Vaelin gave a small laugh as he dipped under the rope and approached the horse at a slow walk, both hands held out to his side. “You remind me of an old friend,” he said, the grey betraying a small measure of alarm now, his stamping ceased as he stood, muscles twitching. His eyes grew wide as Vaelin’s hand reached out to smooth the hair on his neck. “Are you a biter, I wonder?” Vaelin murmured, watching the grey’s mouth open and close reflexively. “I’d wager you are.”
The grey’s teeth snapped and he wheeled away, hooves pounding the earth as he sped back into the ranks of his fellow horses. Fast and strong, Vaelin thought, making his way back to Varnko’s tent. Strong enough to carry two, though riding whilst bound hand and foot won’t be comfortable.
* * *
◆ ◆ ◆
“Will he live?”
“The curative seems to be taking hold.” Sherin blinked tired eyes and wiped a clean cloth over one of her tiny-bladed knives. “It seems I was right about the poison. A nasty concoction I haven’t seen before. Luckily it was similar enough to nightshade to enable me to formulate a counter.” She glanced over her shoulder at the sleeping boy behind the veil of silks she had erected around his bed. “Youth is on his side, and he’s a strong lad. However, it’ll require a few days’ observation before I know for sure.”
Vaelin stepped closer, ignoring her forbidding frown and lowering his voice to a murmur. “We don’t have a few days. It’s time we were gone from here.”
“I have a patient to care for. And a mission, unless you’ve forgotten.”
“Your part is done. Varnko will take the Princess to meet their man-god. She can sing her song perfectly well without you, or me.”
Sherin sighed and met his gaze squarely, speaking in soft but intent tones. “Understand this, Vaelin. I am not leaving her. We began this journey together, and we’ll end it together.”
Vaelin began to reach for her arm but stopped himself. However, the gesture drew her gaze to the rope he held in his other hand. “Well,” she said, eyes narrowing in understanding. “At least you’re not going to drug me this time.”
“You can hate me if you wish, but I didn’t journey all these miles to watch you die.”
Her eyes flashed at him. “I already died, years ago when I woke on a ship to find the man I loved had betrayed me. Ahm Lin told me the Alpirans had killed you, as I assume you instructed. I knew it was a lie, of course. I knew you lived. Through all the years it took me to come back to life, I knew you were still breathing, still somewhere on the other side of the world fighting yet another filthy war.”
“There were reasons. Something I had to do. Something that needed doing.”
“This needs doing. I need to be part of it and so, she insists, do you.”
Vaelin steeled himself against the implacable resolve in her gaze and hefted the rope. “Please don’t make me.”
Her eyes, bright with fury, slipped from his to the rope and back again. He knew there was a risk she might scream but was confident he could clamp a hand to her mouth in time, although he fervently hoped he wouldn’t have to. Finally, she looked away, taking a deep breath. “Let me gather my things,” she muttered, mouth set in a hard line as she began collecting her knives and bottles.
“Be quick.” Vaelin glanced at the open tent flap, the Skeltir’s warning ringing louder in his mind with every passing second. Come the dawn there will be nothing I can do. “I doubt we have lo—”
His words became a hiss as something small but very sharp stabbed into his neck. He whirled, instinctively batting away Sherin’s hand, though managing to stop himself from following up with a punch. She stepped back quickly, avoiding his flailing grip, her stern features blurring as a deep, liquid heat spread from his neck through his shoulders and into his chest. Reaching up he felt the long thin needle still embedded in his skin, positioned precisely to find the biggest vein.
“I know,” Sherin said as his legs failed him and her face dissolved into darkness. “Hurts, doesn’t it?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
He seemed taller in my dream, like a giant.”
“Oh, I think he’s big enough for the task.”
“A task I thought we had agreed was unnecessary.”
“I recall no such agreement. But then, for me our shared