by Alex Raizman
“Thought you sounded less like a halfwit than the last time we spoke,” Nicandros said. He opened the wardrobe in the room and pulled out a green bottle. Poz’s nose twitched at the scent that emanated from it. It was the cheapest type of alcohol, and the smell turned Poz’s stomach. “Well, I’m happy you finally decided to stop punishing yourself. Although I thought Crowflesh was supposed to make you smart.”
Poz could feel the hair on the back of his neck rise. “It does,” he said, his voice sharper than he intended. He clenched his hands into fists, trying to control the rising anger. “Crowflesh is among the most intelligent forms I can adopt.”
Nicandros took a long swig from the bottle of cheap alcohol. Poz took slow, deep breaths to try to calm himself while Nicandros deliberately insulted him with the delay. Perhaps it’s not deliberate, Poz thought, the anger still white hot in his stomach. Perhaps he just needs alcohol to process-
“Then I must have been wrong before. I assumed that you were a halfwit because you were eating insects. Now I understand. You’re just a halfwit.”
“Nicandros!” Poz snapped, the anger finally boiling over. “I do not know what I have done to insult you, yet I doubt it was enough to deserve this treatment.” Weeks. Weeks looking for you. Weeks desperately hoping that you would be my salvation. And…this is what I get.
“Well then, let me explain it to you, in terms even you can understand,” Nicandros said, sitting down at the table and putting the bottle in front of him with enough force he nearly broke the glass. “You spent weeks trying to find me, and it never once occurred to you that perhaps your difficulty was that I flathing did not want to be found!” The last few words were shouted, practically screamed.
Poz curled his fingers into claws. Ratflesh had a strong instinct, when confronted with danger, to flee or engage in battle. Normally it opted for flight, but Nicandros hardly seemed like a threat right now. Half drunk and weary, Poz was tempted to pay him back for the insult with a thrashing that Nicandros apparently desperately needed.
Then he saw the tears forming in Nicandros’ eyes, and realizations slept over him. “What happened?” Poz asked, his voice far gentler than it had been before.
“None of your flathing business,” Nicandros said, turning away from Poz’s gaze to stare into the bottle that sat in front of him. “Go. Leave.”
“I can’t do that,” Poz said. “I need your help. Desperately. If I had anywhere else to turn, I would have tried it when you could not be found.” He hesitated before continuing. Nicandros was slouching in the chair. The grey hair…Poz knew that sometimes, humans under immense stress could age prematurely. Was that what was happening to Nicandros? “And, I think, you need my help every bit as badly.”
Nicandros snorted. “I have all the help I need right here,” he said, holding up the bottle and shaking it in front of Poz. “Unless you want to fetch me more, as I’ve started to run low.”
Poz studied Nicandros. The man was definitely under immense strain. That much was painfully obvious. Treating him with comfort and kindness seemed unlikely to penetrate the barriers that Nicandros had erected. “Does the alcohol numb you from how pathetic you’ve become?” he asked.
Nicandros’ eyes hardened, and he put down the bottle with deliberate care. “I’d take that back,” he growled.
“Why? What are going to do? Make your stench more offensive? Drink even harder?” Poz scoffed. “I’d say I’m worried you’d crawl into a hole and die to spite me, but it looks like you’re doing that already.”
Nicandros stood up with careful deliberation. It wasn’t enough to hide the unsteady nature of the gesture, the way his hand trembled as he set it on the table, the way he swayed with the motion. “I’m warning you-”
“And I do not fear the warning,” Poz said. “The man I knew, the man I fought alongside, would not have given me warning. He would not have given me a chance. I would have been cuffed across the face for the insult, as I deserved. Yet you stand there and let me continue to mock you. What happened to you, Nicandros? When did you become a coward?”
Nicandros swung at Poz. It wasn’t the precise strike Poz had seen Nicandros use before. It was a wild throw of the fist, an act of violence without coordination, without direction. Lashing out.
It was far too easy to duck out of the way of the blow and land a precise punch against Nicandros’ ribcage, sending the man reeling backwards. Nicandros stumbled into the chair and went down in a clatter. It would have been comical had it been any other drunk. Seeing it happen to Nicandros, a man who had always moved with the grace of a hunting panther, was almost physically painful. “What happened to you?” Poz repeated. He deliberately kept the sympathy, the concern, the fear out of his voice. Nicandros would reject pity.
But scorn? He’d respond to scorn.
Nicandros started to rise to his feet again. The anger was still there, but the sorrow was overwhelming. “What will it take for you to leave me be?”
“Knowledge,” Poz said simply.
“Fine.” Nicandros spat onto the filthy floor. “You remember why I left the resistance?”
“Because you couldn’t bear the thought that you might one day fight your son,” Poz said.
“That’s right. Well…it stopped mattering. He died. I went back because I wanted revenge for what happened to him. I met the princess. We became close. And then…she told me she was the one to kill Thomah.” Nicandros gave Poz a defiant glare, as if daring him to mock his pain. “She murdered my son in cold blood to avenge the beast she called a father. A flathing dragon. So, leave me be, Poz. I’m done with this world.”
“I’m sorry,” Poz said.
It wasn’t much. They were just words, after all. But Nicandros reacted as if Poz had embraced him. He sat down hard, and the tears finally began to spill out over his cheeks.
“I lost him,” Nicandros said softly. “He was…he was the whole reason I fighting to rid the world of the Alohym. So he could have a future free of them. And the resistance I helped to found is going to put the woman who killed him on the throne.”
Poz sat down to listened as Nicandros told him the full story, an outpouring of words and pain that had been building up inside him like a poison finally being excised.
“I’m so sorry for how I acted when you showed up,” Nicandros said as he re-entered the room.
Poz smiled. “You need not apologize,” he said, his tone genuine.
Nicandros looked like a new man. He’d talked to Poz for hours, and wept, and talked some more. Poz had to do very little speaking of his own. He got the feeling Nicandros had desperately wanted someone to care. Humans were like that – they fiercely protected their pain, right up until someone convinced them it was safe to release it. Then they would share it all. It often made them feel better. It always was better for them.
After they’d talked, Poz had convinced Nicandros to visit a bathhouse and a barber. Being relieved of the matted locks he had before and having the accumulated grime from days of mourning washed away, as well as having his facial hair removed, was a good first step to feeling like a person again. At least, in Poz’s estimation. Even deep in Grubflesh, he’d always been fastidious about his cleanliness. It was a relief to see it had improved Nicandros’ mood as well as Poz had hoped.
“Yes, I do. You were – are – a friend, and you had no way of knowing I wished to be left alone.” Nicandros pulled up the chair and sat down. The pain was still there in his eyes, but it no longer consumed his every glance the way it had before. “And thank you for ignoring those wishes.”
Poz chuckled. “I was happy to do so,” he said.
“Still. You said you needed my help. The least I can do is repay your kindness.”
“Think nothing of it,” Poz said, waving away the thought. His hearts began to pound faster at the reminder of his real purpose here.
One thing had become abundantly clear during Nicandros’ long, rambling retelling of everything that had happened since he’d met th
e dragon princess. His anger at the girl was still white hot. It ran so deep Poz hesitated to use a term as light as anger.
And Poz’s purpose here was to seek advice about this Tythel. How would Nicandros take that?
“Still,” Nicandros said. “You didn’t come all this way to pull me out of…of that. Why did you?”
“I found something,” Poz said, picking his words with great care. “And since I did, the Alohym have been hunting me for it. That’s why I came through the window.”
“Do you still oppose them?” Nicandros asked, his lips curling down in a frown. Poz could not miss the caution in his voice.
“I left the Resistance shortly after you did,” Poz said. “I wasn’t of much use even at the best of times, and in your absence, I’d lost my patron.”
“I’m sorry for that,” Nicandros said. The tension he’d showed a moment ago started to fade.
“I understood your reasoning. It was hardly something I could fault. I should have taken your offer to leave with you. I believed that I’d still be able to help.” Poz shook his head at his own foolishness. “Grubflesh really did impact my judgment worse than I realized.”
“I should have insisted,” Nicandros said. “Light and Shadow, I knew how badly that was impacting you. I’d seen the difference. It was a terrible thing for them to force upon you.”
“It was a terrible thing that I did. The punishment fit the crime.” Poz shifted uneasily in his seat. “I regret breaking the terms of my exile.”
“I’m surprised you did. After how long you held out, I thought nothing would convince you to go against those terms.” Nicandros leaned forward. “What changed?”
“The Alohym were hunting me, personally. I couldn’t…there wasn’t anyone I could hide behind anymore.” Poz held up a hand to forestall another apology. “I don’t mean that as an inditement. Just that it was what it was.”
Nicandros nodded slowly. “Then…what did you find?”
Poz took a deep breath. He still wasn’t certain about this. Quite the opposite, in fact. It was entirely possible that this would send Nicandros back into a spiral or enrage him all over again. “Perhaps we should wait for tomorrow?” Poz suggested. “The day grows late, and you’re still recovering.”
“I appreciate the concern, but I’m not a flathing porcelain doll.” Nicandros grinned. “I understand why you’re worried, I do. But…you helped me see purpose from here again. I think I know what I’m going to do next. But first, let me help you.”
“What are you going to do?” Poz asked. There was an edge to Nicandros’ grin that Poz misliked. Something…not quite manic. He couldn’t quite place it.
He got better too quickly, Poz realized. That was the problem. Nicandros had been wallowing in pity for days. Now one conversation later, and Nicandros had done a complete reversal. He was smiling, he was laughing, he was joking…but his eyes had barely changed at all.
“It doesn’t matter,” Nicandros said.
“You weren’t grieving,” Poz said. “That’s not why you were so drunk. You were trying to make a decision. A hard one. And…you’ve made it now.”
“I remember when you were still allowed to eat other flesh,” Nicandros said, nodding in agreement. “I’d forgotten how sharp you are. Yes. Without a reason to seek revenge against the Alohym, I was considering what I was going to do next. I had no fight. No purpose. Telling you the story…it helped me gain clarity.”
“And?” Poz asked.
“And I’m going to accept an offer that I received some time ago. I’ll tell you about it later.” Nicandros furrowed his forehead. “You seem flathing determined not to tell me what you came all this way for. Why not?”
Poz leaned back and bit his lip. Nicandros was being odd, that much was certain. But…the man had lost his child, had lost his reason for living, and was just recovered from a binge unlike anything Poz had seen before. Of course, he was going to be odd. “Can I still trust you?” Poz asked.
If the words hurt Nicandros, it didn’t show. At least, it didn’t increase the pain Poz could already see in his eyes. “Absolutely,” Nicandros said. “You helped me gain clarity when I’d been floundering, even if it was just by listening.”
Poz reached into his pouch and pulled out that damn golden egg. “I found this. Are you familiar with it?”
Nicandros’ eyes grew wide at the sight. “Where did you get that?” he asked, his voice tight.
“I stole it from a battlefield.” Poz winced at the admission. “It was…how I was supporting myself.”
“You were there that night?” Nicandros asked.
Poz nodded.
“Light and Shadow, I can’t believe it.” Nicandros took a deep breath. “Do you know what you have?”
“A dragon’s death egg. Specifically, the death egg of Karjon the Magnificent, adopted father to…” Poz trailed off.
“Tythel,” Nicandros said, and he spat the word with far more vehemence than he’d ever said ‘flath.’ “Poz, I have wonderful news. We can help each other here. I’ll take the egg off your hand and free you from being chased from the Alohym.”
“How does that help you?” Poz asked, cocking his head. “What will you use the egg for?”
“Fill the offer I’ve decided to accept,” Nicandros said.
Poz felt himself starting to tense up. The pain was fading from Nicandros’ eyes, being replaced by a hungry gleam that Poz knew too well. He’d seen it in his own eyes before, deep in the grip of Grubflesh, when he’d not eaten for days and was looking in a mirror, considering breaking his oath – as well as his weak mind could consider anything then. Need mixing with desire and blended with the knowledge that what he was considering was unthinkable. “What was the offer?”
Nicandros shook his head. “I’m sorry, a condition was that I don’t speak of the details of what they’re asking me to do.”
Poz swallowed har. “Who made you the offer?”
“That…” Nicandros paused to consider. “That they didn’t forbid me saying.”
“Who?” Poz repeated when Nicandros didn’t elaborate right away. “Who made you an offer?”
“The Alohym,” Nicandros said. “They want me to do a job for them. And if I do it…if I do it, they’ll give me my son back.”
Now Poz was certain.
He’d made a terrible mistake.
Chapter 36
Hillsdale was almost exactly as Tythel remembered it, at least in the details. The houses had changed little in the weeks she’d been gone, still spread out to take advantage of how much spare room the village had to grow. People milled about the streets in the evening sun, going home from their daily tasks. At the end of the road was the inn where she’d rested and recuperated under the watchful eyes of Otis and Freda after she’d been injured that first day.
Skitters rested in the lot behind it, as they had when she’d left, and smoke rose from its chimney in gentle puffs. Even though Tythel knew it was no different from the smoke of the burned forest that still hung low on the horizon, it seemed different. This smoke was kind. It was safe.
It was also a lie. Hillsdale wasn’t safe. She and Nicandros had fled here with the Alohym in direct pursuit. They’d found her here because someone had reported Otis and Freda. What was that woman’s name? Catha Lambright, that had been it. The woman who had said she wasn’t human, had told Freda to report that they had found her.
Tythel pulled her cloak in over her head a bit tighter. Catha might recognize her. The veil that had served as a disguise before would stand out too much here – Warrior Maidens coming to a sleepy town on the edge of the kingdom would draw more attention than a cloaked figure. At least Hillsdale was too small to warrant walls that would be guarded along their full length, only along the gates. They had approached off the main road and leapt over the wall – Tythel carrying Tellias – to avoid detection.