“Good. That will help. I have gotten tired of such quiet work of late, Goddess knows. With the satyr, I could not risk it. But with you…” She grabbed the faun by his wrist and he writhed, trying desperately to get away. “Do you know, the elves have stories about us? That we eat bones.”
She squeezed hard and the bones snapped. Frail and panicked, he screamed and she slapped him again. She could see his eyes lose their focus. She dragged him limping to the chair at the desk and shoved him toward it. Salaar fell into the chair sloppily and seemed to come back to himself. He flipped over, slowly.
She sliced at his arm where she had broken the bones and the faun let out a shriek that stung her ears. She quivered at the sound. She stood and walked around the desk. Salaar only held up the end of his arm that was left and looked at it.
“Bitch! Bitch, bitch! You! You! Bitch!”
It must’ve been the only word he’d learned. There was a plate on his desk, pewter, perhaps. Roughly made and still covered with bits of food. A convenient thing. Aile flipped it and placed her hand to it as she walked back around the table. He had continued spitting the word at her. The plate had turned a dim orange under her hand. She grabbed the stump and pulled, bringing the faun out of his chair. He barely registered his protest before the bloody stump sizzled against the plate. The screams were piercing and constant. When she was satisfied, she let him fall, and he did. He sat staring at the stump breathing half-screams each time he exhaled. Salaar gathered himself after a moment.
“Anything. The khala, take it. All the chast. Please.” His words were gone again.
“Is it your life you want, little goat?” She squatted in front of him and smiled a most crooked smile. “Why? What do you have that I could need?”
He thought, still breathing ragged. “You… you…” He wavered, staring at the stump. “The gold must be enough. It must be.”
Aile stood and looked at the chest. “No. No, you see… you wanted the chest…” She squatted again, having brought the pewter plate from the desk. “And my life. The balance must be made equal.”
She pressed the pewter against Salaar’s naked stomach and he squealed, hyperventilating. The screams began to fade and he fainted. Aile threw the plate aside and sighed. She dragged the pitiful little thing into the chair and casually cut out his tongue. He did not stir.
“Dead? No, I think not yet.”
She slapped his hand against the arm of the chair and hacked at it with the dagger. He jerked awake and screamed again. She hacked a second time and a third, catching wood with the last. She slid the pooled blood and the hand onto the ground.
Aile walked to the pewter plate where it lay on the ground. She placed her hand on it and heated it to a bright red.
“You have a choice. And being the creature you are, I think I know how you will choose. You can bleed out in that chair and die. Or you can close the wounds on my Fire. You see, the horsefolk do not know me nearly as well as they ought. Cursebringer?” She scoffed and moved to leave, taking the chest as she moved. “A pleasant dream.”
She came out of the tent and looked to see nothing stirring. The work had been satisfying in the end. Behind her, as she left, she heard the searing of flesh and muffled, awkward screams.
Part Twelve
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Socair
It was more than she could take, trying to work with the horse beneath her knees. Socair had never been good with the animals, cursing them for useless more times than she could remember but never so often as her ride south now. In her mind, at least, it felt as though she had spent as much time wrestling the worthless thing to its place on the road as she had simply riding.
Práta had fared better but they often slowed for Nath who had little experience on horseback. She was hesitant in the saddle and the horse matched her beneath. Still, Socair could not bring herself to complain at the girl. She showed sorrow in her face each time she drew attention and the look of it never failed to have Socair pause and abandon her frustration. The situation was bad through no fault of any of the three that rode together. This was a thing built intentionally or so Socair’s instinct told her. She tried as best she could to throw off the idea, but near every minute she’d lived had been in service of trusting what her mind told her before it could be clouded with emotion. There was little else to do, as much as it bothered her, and so Socair was left in the mire of trying to make sense of something she could not hope to understand. There was not enough known to piece together anything of value. Her mind searched for hints anywhere she could think for the whole of her time in the Bastion. Deifir seemed to like her, at least as best as Socair could guess. She often spoke with her privately and frankly about the state of things, even to the chagrin of the others in the Binse. They would never bring such words to Deifir or Socair directly though. Had some other force been involved? Some change while she had gone seeking aide? If an answer was to be found, the horse beneath her would surely jerk or wander before she could find it. It was an excuse she allowed herself, knowing that if any answer to her worries was coming, it was at the crossroads. And
