against the curtains of pulverised grey, as though agitated or confused.
‘I think . . .’ a voice, faint and freezing, spoke, ‘she’s talking to you.’
The voice was familiar to her. She remembered it as well as she remembered Lenk’s own. And now they spoke in unison, each one with a crisp clarity that settled upon her skin like rime.
She could feel her heart sink. Whatever dwelt on the other side of the dust cloud was not completely Lenk. Perhaps, she thought, maybe not even Lenk at all.
‘What?’ When he spoke next, it was with his own voice, but it was frightened, shrill, like a small child’s. ‘No, I didn’t mean . . . stop. Don’t yell at me!’
This was it, she knew, the sign she had been waiting for. He was a disease within a disease now, completely lost to whatever plagued him. These were the moments she should be running instead of staring at his shadow through the veil of dust. These were the moments she should turn, leave this human - all humans - behind her and thank Riffid for giving her the clarity to be free of her shame.
‘Stop it . . .’ he whimpered, his voice rising into a roar. ‘I said stop!’
He would never hear her footsteps as she walked away. She kept that in mind as she turned to the water, reassuring herself. He would think it all a dream in his fevered mind, he would think she was dead. He would never suspect that she had left him behind.
And still, she cursed herself. She should be braver, she should be able to stand before the human disease, the great sickness that plagued the world, and spit on him through a shictish curse. Her father would have wanted that. Her people would have wanted that.
For her part, Kataria merely wanted to fight back the urge to turn around.
‘Kat ...’
Damn it, she muttered in her mind as she halted, damn it, damn it, damn it.
She turned, only to be greeted by another sign. The curtains of smoke parted, layer by layer, exposing the shadow behind in greater detail. Her blood froze at the sight, the distorted shape of the young man, the jaggedness of his outline and the bright, ominous blue with which his eyes shone.
He extended a hand to her, trembling, far too big to be his own and whispered.
‘Please . . .’
This was the final sign, Riffid’s last mercy to her. She should turn, walk away, run away, leave this human and whatever he had become in the shadows behind her. Her ancestry demanded it. Her pride as a shict demanded it. Her own instincts demanded it.
Kataria listened carefully. And, in response, she drew in a sharp breath and walked into the cloud of dust.
‘I’m here,’ she said as she might speak to an injured puppy, her hands groping about blindly. ‘I’m here, Lenk.’
She found him in a sudden shock as her hands clasped around flesh that froze like a fish’s. She swallowed hard, ignoring this sign as she had done the last, hearing in the faintest whispers Riffid cursing her for her stupidity.
Another hand reached out to clasp about hers and she froze. Through the leather of his glove, through the leather of hers, she could feel it, a sensation that caused her to go breathless as he squeezed her fingers in his.
Warmth.
‘You’re alive,’ he spoke.
He spoke, she told herself, unable to fight back the smile creeping onto her face. Lenk spoke. No one else.
‘Come on,’ she urged, pulling at him.
They staggered out into the stagnant air and the dying light of the torches. She drew in a sharp breath before looking at him, afraid to find grey flesh or pupilless spheres staring back at her.
Instead, she saw a man barely alive. His shirt was tattered and clung to a body that was stained red in areas. His leg, rent with a jagged cut, barely seemed capable of supporting the rest of his wiry frame. Deep circles lined his eyes and his smile was weary and accompanied by a sharp wince.
He looks so weak, she thought, like a sick dog or something. Why she should find that endearing, she did not know. The faint smile that crept to her face quickly vanished by the time her gaze drifted to the black-stained blade and the severed, golden-haired head in his grasp, however.
She cleared her throat. ‘Busy in there?’
‘A bit,’ he replied as he tucked the head’s glimmering locks into his belt.
He paused at