His words felt very final, and Amma frowned, heat in her face from the offer. She supposed it was sort of stupid, and she should have known better, but it cost her nothing to offer kind words, or at least she thought it would. She didn’t expect to earn his scorn though.
“He was very skilled,” Damien said then. When she looked up, he was still gnawing on the bone, but his features had changed, a little softer under the firelight.
Amma was careful not to spook the talkativeness out of him. “Was he a blood mage too?”
Damien nodded absently. “He was one hundred, maybe one hundred and fifty or so, hard to tell with all the enchantments he used on his face, but I suppose he lived a long and fulfilling life.”
“Did you know each other well?”
“We were acquainted enough to share notes a time or two. He showed me a more efficient way to summon imps when I was quite a bit younger, not that I utilize them that often.” He tipped his head. “I think he may have had a lich cat. Or was it an undead raccoon? No…no, that was Everild, and I’m pretty sure it was actually a badger. Malcolm had a sort of moat filled with very bitey fish, could tear the flesh off the bone in seconds. He could somehow tell them apart, and they all had names. Maybe he was just fucking with me though.”
She studied his face, how his brows knit and then the corner of his mouth turned up. He didn’t seem particularly sad, but he was admitting to not being terribly friendly with this dead man. And then she was surprised when he went on.
“We would always speak at Yvlcon gatherings, but I suppose I didn’t know much about his personal life, and what I did learn I wasn’t…keen on. He always had a new bride, someone very pretty and very young, never would say what happened to the last one, and you know, it just gets distasteful when your wife could be your grandchild. And that’s another thing—he didn’t have any of those because he always came up with some frivolous excuse to kill off his own children. I never understood any of that. I mean, if someone is willing to marry you, to have your child, why would you throw it all away…” Damien shook his head. “Nevermind, that’s not the point. It’s just that, I didn’t even know he died. I’ve been wrapped up in my work for a while—my whole life, really—but never as separate as I’ve been from the others for the last few years.”
“Aren’t you all working toward the same thing though? Realm domination? Seems like it could put you at odds.”
“Perhaps, but there are other things that need doing, crystals that need breaking and all that.”
“But you miss your…”—she squinted at him, testing the word—“your friends?”
“That’s thething,” he said, pointing at her with the bone but staring hard into the fire. “I don’t. I’m surprised I wasn’t abreast of what happened, but not all that bothered. My colleague is gone, so I should be bothered, shouldn’t I?” When Damien looked up at her, she read the deep confusion on his face.
Was he actually asking her? Truly looking for advice? Her chest tightened, but she tried not to show the anticipation on her face.
“Um, well? Sometimes we grow apart from people.” He nodded back, really looking at her and listening, so she carefully went on. “Especially if our goals or the way we feel about the world no longer aligns. You said you didn’t like how he handled his relationships, so maybe you’re just not sorryMalcolmis gone. Is there another person you’d be upset about losing? Or someone you lost that made you feel…bothered?”
Damien thought a moment longer, the pinched confusion falling away as the flames jumped in his violet eyes. “My mother,” he said so softly she almost didn’t hear, but then he flicked away the bone and sat straighter. “Well, it hardly matters. A man got himself killed by being an idiot. Such is life. And death.”
Amma so badly wanted to drag him back to what he’d whispered, to make him sayanything elseabout that, but the change in his demeanor told her it wouldn’t be welcome if she asked, so she did the kinder thing and narrowed her eyes at him. “And you want to go way off course and do the same thing that idiot was doing when he died?”
“Difference is, I have something he didn’t.” Damien grinned back at her slyly. “A good set of hands that will do exactly what I tell them to.”
They woke early the next morning, and with less sleep than normal, Amma was especially tired. Thankful for the knoggelvi, who happily accepted another sugar cube and nuzzled her in repayment, she stared out at the westerly way with bleary eyes as they rode, undeterred from Faebarrow. Damien’s mood had lightened, and he didn’t snap at either of them even when they were slow to get moving or when Kaz badgered him with questions about heading so far off course yet again.
Once the sun was high in the sky and her mind got to working a bit harder, she considered if heading to Faebarrow might actually be beneficial. It was where she needed to end up, regardless, she just didn’t expect to be there with a strange man, looking so much like a villain with his black armor and his mysterious scar and his knitted brows, not to mention all the spooky blood magic. It was almost too perfect, she suddenly realized, staring over at him from her spot on her mount.
As if the two moons had aligned and an arcane eclipse were gifting Amma with unimaginable luck, Damien’s presence with her would bring credence to a claim that she had no idea previously how she might prove. If she just bade her time until they were deep in Faebarrow—but thescroll. She needed the Scroll of the Army of the Undead first.
“What?”
Amma blinked, pulling her gaze away. She’d been staring and lost herself as her mind worked, but she had no idea how he noticed: he had been studying the pages of that boring book he called research again. “Nothing, I was just thinking.”
“About?” Damien turned a page.
Thankfully, he hadn’t used that word that forced out the truth. Her eyes flicked to the road ahead and a line of trees there. “Poplar.”
“Pop-what?”
“Poplar trees.” She pointed at the row coming up on their right. “There are three different kinds, black ones, white ones, and greys like those.” When he continued to look at her as if waiting for more, she figured she should go on despite that no one, except Laurel on rare occasion, ever really wanted to hear more when she was talking about trees. “The grey ones are superior. They’re a hybrid of the other two kinds and have the best of them both, so they grow faster and taller than their parent plants.”
“You know a lot about shrubs and things, don’t you?”
“Sort of.” She shrugged. “Trees, really.”
“Then you should like where we’re headed. They’ve got a very unique species there.”
“I know,” she mumbled, busying her hands with the braids she’d put into the knoggelvi’s mane.
