"Right," he slurs, his voice a rough gravel. "Tars! You're up first. Go pick one."
My blood turns to fire. I watch the lanky slaver, the one who searched the loft, walk to the iron cage. He leers, his shadow dancing, and unlocks the door. The sound of the heavy iron pin sliding back is a violation.
I see the women shrink back, a pale mass of terror. He reaches in and drags one out by her hair. She is young, and she does not scream, she only makes a low, choking sound.
He hauls her, stumbling, toward the dark farmhouse. "Do not break her," the leader laughs. "We need her for the Market."
The farmhouse door closes.
This is Dareksword's estate. This is the mercenary crew. This is the sound of women dragged from their hiding places, the same casual, brutish cruelty. This is the price of my food and shelter.
My hand clenches into a fist, my nails biting so deep into my own palm that I draw blood. The small, sharp pain is a relief.
I am healed. I am strong. I could drop from this loft now. I could land on the leader and break his neck before he draws a breath. I see the path. I drop, kill him. I take his sword. The lanky one is next.
But the other two have crossbows. I am fast, but I am not faster than three bolts. They are not warriors, but a lucky shot will kill me. And if I die, Aurora is left behind. They will find her. They will put her in that cage.
My strength is a liability. It screams for me to charge, but a charge is suicide. I am trapped by my own duty to protect her. I am a warrior, forced to hide in the hay like a rodan while this happens.
This is a new kind of hell. It is worse than the poison. The shame of inaction is a cold, black, suffocating thing. I am a protector who cannot protect. I am a butcher's dog, hiding in the rafters, watching other dogs do the work.
The farmhouse door creaks open. The lanky slaver returns, zipping his breeches. He tosses the weeping woman onto the dirt by the cage and grunts, "Next."
Another one is taken. The cycle repeats. The rage in my chest builds, a silent, volcanic pressure. I am a stone. I am a coiled spring. I wait. I am about to break. I am about to do something stupid, something that will get us both killed.
I feel Aurora shift beside me. Her terror is a sharp scent in the air, but beneath it, I smell something else. Her own rage, cold and sharp as a shard of ice. Her breath is hot on my ear as she leans close, her voice a whisper I almost do not hear.
"Do not fight them," she breathes. "Not like this.Wecannot."
I tense, ready to dismiss her. My rage is a roaring fire, and her words are nothing.
"Butthey can."
16
AURORA
The morning light is a lie.
It streams in through the cracks in the barn wall, painting golden, dusty bars across the hay. It should mean safety. It should mean the night is over. Instead, it just illuminates our prison.
I am pressed into the shadows of the hayloft, my body aching from a night spent knotted in terror. Beside me, Othic has not slept. He is a mass of coiled, silent fury. I can feel the heat rolling off him, a dangerous, contained inferno. He is healed. The numiscu fever is a memory, his strength has flooded back into his massive frame, and the sight of what is happening below us is driving him mad.
The smell is the worst part. The clean, earthy scent of the hay is gone, choked out by the stench of the slavers' camp. It is a thick, greasy miasma of unwashed bodies, stale zhisk, urine, and the lingering, metallic tang of the suru they roasted. But underneath it all, like a sickness on the air, is the sour, sharp, animal smell of raw fear. It rises in waves from the iron cage below.
Othic shifts, a fractional movement, and the old floorboards groan.
Below, one of the slavers—a lanky, sallow-skinned man—looks up, his eyes bloodshot and stupid. "What was that?"
The leader, a big, scarred man with a matted black beard, does not even open his eyes. He is slumped against the wagon wheel, a half-empty zhisk skin in his lap. "It's the rodan, Jax. Shut up and get me more meat."
My breath catches.Jax.The lanky one has a name.
The one called Jax grumbles, "Get it yourself, Tars."
Tars.The leader. I file the names away, two more sharp edges in my mind.
I watch them, my heart a cold, hard stone in my chest. I look at Othic. His jaw is so tight I fear his tusks will crack. I know what he is thinking. He could drop from this loft, land on Tars, and snap his neck before the man could even grunt.
