Chapter Thirty-Five
We gave the girls the bed. Zain hung a linen over the eyeholes in case anyone decided to check in on us in the middle of the night. He insisted I take the couch and he slept on the floor next to me. I had my right hand hanging over the side and he slid his fingers through mine, holding on to me.
Somehow it was more intimate than anything else that had passed between us so far.
Staying the night turned out to mean that the girls were supposed to remain with us up until we left, thwarting my plans to send them off in the morning so that Zain and I could be alone.
“Patience,” he’d whispered in my ear, but I was finding that, where he was concerned, I had none.
After we were ready to go, Nesdahlia and Cotys walked with us to where our horses were waiting.
“If the king wants to send you to anyone else, tell him that you contracted a disease from us and that you will make others ill. I will be back to help you as soon as I can,” I told them.
I hated the thought of leaving them behind in the palace but didn’t have a choice. I would go and get the god-weapon, hand it over, and then leave Epirius with both the caduceus and the concubines.
The king came out to see us off and I again had to fight the urge to just end him then and there.
Especially once he said, “I hope you fare well on your journey. Please know that if you do not return, I will kill your playthings.”
That was why he had sent them to us. He had hoped to create some kind of bond between us so that we would be sure to return.
Zain headed out on his horse, and after a few moments of staring down Actos, imagining with great pleasure the many different ways I could kill him, I finally followed after Zain.
“How many guards do you think Actos will send to watch us?” I asked once I rode alongside him.
“I don’t know. He may think threatening the girls will be enough of an incentive that he will only send two or three to monitor us.”
When we cleared the city, I again reiterated that he did not have to come. I didn’t want him to feel obligated to assist me.
Nor did I want his pity.
“What kind of manservant would I be if I left you to travel alone?” he asked. “You seem to forget that you are the answer to my great plan. The plan you refuse to ask me about even though I would be willing to tell you more.”
I didn’t ask because I wouldn’t be participating. “You are not as charming as you think you are.”
“I am more charming than I think I am,” he shot back, grinning at me.
Which made a smile break out on my own face.
Dagger’s head popped out of one of the bags on Zain’s horse.
“Are you sure we shouldn’t leave him here?” I asked. The Wastelands would be dangerous and that poor dog did not have much of a survival instinct. It worried me that he was coming along.
Zain’s response was, “Do you want to leave him with a bunch of Epirians?”
I did not. Even with whatever waited for us out there, he would be safer with us.
“Please don’t tell me that you are worried about the ‘monsters’?” he asked with laughter in his voice.
Yes, and he should’ve been worried, too. “You don’t know what waits for us out there.”
“I’ll be sure to let you know if I spot any hydra,” he said with a teasing smile.
My grandmother had spoken to me about the creatures that roamed the Wastelands and I would never be quick to dismiss something she had taught. I didn’t remember specifics—just that they ate people and were always waiting for weary travelers.
There was a reason the Dracanians had pushed through the desert essentially without stopping after they had kidnapped us. It wasn’t that they were in a rush to get their money—they had been wary about something, and deadly monsters made sense.
We headed northeast and I was glad that the desert here was similar to what I had seen near Sagaris. There were rock formations, large boulders, brush, and in the distance, what looked like caves.
I had to remind myself that even if I was glad the landscape was broken up and there would be places for us to shelter that afforded some protection, these sorts of things meant life. Small animals and the predators who would hunt them.
Zain tried to initiate conversation a few times in the first hours of our trip, but I kept shutting him down. I didn’t have his innate ability to sense people and creatures around us, so I needed to keep my focus.
I also didn’t want to draw attention to us from anything that might be out there, and I didn’t want the guards to overhear us talking. I couldn’t tell how close they were.
We stopped every few hours to rest and water the horses and to stretch our legs.
When twilight began to settle in around us, we decided to find somewhere to sleep for the night and settled on three boulders that made a sort of box, with an opening on one side.
There wasn’t any wood to make a fire, and it surprised me how cold it was. And while I would have appreciated the extra warmth, even if there had been a fuel source, this wasn’t an environment where we should be advertising our location.
Dagger followed Zain around until Zain picked a spot next to me and sat, pressing the side of his body against mine. I was grateful for his warmth. Dagger came and flopped onto my lap, making my legs warmer. I patted his belly.
We were mostly alone, but it was too cold to take off any clothing and I was not interested in getting sand, rocks, and dirt in unmentionable places.
Zain said, “There are two guards about half an hour behind us. They will probably stop for the night, too.”
I hadn’t noticed anyone following and was glad he had the ability to do so.
He added, “Although I don’t know what Actos was thinking, only sending two guards. That’s not enough to take on a monster. How will they fight all the hydras lying in wait for them?”
I ignored the fact that he was teasing me. “They’re Daemonian. They could take on an army of hydras and be fine.” I shifted closer to him.
“Trust me,” he said. “We’re alone out here.”
While I didn’t want to argue with him, when he said ‘trust me,’ it unlocked something inside me that had to come out.
“You want me to trust you, but you don’t trust me,” I said.
His body tensed slightly from what I guessed was surprise. “Of course I trust you.”
“I’m not talking about having your back in a fight. I mean you don’t tell me things. How much do I really know about you? You sharing jobs you’ve done doesn’t tell me about you. I don’t know what you like.”
“Dagger and you,” he said. “Not in that order, but don’t tell him that.”
“Really?” He liked me more than his dog? “That’s flattering. I’m not sure I like you more than I like Dagger.”
He threw his head back and laughed and I realized that we were getting off track.
I wanted him to tell me about himself. If I wanted to get past what he had done, this was a way to help that happen.
“I have shared so much about my life with you and you haven’t told me anything.
Are you close to your family? Do you visit them often?
Do you have siblings? What made you become a thief? ”
He let out a brief sigh and said, “I haven’t told you things like that because they’re painful.
I was very young when my parents died, and the family I was given to did not want to take care of me, even though they were provided with some money to do so.
I would often go without food, as they didn’t think it was necessary to feed me. ”
That twisted something in my heart and made it ache. “I’m so sorry.”
“And that was why I became a thief. I would roam the streets, looking for scraps that other people had thrown out. Then one night I passed by a baker’s home and they had a loaf of bread cooling on a windowsill.
I had gone six days without eating at that point and was the hungriest I had ever been.
So I stole it. It was, to this day, the best bread I’ve ever eaten, and my stomach was finally full for the first time in years.
I realized I had a knack for stealing and then, later on, for convincing people to do what I wanted. It took off from there.”
I was glad I had the chance to understand him a bit better, and part of me felt guilty I’d questioned him because it sounded like a horrible memory. That didn’t stop me from asking, “What happened to your parents?”
“A plague took them. I was nine years old.”
I wished there was something else I could say instead of repeating myself, but again I said, “I’m so sorry.”
We fell into silence and I rested my head on his shoulder. While I didn’t want him to rehash painful memories, him sharing himself with me made me hungry for more.
“What is your favorite color?” I asked.
“What?” he said, laughing. “My favorite color?”
“I’m assuming it’s dark red since you wear it all the time, but why is it your favorite?”
“Not everything has some hidden meaning.”
This one did. I could tell.
He said, “For example, what’s your favorite color?”
“Silver.”
“I thought you would say something different, and I would have asserted that you liked it just because you liked it with no meaning behind it, but you prefer silver because it’s the color of steel, don’t you?”
“Obviously.” I liked that he knew that about me.
He stayed quiet for a bit and then said, “I like dark red because it was my mother’s favorite color.
I’ve lost so much of her—I don’t remember the shape of her face or the sound of her voice.
I do remember her black hair and that dark red was her favorite.
My father even found a merchant in the agora who would dye roses that exact shade for her. She loved them.”
“It sounds like they were very happy together.”
“They were. We were.” He paused and then said, “As soon as I could afford to start buying my own clothing, I always chose dark red in honor of her.”
“I’m sure she would have liked that,” I said.
“I hope so.” He kissed the top of my head and then said, “I’m also glad that I do have memories of them. I have met other orphans who didn’t.”
“Like me.” I had never even met my father.
“Is your father why you shut people out?”
I sat up. My initial gut reaction was to deny what he had said. I wanted to tell him that I didn’t shut anyone out. “Why would you say that?”
“That you shut people out? Because you do. You shut them out because you’re afraid of getting hurt again.
Your father hurt you by leaving. Your mother hurt you by telling you what she did about your birth.
Your grandmother hurt you by treating you like a soldier instead of a little girl.
You’ve been protecting yourself for a long time, and the only person I can see that you have ever truly let in is your brother. ”
I swallowed, hard. I had to acknowledge that there was some truth to what he was saying. “I didn’t so much let Thrax in as he shoved his way in, determined to love me.”
“You can’t protect yourself from pain, my illora. You can keep people at a distance and it might lessen some hurt, but it also keeps you from a lot of joy.”
I looked down at Dagger and continued to rub his stomach. “Whenever I’ve tried to let someone be close to me, they hurt me. They abandon me.”
When he didn’t say anything, I added, “Like you.”
“Like me? When did that happen?”
“When you had me tied up, you were going to abandon me. You said you planned on drugging me and then leaving.”
I glanced over at him, and his profile was hidden in the night. The moon wasn’t bright enough for me to see him. “That was what I said, and it may surprise you to learn this about me, but I lied.”
“Lied about what?”
“I was going to have you pass out and then put you on my horse. The diviner stone said your name. But I was worried that if I told you my plans that you are stubborn enough and strong enough to have fought off the elixir and you might have woken yourself up early, like you did the first time. Then it would have been a whole ordeal trying to convince you to come with me.”
A pang of sadness pierced my gut. “Is that why you’re here with me now? Just so that I’ll help you retrieve whatever treasure you’re looking for?”
I shouldn’t have been surprised by that. He had mentioned it several times.
He put his arm around me and drew me back to his side. “I’m here because you need someone to watch your back and I don’t want you doing this alone.”
That mollified me.
“Should I take first watch?” he asked.
“No, I’m too awake. I’ll do it.”
He kissed me on the cheek and then got into his bedroll. “Good night.”
I split my time between looking out at the horizon and watching him.
I had been telling the truth—there was too much going on in my mind for me to sleep.
Not only the things he’d shared with me and realizing how I might have misconstrued some events in our shared past, but the observations he’d made about me.
I did keep people at arm’s length. I often used humor to help create that barrier, not letting things be too serious or too real.
And Zain, unfortunately, had only substantiated my belief that people would hurt me.
I had let him get close and he’d betrayed me.
While I hadn’t consciously made a choice to keep others out, it was true that I didn’t let people get too close to me.
I loved them, I cared about them, but there was always a distance.
He had been different.
I had let him in.
And he’d used that against me. I had thought I’d found someone who knew me. Who understood me.
Who saw me.
And he had destroyed all of that with a single choice. It was why his betrayal had been so much worse—because I’d allowed him to get close to me. Maybe I should have asked him what kind of treasure was so important to him that he had been willing to ruin whatever it was we’d shared.
But he didn’t ruin it. It’s still happening. You’re here with him, that Lia voice said.
Imaginary Lia was part of the reason why. Someone or something desperately wanted me to forgive him and I was curious as to why. There had to be a reason.
Was it my own voice, desperate to find a way to hang on to him?
If not me, then who? And to what end?
It was easier to move forward, given his apology, and although I would have been loath to admit it, his natural charm seemed to smooth over rough spots.
I couldn’t deny that that connection still existed between us. Not just the physical one, but I felt an emotional one as well.
With him telling me some of his life story—I got the impression he didn’t share that with anyone and it made me feel closer to him.
I supposed I had a choice to make. I could continue to try and push him out of my life, out of my heart, or . . .
Or I could take a risk.