enough to die defending him, but he was dead either way.
“Hunting you,” he said, water leaking into his mouth.
The shaman sneered, and lifted a hand. As if someone cut off a switch, blackness swept over Books and awareness vanished.
CHAPTER 21
P ain brought tears to Amaranthe’s eyes before she opened them. Her breath snagged, and she reached for her abdomen. Her fingers scraped against rough bandages, an act that brought more pain. She yanked her hand away. She tried to draw in a deep inhalation to calm herself, but that hurt too. As she opened her eyes and struggled to focus them, she settled for short, shallow breaths.
She lay on her back. Bare branches stretched below a gray sky promising rain. Daylight had come, though she could not guess whether it was morning or afternoon.
Something touched her cheek. She turned her head slowly since her neck, too, had complaints.
Sicarius sat cross-legged beside her. Relief flooded her at seeing him alive-and at being alive herself.
He lifted his hand, seemed not to know where to put it, and settled for resting it on her shoulder. Though the pain dampened her humor, she managed a smile. “I must look really bad…if you’re deigning to touch me.” It hurt to speak, and her voice rasped like sandpaper on wood.
His eyebrows rose infinitesimally.
“You usually only do that in combat practice.” She kept her voice soft so she need not take big inhalations. “Or to pull me out of the way…because I’ve gotten myself in trouble.”
His jaw flexed, and Amaranthe regretted the last sentence. He might feel he should have been faster and pulled her out of the way this time.
“Sorry,” she whispered. Her ancestors knew it was not his fault she had nearly died. He had tried to stop her from the ludicrous plan.
“For what?” He spoke quietly. His gaze flicked toward the lake.
The susurrus of men’s voices came from that direction. A conversation, not casual but argumentative. There was still trouble. Amaranthe would ask what it was soon, maybe even attempt something ambitious, like sitting up, but she wanted another quiet moment before the need to plan overwhelmed her. Besides, there was a hint of downward pressure from Sicarius’s hand, as if he knew about, and did not approve of, her thoughts to sit up and get involved.
“I’m sorry,” she said, “for risking all our lives on something that we could have left for others to handle, for getting mauled, and for being a burden. I should have listened to you. Next time I will. I’ll…acquiesce to your wisdom.”
His eyes crinkled. “You will not.”
“No, I will. I’ve learned my lesson.”
“Doubtful.” Was that a smile on his lips? Ever so slight? If so, it faded quickly.
“Akstyr did his best to close your wounds,” Sicarius said, “but he detected the beginnings of an infection.”
“Those makarovi claws did look dirty.” She smiled, though Sicarius’s tone, even grimmer than usual, warned her worse news was coming.
“The knowledge of how to heal it is beyond him. He did better than I expected, but he lacks experience.”
“Well, I’m tough. I bet my blood schemes just as much as my brain, and it’ll figure a way to destroy any pesky infections.”
Sicarius said nothing. He always said nothing, but this time he avoided her eyes, and she had no trouble reading his silence: he thought she was dying.
“She’s awake!” Maldynado blurted. “She’s alive!”
Footsteps pounded her way. Maldynado, Basilard, and Akstyr knelt around her. Sicarius stood and backed away.
“Boss, are you all right?” Maldynado asked. “How do you feel?
Amaranthe blushed, feeling foolish to have gotten herself in so much trouble that she needed this much attention. But emotion welled inside her too. It meant much that they cared enough to provide that attention.
“I’m alive,” she croaked around the lump her in throat.
Basilard pushed Maldynado to the side, lifted a canteen, and raised his eyebrows.
“Oh, right,” Maldynado said. “You need to drink.”
He slid a hand under her shoulders and elevated her head gently. He waved for the canteen. As much as Amaranthe appreciated his solicitude, she would not have minded being taken care of by Sicarius. Just the two of them. Alone. Maybe in her weakened state, he would pity her enough to let slip a few more tidbits about his past. That would almost be worth the price of…being wounded. Yes, being wounded. A temporary state. No way was she going to let some stupid animal claw bring about her death.
She inhaled a touch too deeply, and a pang in her abdomen made her gasp. Water spilled and ran down her chin.
“Oops,” Maldynado said.
Basilard smacked him on the shoulder.
Amaranthe sipped from the canteen more carefully. Sicarius had retreated to the trees to stand guard, though he glanced her way now and then. She sighed and fiddled with one of the bandages wrapping her torso.
“Akstyr fixed you up real good,” Maldynado said. “I’m sure you’ll pull through. Because we need you. We’ve been squabbling. Without you here to keep us glued to-what are you doing?”
Amaranthe froze in the middle of loosening a bandage. “Er, nothing?”
“You’re not trying to take them off, are you?” Maldynado said, stern as a schoolteacher reprimanding a wayward pupil. “Akstyr helped, but you’re all sorts of messed up under there. Better not remove them.”
“No, I was just…” She cleared her throat. “They were crooked. Akstyr,” she said before her admission could draw comments, “thank you.”
He stuffed his hands in his pockets. “Sorry I couldn’t…you know. All the way.”
“I’ll just have to talk the shaman into doing it.”
All four men stared at her.
“Not even conscious five minutes, and she’s already concocting crazy plans,” Maldynado said.
“I’m sure it’s been closer to ten,” Amaranthe said.
Maldynado was still propping her up, giving her a decent view of the beach and the diving equipment.
“Where’s Books?”
The men’s faces darkened.
“The shaman got him,” Maldynado said. “Books broke the thing in the lake, but somehow… We didn’t see the shaman go in the water. If we had, we would have thumped him.”
“Got him?” Amaranthe swallowed. “Is he…”
“We think he’s alive, otherwise why would that blond bastard have taken him, right?” Maldynado looked to Basilard and Akstyr for confirmation, but they only shrugged. “But we don’t know where they went. He flew out of the water in this bubble wrapped around himself and Books, and then they poofed away.”
“Teleported,” Akstyr said.
“Either way, we have no idea where they are now. In slagging Mangdoria probably.” Maldynado kicked one of the air pumps across the camp.
Amaranthe closed her eyes. A few raindrops pattered on her cheeks. “I wonder what his reason was for taking Books with him.”
“Torture,” Sicarius said. “Revenge for thwarting his plans.”
“Or perhaps he assumed we’d come after Books,” she said.
“Why would he think that?” Maldynado asked. “Books is a tedious, lecturing know-it-all, something the
