck popping as he starts the downward motion that will lead to her death—
“Sorrel!”
The sound of my own name pulls me out of the vision, and then I feel Merc’s hands bring my arms to my sides. His face is right above mine, and I duck my eyes and flinch away, only partly myself, still mostly the maid—and I cannot bear the pain of the girl with the sweet voice’s demise.
“Look at me, are you ill?” Merc strokes my cheek. “Sorrel.”
“Perhaps she needs food?” The maid is so tentative as she comes a little closer. “I could go get her some bread and water?”
Merc shoves his hand into his pocket and holds a coin out to her. “Come back fast.”
She bows to him. “Yes, sir.”
The maid doesn’t take the coin and hurries off, her red felt skirt like the base of a bell.
In my stupor, I imagine a tiny pair of feet in brown leather slips going at a fast whisper over the gray floorboards of the corridor.
Were the shoes brown in my vision? I don’t know why I think they’re brown—
The world spins and shifts as more thunder roars, and the building shakes.
For a moment, I fear we’ve been struck by that orange lightning and the roof is collapsing, but no.
It’s Merc. He’s picked me up off the floor in the hall and is carrying me into our room and over to the bed.
The way he lays me down, as if I’m something that could break, brings tears to my eyes.
Especially because I have the sense that maid with the lovely singing voice has never been treated so kindly.
Merc sits next to me on the edge of the bed, his hip tilting the mattress so that my body rolls into him. He has all those weapons on his body, but with the way he looks at me, I feel as though he’s disarmed.
“We traveled a long way today.” His callused hand goes to my chin and he untucks the sackcloth I’ve used as a face cover. “You did very, very well.”
“Especially with the bird?”
He smiles. “Especially with that.”
As he pulls the fabric free of me, the cool air is nice.
“I am tired,” I say roughly.
“I know. You rest here. We’re getting you what you need.”
You’re here, I think to myself. That’s what I need.
He brushes my hair back, and I close my eyes instead of look into his.
I can’t take any more of anything right now, especially as the aches in my body blur to the point where I cannot distinguish my own pain …
from what that young girl is going to go through: Between one blink and the next, the vision of the attack’s perspective swings around and I see her cowering, her face already bruised and cut, her eyes wide with terror.
“I’m not leaving,” he says as he shifts off the bed.
Yet, I tack on.
Merc goes to the door and faces out, filling the jambs with his body, his broad shoulders and planted boots more solid than the panels and that latch. He’s waiting, for the food and drink, and he’s protecting me.
For as long as he’s with me.
How will I do this without him? Where will I stay long-term and what life will I live here?
As I move my hand over to my hip, I feel the satchel full of Mare’s gold coins. If only I knew how to use them safely—or does the court imprint not matter here? Fate knows we’re a long way from Prosperitus territory—
The young girl arrives with a tray, and Merc allows her to pass before shutting the three of us in together. She comes right over to me, and puts what she’s brought down on the floor by the bed. With both hands, she offers me an earthenware cup.
“This will refresh you after all your travails.”
Her voice is soft, and in the syllables, I hear hints of that songbird voice.
My heart tightens as she holds the cup to my lips, and I smell lemon.
When I hesitate, she nods and takes the rim to her own lips.
Her swallow is not small and very obvious, her slender throat undulating as she completes the sip.
“’Tis safe, I promise.”
But that’s not why I hesitated. “Thank you.”
Sitting up, I hold out my palms, and as she places the beverage in them, the bruises on her wrists show as her sleeves ride up.
She must catch my gaze going to them, because she moves back fast and pulls things back into place.
“This looks good,” I murmur, making a show of taking a drink.
The taste is lemony, and there’s a tingle in my body as I empty it in one tilt.
When I right my head, she trades me for a plateful of fresh bread that has been torn into bite-size pieces, no doubt by her gentle hands.
I only take one and it’s just because she’s brought them to me, but the delicate flavor awakens my stomach.
Hunger is indeed the best spice, and I decide, as I take another ball and it melts away in my mouth, this is quite possibly the best meal I’ve ever had—
Another gust of wind rattles the shutters, and orange lightning flashes a circuit around our room, starting with what I believe faces the lane, and continuing past the corner.
And then the rain starts. The pitter-patter sound makes me think of the rats in the tunnel, their feet traveling fast and lightly.
The girl exhales with an exhaustion that has nothing to do with lack of sleep, and between one blink and the next, I again see her right before she is killed, cowering away, begging for the beating to stop, that skillet raised above her head.
Her face is black and blue at the temple, and there’s a band of bruising around her throat.
She’s not any older than she is now. And her hair, which is cut short as a boy’s, is no longer—
More lightning strikes with a crackling, and she’s almost able to hide her gasp.
“Storms pass,” I say hoarsely as I put more bread to my lips.
“Not here, they don’t. Here, they linger, for days.” She forces a smile. “But you are lucky, you have shelter. And … safety.”
Her stare darts in Merc’s direction, and I wonder if she’s aware of how she shrinks into herself.
“Days?” I say, just to keep her with us.
She nods. “And then there’s the flooding. I know not where you are headed, but the way south will be closed for quite some time.”
“Why?” Merc demands as he sits down on the bed again.
She almost catches her flinch, but it’s too quick for her self-control, the burst of fear escaping through her muscles, her fragile body jerking from head to toe under all her red felt.
In a gentler tone, Merc says, “Tell me more about the southern route? Please.”
The maid sits down on the floor, her skirt folding up in a regular series of creases, like a fan. As she links her fingers and sets her hands in her lap, she’s like a living doll, her porcelain skin contrasting with the fringe of dark hair that frames her heart-shaped face.
“There is only one way to pass through the peaks of the Rozars,” she replies. “And if you had come yesterday, you could have made it. With this rain, the flooding will force you to wait.”
“Mountains can be traveled, even in a downpour.”
Her head shakes. “The dragons protect their breeding grounds so one must stay close to the ground, but the flooding of the way through will make that impossible, especially as the Old Trail is blocked.”
“So there’s two ways, not one?”
“I’m sorry.” The maid shakes her head again, her hands twisting as if she’s afraid of upsetting either of us. “I shouldn’t have said—I mean, the Old Trail is quite impossible, no matter the season or the weather.”
“Why?”
“The Crystal Gate shall not allow anyone to pass—”
I put my hand up to stop the interrogation. “Thank you for the bread and drink. I feel much better.”
“Oh, mistress. Of this I’m glad.” The maid gets up to her feet, the red skirting uncreasing in a stair-like progression. “You have a proper meal due to you, which I would be pleased to bring—”
There’s a shout off in the distance and the girl wheels toward the exit. Like a bloom wilting, she deflates into her fear.
“If you will excuse me.” She bows to Merc and then to me. “I shall return with your meal as soon as it is ready.”
She doesn’t so much leave as dematerialize, a living ghost chased by a death that I would bet, if I were to ask her and she were to be honest, she well knows is coming for her—and soon.
“If I could get my hands on the man who’s beating her,” Merc mutters.
I refocus on the plate, which still has bites of bread on it. “You’d do what.”
“Kill him.”
“But that would be murder.”
He laughs in a short, cold way, and leaves that as his reply.
Putting another piece into my mouth, I can feel something unfamiliar building within me, and I try to push it aside because the emotion is so dark. But I’m tired of the cruelty in the world, and sometimes, though it’s just a fantasy, it feels good to imagine evening the scales.
“I’m going to go downstairs and get the lay of the land,” he says as he gets to his feet. “If you’re okay now.”
“Looking for your next job, already?”
In the silence that follows, I meet his eyes—and mean to. I also know that black and white gaze will haunt me after we part.
For what will feel like forever.
“Are you going to the south tomorrow?” I ask him.
“I’ll wait for you to pull the latch into place.” He opens the door. “Before I leave.”
For a moment, he glances over his shoulder.
The yellow light from the lantern on the table finds every shadow in his features, from what’s beneath his frowning brows to the hollows under his cheeks and the cut of his jaw.
The angles of him seem much more pronounced than when we left my village, proof of how much we have traveled and how little we have eaten.
As he closes the gray panels, I have a thought that as long as I stay where I am on this bed, he’ll stay with me.
But then I force my feet onto the floor. I was always going to have to go it alone at some point.
At the door, I take the latch and slowly slide it over. As the bolt locks into place, I whisper, “Goodbye.”
This is my journey, my life, after all.
Not ours.