A short time later, Caim sat beside a crackling fire, holding a wooden bowl to his lips as he shoveled in mouthfuls of hot oats. He hadn’t realized how famished he was until Liana started cooking. When the bowl was empty and the hole in his belly somewhat filled, he reclined on the woven reed mats that made up the hut’s floor. Smells of earth and smoke filled the air. He could fall asleep right here. In fact, he caught his eyes drooping and forced them open. On the other side of the small room, Liana ate from her bowl. Her demeanor had changed since entering this house. Whereas before she’d been strong and secure, voicing her opinion however she liked, she was now demure almost to the point of acting like a servant girl in her master’s house, and he didn’t know why. He hadn’t done anything. At least, he didn’t think he had.
“Who lives here?” he asked.
Liana looked up, but didn’t meet his gaze. “My brother, when he’s here.”
The hut had no furniture, just some cooking utensils, a stack of kindling wood, and a few items hanging from the peaked ceiling. One of those items was a bundle of multicolored feathers tied around what looked to be a bleached animal bone. Caim stared at it while lying on his side.
“He should be here soon,” he said.
She bobbed her head. Caim waited for a few heartbeats. When nothing more was forthcoming, he started to ask what was the matter, but Liana preempted him by climbing to her feet. Carrying the bowls, she went outside.
Sighing, Caim lay on his back. He was too tired to care. He closed his eyes, but instead of soothing darkness he saw a white plain and a row of pale bodies arranged in the snow. He pulled his cloak tighter and inched closer to the fire.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Caim tensed as her lips settled over his mouth, but the softness of her kiss coaxed his muscles to relax, and he sank back onto the sumptuous bed.
Her silky hair fell over his face, down his neck. Her fingers left trails of blazing heat on his bare skin. The smell of her perfume filled his head, leaving him incapable of thought or care. This was what he wanted, this and nothing else.
“ Caim,” she whispered. “Be mine.”
The blood coursed in his temples as the answer was ripped from his throat.
“ I am. I am yours.”
But her hands left him, and a cold wind washed over his body. He reached for her, but she slipped from his grasp.
“ Caim, come to me. Come find me.”
He sat up as a gust of wind tore aside the flimsy silken canopy. A dark fog covered everything. Her voice sounded distant, like she was calling from the other side of the world.
“ Caim… Come to me.”
“ Kit! ”
C aim awoke with a start.
It took him a moment to realize where he was. For an instant, the rafter over his head made him think of a cabin in the woods far to the south. Then he remembered the prison, the fighting, the witch.
Bodies in the snow.
He rubbed his eyes as he sat up. Kit and him? Where had that notion come from? Not that it hadn’t been a pleasant dream, but still
… Where was she? He’d thought, after hearing her voice at the prison, that she would return soon, but days had passed and there was still no sign. Worse, he was starting to become used to missing her.
The floor was like a sheet of ice beneath him. The hearth fire had gone out, and there was no sign of Liana.
Stretching, and groaning at the legion of aches throughout his body, he stood up. His arm felt better. A lot better. He rolled up his sleeve expecting to see the ragged hole. Instead, the skin had scabbed over completely. The yellow halo had disappeared. Crazy. What other tricks can the shadows do? Then he remembered the feats Levictus had performed with his sorcery, like the ebon serpent that had attacked him in his own apartment. Maybe it’s better I don’t know.
Caim went over to the wash bucket. After breaking the ice film, he plunged his hands into the freezing water and washed his face and his neck, and ran half-numb fingers through his hair. He rooted around for something to eat and could only come up with a shriveled, half-frozen pear. He buckled on his knives as he nudged open the door. The snow had started up again, coming down in puffy flakes. Caim took a bite of the pear.
The castle’s bailey was protected from the wind, but a deep chill hung in the air. His breath misted before him in a dense cloud. A woman with two dirty children in tow walked past. Caim looked around, wondering what he should do, when he found Hagan sitting on a stone under a withered crabapple tree with his children. The old man didn’t bother with a coat as he puffed on a long-stemmed pipe. Keegan stood a little back from his sister and father. His hand, bound up in white linen, rested on the hilt of his falcata. The blade looked like a part of him now, and Keegan seemed a far cry from the untested boy Caim had first met in the roadside tavern. And smarter, too, staying out of the conversation at hand. Caim only caught a whiff of it as he approached, but it was enough to make him walk slower.
“Why not, Papa? You haven’t given me one good reason!”
Hagan shook his head. “Liana, Liana. I cannot stop your brother, but you at least I can still protect from this insanity.”
“They’re not insane! They just want a better life for all of us.”
“I cannot allow it, Liana,” Hagan replied, almost whispering. “I cannot.”
Spinning away, Liana came face-to-face with Caim. She pushed past him and ran back to the hut. The door slammed shut behind her. Keegan grimaced and walked away, down the muddy path toward the other end of the bailey.
Hagan took a pull from his pipe and exhaled a cloud of sweet smoke up through the branches. “You’re up early.”
Caim pulled on his gloves. “Must be the cold.”
“I want to thank you for saving the lives of my children. I heard if it weren’t for you, they’d have been captured. Or worse.”
“They’re good kids.”
“They are disobedient and headstrong. Like their mother, Arugul keep her. And being young, they tend to give their trust too easy.”
Not sure what the old man was getting at, Caim tried to change the subject. “It was no problem. Were you here last night?”
Hagan stuck a finger in his mouth and fished out a sliver of grit. Flicking it away, he shook his head. “I met Keegan and the others on the trail. We got here before daybreak. Heard some things while we traveled.”
“Like what?”
“Things about you and those knives of yours. And things that might sound to some like sorcery.”
He wasn’t sure what to say. Not much use in denying it. Just about all of the outlaws had seen him use some type of shadow-play, at the clearing or in the prison. He should have known they would spawn all kinds of tales. From what little he remembered, there had been stories told about his mother, too.
“What are they planning to do?”
“These folks?” Hagan asked around the pipe’s mouthpiece. “I suspect you’ll find out soon enough. But there’s something you should know about them.”
“And what’s that?”
“They respect strength, but they’ll follow a man that’s true and straightforward all the way to the underworld and back.”
“Must be what they see in Caedman.”
