by imaginary swords and daggers pierced his flesh.
He searched the entire cabin for the body, but found nothing. He went back outside to make a sweep of the yard. There were marks in the dirt where one or more bodies had been dragged amid a crowd of hoofprints. Caim was no tracker, but he could see they had come from the direction of Othir and returned the same way. He must have just missed them. Of course, they would stay to the main roads, secure in their numbers.
Calm's breath burned in his throat. Rage filled his thoughts, at Ral, at himself, at the gods if they existed. The Brotherhood had Josey. A thought flashed through his head. If they were riding with wounded, he might still be able to catch them.
He started toward his steed, but stopped after a few paces. The horse shuddered like it had an ague. Strings of milk white foam drooled from its mouth. The damned thing was blown. Useless. It wouldn't run again tonight, if ever.
Caim gave the animal what mercy remained in him. He stripped off its bridle and saddle, and dropped them on the ground. A wasted effort. It would probably drop over dead before morning. He had failed them. Josey, Kas, Mathias, his parents-they were all gone now. He was alone. Grief sliced up his insides like a river of broken glass. He wanted to scream to the heavens, but the cry lodged in his throat. He had nothing left. Then, a whisper-light touch settled on his shoulder.
'I'm so sorry, Caim.'
The words tickled his ear as Kit alighted beside him. Her inner radi ance surrounded him like the light of a thousand fireflies. He wanted her comfort, wanted it more keenly than he had ever wanted anything in his life since the day his father died, but he couldn't accept it. The rage had rendered all his tender feelings down to a lump of useless, hardened tissue.
'Where have you been?' He made no effort to temper his tone. 'Out in some meadow, picking flowers and dancing with starlings?'
She floated around to face him. Tears trickled down her face like falling stars. 'I was here, Caim.'
'Yet you did nothing.'
'I couldn't!' she cried. 'I saw them kill Kas and drag the girl away, but there wasn't anything I could do.'
'You could have come to find me. I could have stopped it.'
'Would you have listened?'
'Of course I would-'
'No.' She retreated a few steps from him. 'You stopped listening to me a long time ago, and it only got worse when you met that girl.'
'Her name was Josey.'
'If you want to know where they took her-'
'Say her name!' he screamed.
Kit wiped at her face with the back of her hands. 'Josey, okay? Her name is Josey, but she's not dead.'
'I saw the dress, Kit.'
'Listen, you idiot!' A deep crimson blush stained her cheeks as she propped her tiny fists on her hips. 'She's still alive. They took her and rode off like a pack of demons. They left the dress so you would get all hellfire mad and go riding after them without a thought in that wooden head of yours.'
He strode through her as if she weren't there, walked up to the door of the cabin, and stood on the threshold. The emptiness within yawned before him like a great mouth.
'I never wanted this for you.' She came up beside him. 'Neither did your mother.'
'Don't, Kit.'
Her ethereal fingers brushed his face. 'I was happy in my world, Caim, but I had to come when I heard your mother's call. She understood it would be hard for you in this place, born of two peoples, belonging to neither. And I knew the first time I saw you that I would love you forever. That's the curse of my people. We never forget and we never die. We love forever, even after the ones we love die and pass into the great dark.'
'Kit…' Troubled feelings rumbled in the depths of his soul. They chipped away at his resolve and made him feel weak and pathetic.
'Don't you think I mourned for your loss, Caim? Don't you think I cried myself sick after what happened to your parents? But you were a stone. You never cried.'
'What good would it have done them?' But tears, hot and bitter, sprang to his eyes now as her words dredged up his past.
Kit rested her head on his arm. 'We don't cry for them, Caim. We cry for ourselves. Kas understood that.'
'And now he's dead, too.'
'He died doing what he knew was right.'
Caim thought of the bloody spear. Kas had died a hero. Would the same be said of him when his time came? The gloom inside the cabin beckoned to him.
'It's funny,' he said. 'For years after they were gone, I thought losing my parents had made me a stronger person. Tougher. Now I wonder if I didn't lose the best part of myself that night. The man with the black blades. He's like me, isn't he? A monster.'
An electric tingle ran along his jaw as she touched his chin. 'You are not a monster.'
'There's darkness inside me, Kit. I've always known it was there, just below the surface, and you've seen what happens when I lose control.'
She turned away.
'He sent that shadow-snake after me, didn't he? Now he's working with Ral, and Josey is gone. So who the fuck is he, Kit?'
For a moment, he thought she wouldn't answer. Then, 'He serves the Lords of the Shadow.'
Caim swallowed past the knot in his throat. The taste of tears lingered in the back of his mouth. A thousand questions jostled in his throat, but only one was important.
'How do I kill him?'
'He is flesh and blood, just like you. Cut him and he will bleed.'
'I tried that.' The admission was torn from his throat in an angry growl. 'I tried, Kit. He has powers I don't understand, magic I can't match.'
Her slender finger touched the space over his heart. 'The blood calls to its own, Caim. You are your mother's son. You already possess everything you need.'
He laughed, a cruel sound even to his own ears. 'Then I'm damned and so is Josey.'
'They took her alive, so she must have some value to them. They won't kill her out of hand. There's still time to help her.'
'Now you want to help her? You couldn't stand the sight of her before.'
Kit folded her arms across her slender chest. 'I'm glad you have a mud-woman in your life. I know I can't love you the way I've always dreamed, the way I wanted to.'
'Kit, I-'
She smiled and shook away another bout of tears. 'But I'll always be here for you, as your friend.'
'You're my best friend, Kit. You always have been. That won't ever change.'
She punched at his arm. 'It better not!' Then, in a more somber tone, 'We'll find her, Caim.'
He watched the light play upon the shards of broken glass on the cabin floor.
'I already know where she is,' he said. 'Ral told me himself once. He said we were the most feared men in the empire, that we should be lording it up in the palace.'
'You mean the palace palace? Like the big muckety-muck's digs?'
Caim walked into the cabin. A storm lantern hung from a hook on the wall. He took it down and lit the wick from the hearth embers. Light filled the cabin as the lantern sprang to life. He hurled it into the back room. Flames shot to the ceiling as he strode out the door. The growing fire threw harsh shadows across the grass and against the trunks of the surrounding trees as he went around to the back of the cabin. Thoughts of Josey swirled around in his head. He would go after her, and the gods help anyone or anything that got in his way.
Across the yard, the boulder hunched in the earth like the egg of a giant bird. While Kit floated over him, he squatted down beside it. He fit his hands underneath the stone and heaved. The boulder was sunk deep in its loamy home, but he would not be denied. He pulled for the memories of his father and mother, for Kas who'd become the father he wanted and needed even if he hadn't realized it until too late, for Josey who needed him
