Chapter 8
EIGHT
“Was that necessary?” Nadi tightened the straps on the saddlebags of the chancha she had been given to ride. It stomped one of its six, stick-like, nearly skeletal legs into the ground, letting out a quiet and chittering scree at her. Almost as if it were asking her the same question.
Was that necessary? Was she sure about this? It was clear the chancha wasn’t so sure about the vampire in its presence. Chancha bugs were smaller relatives to the ushil that pulled the wagons in the caravans. Faster, lighter, and easier to ride, they were meant for solitary riders.
Raziel was holding the reins of his chancha and staring at it in horrified disgust. It was as though someone had squatted on the ground, taken a giant shit, and then told him to climb aboard because it was about to sprout wings and fly.
Snapping out of it, he glanced at her. “I had a statement to make.”
“And you made it, vuampi.” Kalo was already on his chancha.
It was clear that his was one that knew him well, as it was the only one not skittish about the whole situation.
It was the biggest of the three, with four, curling horns that twisted back from the plates of its head.
Kalo leaned down and patted the creature on the neck.
The beads in his hair clinked as he did.
“It remains to be seen if it was for better or worse.”
Chancha, like many of the other non-fae creatures of the Wild, had exoskeletons rather than flesh like the creatures of the surface. It was really just the fae that were the exceptions to the rule.
Putting her foot in the stirrup, Nadi climbed into the saddle. It had been decades since she had ridden one, but it suddenly felt as though it had only been days. “How long of a ride is it to the dockyards?”
“Not long. Two days, maybe three, if there has been a collapse.” Kalo shrugged. “Hopefully, none of the other clans give us trouble.”
Raziel, having watched Nadi’s method of climbing onto the chancha carefully, replicated her movements precisely. He did it with a surprising level of grace. He was a fast learner, she’d give him that. “Because of my presence, I assume.”
“The whole world does not revolve around you, bloodsucker.” Kalo rolled his eyes. “No. Because we are traveling light. Because I am Kalo. Because she is Nadi. Because we are easy prey.”
“Mm. I think I would personally argue with you about that last bit.” Raziel shifted in the saddle, finding a comfortable way to sit. “But view yourself however you like, vermin.”
Nadi did her best to brace herself for what was going to be a very long few days. “Can you two please try not to argue the entire way there? I might have to kill you both, just to spare my sanity.”
Raziel laughed. “Oh, my sweet little murderer. I think that ship has long since sailed.”
Nadi wasn’t sure how to feel when Kalo joined him in the laughter.
They’d been riding for about three or four hours when Kalo finally broke the silence that had settled over them like a fog.
Nadi had hated every second of the awkward silence, but she hadn’t known what to say. But the moment Kalo opened his mouth, she wished he’d kept it shut.
“So.” Kalo guided his chancha around to a cluster of luminescent mushrooms that had sprouted up in the middle of the tunnel. The purplish glow of the vines overhead cast strange shadows across his blue-tinged features. “You two. How in the fuck did that happen?”
Nadi’s stomach dropped. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me, little fish.” Kalo didn’t even bother to look back at her.
“You left our kind to kill vampires. You swore a blood debt on him and his entire family. Now you come back riding him like he’s your mate.
” The word dripped with disdain. “I’m simply curious how that came to pass, is all. Can’t fault a man for being curious.”
“It was complicated,” Nadi muttered.
“Mmhm. I’m sure.” Kalo snorted in laughter. “Things were always complicated with her,” he said to Raziel. “Always running off to explore things she shouldn’t. Always getting into trouble. Sticking her tail in places it shouldn’t go.”
Raziel’s interest suddenly sharpened like a blade being drawn from a sheath. “Oh, now that does sound extremely familiar. Go on.”
No, Nadi thought desperately, almost screaming in her head. This was her worst nightmare. No, no, no. Please don’t—
“Oh, by the moons!” Kalo chuckled, and there was a casual arrogance in the sound.
She suddenly remembered the bully of her past. His silver eyes held the same cruel amusement that had made him the terror—and secret fascination—of every fae child in their settlement.
“Your tangle with the hebek wasn’t her first. Once, she wandered into a damn nest of them because she wanted to see what their eggs looked like!
She was maybe seven summers old. I had to drag her out by her hair! ”
“Kalo—” Nadi tried to cut him off.
“By her hair?” Raziel’s voice held a note of genuine amusement that made Nadi want to turn her chancha around and ride in the opposite direction. “Absolutely delightful. Do tell me more.”
Kalo glanced back over his shoulder at her, and there was a glimmer in his silver eyes. Triumph, maybe. Or satisfaction at seeing her squirm. Revenge.
“She cried for an hour afterward,” Kalo continued, facing forward again. “Not because she was scared of them. No, our little Nadi was never scared of anything. She cried because I wouldn’t let her keep one of the eggs.”
Raziel laughed. Actually laughed. The sound echoed through the tunnel, startling a cluster of many-winged creatures from their perches in the vines above. “She wanted to keep one of those fucking monsters as a pet?”
“Mmhm.” Kalo huffed. “She wanted to raise it. Told me she would train it to be nice. To not eat people.”
“I was seven,” Nadi ground out through her teeth. “Children are stupid and naive.”
“Some more than others, little fish.” Kalo clicked his tongue at his chancha, urging it forward and away from the mushrooms. “And some never learn as they get older.” He paused. “Though I thought I recalled you getting smarter about trying not to tame dangerous things. Oh, well.”
The silence that followed was thick enough to cut through.
Raziel couldn’t help himself. Because of course he couldn’t. “And what of you, Kalo? What were you like as a child? Did you also attempt to domesticate things that shouldn’t be tamed?”
“I knew better.” Kalo’s voice was flat. “I knew what things were monsters and what things weren’t. What things were meant to run free and not be tampered with. Some of us learned those lessons better than others.” He paused. “Some of us are still learning.”
Nadi’s hands tightened on the reins. She wanted to snap. Wanted to scream at him that he didn’t know anything about what she’d been through, or why she’d made the choices she’d made.
But the words stuck in her throat like pin bones. Agonizing yet tiny and so very easy to dismiss.
So she let it go.
Because part of her also knew he was right.
They stopped to rest for the night when they came to a chamber where the vines were dimmer—Kalo said it was a sign they were on the right track.
Good. The cavern they’d entered was smaller than some of the others they’d passed through, with a shallow stream running along one edge and a cluster of bioluminescent flowers providing a soft, blue-green light.
The chancha clicked and chittered as they settled down to feed on the moss that grew along the stream’s banks. Nadi busied herself with unpacking what meager supplies Ebiti had provided them—dried meat that had the consistency of leather, a waterskin, and a small pouch of medicinal herbs.
Raziel had seated himself on a flat stone, watching the proceedings with the air of someone who found everything tedious and fascinating in equal quantities.
A historical study on a primitive people.
His crimson eyes tracked her movements, but she refused to meet his gaze.
“Has she told you?” Kalo’s voice once more cut through the quiet. He’d taken up his own position across the clearing from Raziel, far enough to be out of immediate striking distance but close enough to aim a shot from his pistol if needed. “About our betrothal?”
Nadi felt adrenaline and rage boil up in her as fast as lightning. “There was no such thing, Kalo, knock it the fuck off.”
Raziel laughed. “Oh, this is going to be good.”
“There was almost a betrothal,” Kalo corrected. He was cleaning his nails with a small knife, the perfect picture of casual disinterest. “Our mothers discussed it often. And in front of me.”
“You were a monster to me as a child! Constantly!” Nadi stood up and rounded on him. “All you did was pull my hair, tease me, be an absolute little shit. And besides, discussing and deciding are two different things!”
“And what happened to end these discussions?” Raziel leaned forward slightly, elbows resting on his knees.
Kalo’s knife stilled. When he spoke, his voice was soft. “You did, vuampi.”
The mood snapped like a tendon. Visceral. Painful.
“Her family was slaughtered,” Kalo continued, not looking at either of them. “And she vanished. Went off to the surface to play assassin. Left everything—everyone—aside. She could have come home. But she didn’t. She ran.”
“I didn’t run away.” Nadi’s voice came out sharper than she intended. “I went to get revenge.”
“And how has that worked out for you?” Kalo finally looked up, and there was agony in his silver eyes. It made Nadi’s chest ache with a guilt she’d spent decades trying to bury. “You left. That’s all that mattered to those of us who stayed.”
Raziel was watching the exchange with an expression Nadi couldn’t read. His usual sardonic mask had gone, revealing something that might have been understanding. Or calculation. With him, it was impossible to tell.
“And you waited for her,” Raziel said. It wasn’t a question.
Kalo’s laugh was bitter. “I am not a fool, bloodsucker! I stopped waiting a long time ago.” He sheathed his knife as though he were slamming a door. “But that does not mean I forgot all those nights I was.”
Nadi opened her mouth to say something—fuck if she knew what—but Kalo was already standing, brushing off his clothes with deliberate casualness.
“I’ll take first watch. I don’t trust either of you. Get rest.” His tone made it clear the conversation was over. “We’ve got two more days to go, maybe one if we’re lucky. And I don’t want to have to carry either of you.”
He walked off toward the cavern entrance, his silhouette muddy against the dim glow of the vines.
Nadi felt Raziel’s gaze on her, but she refused to turn her head.
“He loved you,” he observed.
“Don’t.” The word came out strangled.
“I’m not judging, little murderer.” He shifted on his stone seat, and she heard the soft rustle of fabric. “I am simply observing. He loved you. Perhaps still does. And you left him to pursue a vendetta against my family.”
“It wasn’t like that.”
“Wasn’t it?” His voice was almost gentle, which made it so much worse. “Tell me, Nadi. What was it like, then? What was the life you gave up to become what you are?”
She finally turned to look at him. In the blue-green light of the flowers, his features looked more inhuman. More predator than man. Sharper. Paler. The monster beneath the polished surface.
But his eyes—those damned crimson eyes—held something that looked like genuine sympathy. And more than that.
Love.
Fuck him. Fuck him for always knowing how to reel her back in.
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “I was young. We were both young. We fought constantly. He used to tease me until I cried, and I used to threaten to drown him in the nearest underground river.”
“Charming courtship.”
“Like you have any grounds to judge.”
“Mm. Fair point.” He chuckled.
“And it wasn’t a courtship.” She sat down beside him, pulling her knees up to her chest. He put an arm around her gently. “It was just… what it was. Two clans that traveled together. Two children who grew up in each other’s orbit. Everyone assumed it would turn into something more, eventually.”
“But it didn’t?”
“I don’t know. No. Maybe? Memories get weird over time.” She rested her chin on her knees. “It might have. But it never got the chance. Because you murdered my family, and I decided revenge was more important than everything else.”
The silence stretched between them, filled with the soft sounds of the cavern—the trickle of water, the chirping of unseen creatures, and the occasional click from the chancha.
“Do you regret it?” His voice was quiet.
She took a moment to think about it. Really think about it. Turned it over in her mind like a knife in her palm. It was just as dangerous as one.
“I don’t know,” she said finally. “I don’t know if I would have been happy with him.
With that life. I don’t know if I would have been a good wife, or a good mother, or any of the other things that would have been required of me.
It’s a different part of my personality I never got to explore. No? But…”
“But?”
“But I don’t know. I think part of me will always resent the fact that I never had the chance to find out.” Her voice cracked slightly. “Instead, I had that taken from me.”
Raziel was quiet once more, for a long moment. When he spoke again, his voice was gentler than she’d ever heard it. “I cannot give you back what I took from you. But I can help you burn down the structures responsible for helping me take it.”
She laughed, the sound hollow. “Was that meant to be romantic?”
“As best as I can manage.” He pulled her tighter to his side. “I never said I was a good man. But I’m yours, for whatever that’s worth.”
She leaned her head against him. “At least as much as the gold coin you have in your pocket, I’d wager.”
He laughed quietly. “At least as much as that, yes.”
They sat like that for some time, neither speaking.
Somewhere in the dark, Kalo kept his watch, a silent reminder of paths not taken.
And futures that would never be.