Eli looked away. “It’s not like that,” he grumbled.
“Then don’t make it like that,” Josef snapped back. “I don’t ask about your past, I don’t ask about Nico’s, and I haven’t told you about mine because the past doesn’t matter, Eli. What we did and who we were are just dregs compared to who we are now and how we act when the sword is coming down. Think about that while you go out to find Nico.”
Eli started to say something, but then he snapped his mouth shut and stood up, sweeping the chair back with a clatter. He grabbed his blue coat from the peg on the wall and stomped out the door, letting it slam shut behind him. Josef listened until the thief’s angry footsteps faded into the forest, then lay back with a long sigh.
“He’s gone,” he said. “You can come in now.”
Something rustled below the window, and Nico quietly climbed into the cabin. Her hood was down, but it did little to hide her puffy eyes and wet cheeks. Josef held out his arm and she ran to him, burying her face in his hand.
“He hates me now.” Josef felt the words more than heard them.
“He may,” Josef said. “Eli doesn’t like surprises, but he’ll get over this. He can be a selfish idiot on occasion, but he’s rarely deliberately unfair. He’ll come around soon enough and things will move on. We’re all survivors. We’ll be all right.”
Nico didn’t move, but her breathing was slowing. Josef cupped her cheek gently. They sat like that for a while, Nico on her knees beside the bed, her head in Josef’s hand. Then, without warning, Josef went stiff.
Nico looked up immediately, but Josef put his finger to his lips, listening. Gently but firmly, he pushed her aside and sat up. Pain shot through him, but Josef stayed silent. The Heart was ready when he reached for it, the hilt almost jumping into his hand. With another burst of pain, he stood, and after a few wobbly moments, found his feet again. When he was sure he would not fall down, he crept toward the cabin door and pressed his eye against the crack.
“Oh, no,” he groaned. “Not again.”
“Liechten!” A horribly familiar voice cut through the thin cabin walls. “Master of the Heart of War! Come and fight!”
Josef steeled his shoulders and opened the door, leaning on the frame for support as he stared at the crowd waiting in the little clearing around the cabin. They were bandits, that much was obvious. A bit better equipped than what he was used to, but Josef dismissed them as soon as he noted their sloppy stances and turned his attention to the real threat, the enormous man standing at the head of the group.
Josef heaved an enormous sigh. “Hello, Sted.”
Eli tromped through the woods, kicking the leaves and fallen sticks and whatever else got in his way. This caused the trees around him to rustle uncomfortably, but for once Eli didn’t care. He should have known better than to bring this up with Josef. They’d been together on and off almost since the beginning, back when his bounty didn’t even warrant its own poster, and though their arrangement had always been one of mutual benefit—he got a swordsman and Josef got to fight as much as he pleased—he’d thought they were friends.
Eli gave the rotten stump in front of him a particularly hard kick. Even he knew that was unfair. Josef had stayed with him even when there were no good fights to be had. He might be a stubborn idiot sometimes, but he was a loyal one. But why did the swordsman always have to take Nico’s side?
He didn’t understand, Eli decided. He wasn’t a wizard, he didn’t talk to spirits, he didn’t really know how horrible demons could be. Of course, Eli thought with a sigh, he was just as bad, letting himself get caught up in Nico’s power, forgetting what she really was. Well, the monster on the mountain had cured him of that delusion. The demon had made it very clear that the Nico they knew, the Nico Josef defended, she was just a shell. A cracking one, he realized with a shudder. It wasn’t a question of whether she would change, but when. When she’d been a normal seed, it had been easy to sweep that little unpleasantness under the table. Now that he knew what she really was, the stakes were different, and the game was getting too rich for his blood.
Eli stared at the woods in front of him, the rolling hills of dappled shade and fragrant evergreens. Thinking about it rationally, he should keep walking. He’d been a thief long enough to know when it was time to cut your losses and get out, but…
Eli stopped in his tracks. First rule of thievery, the actual first rule the old Monpress had drilled into him, was never risk what you couldn’t afford to lose. He couldn’t lose his team, not if he wanted to get his bounty to one million. Over the last year, he’d pushed higher and further than ever, and Nico had been a part of that as much as Josef. Even knowing what he was messing with, he couldn’t give that up. Not yet.
He was still standing there, sucking his lip as his better judgment warred with his ambition, when a loud noise, a whistle followed by a thunk, sounded right beside his ear. Eli jumped on instinct, throwing himself sideways into the leaves. He rolled into a crouch, then stopped and looked up. An arrow was quivering in the trunk of the tree he’d been standing beside. Eli stared at it dumbly for a second and then craned his neck, frantically looking for the bowman.
Another arrow slammed into the ground beside him before he even got his head up. Realizing he was still an open target, Eli scrambled to the other side of the tree, madly beating on the trunk as he went.
The tree rustled grumpily. “What do you want?”
“I need to know where that came from,” Eli whispered, pointing at the arrow.
“What are you talking about?” the tree said. “I don’t feel…” It stopped. “Why is there an arrow in me?”
“That’s what I’m asking,” Eli said.
“How should I know?” The tree was starting to panic.
“Ask the arrow,” Eli said, giving the bark a push. “Quickly, please, if you don’t mind.”
“Good idea,” the tree said, and lapsed into mad rustling.
Eli kept as close to the tree as he could, trying to look everywhere at once. He would have asked the arrow himself, but the tree could get it to talk faster than even he could, short of opening his spirit. But as the seconds stretched on and on, the tree just kept rustling until its leaves were raining down.
“Well?” Eli said.
“Nothing,” it answered. “That arrow’s dead asleep.”
“So wake it up.”
“What do you think I was trying to do?” The tree snapped its branches. “Someone put it to sleep.”
Eli cursed his luck. “Well, can you see anyone who might have shot it? Another human?”
“I don’t see anything that’s not always here,” the tree said, more confused than ever. “Other than you and the arrow.”
Eli was about to offer to pull the arrow out and have a go at it himself when he heard the telltale whistle of fletching, this time from his right. He ducked just in time as another arrow landed in the tree and the wood cried out in surprise and pain.
“Did you see that one?” Eli said, scrambling to get to the other side.
“No!” the tree shouted. “I don’t see anything!”
Another whistle screamed through the forest as an arrow struck the ground right beside Eli’s foot. This was when he decided to forget finding the archer and just run.
He sprang forward, dashing through the trees. Arrows whistled behind him, each bolt striking his footprint a second after his boot made it. He ran as fast as he could, lungs slamming for air while his brain spun even faster, trying to come up with a plan. The trees were sparse and open, offering little cover. He saw a rocky defile to his left and tried to turn, but the arrows struck the ground in front of him, landing deep in the soil where he would have been if he’d moved a second faster. With an undignified squeak, Eli turned on his heel and kept running, trying the turn again a few dozen feet later only to have the arrows cut him off again. The third time it happened, Eli knew he was being driven. Every time he tried to dodge left or right, the arrows pushed him straight again, forcing him east down a slope toward a wide mountain stream.
It was a trap for sure, Eli realized grimly, but he couldn’t stop. Already his feet were sliding on the slippery leaves, forcing him to run even faster or risk going down the hill on his back. He skidded down the bank and landed in the creek with a splash. The mossy rocks slipped under his boots, sending him sprawling face-first into the icy water. He was up instantly, sputtering as he scrambled back to his feet only to slip again. He fell cursing back into the water, flailing around to make himself a harder target. But as he scrambled to get his legs back under him, he realized that the arrows had stopped. He paused, listening, but the forest was silent except for the
