by C. M. Lind
One of her hands was still on his shoulder. “Randolph, you’re shaking.”
He broke his eyes from hers, staring at the floor instead. “No, I’m not.”
She put her other hand on his, slipping it into his palm. She knew that he wasn’t mad at her, and she wasn’t angry at him.
Randolph turned his head back to her. “I’m sorry.”
She nodded. “I know.” She closed her fingers around his, and, surprisingly, she felt his course, thick fingers wrap around hers. She looked down at their entwined hands, and her lungs seemed to skip a breath.
“What are you going to do?” she asked, still staring at their hands.
Her eyes shot back up as his free hand raised to her face, faltering for a few seconds before she felt his rough, hard skin on her left cheek, slowly sliding under her braid.
She closed her eyes.
With Randolph there beside her, she forgot about Roed’s ashes tied around her neck.
“What would you do?” His voice was as soft and hesitant as early snowfall in autumn.
She leaned her head into his warm hand. “You know what I would do.” She opened her eyes, staring into his cool, light brown irises, and she was reminded of a young fawn.
His thumb brushed the edge of her lips, and a little, quick breath escaped her.
A hot tingle ran down her body, and she swore she could hear her own deafening heartbeat. She closed her eyes and leaned into his hand. She was so enraptured, that she didn’t even notice his fingers moving farther back, towards where her ear once had been.
His fingers stopped.
Her eyes flew open, and she tried to pull away from him, but their hands were still held tight, and he wouldn’t let her leave.
She froze, staring at his chest. Her lips mashed tight, she didn’t even take a breath. The heat in her remained, but it turned into something else entirely at the realization that he had discovered her deformity. Her mutilation. Her shame. Her mark as a dead woman.
Hers was not a mark of bravery or prowess. If it had been, she would have never hidden it for so many years.
Randolph pushed back her braid with his fingers.
She looked away, to the door, knowing already what he saw. Hardness. Redness. Angry, empty, ugliness.
She felt the pressure of his fingers, but nothing more, on her scars. He ventured further up the side of her face, where hair no longer grew through her skin. He traced his finger over the small shadow of a stub of an ear.
Her ear had been cleaved clean off by a man three times her size before she had to flee barefoot through burning oil and glass all those years ago. Her bottom lip quivered, as a single bead fell from her right eye.
Randolph’s hand receded from her scarred flesh. He rested his palm on her jaw like he was before. “A life for a life sounds fair to me.”
She saw him nod out of the corner of her eye.
“Sweetheart,” he said. Turning her face to his, he lifted her braid again with his hand. “I meant what I said before. You’re perfect.”
She finally took a breath.
He leaned in, and, with great sincerity and tenderness, kissed her left cheek: half his lips on her angry hard flesh, the other on her soft skin.
Chapter 51
“Will it hurt?” the man who was once a farmer asked. Even weeks later, away from the accursed place, he still felt sand lodged onto his scalp. He still found it in his shoes, and his clothes still felt unbearably scratchy no matter how often he washed them.
Occasionally, he swore that he could still taste it on his tongue.
“Not at all!” said the strange man.
The once farmer called him a “man” for a lack of a better word. The strange man had arms and legs and a face like a human, but everything was off. His skin was almost translucently pale. His long hair was similar in fashion: crystalline and lucent.
The man looked ill, but there was an air of power around him that the once farmer found overwhelming, and the once farmer would have done anything the strange man told him. He had spent two weeks with the strange man, and he already felt as if the man knew what was best.
He felt like he had to obey him.
“But what about the others?” asked the once farmer. “Where did they go?”
“They are well taken care of now. As will you, in time.”
The once farmer nodded.
They began that night.
The strange man said it wouldn’t hurt.
To say he lied would be a criminal understatement.
With a loud, labored breath, Saemund awoke from his bed. His room was filled with light, and he blinked a few times, unsure where he was. Or who he was.
He tilted his head down, and, the moment he did so, he smelled her. The woman. Every inch of him smelled like her. What had he done?
“No,” he calmly told himself, smelling again. It was her.
“No,” he stated again, bringing his hands up to his nose. They were even worse—reeking of her sweat and juices.
“No!” he moaned, flopping his head onto the bed, shaking it back and forth.
It had happened so fast. Something he had never experienced before. He felt rage, anger, and so many other things he couldn’t explain.
He was going to kill her.
Wasn’t he?
When it was over, she was gone before he knew it. Before he even realized what had happened. Without a word, she had slipped over the wall of the inner ward and out of his sight. He hadn’t stopped her. He hadn’t moved for many minutes. He had lain, comatose, only able to move himself as the sun crested the horizon. Even then, he could not recall making it to the priest’s room where he had passed out.
How long had he slept for?
Was he actually awake?
Was he really Saemund at all?
Had he woken up as someone else?
Had he ever really been Saemund?
He slammed his fists to his head. Over and over again, he rammed his fists into his skull, as if the answers he needed were locked within.
What had the woman done to him?
Was she a witch?
He slammed again, splitting open the priest’s flesh on his knuckles without a single wince.
It was her fault.
She did this to him.
Another slam, and his own flesh underneath ripped apart under the blow.
She had stolen him.
Already he felt his flesh reconnect and crawl back together. The priest’s would take perhaps a day to heal.
She had possessed him.
His fists fell to his sides as his face went slack. The dark burnished irises, perfect replicas of the dead priest’s, drained, leaving a blank pallet.
She had enslaved him.
He exhaled a long release that seemed to deflate his whole body.
He felt like he was falling. Or, perhaps, he had been falling for a while, and it was the sudden landing that shocked him so.
He shot off of the bed. He didn’t even grab his shoes as he ran out of the room, down the halls, out the main door, and down the steps.
Outside the sun was bright, but beginning its descent, and the stairs and streets were filled with people. The noonday service had ended a couple hours ago, and those in need of a priest had already left. The place wouldn’t fill again until the dusk service, so no one spoke to the one they believed was a priest nor did they hinder him as he raced down the steps.
That is, no one tried to stop him except Dotard, with Worm a few paces behind him. But Saemund averted his eyes, instead pushing further down the steps, entering the street below. All the while he heard Dotard’s pathetic voice calling out after him a few paces behind. The sound of his feeble whines made Saemund’s hands twitch.
Saemund’s eyes shot wide when he felt the Dotard’s hand upon his shoulder, and he whirled around on the two, casting Dotard’s hand away faster than if it was on fire. “What?” he snapped, his eyes shifting back and forth between his followers.
&nb
sp; Dotard and Worm looked at each other, both daring the other to be the first to talk, but it was Worm who spoke first. “A woman came to call on you. Was it her?”
Saemund turned away from the two.
“Was it?” echoed Dotard.
“Is it over?” asked Worm.
He turned back to them, his eyes darting back and forth between the two. “I’m handling it!”
“You smell…” said Worm, his mind becoming lost as he leaned forward to press his nose close to the dead priest’s robes.
Dotard cocked his head, as if the mental process was straining his mind. “You were that close to her?”
Saemund swatted at Worm, knocking his face away. “I said that I am handling it!”
Worm let loose a long groan of pleasure as he expelled the scent of the woman from his lungs.
“Let us help!” piped Dotard.
“She smells delicious,” murmured Worm, licking his lips slowly.
Dotard’s brow shot up the moment he turned his nose up towards Saemund, stealing a deep breath of her scent.
“I am handling it!” Saemund screamed to them, loud enough to turn faces around them.
Worm and Dotard looked around at the outburst, but most of the people around them had returned to their own worlds—none of which concerned such things as the three of them.
“We want to,” said Dotard, putting his hands in front of him as if he was a beggar.
“Yes!” purred Worm, nodding his head several times. Saliva glistened on his lips.
“Please!” added Dotard. “Can I have her?”
“I’m so hungry!” Worm said over Dotard’s question.
Saemund’s hands shot out, thrashing at the two.
But he missed. Both were just far enough away to evade his hands, and they let out a harmonized squeal as they jumped away.
“No,” rumbled Saemund, no longer keeping the voice of the priest; he dragged out the “o” as his naturally watery voice pitched deeper.
The two stepped even further back, retreating.
“That is the one!” one woman around him whispered loudly to another.
“From the square?” The voice of a young man hitting puberty asked.
“The priest who attacked that woman?” It was shrieked by an old woman, and, while it was a question, she yelled it more as a proclamation of guilt.
Dotard and Worm looked around, utterly dumbfounded. The two morons had no idea what to do.
Saemund did the first thing he could think of. He ran. He ran far away, not particularly caring where he was going. He felt that he just needed to be away: from Worm, Dotard, the temple, the people who recognized him—all of it.
He’d lay low. It was only a few hours until he had to meet the Mercenary anyway. He decided that until then he could use a break from the world, so he pushed his thin body between a dumpster and a cold, brick wall in an empty alley. Closing his eyes, he slept without a single dream.
Chapter 52
Randolph finished his fifth glass of bourbon, and that warm, pleasant feeling he could always rely on began to embrace him. Just enough to begin to forget his worries, but it wasn’t so much that he couldn’t meet with Saemund. It was the good stuff, truly a rare sight at The Hound’s Breath, and he had paid generously for it. It was good enough that he knew he was one glass away from walking that fine line between pleasantly buzzed and all-out drunk.
He sighed, pushing the glass away. He desperately wanted another.
Saemund was late, and, even with the bourbon, Randolph was in no mood to be left waiting. He had learned far too much that day that needing figuring out to be left waiting for someone he despised.
He had too many decisions to make. He had to think, but his brain pounded with doubt, anger, shame, and other emotions he couldn’t even give a word to. It made such thoughts impossible, so he did as he had always done in the past when confronted with the harshness and uncertainties of life—he bought a bottle and told himself he’d figure it out later.
It wasn’t on purpose, of course. Randolph liked to think that he had matured since his years in the army, but Saemund was very late, and Randolph was in a bar.
It started with just a glass to calm his brain and, most importantly, his conscience. Just like countless people before him, one turned into two which turned into three and so on and so forth.
He was a man that always had the best of intentions.
His eyes surveyed the room. As usual, The Hound’s Breath was filled with people. Randolph even had to throw a few copper petals around to get his table vacated. He called it “his table” because it was the only one by the window—the only spot from which he could keep an eye on Silvia.
He glanced at her, but he was thinking about ordering another. As usual, she seemed blissfully unaware of his gaze. He lightly chuckled to himself, figuring if he had an apple in his hand she’d be looking at him. She’d press her nose against the glass, whining for her treat. But he didn’t have an apple, and she was only interested in her bucket of overpriced water.
At least, Randolph smiled as he thought, he was doing his part by helping the local economy. He glanced at his empty glass again.
Through the babble of those around him, Randolph heard the clatter of the bell on the door, but it wasn’t Saemund who walked in. Instead of the filthy, stinking beggar he had grown to loathe, there was a tall, fairly-handsome man wearing the ashen robes of a priest. Even though he looked a little rough, like he was in need of a hot bath, a good meal, and a nice nap, he had a natural attractiveness to him that seemed unfair. Too pretty, thought Randolph. It wasn’t right that some people got it all: the height, the wide jaw, the smooth, golden hair, the effortlessly lean build, and the blindingly white teeth. Even the priest’s two moles on his left cheek looked perfectly placed, like an artist added them as a finishing touch.
What a twat, he thought, rolling his eyes.
But the man was looking straight at Randolph, so his roving eyes returned to the stranger. Standing at the door, the man pushed his loose hair back behind his ears after smoothing it with a hand, all in a pathetic display of suddenly being presentable. Staring at him, Randolph noticed that underneath his presentable countenance there was an unmistakable and chaotic tick. That face, that at first glance seemed handsome, was washed-out and disturbingly pale compared to the rest of the place.
The stranger walked straight to Randolph, and the mercenary saw familiar dark burnished eyes that were circled with a grey shadow, as if he hadn’t slept in days.
The eyes! That was when Randolph recognized him. It was the same crazed, umber eyes that Randolph had seen before. The stranger before him was the same man on the street who screamed and strangled a harlot. It was the person who had spoken to him, as if the two knew each other, about the safety of Jae.
The stranger took a seat. He looked far more composed than he had on the street, but still had an air of unsettling madness to him. His eyes seemed jittery, and there was a constant tremor in his hands.
“Mercenary,” the stranger said.
Randolph put an elbow on the table, leaning in to quietly speak, while his other hand unsnapped the leather peace tie holding his dagger in its sheath. “That spot is taken.”
The stranger laughed for a few moments, throwing his head to the ceiling. It stopped only when he slammed his palms to the table, momentarily hushing the whole room.
Randolph pulled the blade out, gripping it below the table, near his thigh.
The stranger waited to speak until everyone in the bar had returned to their own devices. “You hired a monster.” He laughed again. “Well,” he threw his hands wide in mockery, “here I am.”
Randolph jerked his head back. “What?”
“Now, now, mercenary.” His hands returned to the table. “Don’t strain your mind. I know it cannot handle much on its own, so let me make this simple: I am Saemund.”
He shook his head. “No, you’re not. You’re just some nut.”
“I t
old you to meet me here, dog, and you did.” He cocked his head and smiled. “What a good boy. Your master, Jae Reinout, has taught you well.”
Randolph took a breath, but the adrenaline was already seeping into his bourbon-soaked system. “This isn’t possible.”
“No?” he taunted with a smile. “You hire a monster. You get a monster.”
“I never hired you.”
“But your master did.”
Randolph narrowed his brow. “Did he know?”
Saemund sighed. “I have a certain reputation. Whether or not he chose to believe in it, I have no idea.”
Randolph leaned back in his chair. “So what are you? Some kind of… magician?”
Saemund laughed as he took the mercenary’s nearly empty glass. Aurelian brown lined the bottom of it. “No. It is nothing as clean and painless as illusions or some such nonsense from fairy tales.” He tossed the cup back, and what was left of the bourbon dripped onto his tongue.
“Then what is it?” Randolph wished he hadn’t asked it the moment the words exited his mouth, but his liquor-loosened tongue seemed to be working faster than his brain.
“Thoroughly disagreeable for those I require.” Saemund put the glass down.
“Can you,” Randolph’s face contorted as he thought about how to phrase it, “be anyone you want?”
“My, aren’t you curious for a common house dog?”
Randolph scoffed. “I’m no house dog, monster.”
Saemund’s eyes narrowed. “Aren’t you?”
Randolph blew air. “I don’t have time for this shit.”
“Then why are you here?” Saemund pushed the empty glass towards him. “To drown yourself in overpriced spirits? Is it easier that way?”
Randolph chuckled. It was dry and full of spite. “You know, I don’t really know why I’m here anymore.” He pushed his chair back, hiding his unsheathed dagger behind his back as he did so.
Saemund’s hand shot up. “Wait.”