Nathan closed his jaw. To protect a Svistra? Had she lost her wits? “He’s not a man. He’s a Svistra.” A half-dead one at that. “Move aside, and then we’ll make sure Oren is sent to the gods with full honors.”
She shook her head, her dark eyes fierce. “He’s not just a Svistra. His name is Jaden. He saved my life. He is…he is our friend. He is my friend. If you kill him, you’ll have to kill me first.”
Outrage rippled through the soldiers. Fuck. Nathan gestured to his men to lower their spears. To them she’d just committed the ultimate betrayal, and more than a few would honor her request.
Selia glanced at the soldiers then back at him. “He can help you, Nathan. He can go where humans can’t. He’s on our side.”
She was deranged. They’d broken her; he was too late. The murmurs of his men grew to a low rumble. Sorrow pierced his breast. He was too late.
Nathan raised one hand. He glanced from Selia to the unconscious form of the Svistra and back again. The Svistra would probably die of his wounds before the day was out, but a prisoner of war might not be such a bad thing. “Is this true?”
“Yes. It is. He helped me get so far north. I didn’t tell you. You wouldn’t understand. Jaden is, is different. He’ll help you. I know he will.” Her words tumbled over themselves and felt like cold water on his brain. She believed it and the more she spoke, the less she sounded deranged and the more desperate. A desperate woman trying to save…what exactly?
Nathan glared at the Svistra then back to Selia. His chin came up a fraction. “Prepare a travois. The Svistra is a prisoner. If he survives we’ll know soon enough if he’s of any use.”
The men hesitated, shooting disbelieving glances at one another. Nathan turned his back to survey the rest of the camp. “Deigon, Bosun, carry the prisoner back to Eagle Rock and place him in a room under guard.” He glanced around the field. “There ought to be several empty to choose from.” Nathan pitched his voice to carry. “Prepare the wounded. We go back to Eagle Rock today.” He turned back toward the wounded Svistra and muttered, “I won’t stay in this stinking place any longer than I have to.”
Selia rose but didn’t leave Jaden’s side.
“Commander. What about her?” one of the men asked.
Nathan turned and met Selia’s gaze. “Are you injured?”
She shook her head. “I don’t think so. I mean—” She glanced down at her bleeding arms and pulled the remnants of her tunic together.
Nathan stepped forward and gingerly inspected the wounds. “These should be stitched. You’ve lost a lot of blood.”
Selia nodded.
“You won’t leave his side?”
She shook her head.
Nathan stared at her. She wasn’t a traitor, he’d bet his life on it. But what if his admiration had clouded his vision? He shrugged off the metal shirt, then took off his tunic and handed the garment to Selia. “Put this on.”
Nathan pulled the metal shirt back over his head and turned to one of the men. “She will accompany him and…” he paused, “will be allowed to tend him, but take her weapons and watch her.” A hard smile flirted with his mouth but lost the battle. “Do not underestimate her because she’s a woman.”
Selia watched Nathan walk away. She turned to the men who hastily constructed a travois. Two men lifted Oren’s body and dragged it away. Her feet took a few steps toward them of their own accord. She should be with Oren. She was supposed to take care of him. That was her job. It was her meaning. Her life.
She looked down at Jaden. He hadn’t moved since Nathan spoke and if not for the shallow rise and fall of his chest, he could have been dead too.
One of Nathan’s men touched her shoulder, and she jumped. “We’ve got to move him,” he said with only a trace of emotion in his voice.
Selia stepped to one side.
“Never thought I’d be tending a Svistra,” another man muttered.
“Well get a move on, Deigon, before the other Svistra come back. Would you rather tend them?” Bosun. The name drifted out of some memory she couldn’t quite access.
“Yeah, actually I would,” Deigon replied.
Bosun took Jaden by the shoulders and Deigon his feet, lifting and placing him on the travois. Deigon mumbled about the stink of a Svistra then glanced to Selia and completed his task in silence.
Jaden looked much the same as he had when she first saw him. For a moment vertigo assailed her as though she’d gone back in time. She blinked. She wasn’t anywhere near her barn and Oren…
She glanced back the way they’d taken Oren’s body but he was gone. Gone? He can’t be.
“We’ll send him off proper,” Bosun said.
“Thank you.” Her voice sounded like it came from someone else’s throat.
“Let’s go,” the other soldier said.
Afraid her numb legs wouldn’t carry her, Selia fell into step beside Jaden, one hand on his chest to assure herself he was still breathing. One of his eyes was swollen closed. Deep red marks, which would soon darken to purple, colored his face. But he was Jaden. And he was alive.
She glanced at him when he moaned but didn’t feel anything. Not hope, not despair, nothing. The voice in her brain reminded her she should feel something. Oren had just died. Jaden might die. But it felt like she was hollow or once again walking in the White Forest, separate from everything living, just an observer in her body. She knew the thought should terrify her, but it didn’t. She didn’t feel anything at all and at that moment, she didn’t care if she ever did.
Chapter Twenty-five
“Where is he?”
Selia startled. An old man stood in the doorway, wearing the cowled green cloak of a healer.
“Rhetorical question as there is only one Svistra in the room,” he added, sweeping the cowl back to reveal wrinkled features and remarkable lively black eyes. “How is he?”
She shrugged beneath the dark gaze. “I don’t know.”
“Then let me take a look.”
Selia stepped aside. She’d done what she could on the way to Eagle Rock. Jaden no longer bled anywhere but neither had he stirred when the men carried him into the fortress and laid him on the bed several hours before.
The healer examined her with flashing eyes. “You’re wounded.”
“They…um, Bosun tended it on the way here.” She glanced at her arm.
“That’s not what I meant.” He indicated the room’s chair. “Please, sit by the fire. After I see to our patient I’ll make you some tea.” A smile creased his face. “Then, if you don’t mind, I will check Bosun’s work.”
Selia nodded. Something in the healer’s voice inspired trust, and for the first time since Bosun and Deigon placed Jaden on the travois she relaxed.
The healer’s gentle hum behind her and the hiss of flames relaxed her tired muscles. Exhaustion weighed down Selia’s eyes and she propped her elbows on her knees, resting her head in her hands.
“Daughter.”
She jumped and looked up into the kind face of the healer. Had she fallen asleep?
He handed her a steaming bowl. “Here, drink this while I check your wounds. Then go to your room and sleep.” He raised a hand. “I will stay with your friend.”
“His name is Jaden.” She sipped the liquid. It tasted like something Jaden had given her.
“Jaden? Thank you for the gift of it.”
A distant memory surfaced. Healers didn’t give their names lightly. In their practice, names were words of power. They all answered to Father.
He rolled up her sleeve, knelt and prodded the healing cuts then nodded. “Not bad for a soldier. You will scar but the wounds will not fester.”
Scars were the least of her worries. She glanced at Jaden then back up to the healer.
His dark eyes softened. “He will live.”
Her eyes closed.
“Let it go, child. You cannot keep that much bottled inside your body without it leeching your strength. Go now. Cry. Sleep. I will stay with Ja
den.”
She nodded. Through a haze Selia stumbled past the guard and into the next room, realizing she’d obeyed the healer without question but had forgotten to thank him.
Awareness returned to Jaden in degrees. First a faint noise, heat and burning pain. The air carried the acrid scent of smoke, the tang of living stone and a trace of lavender. Selia. “Where am I?”
“You’re at Eagle Rock.”
The air stirred, and a cool cloth stroked his face. He grasped her hand and held it. “Why?”
“I made a bargain for your life.”
He blinked and opened his eyes. Stone walls surrounded them with the silence that meant they were deep underground. A fire crackled in one wall but he didn’t look away from the dark smudges lining Selia’s eyes. “And?”
“I told him you were on our side.” She held her breath and her heart sped. “I told him you’d be a spy.”
“That might prove difficult. My people would kill me on sight or take me to Keldar, which would be the same.”
“I know, but…”
“But he doesn’t. Who is he?”
“Commander Nathan.”
Even exhausted, she was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. “You got away.”
Anger spiced the air. “How do you think I’d feel, knowing you died for—” Tears began to trace down her face.
Jaden reached to wipe the wetness from her face. “I would expect you to live, knowing I valued your life that much.”
Selia closed her eyes. The depth of her sorrow weighed the air.
“How long?” he asked.
“Since the battle? Two day’s travel, two days here, so four. I think. I slept a little.”
A little was right. She was exhausted. “What else do you need to tell me?”
She stared at the stone wall. “Oren.”
“There’s someone coming.” He interrupted and pulled his hand from hers.
The door opened behind them. A soldier stepped into the room. His eyes widened, and a whiff of fear entered the room.
“S-Selia, the commander wishes to see you,” he said.
She nodded, and the door shut.
“What does he want?” Jaden asked.
“I don’t know. To find out what happened. To hear the truth. I don’t know. I haven’t spoken with him since…”
He reached up and touched her cheek. “You are the bravest woman I know.”
“You must not know many.”
“What’s wrong?”
Selia closed her eyes again. “Oren…Oren died in the battle.”
Shock walled his emotions. Vague memories surfaced. Oren standing over him. “Died. How?”
“They already gave his body to the Nameless god.”
“How?”
“A Svistra stabbed him from behind. There was nothing I could do.”
His gaze unfocused again. “He was standing over me…”
She nodded.
He died protecting me. The barrier broke, and remorse choked him. “I’ve caused you so much pain,” Jaden whispered.
“I’d have been dead long ago without you.”
He reached up, memorizing the silkiness of her skin. Guilt waged war with yearning, and both lost to sorrow. He lacked the strength he needed to resist. Jaden closed his burning eyes as the first tear fell. “I’m sorry.”
Selia didn’t let go of his hand.
Nathan paced up and down the hall outside the Svistra’s room. As soon as he’d heard the prisoner was awake, he’d bolted from his office. Nathan eyed the door. He hadn’t spoken with Selia since they arrived and though there were a few questions he wanted answered, he’d thought it best to wait for his anger to cool. Of course, gods knew there was enough to do. The healer needed every available hand to tend the wounded and there were conspicuously fewer hands than there had been.
The guards posted at the door to the Svistra’s room kept their eyes focused on the floor. Anger fueled his walk and only frustration kept him from entering the room. Seventeen. Seventeen dead men, and twice that many severely wounded. Almost a third of his entire force. If the Svistra attacked again…
He let the thought drop. That was the problem. The Svistra seemed to know just where to attack his walls. They’d pinpointed exactly where his men would have the hardest time defending. They knew his weaknesses. He didn’t know theirs.
Nathan glanced toward the door. And he was man enough to admit that one of his weaknesses was inside the room nursing his enemy back to health. He snorted, and his men looked up in unison. Their gaze gave him the push he needed.
“Open the door.”
He entered the darkened room feeling, rather than seeing, Selia tense. The only light came from the roaring fire. Frustration had stretched his nerves to the breaking point. His men hadn’t been able to track a single escaped Svistra. His only lead was the prisoner before him.
Selia sat on the edge of a cot, her back toward him. She twisted to offer a smile before she bent over the shape of the Svistra and tucked the blanket around his body. The sight was enough to fuel his anger and sicken his stomach. How could she even touch the thing?
She froze and glanced in his direction again, seemingly able to sense his thoughts. An emotion he knew as jealousy joined the jumbled mess already churning in his brain. He brushed it aside.
“Will he live?” he asked.
“Yes.” The Svistra answered him. The voice more cultured and refined than he would have expected.
Nathan glanced at the motionless form then turned his attention back to Selia. “Leave us. I’d have a word with the Svistra.”
She hesitated. “He’s very weak, Nathan.”
“You and I will talk later, Selia.”
She stood then nodded when the Svistra whispered something Nathan couldn’t hear. Anger coursed through his veins. Before she left the room he saw a silent plea in her eyes.
“Don’t go far,” Nathan said, turning toward the cot.
The door closed with a quiet snap and silence, save for the crackling of the fire, filled the room.
“She counts you among her friends.” It wasn’t how Nathan had planned to begin but at this point he didn’t care.
“As she is among mine,” the Svistra replied.
“You care for her?” Nathan asked.
The Svistra lay perfectly still. How wounded was he? “Is that not common among friends?”
Nathan snorted. No, this wasn’t going the way he’d planned at all. In fact, he felt on the defensive. “Friendship between Svistra and human is not common.”
“Agreed. But once that was not so.” The firelight flickered, exaggerating the angles of the Svistra’s face.
“How…forget it. I didn’t come here to discuss the histories of Svistra-human relations.”
“Then why did you come here, Commander Nathan?”
“You’re my prisoner.”
“I can hardly forget it.”
“How wounded are you?”
The Svistra’s eyes flashed golden. “As wounded as I ever hope to be. I’m no threat to you or your men, if that’s the purpose of your question.”
“You owe Selia your life.”
“I have for quite some time.”
Nathan fought the growing frustration. “You helped Selia come north?”
“I did.” His face was impassive, without emotion.
Nathan swallowed. “Why?”
“Because without me, she didn’t stand a chance.” His gaze held a challenge.
“She didn’t fare too well with your help either.”
The Svistra inclined his head.
“Did Selia tell you the bargain she made for your life?”
“She did.”
“And?”
“And nothing. I will honor it.”
“How do I know I can trust you?”
The Svistra’s mouth turned up slightly. “You don’t.”
“You admit it?”
“I admit nothing. There’s nothing I can
give you except my word that I will honor her bargain. But I do have a condition of my own. I’ll betray my people in exchange for Selia’s safety.”
“Selia’s safety?”
Jaden’s golden gaze regarded him steadily.
Nathan ran his fingers through sweat soaked hair. “You are like no Svistra I’ve ever known.”
Jaden’s eyes narrowed. “Really, Commander? How many have you known?”
Nathan opened his mouth then shut it.
“No doubt you’ve killed scores, but have you ever spoken with one?” Jaden continued. “A conversation containing more than battle cries and catcalls?”
“If I’d tried I’d not be here speaking with you today.”
“Perhaps. But as I said, once it was not so. At one time there were great friendships between Svistra and human.”
“How is that possible? The Svistra are no more than animals. Rabid dogs that must be put down to protect the innocent.”
“We are what you made us.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” Nathan’s voice rose.
“Humans took our land, our dignity and our way of life.” The Svistra’s voice was quiet, almost tired. “For centuries the Svistra have been a tool in the hands of powerful humans and used by others to obtain power and dominance. We’ve been used to eliminate the dregs of your kind and in turn, became vile ourselves. Yet, we didn’t seek this—it was thrust down our throats. I repeat, we are what you humans made us to be.”
“How dare you blame your nature on us? Your way of life is to kill!” Nathan stepped closer to the cot. He balled his fists, aching to strike someone, anyone. No. He wanted to hit this arrogant prisoner lying helpless on the bed.
The Svistra didn’t flinch but his voice lacked strength. “And is yours not? Do you not kill to survive?”
“Not humans.”
Jaden raised one eyebrow. “No? Just Svistra?”
“It’s not the same!”
“Isn’t it? What would you do to protect your people?” Jaden took a deep breath and closed his eyes. “The fact remains, you have my word. I’ll act as a spy on the condition you keep Selia safe.” Jaden opened one eye. “Trouble has a way of finding her.”
Nathan half smiled. “Yeah, I noticed.”
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