by Brondos, Pam
“Easier said. When you hear the same insults over and over, they’re hard to ignore.” He thrust his tunic into the water.
“Soris, consider the source. Do you really care what Benedict thinks?” She stepped closer, wondering what she could say to ease the look of pain on his face.
“No, but slighting you like he did put me over the edge. My brother didn’t help, either.” He faced her and leaned his hip against the trough. “Andris was angrier about Benedict praising Mudug than insulting me.” She heard the hurt in his voice.
“Andris meant to defend you. He’s your brother. He loves you and is looking out for you. Even I can see that. He just doesn’t have the softest manner,” she acknowledged, finding herself in the odd position of defending Andris.
“You think so?” His brow arched above his human eye. “Why am I just now learning that Mudug has duozi slaves in the mines? You’d think if my brother was looking out for me and my interests, he would have passed that bit of information on.”
Maybe he’s worried you’d do something stupid if he told you, Nat thought as she watched the anger ripple over his face. How angry would he be if he knew she’d had the same information and forgot to share it with him?
“He probably wanted to keep the focus on rescuing Emilia,” she suggested, knowing the explanation was weak.
“Maybe.” He crossed his arms over his bare chest and took a deep breath. Nat felt warmth in her cheeks as she watched him breathe. The urge to touch him, to comfort him, was overwhelming. His expression softened. “Why do you worry so much about me, Natalie?” His words surprised her.
“I . . . I care about what happens to you.” She felt her eyes growing moist. Do not cry, she told herself.
“Maybe you shouldn’t. There was some truth to what Benedict said, about me getting into your mind.” She looked in his eyes and saw a glimmer of sadness. “You’re strong.” He moved closer to her. She could feel the heat radiating off his body. “Strong, intelligent, and beautiful. I’ve never met anyone like you.” She tried to read his expression while controlling the fluttery feeling in her chest. “But even as strong as you are, the closer you are to me, the easier it is for me to enter your dreams and stay in your dream space, even if you don’t want me to.” He dropped his arms to his side. “That’s what happened the other night when I saw your dream.” He met her eyes. “I’d never try to twist your thoughts or dreams, but Annin can teach you how to shut me out. I’d understand.” He pressed his arms rigidly to his side. Nat sensed there was something he wasn’t telling her, but the look of resignation he wore concerned her more.
“Why would I want that?” She took a small step forward and placed her hand on the raised scar marring his shoulder. The blue welts felt hard under her fingers, like little stones implanted under his skin. “Why would I want to keep you out of my dreams or my dream space? Why would I want you anywhere except by my side?”
His neck muscles tensed under her touch. He backed away from her. He turned around with extended arms, giving her a full view of his blue skin and fused fingers. She examined every inch of his exposed skin, the tapering of his hand, and his faceted eye.
“Because I’m half Nala and an outcast.” He dropped his arms.
Without hesitating, she rushed to him and entwined her arms around his back. His skin felt cool against her flushed cheeks. His arms hovered uncertainly around her waist, then pressed against her. “I don’t care. Don’t you know that?” she said softly. “You’re why I came back to Fourline and why I’ll stay,” she vowed, not wanting to let him slip away from her ever again.
“You really believe there’s a chance for us?” he asked, his voice filled with doubt.
“I do. I have to.”
“I’m an outcast, Natalie. This won’t be easy,” he whispered into her hair, but his strong arms held her tightly.
“What’s easy is never worth much of anything.” She brushed her hand across his chest and took in his uncertain expression, as if he were waiting for rejection. She stood on tiptoe and kissed him lightly on the cheek before he could reply. He raised her off the ground, and she lost herself in the growing warmth of his embrace and the sensation of his lips on hers.
One of the draft horses pawed the floor. The animal flicked its head toward Andris as he stood in the shadow of the stable entrance. Andris took a deep breath, shook his head, and walked away, leaving Nat and Soris alone in the stable.
“Veer left,” Annin said.
“Left?” Nat smacked into a broken beam. A jagged splinter of wood scratched her temple. She probed the tender spot and her fingers came away sticky with blood.
“How are you so clumsy?” Annin asked and let out an exasperated breath. She groped the deep pockets of her robe and removed a small linen bag. Nat’s orb hovered between them, casting faint shadows against the dark dirt walls of the passage leading from the stables to the remains of the Emissary House.
“My orb was up with you because you were complaining about the dark, remember?” Nat winced as Annin inspected the cut under her orb’s light. She looked past Annin toward the rotting wooden frame where she’d banged her head. The frame was like all the others she’d seen in the tunnel. The once-sturdy columns of capped wood wept with moisture. Long splits ran along its moldering surface. Dirt and ancient cobwebs covered the delicate birds carved into the column.
Annin rubbed her thumb across the gash, pushing ointment into the cut. Nat sucked in a quick breath. “Don’t be such a baby,” she said. Her fingers pressed against Nat’s scalp, holding her hair away while she patted a thin strip of linen against the wound. Annin twisted Nat’s hair to the side and wrapped a band around it.
“Thank you.” She touched her hair just above the cut. The wound throbbed, but the ointment and bandage seemed to hold.
“You’re welcome, but . . .” Annin jerked her chin upward. The light from the orb glinted off her Nala eye. “Don’t move,” she whispered. Nat’s fingers twitched toward her dagger, but Annin shook her head. She felt a light pressure against her shoulder, like something was hanging off the side of her cloak. Without turning her head, she looked out the corner of her eye. Two furry legs as long as her fingers tapped against her collarbone. A golf ball–size body connected to eight legs crawled on top of her shoulder. Her heart pounded against her chest as she brought her hand slowly across to brush away the gigantic spider.
“Don’t,” Annin whispered, her voice so faint Nat could barely hear it. Annin’s Nala eye contracted. The spider tumbled down Nat’s arm, pausing in the crook of her elbow. The black body shone in the light. Its size dwarfed her hand, and the stiff bristly hair on its pointy legs brushed against her skin. Annin extended her arm toward Nat, and the spider crawled onto her cupped palm. She lifted her hand near the wall. The spider disappeared into a crevice by the broken beam. Nat brushed her hands over her arms. Her skin crawled.
“That’s the only one, at least the only one in the immediate vicinity.” Annin closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “Yes, that was the only one of her kind.” She opened her eyes. “You were lucky. That’s a tunnel eater. Not much even a Healing House Sister could do if one of those bit you, other than amputate a limb. They invade rodent and rabbit tunnels and wait for the animals to come in or go out. The animals never make it past a tunnel eater.”
Annin walked around Nat, who stared at the crevice and shuddered. She ducked, keeping a wide space between her head and the broken beam. She skipped nervously over a clod of dirt that looked like a spider and followed quickly after Annin.
“How did you do that?” she asked, breathing quickly from nerves.
“Huh?” Annin darted around a corner and ran up a set of worn stone steps. “You mean the spider?”
“Yes, the spider. What did you do?” She stayed in the center of the stairs, as far from the bumpy dirt walls as she could get.
“I told it to go away.” A faint light shone above them. “Haven’t you seen Soris do that? He’s pretty good for
a new duozi. It took me a few years before I mastered the talent of controlling predators. But he’s got more Nala in him than I do,” she said as if explaining a basic ability.
Nat thought of the spider on Soris’ tunic. He had the same power? She took the stairs two at a time to catch up. “You can control spiders?” The exit to the passage opened a few steps above them. Moonlight spilled over the cracked support beams and onto the pale stone steps.
“Not just spiders.” A light wind coming from the tunnel exit lifted Annin’s dark locks off her shoulders. “I can sense and control most predators, at least the ones weaker than the Nala.” Nat wondered what predator could threaten a Nala. “I think it’s like a silent lion roar letting any competition know to back off. I told you there were benefits to being a duozi.” Annin paused and scratched her nose. “It’s how we sense the Nala even without the remnant.”
“So that spider thought I was your victim?”
“Kind of. It was more miffed at all the movement in the tunnel.”
“The spider was miffed.” Lines of disbelief wrinkled across Nat’s brow.
“Yes, that and it sensed the blood from your wound.” She grabbed Nat’s hand and pulled her up the stairs. They emerged onto the overgrown grounds of the ruins. Wind cut over a jagged stone wall shielding the passage entrance from the remains of the Emissary House.
“I’m waiting here for him.” Annin crossed her arms. The watchtower loomed in front of them. Andris’ tiny figure waved from the balcony ringing the pointed top of the tower. “It’s your fault we’re late, let him bark at you first.” She defiantly leaned against a wooden post. The wind sent her curly hair lashing against a frieze of birds carved into the crookedly framed tunnel entrance.
“Do me a favor, Annin.” Nat adjusted her cloak. “After my watch, fill me in on any other benefits of being a duozi.”
“It’s more fun to spring them on you.” Annin ducked her head and disappeared into the passage to wait for Andris.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Nat shivered. Chilly wind whirled around the balcony of the watchtower. She stopped pacing in front of the ledge and secured the inner ties of her cloak to keep the wind from twisting the garment to the side. Her bright orb hovered by her head and curved through the air when she leaned over to check the dark grounds below.
She scanned the ruins of the Emissary House in the light of the half-moon. Two fluted columns made a monstrous skeletal shape directly in front of her. She imagined the vaulted ceiling or dome the columns once supported and felt a sense of loss for Sisters she’d never known. A thought tickled her mind, and she wondered about the discrepancy between the secluded meetinghouses near the stables and the wide public spaces of the House. Why would Sisters keep private negotiations separate from the House? she wondered. The building for the Nala made sense, if negotiating with them made any sense at all. But why so many other separate meeting places? Were there really that many secret negotiations? Was there that much need to be sequestered away from the main House? Even the passageway had nooks where someone could hide or watch unobserved as people passed.
She shivered again, thinking of what lurked in those dark places now. If the tunnel eater was any indication, she’d just as soon walk the long way around the hill than pass through the passage again, even with Annin as a guide.
A trembling in the leafy canopy caught Nat’s attention. The movement of the vegetation unnerved her, and she found herself constantly glancing at the shaky limbs. It’s just the wind, she thought. A strong gust ripped her hood off. Her cut throbbed. She pressed her hands against her skull, pushing loose strands of hair out of her eyes and away from the bandaged cut.
The doorway to the watchtower stairs offered a little protection from the wind. She retreated a few steps down the spiral staircase and pulled her hair tightly back at the nape of her neck. She glanced down the dark stairwell. It would be at least another hour before Soris would come through the passage cut in the hill and up the winding stairs to relieve her. She sighed and stepped back onto the windy balcony, knowing it provided the best view to spot anyone or anything approaching.
She glanced in the direction of the rundown barn and stables. From her perch, the boulders crowning the hill above the old well were visible. Andris and Soris were hidden somewhere among the rocks, but Nat couldn’t tell where. A smile flickered over her face when she thought of Soris, then faded away. She’d felt at home in his arms, but she couldn’t shake the thought that he was resigned to living as an outcast. Could the Healing Sisters do something more for him? If they could slow or stop the progression of venom, or whatever caused a person to change into a duozi, there must be a way to reverse the effect. She nibbled on her fingernail. She hadn’t seen the laboratories in the Healing House, but wondered if they had the means of finding a cure or if they were even trying.
She heard a faint scratching over the rustling wind. She brushed her fingers against her orb and sent it around the curve of the balcony in search of the noise. The ball swayed in the air, buffeted by the wind, then disappeared from sight. She took a step closer to the ledge and peered over the crumbling bricks. Her boots ground against the bits of mortar scattered over the floor. It must be the wind, she thought again, trying to quell her nerves. Her orb rounded the other side of the balcony and hovered near the cut in her scalp, radiating warmth. She took a deep breath and relaxed, but her muscles tightened when she heard another sound, like a stick scraping against stone.
A pale figure scampered over the top of the pointed tower. Nat sucked in a breath as it launched itself off the roof, scattering corroded copper shingles that clattered onto the balcony. The wind caught the underside of the Nala. It sailed through the air and landed inches from her boots.
The Nala flung its daggerlike hand into the sky. Its skin was a sickly white and hung from its frame. Nat’s eyes were drawn to the bulging ring protruding from its heaving chest. Her hands trembled as she tightened her grip on her sword and watched the strange-looking Nala. Its curved back undulated as it took a creeping step toward her. She inched back and caught a reflection in its eyes. Swinging her sword wide, she spun. Her blade cut into the legs of another Nala behind her. It flopped onto her back, screeching with pain. She grasped its slick arm and ripped it off her before it could sink its needlelike teeth into her skin.
The creature slammed headfirst into the other Nala, and the two rolled over each other. Nat’s orb sped toward the creatures and cracked against their skulls, knocking them senseless. She ran to the creatures and plunged her sword into their pale flesh. The wind wailed around her as the writhing creatures slumped against the balcony floor. She jerked her sword free and kicked the bodies apart before slicing off their bulb-shaped heads.
“Soris.” Her eyes widened, and she ran away from the bodies, realizing there could be more Nala. She flew down the crumbling tower steps. Her orb careened past her, zooming toward the passage and the stables to warn the others. A hissing sound raised the hair on the back of her neck. Another pale Nala landed in front of her. Nat stopped and teetered on the step before kicking the creature straight in the abdomen. It tumbled down the stairs and landed with a thud on the cold stone landing. She jumped the last few steps and quickly beheaded the Nala before taking off for the passage entrance. Her heart pounded as she ran across the ruins.
A Nala sprang over a crumbling wall in front of her. It landed with a crunch, scattering a loose pile of rubble. The creature knocked the broken bricks out of the way as it scurried toward her on all four limbs. It bowed its pale back, then shot into the air. Nat skipped to the side and jabbed at it with her sword, but missed her mark. The Nala wasted no time before it pounced again. She lashed out, keeping the creature away, but it jumped onto the edge of the wall and scrambled up the uneven stone.
The moonlight cast the Nala’s long shadow over Nat. Her body shook and her hands trembled as she kept her sword ready, unsure what the creature planned next. She waited for it to spring, hoping she coul
d move quickly enough to end it before it reached her. A deathly screech filled the air, and the Nala flung its head to the side and tumbled off the wall. Blood oozed from the arrow sticking from its back.
Soris stood between the wall and the tower with his crossbow stock tight against his face. He lowered his weapon and ran to Nat.
“Did it bite you?” He shoved her sleeves above her elbows and inspected her arms.
“No bites, they didn’t bite me,” she said, to calm them both. His tapered fingers pressed against her cheek. Nat heard more voices and looked up. Annin and Andris stood over the dead Nala.
“Check for more,” Andris ordered.
Annin closed her eyes. The back of her robe clung to her body as the wind slammed her from behind. “Nothing!” she cried over the wind. “Soris?”
“No, I don’t sense any more.” Deep lines formed at the corners of his mouth.
“Pull it into the tower.” Andris grasped the limp arm of the Nala. Its pointy feet flopped over the ground strewn with stones. Annin lifted the creature’s head and frowned.
“In the tower!” Soris yelled over the wind. Nat followed him out of the wind into the macabre calm of the tower landing heaped with Nala bodies. She leaned forward to get a better look at the creatures and wiped sweat from her forehead, brushing the cut on her temple.
“You said you weren’t hurt.” Soris jumped over the pile of Nala and gently held her head between his hands.
“Don’t get so excited.” Annin knelt by one of the corpses. “She banged her head on a beam in the passage, it’s nothing.”
Nat gave him a tight smile and joined Annin. “What is that?” Her fingers traced the bulge embedded in the chest of each Nala. “The other Nala that attacked me by the river had the same ring in its chest.” The tip of Andris’ sword sliced through the skin. A pale tubelike circle burst, sending a fibrous liquid spilling down the open wound.
Annin looked up from the corpse and stared at Nat. “I think it’s remnant,” she said.