with her in the grave.
She hadn’t been there when the balgairs had bought it at Coure’s hands, or when
Antimache and Myrine had taken the captured breeding stock up into the Ostria. If she
had, she would be flying free among the shades as were the captain and lieutenant—or
roasting alongside them in the Abyss.
She supposed she had Coure to thank for not having met her fate in the barn.
A deep frown shifted over Penthe’s face. She tested what she was feeling at that
moment as one would a decayed tooth—pushing at it, probing the sensation—and
realized she no longer bore any ill will toward the Reaper for the destruction of the
ship. He had not caused it. The Triune Goddess had and why?
“Because they tried to snatch Her precious Reaper,” Penthe reasoned.
Okay, she thought as she mulled that one over. She didn’t fault the Reaper for the
destruction of the ship so she couldn’t blame him for the possibility of remaining on this
stupid world. Neither was his fault. But there was still the matter of avenging her
ancestor’s vendetta against Coure. But then, she realized, there was a problem with that
as well.
“The man was a priest,” Artesia had commented. “He had taken a vow your greatgreat-grandmere bid him break. Was there honor in that?”
Her lover’s question had precipitated a violent argument that had lasted for days
with Artesia reminding her that Coure had not been a male captured during a skirmish
or even during a raid. He had been assigned as a priest to Rathlin and had not even
been on Amazeen soil when Kennocha Tramont had him imprisoned for denying her.
“Think on what you have agreed to do, Penthesilea,” Artesia had declared. “You
are taking up a vengeance no other warrioress has agreed to in all the years since your
great-great-grandmere declared the Edikeõ, the Vengeance, because they knew there
was no honor in it. Why would you? And why now?”
Penthe had her reasons and it was not so much that she had wanted to perform the
Antapodidõmi, the Pay Back, by taking on the mantle of a Blackwind but that she wanted
to leave Amazeen, to soar past the anomaly of the Carbondale Gate—that section they
called The Sinisters—and journey into the vast unknown of the megaverse in search
of…
92
Her Reaper’s Arms
“Adventure,” Penthe whispered, disgusted with herself. She sat up and ran a
distracted hand through her thick brown hair. “Adventure and glory at bringing home
a Reaper.”
But would her sisters be happy that she had taken on something none of them had
been willing to do? Or that she had brought home to them a Reaper who—by rights—
had done them no harm whatsoever? It was not as though he were their enemy, had
caused them the first trickle of trouble. He had not. As far as the elders knew, the only
bad thing Bevyn Coure had ever done was steal an apple from one of his instructors
because the boy had not eaten in seven days.
Penthe turned her head and looked at the apple cores she had casually tossed into
the corner of the loft. Had she not stolen to fill her belly? Was that not her only crime so
far on this gods’ forsaken, backward world? She had not gathered up the breeding stock
nor locked the women in the church nor the older men and young boys in the jail. That
had been carried out by Antimache and her lieutenant and the balgairs.
While all that was going on, she’d been lying in wait for the Reaper, ready to stun
him with the Dóigra and carry him aboard the Ostria. She’d taken no part in the deaths
of the Terran men.
Turning over, she crawled on her belly and carefully lifted her head to look out the
loft. The sun was lower in the heavens but it was broiling hot outside. She saw the men
toiling with the building, hammers busily rising and falling, saws rasping back and
forth, tin panels being carried up to the rafters where the Reaper sat straddling a
support, a clutch of nails between his lips.
By the gods, the man was prime as he sat there, his bare chest gleaming with sweat.
He’d discarded his hat for a bandana that covered his thick dark hair and was tied at
the nape of his neck. His muscles flexed and pulled as he hammered the tin into place.
Though his fingers were sheathed in thick black gloves so he could handle those hot
panels, Penthe could almost feel the strength in his hands, could see it bunching in his
shoulders as his hammer rose and fell.
And then he was looking straight at her, their eyes locked.
“Oh shit,” Penthe said, going completely still.
He had felt her presence and now he knew where she was. She stared at him unable
to move as he poised there with his hammer at his shoulder, looking her way.
Peripherally she saw other heads turn to see what had grabbed his attention and one
man pointed to the loft.
Eyes were shielded as they turned her way. Everyone there was aware of her now.
Though she could dematerialize into vapor as all Blackwinds could, where would she
go?
Then Coure did something completely unexpected. He turned his eyes from her
and drove the hammer hard against the nail.
“Come down, milady,” the Reaper called out to her, “and join us.”
93
Charlotte Boyett-Compo
For a long while Penthe lay there with her hands clutched into the hay, looking out
the loft window, watching the townsfolk looking up at her, no one speaking, no one
stirring save the Reaper who had moved to another section of the tin panel and was
busily hammering away as though he had all the time in the world. His woman had
stood up and was staring at Penthe with concern.
Her brows drawn together, the Blackwind considered dematerializing but her belly
was rumbling and her thirst was such that her mouth was as dry as the dust flitting
down from the stable’s rafters. She licked her dry lips then sighed.
“Come down,” she heard him whisper into her mind . “I mean you no harm.”
“What if I mean
