Covenant's End - Ari Marmell Page 0,26
was directed at you!”
Shins couldn't tell whether she or Olgun was the more stunned, the more paralyzed. “…what?”
“This was a message for you. Because nobody knew where to find you. I was just honored with the task of playing messenger.
“If you'd been here—if you'd been standing with your friends, instead of turning your back on the people who…” The tiniest choke interrupted, but Robin fought past it. “…the people who love you, this would never have happened!”
The atmosphere in the chamber had long since melted to liquid, then frozen to glass. Now it shattered, every shard a blade, every blade slicing clean across thoughts and dreams and memories. They bled as fiercely as any physical wound. Widdershins had no memory of choosing to flee, no memory even of the tavern as she passed through, or the peculiar response she must have gotten from Gerard as she flew by. She couldn't even make herself care, when the thought finally occurred, that she might well be committing a smaller echo of the same sin for which she'd just been fearsomely rebuked. She knew only that every breath, every heartbeat, brought her closer to falling apart, and she could not be caught in Robin's accusing stare when it happened.
She felt Olgun's presence, of course, as she always did, but she could take no comfort in it. No, not so; she perversely would take no comfort in it, refusing to acknowledge his gentle but insistent tug. She could not let herself be soothed by anyone else—not even a god—who relied on her. It felt wrong. Dishonest.
Water on cobbles and mud between cobbles sprayed from beneath her heel with every heavy step. Frigid as it was, she welcomed the predawn rain, even yanking her collar loose so it could wash over her neck, her shoulders, her back, as well as through her hair, across the upturned face she aimed stubbornly at the clouds.
It felt clean. Smelled clean. It was the only thing tonight that had.
She stood, still, soaking, letting her thoughts run away in rivulets like the dirt of her journeys. Until, when it was already so close that any enemy could have done her serious harm, she heard the splashing steps of someone's approach.
Her rapier had cleared the scabbard up to the tip before Shins realized precisely who she was looking at.
“You have a lot of gall,” she spat at the other woman, whose own blonde hair was now plastered flat to her scalp and shoulders. “What the hopping hens do you want?”
“You actually do say that,” Faustine marveled. “I thought she was exaggerating.”
“Why didn't you warn me she was coming?” Shins hissed at Olgun while waiting for the woman to say something that actually mattered. The little god, who'd been trying to get her attention for some time now, huffed off to go grumble in some metaphysical corner.
“Look, Shins…”
“No. Uh-uh. Nope. Only friends get to call me that.”
The small cascade of water shifted as Faustine raised an eyebrow. “Because ‘Widdershins’ is so much more formal?” Then, when Widdershins refused to respond, “Can we at least go back inside to talk?”
“Feel free.”
Faustine sighed, a sound stolen away by the weather long before it could reach anyone. “Widdershins, you…we think you may be in danger.”
“And you came to bask in it, yes?”
“Oh, gods dammit! Robin's angry! She's in awful pain, body and soul. But she wouldn't want you to be hurt, and you know it!”
“Do I?” She'd meant it as a challenge, but it emerged a plea.
“Of course you do. Robin loves you, Widdershins. Your leaving couldn't have hurt her so badly if she didn't.”
Shins nodded dumbly. Though still unwilling to go back inside the Witch, she at least stepped into the doorway of a building across the way, motioning Faustine to follow. The overhang couldn't keep the rain completely off them, but it was better than nothing.
“And why do you care if I get hurt?” she asked. No challenge or confusion, this time, just honest curiosity.
“Because she does.”
A second, firmer nod. “She doesn't know you came after me, does she?”
“No. And she'll be upset when I come back soaked. But she would have thought of this, if she was clear-headed, and she'd have wanted you to know.”
“All right. I'm listening.”
“Your friend Renard?”
Shins couldn't quite hold back a crooked half-smile, thinking of the strutting, peacock-ish fop of a thief. So full of himself, yet the most stalwart friend and mentor—well, former mentor—she could have asked…
The smile fell as though the rain had washed it off