“Forgive me for the blow,” he said to her. “I struck in anger and false assumption. Robert’s time alone with him was clearly ill-spent.”
Kayla was not foolish enough to say she understood, or that she forgave him. The words would die silent in her throat. Absently she wondered how long the spell would last. She glanced at Robert’s body. Too long, and she might end up like him.
“Come,” Thren said, walking beside Kayla as if nothing were the matter. “I want to make sure Laurie’s entrance to Veldaren is memorable as possible.”
They left Senke alone with Aaron, who still stood before the body. He appeared dumbstruck and on the verge of tears.
“I have nothing to clean up the blood with,” he said, his voice oddly distant. Senke tried to laugh, but it came out more as a choked cough.
“There’s a closet in the corner with a bunch of spare sheets. You can use one of them.”
Aaron obeyed, moving in a stiff, methodical manner. Senke watched him, all the while rubbing his fingers across the front of his chest.
“I’ve had sex with a horse,” he said as Aaron walked back. The boy paused, but Senke laughed again, his face flushing a pale shade of red.
“Just testing the spell,” Senke said. “Clearly it’s worn off.”
“Clearly.”
Senke sighed. Aaron bent down on his knees and began mopping up the blood. He kept his eyes straight down, as if afraid of seeing the body. The sight of it seemed so…wrong.
“Listen,” Senke said as he knelt down. “That was a special man, and an old one, too. He was ready to go, and I don’t think he was too upset with you about it, alright? I know how much pressure Thren’s putting on you. He wants you to replace him one day, and to be a name the whole world fears.”
“I don’t want the world to fear me,” Aaron whispered. “I want them to fear Haern.”
“Haern?” asked Senke. “I’m not sure I…”
Aaron glanced up at him, his stare hard and full of killing. Senke’s mouth dropped open. Kayla knew Dustin had been sent after Delius’s daughter. Senke had seen Aaron come speak with Kayla in the mess hall. It made no sense for an old man to try and kill Dustin. But a young one, one who had vanished and was left behind instead of being at his father’s side when infiltrating the castle…
“I could get killed for this,” Senke said as he stood. He glanced around, as if looking for spies listening in on their conversation. “Fuck me like a Kerran whore. You’re Haern. You took a new name.”
At Aaron’s icy look, Senke broke out into nervous laughter.
“Up, down, and sideways, as our dear Kayla likes to say. I know grown men who would have crumbled and confessed sooner than you did, boy. How old are you again?”
Aaron ignored the question, focusing instead on mopping up the rest of the blood. Senke saw the current blanket he held was completely soaked so he retrieved another. He tossed it over Robert’s body, shaking his head as his grin faded.
“We’ve all got secrets, Aaron,” Senke said as he rubbed his chest again. “Some we tell, and some we keep hidden. Yours must stay hidden. Do you understand that? If anyone finds out what you did, they’ll go to Thren in a heartbeat. I don’t want to imagine your father’s fury. He’ll kill everyone who knew about it, including me and Kayla. I don’t know about you, but I’m quite happy with living, and would like to continue doing so for the next couple of decades.”
“I don’t see a way out,” Aaron said as Senke tucked the sheets around the body. “And what was the point? I prayed, and people died. Hardly mercy. Ashhur’s not even real. He’s…he’s just a shitty dream.”
Senke tsk’ed at him.
“Such language,” he said as he knelt down. He looked to the door, as if expecting it to bang open at any moment. Just in case, he put his back to it and acted as if he were busy wrapping the body. While Aaron watched, he pulled out a small medallion of the golden mountain from underneath his leather armor.
“I’m not the most faithful,” Senke said as Aaron’s eyes widened in shock. “I treat it more like a good luck charm than anything else. Doing what we do makes prayer hard sometimes, you know? But whatever you want to say, or want to learn, I’ll do my best. I might be signing my death