Chapter 25
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
A fter breakfast, I ask to bathe, and fresh water is brought in. Riley refuses to leave until I throw a metal plate at his head. He tells me he will stand right outside the door.
“You need your own fucking bath Riley, you stink!” I spit at him as he closes the door with a slam. My rage takes a nosedive straight into my stomach as soon as the door closes. A sting behind my eyes has me gasping for breath.
I wish I could wash my hair, but unless I admit I need help, it would be impossible. It takes a long time to bathe because I have to keep taking breaks. I pull a wooden chair around and end up doing most of it sitting. The water is tepid by the time I’m done, and I’m exhausted.
Naked, I look down at my body. I have lost weight, and my muscles are no longer as clearly defined. My entire right leg from knee to ankle is bandaged, and it hurts to walk. I have cuts and bruises everywhere, but they’re nothing compared to my ribs. I can’t see all the way around, but I have dark, mottled bruising on both sides, but predominantly on the side I remember being in the most pain. There’s no mirror available, so fuck only knows how battered my face and neck look.
Lifting my pack has me whimpering and Riley calls out to ask if I’m okay, and I bite back that I’m fine. Something in me has snapped. If I hadn’t let this group get under my skin, then perhaps I would have had my wits about me when Arpi came. I can’t let them— Riley —be such a distraction. It’s too dangerous.
All of my clothes have been cleaned, and I slide a cropped chemise up and over my hips instead of lifting my arms above my head. With fresh underwear on, I forget about my ribs temporarily and attempt to lift a tunic over my head. Losing my balance, the world tips as the edges of my vision darken.
I must make a pained sound as I hit the side of the bed because Riley bursts in. He’s by my side, holding my elbow as I gain my balance and swallow my dizziness. His nearness, though, is just as disorienting: the heat radiating off his skin, the intense stare on his angry-looking face.
“Why are you so fucking angry, Riley?” I growl out as I manage to wrench myself out of his grasp without falling over.
I try to put the tunic on again, but he grabs it, stopping me. He shakes his head and looks at me like I’m crazy. “ Angry? I’m not angry!” Gesturing at my battered body from head to toe in disbelief, “You almost got yourself killed,” his strangled voice bites out.
“Fuck off,” I laugh derisively. “ Tovi almost got me killed. I did what I had to do, to survive.”
“It was reckless,” he says, in a tiny voice barely above a whisper, “You should’ve waited with Beans.”
Rage. The firecat in my chest is spitting flames, and I hope Riley can see them reflected in my eyes.
“ Reckless ? Oh, so, I should have just waited patiently to be saved by you instead? I think I need you to leave me alone before I do something even more reckless .”
I yank the tunic from his grip and swallow a hiss of pain. Closing my eyes, I wait for the dizziness to dissipate. Riley gently takes my tunic from my hands again and helps me dress as I keep my eyes squeezed shut. I can’t be sure if I’m hiding from the pain or my shame at how I’m treating Riley.
“I’m not leaving you alone, no matter how much you hate me,” Riley says, gently.
“Maybe I wouldn’t hate you if you weren’t such an asshole.”
I crawl into bed, spreading out so a giant Nemorisborn man with stupid forest green eyes won’t fit, fixing a glare on him. Shame? What shame? I am unhinged. Nothing but venom and fangs.
“Retired or not, I’m an assassin, Riley. You don’t get to put me in a bubble of your protection like I’m some feeble maiden of yours. I don’t need you,” I say, trying and failing to curb my hostility.
Riley doesn’t reply. He stalks off and strips off in front of the wash basin to use the last of the fresh water. I’m trying not to look. I’m back to hating this man, but by the Divine, he’s beautiful.
His dark hair is tied up in a messy, blood-red bun. The freckles on his shoulders are sparkling with the soap and water he’s scrubbing on them. He has his back to me so I can’t see his chest, but I remember it well enough. His back muscles are rippling with his movements. I hate that I want to slide my nails down them.
He takes off his pants in jerky, angry movements. When he is down to only his undershorts, I quickly avert my eyes. I’m sure he would have preferred to be totally naked instead of having to wash in his undershorts, but fuck him.
Riley uses the powder to clean his teeth, and now the water is well and truly fouled by the two of us. Dressing quickly, he sets the basin bowl and empty jugs outside of the room to be cleared away.
I’m reclined in bed, still recovering from the exertion of bathing, when Riley plonks onto the sofa seat he was in last night. We sit in the pregnant silence, both of us looking at the ceiling instead of each other.
I remember the thoughts I had of him while I was tied to a tree, cold. How they kept me warm and how I would have done anything to touch him again. It softens me slightly and words rush out, uninvited, “Did one of you hurt Sweet Girl?”
“The pony? I was hoping you wouldn’t ask.” Riley sighs, and my heartbeat quickens. “No. The Erdu mercs didn’t do that to her either. She did it to herself.”
“She did not! I saw that gash, it…I could almost see organs, Riley.”
Riley looks stiff in the chair, his elbows resting on either side of the arms while resting his mouth on his hands. He studies me, before closing his eyes and taking a deep breath.
“She had been contained in a poorly made makeshift stable. I don’t know whether it was the chaos or what. Bitty thinks she heard you.” He pauses, watching me flinch, before continuing, “She forced her way out. Broke through the fence. We found a jagged piece of metal covered with blood and fur, in the opening.”
No. Absolutely not. Someone did that to her.
Riley must sense the panic threatening to overwhelm me again because he gets up and sits at the end of my bed. He holds my foot, of all things.
“Some of the horses that followed her had similar gashes, though not life-threatening. Most of the others didn’t even try to force their way out.”
“What happened to her…body?” I choke out .
“We buried her. We got you here and then we took turns in twos going back to dig the hole to bury her. We threw the rest of the fuckers in a pile and burned them.”
“I want to see her grave.”
“We thought you might. It’s a few hours’ walk, but maybe we can borrow a horse and I’ll take you.”
“Today?”
“Tomorrow.”
I nod. I don’t think I could handle a horse ride today anyway, not even a gentle one. Riley is still holding my foot, and it’s bizarrely comforting.
One solitary tear slips down my cheek and I use my shoulder to wipe it away, hissing with the pain in my ribs I keep forgetting about. Riley gets up, the anger I could see earlier is beginning to look like something else. Something that looks like pain.
“Were you hurt?”
“No. Not really. Everyone, including Bitty, got a few cuts, bumps, and bruises. But nothing serious.”
“Then why do you look like you’re in pain?” I ask, watching him pace between the beds.
He sighs, looking at me long enough that my rage begins to swirl deep in my belly. “It’s not pain. Or it is, but it’s…” Riley gestures at nothing, eventually crossing his arms to stand in front of me, frowning.
Why does he look confused?
He lets out a sharp breath, steps forward quickly, and leans down to me. The back of his fingers brush along my cheek until his hand grips the side of my neck and shoulder. He leans down and kisses the side of my forehead softly. “Just promise me, you won’t…die,” he whispers, leaving his lips against my skin for a moment longer, as he shudders a breath in.
Without saying anything more, he moves away as quickly as he came and leaves the room. I can see his shadow under the door. The confusion is wholly my own now.
I sleep on and off most of the day, Riley hovering and swapping with Beans every now and then. Beans joins me for a lunch of cold roast duck sandwiches on fresh bread with slatherings of butter. In the afternoon, Bitty brings me a cup of hot cacote that I greedily gulp down, finishing quickly.
I’m sick of sleeping but I know it’s what I need to recover. I may not have broken ribs anymore, but my body is still battered and bruised. I am also ravenous . Everything the trio feeds me, I inhale.
Beans brings a hearty beef stew with crusty bread for dinner. I try to tell him I’m okay to eat alone and that he can enjoy dinner with the other two, but he says he would prefer quieter company.
“Thank you for coming to my rescue,” I say to our silent dinner.
Beans gives me a wild look, one eyebrow rising while the other hides under the bandage. “I do believe it was you who saved my life. I think we’re even.”
“You wouldn’t have even?—”
Beans sets his bowl down with a huff. “I don’t know who or what has made you think that you wouldn’t be worthy of your friends coming to rescue you, but I won’t tolerate it. I won’t tolerate you treating yourself with any less respect than you deserve.”
I frown at my food as the rest of the meal is eaten in silence.
A snort wakes me in the morning, and I look over to Riley’s bed. He’s lying on his side facing me, trying—and failing—to hide the grin on his face. The residue of a snort sits in the back of my nose…it was me. I snorted myself awake.
“Morning, Firecat. Sleep well?” he asks, then yawns through his smile.
“I’m not used to having to sleep on my back,” I grumble, addressing the snort though he didn’t actually mention it.
“You snore on your side too, so that’s a lie,” Riley tries to joke.
“I’m not the liar around here,” I quip. “When can I see Sweet Girl’s grave?”
Riley stretches noisily. “As soon as we’ve eaten, we can go.”
I sit up too fast and then float back down with a groan.
Getting up and eliciting his own groan, Riley scrubs his face in his hands and aims for the door. “I’ll check if anyone else is awake so we can get an early breakfast.”
An hour later, we’re both fed, dressed, and standing at the stables, where Riley was able to hire us a horse. One horse—a large horse, but still, one horse.
“Am I going by myself then?” I deadpan at Riley.
“You can’t defend yourself, nor will you be able to ride properly yet. And you need a smooth ride. Butters here is the smoothest ride and can carry us both.”
The pale cream horse is enormous, just as big as Beans’ horse Ditch back in Nemoris. His fur is sleek, and his mane and tail are thin, typical of Erdu horse stock. Butters starts to nibble at one of my sleeves which makes me smile. I am constantly blessed by cheeky equines. My heart constricts painfully. Sweet Girl. Tears threaten to spill again, which triggers my rage. Stop crying.
After some logistical issues getting me up onto Butters’ back, I am finally seated in front of Riley. He’s holding the reins, and I’m holding on to the front of our two-person saddle.
The ride is comfortable, even though I have to relax and lean back into Riley as we ride. It doesn’t take me long to fall asleep listening to the soft calls of birds and Butters’ clops along the packed earth. With the rocking movements and warmth surrounding me, I had no hope.
Riley has let one hand go of the reins and is hugging me against him. Once he realizes I am awake, he lets go of me and takes up the reins in both hands again.
“We’re almost there,” he announces shortly after.
Riley steers Butters into a tree-dotted area slightly West of the cave systems, and I am grateful I don’t have to go anywhere near them. The ground is mostly even here, with no large cracks. Still, it cannot have been easy to dig a pony-sized hole with the Erdu-packed ground.
I see her grave not far ahead, so I ask to walk the rest of the way alone. Riley hangs back with Butters after helping me down, and I limp to Sweet Girl’s grave amongst the Erdu trees.
They marked out the grave with stones, with a large stone at the head. I take out my knife and I use it to carve into the relatively soft stone: Sweet Girl. My hero.
“I’m sorry, Sweet Girl, I wish I could have gotten you away from here. I would have loved for you to meet Applemint, and I think you would have liked to live with Mama and Frankie. I’ll never understand why you did what you did, but I hope you did it with purpose and courage, and not in fear.”
A few hot tears drip onto the stone as I say my final goodbye. I let the grief of her loss war with Jaena’s lessons about not crying over something as pathetic as a death. “I won’t cry for you,” she once told my 7-rev-old self.
I sit there, breathing, watching the trees and the small animals scurry amongst the dry brush. A stunning hot pink beetle scuttles over Sweet Girl’s headstone. I listen to the sounds of new life. A ground-dwelling bird I can’t recall the name of, calls for its mother. I let it all wash over me like a soothing balm.
Not wanting to repay Riley’s kindness by making him stay out here all day, I say a final goodbye to my sweet girl. Riley’s sitting on the ground leaning against a tree carving something small and pale. Seeing me limping toward him, he tucks his carving away and comes to help me get up on Butters again.
I spend most of our slow journey back absorbing the landscape. The further north we travel, the more it reminds me of Sadori, and although it gets very dry in the northern tip, Erdu isn’t as barren. Sadori has some beautiful oases that are lush and fertile, but they’re only for those high up in the tribal hierarchy. Erdu is still beautiful in its own way, especially the dramatic cliffsides and gorges, I just can’t seem to find it in me to appreciate anything about it right now.
“What will happen to me when we rescue your sister? I ask to break the silence. I can’t see him, though his tension is evident as he stiffens behind me.
He starts to say something but seems to change his mind before starting again. “I don’t know. Obviously, my mother sent us to get a Gifted Patron, and we sent a falcon to let her know we had…purchased—” Riley clears his throat, “—you, getting her official seal for the council. That’s it. There’s no plan for after the rescue. I assume you could probably have any position you wanted in our court after we get Lyss back,” he finishes quietly .
“How will the queen react to the news of who I really am?”
It wasn’t often that I’d get to know who requested the assassinations and why, but I usually knew if it came from one of the monarchies. Unless the queen had sent an anonymous request, I don’t believe I ever performed an assassination on behalf of the Nemoris crown. I suppose one of the others could have, but I was Jaena’s favorite, so it’s unlikely.
“I can’t answer that. But you have us to vouch for you. You are not your reputation.”
But I am.
We continue in silence for a while. My eyes begin to glaze over with sleepiness when Riley’s deep voice startles me.
“What would you want to do? Back in Nemoris, I mean.”
I open my mouth to say that I wouldn’t even know, but instead, I say, “I was a nanny. In Osraed, when I wasn’t busy being an assassin. I worked in the children’s compound teaching them how to forage and cook.” I shrug very lightly, trying to play it off like it was no big deal, but my throat constricts painfully. I miss those kids.
Riley speaks quietly, gently, as if he can sense I’m still fragile. “You could do that. Or something similar. You wouldn’t have to…I’d make sure you weren’t… used .”
Dumbfounded, I can’t speak for a long time. And when I can, I am unable to respond to those words.
“Thank you for taking me to Sweet Girl’s grave, Riley.”
Riley sputters as if he wasn’t expecting my not-so-subtle change of topic. “We—well not me specifically—but my family could find your family. If you want, that is…to find out who your parents are…” He sounds more uncertain as the words tumble out.
“I know my mother’s name already. ”
“You found her?” he asks in a sudden burst that causes Butters to flatten his ears.
“No. I haven’t looked for her. But I know her name is Sehna Ziemia. I’m…not sure what I’ll find if I look any deeper. Or if I want to know,” I finish in a whisper. She was probably executed .
Thankfully, Riley must sense my emotions on this topic and doesn’t push further. Instead, his voice drops low, and he brings his lips closer to my ear. “Mika Ziemia Ofnemoris is a beautiful name.”
The use of a family name lodges in my throat. I am a Patron of the Divine. I do not have a family name…nor do I deserve one. But that name spoken by Riley replays in my mind like music for the rest of our silent trip.