Cab was startled out of his lull by the frantic lowing of Tithe Barley’s four cows. He’d tucked in for the evening, eaten the meal laid out for him. Now something had spooked the cows badly. From the nervous hssh of restless hooves on hay, Cab could tell the old mare was none too pleased, either.
“Hey now.” He hauled himself up ungracefully, aches in his muscles making him clumsy. Both hands ahead of him, he shifted into a soldier’s stance by nature. “You’re all right, hush. You’ll wake the house with that noise.”
It’d grown dark while he drifted in and out of rest that never quite reached sleep’s comforts. The barn was lit inside by beams from the two moons above streaming through three uneven windows. A quick scan of the shadowy piles of hay revealed nothing out of the ordinary.
Probably one of the cows had seen a rat, or been startled by a shifting cloud and riled the others.
No matter what Cab told himself, old instincts gripped hard, wouldn’t let go. He slid his boots along the ground, slippery with hay and hay dust, advancing toward the pen. Silent and powerful, like the soldier he once was.
By the barn door, the old mare whickered softly.
Something outside the barn. Something coming. Not here for the cattle, the old mare, or Tithe Barley.
For him.
No time to prepare a defense. Even if there had been, the notion of spearing a royal bounty hunter on a pitchfork, watching him bleed out in the barn, bringing that violence to Kerry’s-End, was more than Cab could stomach.
Then came the voice.
It wasn’t quite a voice—half flute-song and half writhing collection of hissed syllables—but something out there was calling him.
Not with his name.
Almost sounded like it.
For the first time since he’d abandoned the uniform, Cab wished he had his sword.
The Queensguard had asked too much. Like a coward, he’d run. Not because he was too moral, too meek, but because he was too frightened.
He couldn’t outrun his fear. It had come for him.
A silver beast broke through the barn door. Collided with Cab in a blur of lightning-fast power. Knocked him to the ground so hard that the world disappeared, memories bad and good, confusion, fear, and anger.
The oddest part of the experience was, surprisingly . . .
That Cab had been expecting it. He’d known the voice was calling him. He’d been ready.
Flat on his back in old, musty hay, two massive, clawed feet on his chest and three eyes staring into his own. Pure calm flooded him. He didn’t feel afraid, even when the flute-hiss of the almost-voice slithered through him from his toes to the top of his head.
Something wet trickled over his upper lip. Blood from his nose. The lizard darted a silver tongue past its pointed fangs, through what looked like smiling lips. The tip forked over Cab’s bloody skin. Cab stared as that blood traveled up the tongue, sucked into the lizard’s throat, resting where the clavicle should be. A single red dot, part of Cab’s life force, hung there, barely visible through the slightly translucent scales. A part of him inside this thing.
This amazing thing.
If this was his death by sorcery, he welcomed it.
Words began to congeal like mending stitches inside Cab’s head, formed from the disconnected syllables that had been haunting him.
He . . .
. . . ll . . .
Hell . . .
. . . o . . .
Hello.
Cab panted to catch his breath, lungs fighting the weight on his chest. The weight eased. The lizard sat back, though both front feet remained solidly pressed over the spot where Cab’s heart was ricocheting against his ribs. Possessive.
Not in a bad way.
Was Cab supposed to answer that greeting? Was he out of his mind? Had the mushrooms he’d cleared from Tithe Barley’s field that morning been the kind that made you see fae and Ancient Ones and wake up five days later in a ditch with no underthings?
No one runs from their oath to the Hill and lives, Cab’s fear insisted.
No, not that. He felt peaceful in a way he wouldn’t, if this meeting had been thanks to sorcery. Whole in a way he hadn’t since he’d put the Hill behind him for good, and damned himself with the consequences. Right in a way he never had. His lips twitched, tugged into a smile of their own accord.