by Nalini Singh
Both roads so dangerous that they’d already taken too many people Kavik had known. New determination filled him. “I will help you.”
She set the saddle upon Shim’s back. “You will not be able to keep up with me.”
Maybe not. His mount couldn’t match the stallion’s speed. But he could follow. Blood pounding, he raced back into the stables for the black gelding.
He was cinching the saddle when Selaq came into the stables. “I’m leaving these other horses with you.” They would slow him down, too, and he’d survived for most of his life with nothing more than a horse and his sword. “Do whatever you like with them.”
“Mala is leaving?” The innkeeper whispered the goddess’s name on a long sigh as Kavik led the gelding past her. “Then this is the moment you’ve lost everything.”
Ice seized Kavik’s gut. That had not been his friend’s voice. Those were not Selaq’s eyes, orbs pale as a milk moon against a blue sky.
Her frigid hand closed over Kavik’s arm and iron seemed to fill his legs, locking them in place. “Stand firm, beast. Stand firm while I twist the knife.”
He had already stood firm for too long. “There is nothing to twist it into,” he said hoarsely. “I’ve destroyed my own heart. You cannot do worse than I have already done.”
“No?” Her smile was a scythe. With rigid forefinger, she tapped the armor over his chest. Abruptly his lungs constricted, cutting off his breath. “But Mala was right. She did understand what the taming meant. It was never a collar. And you had her heart, warrior.”
So she could twist the knife. There could be more agony. It joined the desolating emptiness as the last of his air escaped his lips.
“Oh, that is not the knife, beast,” she answered as if his thoughts had been spoken. Her icy finger slid down his throat. “This is the knife. Because she abandoned the path that I’d chosen for her.”
No. Understanding cut through him. His gaze shot to the stable doors, but he couldn’t move, couldn’t call out. Wildly he fought the heaviness of his legs, the choking airless grip on his voice.
But his strength was nothing, and Kavik was nothing when Mala’s scream ripped through the air, followed by a cry of limitless pain and despair. His empty lungs convulsed on her name. His body stood rigid. Blinded by agony, he looked to Vela. She had to let him go to her.
“Go to her? You want to see what is happening? I will show you, as I’ve shown her to you so many times before.”
Mala sobbing on her knees amid swirling feathers. Still wearing her cloak, but it was black now, as if all the red had bled into her face, into the ragged disfiguring scars that raked from jaw to hairline as if slashed by a dragon’s claws. Blood and her tears rained into her cupped hands.
Shim nudged her shoulder. All at once she scrambled away from the stallion, her hand fisted against her chest as if holding closed a wound that threatened to spill her innards onto the ground.
“The path is ended for us, my friend. I will not see you forsaken, too.”
The stallion shook his head.
“You must shun me!” she cried. “You must!”
Snorting, the stallion pranced an uneasy circle.
“Please, Shim,” she added brokenly. “Please. Return to your herd. I cannot see you hurt, too.”
The horse blew a long breath and pushed his muzzle into her shoulder again. She stroked his nose once before letting her hand fall to her side.
“Be safe, my friend,” she said. Her tears ran a jagged path over the ruined lines of her face as he continued past her. Head hanging, she slipped to her knees again, and her sobs were silent.
Vela’s voice filled Kavik’s ears. “Look at you, honorable warrior. Look how firmly you stand when she needs kindness more than she ever has.”
He would go to her. He would hold her. But his chest convulsed again, wracking spasms that ripped down into his gut, up through his head. Darkness filled his vision of Mala, then brightened on a pair of milk moon eyes. Vela studied him for a long moment.
“I don’t know why you cry, beast,” she finally told him. “Her mouth is still hot and you said her cunt is the same as any other.”
No. Mala was unlike any other.
“Of course she is. She is my chosen.” Cold fingers pried his hand open. “I will have this coin. It is not worth as much as the one you stole from my temple, but I will consider it a proper offering—and perhaps I will piss in your mouth while you sleep. Happy dreams, beast.”
She tapped his head and all was gone.
SELAQ’S eyes were her own again when Kavik opened his, and found her looking down at him in concern. The dirt floor of the stable was hard beneath his back. The sky was dark.
Mala would be far ahead of him.
His body a solid ache, he rose to his feet and stumbled toward the gelding. Someone had removed his tack.
“Do you know which gate Mala used?” His voice was hoarse with grit, but he could speak again.
“East,” Selaq said softly. “But she turned north after she was outside the city.”
Kavik nodded, then stilled. He looked to her again.
A watery smile touched the innkeeper’s lips. “She left something in me.”
Something that let her see beyond the walls of the city. “Are you all right?”
“I am.” Her gaze narrowed. “You’re a fool.”
He picked up the gelding’s saddle. “I don’t need a goddess’s vision to know that.”
CHAPTER 7
Hood shadowing her face, Mala rode across the empty moors. Unlike Shim, the dun mare would not be punished by Vela. The mare had no understanding of what it meant to be forsaken. The Hanani stallion did.
The mark burned. Her face didn’t feel like her own, but a heavy and swollen mask. But that was only skin and flesh. It was nothing compared to the shattered wound in her heart—and Vela must have been her breath. Because now that she’d been forsaken, Mala seemed to have none left, and every time she tried to draw a new one it never eased the drowning ache in her chest.
She had failed Krimathe. Mala would make no alliances now. No warriors would answer the call of a woman who wore Vela’s Mark. And two years would pass before the House of Krima would know of her failure and attempt to send someone else.
If ever she returned to Krimathe at all. She had failed her quest, but she would not abandon her vows—and before she left this cursed land of Blackmoor, she would see Barin dead.
Though she did not know how to do it. While she’d been wearing the red cloak, Vela might have guided her. Mala could not expect help from the goddess now.
Mala could ask for help from no one else, either. Not even the man who’d tried so many ways to kill Barin before.
Kavik.
As soon as he slipped into her thoughts she desperately tried to shove them away. But it was too late. The shattered ache erupted through her chest and doubled her over into helpless tears. Vela forgive her. She should have been more patient. She should have been more stubborn.
She should have let him stab her over and over.
But, no. No. Her tears passed, leaving only the hot agony of the salt burning in her marked cheeks. She could not believe that was Vela’s intention. The goddess could be cruel. But Mala had believed Vela would not make the taming a cruel one—and it made no sense that she would not be cruel to Kavik, but would be cruel to Mala. She couldn’t believe that the goddess had meant her to love a man, and then ask her to endure as he shredded her heart whenever his fears threatened him.
He’d thoughtlessly, deliberately hurt her. She was not sorry for walking away.
And she had not abandoned her quest. She had not. She had only stepped on the wrong path.
She would find it again.
Pushing her hood back, she looked up. The moon shone fat and bright. Tomorrow Vela would look fully upon all of them, but Mala rode by her light now. Not completely forsaken. And with so much to be grateful for.
“Thank you,” Mala called to the s
ky, and the next breath she drew was an easier one. “You sent me to him. What you put into my path would have been so much more than I expected. I didn’t come to find love. Only strength. But you chose well for my heart. I wish Kavik had taken the same care with it.”
There was no reply. Mala hadn’t expected one. She was still forsaken.
She looked to the path ahead again just as the mare shifted nervously beneath her. Tension gripped Mala’s neck. Her gaze scanned the barren hills.
A piercing whinny split the night air.
Shim.
No. Oh, no. The mare answered and wheeled toward the call. Mala tried to rein her in. The mare slowed, then fought the bit when Shim trumpeted again. Curse it all. Mala would not saw at this horse’s mouth.
Swinging her leg over the saddle, she slid from the horse’s back to the ground. The mare galloped away and into the dark.
“Do not follow me, Shim!” she shouted.
He did. Within minutes he strode behind her, nose nudging her back with each step. The mare walked alongside him, and every time Mala tried to mount her again, Shim nipped at the mare’s hindquarters and her wild bucking sent Mala flying to the ground again. As if it were a game.
Her heart would not stop aching. “Do you not know what this mark means, you god-swived scut of a horse? You will be forsaken, too. Danger will come into your path. Your fortunes will turn.”
He blew air at the back of her neck and shook his head.
Oh, Temra. Why had that goddess not given this horse sense? She couldn’t bear to see him hurt. But she didn’t know how to send him away without hurting him herself.
Shim’s sudden snort had her reaching for her sword again. His ears pricked forward, he faced the darkness behind them.
“What is it?” Gripping his mane, Mala prepared to haul herself onto his back. Not riding together again—she would defend him. Then when the danger had passed, she would make him go.
A rider crested the low hill. Mala’s heart constricted. At this distance, he was nothing but shadow, but she couldn’t mistake him. Kavik.
He’d pushed her away. Why come after her now?
But it mattered not. “Shim,” she whispered. “Let me mount the mare. Please.”
He only lifted his head and whinnied loudly. Kavik’s horse answered. All part of Shim’s little herd.
Heart racing, Mala drew up her hood and swiftly struck out north again. Dead grass crackled under her boots. Shim and the mare plodded along behind. And the pounding of the gelding’s hooves was growing ever louder.
Abruptly the gelding slowed. She heard Kavik dismount. Moments later, the crunch of grass under his boots caught up with her own.
“You must go away from me.” She did not shift her gaze from the path ahead. “I am forsaken.”
“So am I,” Kavik said softly.
No. Not like this. “Danger will come into your path. Your fortunes will turn.”
“Danger has always come into my path. And how could my fortunes be worse, little dragon?”
“They will be.” Pain swelled in her chest. He had no more sense than a horse. “Please, Kavik. I could not bear being the one responsible for the hurt this will bring you. How can you not understand this? To protect your people from Barin, you haven’t allowed them to help you.”
“If I choose to stay, then I am the one responsible for any hurt this brings me. Not you.” His voice roughened. “You once helped me despite my warnings. You called the sweetest touch torture. I would torture you the same way, if you believe it would save me from Vela’s wrath.”
With his fingers sliding beneath her belt. With his hands gripping her ass. Then telling her how much he wanted to taste her.
She stared ahead without answering. A heavy cloud passed in front of the moon and the moors darkened. Kavik was only a shadow beside her.
“Now she won’t see me walking with you and know to punish me,” he said. “You could touch me without fear.”
“I don’t wish to touch you.”
“Then why do you care what Vela will do? Already I suffer punishment beyond bearing.”
Her breath hitched. “Why have you come? It is still not my moon night—and there are many sheaths in the city.”
“But I do not love any of the women who possess them,” he said gruffly. “I only love you.”
“And what of it?” Teeth clenched, she looked into the sky, at the silver-laced clouds with the moon lit behind. Why could she not breathe again? “You think I am so desperate for your heart that I would let you stab mine?”
“What I did wasn’t meant to hurt you. I was a stubborn fool.”
Just as she had already told him. So she said nothing.
“I dreamed of you,” he said. “For so many years. Every night, Vela sent me visions. I didn’t know your name, but I knew who you were. My little dragon, the High Daughter in a hauberk of green scales. I was earning coin to build my army, and fought amongst giants, yet I measured every warrior I met against you because I loved you even then. And I wanted to come for you. But how could you love a man who’d abandoned his people in favor of his heart? So I built my army, and planned to go to you after I killed Barin. But Vela sent you to me first.”
To tame him. Mala could not halt her laugh. “She can be cruel.”
“I believed it was cruelty, too. When I pissed in her offering bowl, she told me that I had to wait for the woman in red. That when that woman came, I would be on my knees, and it would be the end.”
Mala’s heart clenched. She stopped walking and her gaze flew to his face, but the darkness hid him from her. “Your end?”
“It must be mine” was his bleak reply. “At the labyrinth, when I saw your red cloak at a distance, I knew it must be coming. I didn’t know the woman in red would be my dragon. I had not dreamed of you since your mother’s death.”
Shards of remembered pain pierced her chest. “That was when I took up my quest.”
“Then that is why my dreams ended. I would have seen you wearing the red. I would have been prepared. Instead I learned when I met you that the woman I love would be my end.”
Mala wouldn’t be his end. But it might not be her choice. “Perhaps because you walk with me when I am forsaken, warrior. She will be cruel.”
“Not in this.” His response sounded raw and thick, as if he’d choked down sand. “She sent you here. I had you, even if only a short time. She is more generous than I knew. If simply walking beside you is all that I will ever have, I will thank her for every moment, no matter how painful it might become, and no matter how it might hasten my death.”
Mala glanced into the sky. Not so very long ago, she’d thanked Vela for the same. But it was too late. “I would not have you beside me.”
“I vow on my life that I would never hurt you again.”
“How could I trust that?”
“I’m not asking you to have faith in me. I’m not a god, but sometimes a foolish man, and you’ll be able to trust me because I’ll prove that you can trust me. Every day, I will prove it. Every breath. Not a single word or touch will ever be made with the intention of giving you pain.”
Tears burning in her eyes, she looked to the sky again. Where was Vela and her guidance now? There was none.
And she wanted to believe in him. Wanted to believe so much.
But it was impossible. “Even if I did trust, it cannot be. You can’t abandon your people. I can’t abandon mine—even if I can no longer live among them.”
“Then we will use Stranik’s passageway. It is only a week’s distance between Blackmoor and Krimathe through the tunnel. If ever your people needed help, you could quickly go to them.”
Mala knew of the passageway. It was said that during the creation of the earth, the snake god had fallen asleep, and the pounding of Temra’s fist had built the Flaming Mountains of Astal around him. When Stranik had finally woken and slithered on, the tunnel in the shape of his body remained. “That is only legend, warrior.”
�
�No.” There was certainty in his voice. “It had only fallen out of use when the demon was trapped there by the ancients. The Destroyer opened the passageway again and released the demon—and the demon tusker uses it as a lair.”
It could not be true. And yet it was not legend but fact that when the Destroyer had attacked Krimathe, he and his army had suddenly appeared in the mountains to the south, as if brought there by his sorcerer’s magic. At the time, the latest reports had placed him at least two years away, and Krimathe had still been preparing their defenses.
But it had not been magic. “So he didn’t want the demon’s power, as he told your father,” she said softly. “He wanted a fast route to the north.”
“Or both. My father believed Barin was left behind to protect the demon tusker from anyone who would destroy it, and that the demon’s power protected him in return. Neither can be hurt by blade or fire. Many of the weapons we used against Barin were those that are often used by demon hunters. When I returned with my army, we had many more—and yet my warriors still fell before it.”
“Then how do you propose we use the passageway if the demon can’t be killed?” A week’s travel to Krimathe. Incredible. Determination and excitement filled her just thinking of it.
“It was trapped before. We could do it again. But not in Stranik’s passage.”
Which would defeat the purpose. “Where?”
“The labyrinth? I know not.” His deep laugh suddenly rolled through the dark. “But we should discover a place quickly. If danger will come at me simply for being near you, then the demon will probably be upon us soon.”
Her excitement burst like a rotted eggfruit. How could she have imagined for one moment that this was possible? Perhaps the demon could be killed or trapped, but Kavik could not remain by her side.