The Dead Seekers

by Barb Hendee

  Mari quickly looked back—and saw nothing. No black him, no whirl of black in the air, no spirits racing about, and everything too quiet, except for Heil’s gasps and her own.

  “How?” she got out without real voice.

  Heil barely turned his hanging head enough to glare at her.

  “How did . . . you . . . know?” she tried again.

  “’Cause I know him better than anyone,” Heil panted. “Including you!”

  That wasn’t what she’d really asked, but when she looked at Tris, she panicked again. She rose off him on all fours, leaned forward, sniffed him, then heard him still breathing.

  His breaths were shallow but steady.

  Mari almost collapsed atop him again. She stopped herself and backed up on all fours. She stopped halfway at the dark stain over his right side. Rising up to see more clearly, she found his blood smeared all over her belly as well.

  She started to breathe too fast again.

  “It’s not that bad,” Heil said.

  Still worried, she reached to peel back split clothing, and a hand grabbed her wrist, stopping her. When she looked, Heil stripped off his own charcoal pullover. He held it out.

  “Put this on before you freeze,” he commanded. “Then we get him inside.”

  Mari stared at Heil. “Why did you tell me to put him down?”

  That scowl rose on the alchemist’s face. “Because I’ve had to do it.”

  Mari was still lost.

  “That thing can only come when he’s awake,” Heil said. “On nights it can come on its own—sooner and sooner every time—without him even giving it a way to do so. Once it’s gone, the wisps all vanish.”

  That still wasn’t enough. It didn’t answer every question she had, especially the ones that kept her from facing what she’d almost done. After so many years in pain, guilt, and fury, she’d hunted and nearly killed the wrong prey.

  Mari looked all around in the night; there was no right prey left for her.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Later that same night, Mari headed for the common room. She knew the guards would be desperate to know all that had happened.

  Tris was in bed in their room, bandaged up though not asleep. When it was clear that Heil wouldn’t leave him and didn’t give a “crow’s crap” about the guards, Mari said she’d go to the captain herself.

  All heads turned her way as she entered the common room. The border guards—especially Stàsiuo, the four volunteers, even that coward Kreenan—deserved something.

  Familiar faces were all about the room, including those of Kreenan, Farrell, Orlov, Rafferty, and the three guards who’d come to the stable. Kreenan’s head was bandaged. Some refugees were gathered at the hearth, but not as many as before. And since the four volunteers were present, likely Stàsiuo had already heard something about this night. The captain rose up at his table and waved her over, so she joined him.

  “Are they gone?” he asked. “All of them?”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s over? All of it?” he pressed.

  “Yes,” she said again, though she wasn’t certain about that last part.

  What else could she say?

  No one would believe too much of what’d happened. Thinking on that, she fixed Kreenan with a stare. He dropped his gaze and looked away. He wouldn’t tell anybody about her, at least not for a while. By then, she’d be gone, and it wouldn’t matter how much others believed. And Kreenan would have explaining to do about what he’d done, if he said anything at all.

  Men like the captain were interested only in results; the rest didn’t matter as much.

  When Stàsiuo nodded once at Mari, low murmurs of relief rose around the room. The night was a success as far as everyone here was concerned. They’d lost no more of their own.

  Stàsiuo ran a hand down his face and asked, “Is the . . . baronet all right? What happened to him?”

  She couldn’t answer either question—wouldn’t answer the second.

  “He’ll be better soon,” she said.

  To his credit, the captain frowned in concern but didn’t press for more. “Can we do anything for him?”

  Mari thought about that. “I’ll let you know.” And she left.

  Halfway down the back passage, she slowed, wanting to look in on Tris, but uncertain if she should or could. In that empty passage, and more than halfway through that night, she slowed to a stop.

  She still smelled Tris’s blood on herself, as she stood there too long in the dark.

  —

  Two days later, outside Soladran’s main gate, she stopped again on the road.

  Tris walked on, not noticing, and Heil was strides ahead.

  In the daylight, she was still in the dark.

  She watched Tris’s back as he walked slowly, with some effort. It would be a long journey for him back to Strîbrov. He’d said almost nothing about what had happened in the street two nights ago.

  He’d said only one thing when she’d finally returned to the room that night.

  “Thank you for being there.”

  Could he have said anything else that would have made her feel worse?

  She’d spent more than half a lifetime since the morning she’d awoken on her dead father’s chest. She’d been hunting Tris so long, and this had been the only thing that kept the pain, guilt, and anguish held down. Now she didn’t have that.

  He wasn’t the one who’d done this to her.

  She’d never get the one who did.

  That one was already something dead and beyond her reach.

  —

  Tris hobbled along, holding his rebandaged side. How many times had Heil—or Mari—changed that bandage in the past two days? Too often, both of them worried somehow in their different ways. And anyone else would—should—have been relieved to be alive.

  In part, he was. Another part wondered whether she should have stopped him.

  His other half, his shadow, would come again; Black Tris would always come again.

  Tris slowed a bit more, though Heil was already too far ahead. His mentor had said nothing about the walk back to Strîbrov, but Tris knew that without horses Heil was going to be in a foul mood by the time they reached home.

  Something else brought Tris to a halt. He heard only Heil’s footfalls ahead and looked back. His breath caught.

  Mari stood still in the road a short ways behind. Vacant of expression, she stared down at the road, maybe not at anything at all. She might have been lost in a passing thought of her own, if not for the tears running down her blank face.

  “Mari?”

  She flinched, looked up to meet his eyes, and quickly lowered hers again.

  He knew.

  He was not the only one who lived with guilt. He should have sent her away before, even before going to Soladran. Why had he not done so? He could not now, though he could not see how she would ever want to go anywhere near him.

  “Are you coming?”

  She did not look at him. She had not been wrong in hunting him; if not for him, Black Tris would not exist, her family would not have died, and they would never have met.

  Why did the last part now bother him so much?

  Tris lowered his eyes. “You can come . . . come with me.”

  A loud scoff carried from up the road.

  “Guts and grief!” Heil griped. “Just get a puppy or something!”

  Tris risked looking up. Mari’s wild, frightened eyes stared at him. He began to turn, hesitated, and whispered, “You should come . . . please.”

  He stepped onward, slowly at first. He stalled more than once, listening, but heard only his own quick breaths. Then he heard something more—soft footfalls reached his ears.

  Soon she was right beside him.

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