only because of you. She told me what you did. She saw your sire in one of his moods, on the verge of their property. You drew him away. She was home alone with her brother. Fates know what would have happened.”
Syn grunted, for he couldnae speak any further of her, especially as both he and his cousin knew exactly what his sire would have done to such a delicate beauty.
Leaning down, he at last found a bladder that was half full. Lucky. His father rarely left them with anything in their confines.
“You saved her life,” Balthazar said. “She saved yours.”
“Not a fair swap,” Syn said as he took the cork out of the neck. “Not by any distance at all.”
Walking around, he poured the strong, fermented alcohol out, the smell making him choke. Since his transition, his senses were painfully acute, and his body did not feel like his own. He was so tall, his limbs flopping about, his feet too large for even his sire’s old shoes, his hands broad and long-fingered.
He didnae know what his face looked like. He didnae care about that.
“What are you doing?” Balthazar asked.
Syn paused as he came up to the feet of his mahmen. “Why did he keep her here? He didnae care for her.”
Even as he asked that of someone who wouldnae know, Syn himself had the answer. The remains were a visceral reminder of why doing what he was told was his only chance for survival. His sire had had to ensure Syn’s submission. There were many nights and days when the male was too drunk to be able to forage for food. He needed to be attended.
And he had wanted to be obeyed.
Syn murmured something to his mahmen and then he proceeded to pour the mead upon her, the dark liquid sinking into the layers of blanketing that surrounded her skeleton.
When he had emptied the bladder, he tossed the thing upon the pallet.
“Are you burning this down then, cousin?”
Dearest Virgin Scribe, he couldnae stand the stink of the mead. It took him back to nights he had been smaller. Weaker. Glancing behind himself, he saw a broken chair and remembered how he had been thrown into it, his little body splitting the arm and one of the legs.
At least his full set of teeth had come in during his change. His father had only knocked out the little ones.
Syn turned to the fire and picked out one of the logs that was alit. “You need to leave.”
Balthazar frowned. “Were you not even going to say goodbye to me?”
“You need to go.”
There was a long pause, and Syn prayed that the male didnae fall victim to emotions that were best left unexpressed.
When his cousin merely stepped out, Syn looked around one last time. Then he tossed the burning log onto his mahmen’s remains. As the flames flared and spread quickly, he thought of the heat that had torn through his body during his transition. He remembered little of what had happened with any clarity, but he recalled the heat. That and the snapping of his bones as they had grown inches in the course of hours.
He couldnae believe he had lived through it. Or that that lovely, generous female had fed him from her vein until just before dawn. With the approaching sunlight, she had had to go so that she wasnae caught in such deadly illumination. Balthazar, meanwhile, had strung up tarping around the shelter to shield Syn as the transition had continued, his body maturing to its current, unfathomable size.
He had been so weak after it was all over. He could remember lying with his cheek on the hoof-trodden, packed earth, and feeling as though he would never cool down. But eventually, as the sun had gone behind the horizon and the day’s warmth faded, so too had the burn within his torso and limbs.
When he had finally emerged from the shelter, he had braced himself to see the blood of his sire, blood that Syn had shed, the gore and the remains all that was left behind of his father. There was none. It was all gone, as if it had never been. He had asked Balthazar if he had smelled the burning during the daylight. His cousin had said yes, he had.
And after that, Syn had recovered herein this hut for the three days and nights.
Now, as flames flared further and began to spread, Syn closed his eyes and said his goodbyes. He knew not where