Everything is terrible.
I return to sit beside Grey, dropping next to the fire. I pull a whetstone from my pack, then draw my dagger. It doesn’t need sharpening, but I need something to do or I’m going to bash my head into a rock. I’ll have to hunt soon, but I don’t want to leave him, especially with Nakiis lurking somewhere in the darkness.
“Anytime you’d like to wake up,” I say, “I wouldn’t mind the company.”
Nothing.
“I can’t carry you to Syhl Shallow,” I say, passing the blade over the stone. “Though I must say I’m grateful for all the drills that allowed me to get you this far.”
Nothing. It doesn’t matter. I’m used to talking to Mercy. I can outline our next movements to an unconscious king.
The blade scrapes over the stone in rhythmic fashion. “I suppose I can carry you to the nearest major road. Rhen will send a team through as quickly as possible. I estimate it will take them at least three days to get this far—and we’ve already used up one. I don’t have a map, but I believe we’re about twenty miles west of the King’s Highway. If I start walking at daybreak, I should be able to beat them there.”
Twenty miles, carrying a man on my shoulders. A daunting task on my best day. I’m so exhausted right now that it feels impossible.
A screech splits the night, and then a dead wild goose lands in thedirt right in front of me. I jump and nearly put the blade right through my hand.
I look up as Nakiis settles back onto the branch. He stares down at me wordlessly, and for a moment, I don’t move.
“Again,” I say finally, “thank you.”
He says nothing. I suppose I’m the only one making conversation, then. I start plucking feathers, then quickly and efficiently slice the meat from the bone before laying it on rocks in the fire to cook.
He brought me water and food—but he also lured Sinna away from the palace. I’m not sure how to proceed.
I slice the heart free and hold it out to him. Those gleaming eyes look back at me, but he doesn’t leave the branch.
“Iisak always asked for the heart,” I say. “It’s yours if you want it.”
He still doesn’t move.
I think of what he’s said before, how he doesn’t want to bebound. I’ve never lived my life as someone who keeps track of implied debts for things that should be considered a simple kindness. But maybe Nakiis does. Maybe he’s had to.
“Offered without expectation,” I say. “As thanks for your generosity.” After the longest moment, I add, “Otherwise, I’m going to throw it into the fire.”
His wings beat at the air as he leaps off the branch. He barely lands before swiping the flesh from my palm, then darts to the opposite side of the fire.
It’s so hard not to think of his father, of the similarities and differences between them. There’s a part of me that pulses with longing, withloss, because it’s been so long, and so much about this moment reminds me ofbefore.
But Iisak wouldn’t have kidnapped a child. Iisak wouldn’t have had his claws wrapped around my throat.
I swipe my bloody hands in the dirt to dry them, then brush them off on my trousers. “What are you doing here?” I say.
I don’t expect him to answer, but he does. “You were pouring magic into the air forhours,” he says. “I could feel it from miles away.”
“I wasn’t.” I cast a glance at the king. “He was.”
“You allowed him to burn through his power, then.”
“He burned through his magic?” I stare across the flickering fire. “Is that why he can’t wake up?”
Nakiis tears a bit of flesh from the heart with his fangs, and I’m both glad that it’s dark and glad that Idoremember his father, because I don’t flinch from the sight. The look he gives me is shrewd. “I tasted your blood in Gaulter,” he says. “You cannot hide your magic from me, boy.”
I hold up my naked hand. “That was his magic, too. I had rings of Iishellasan steel. They’re gone.”
His eyes widen, but he tears another piece of the heart and studies me. I turn the meat on the rocks. I’m so hungry that I’m tempted to eat the poultry as raw as he does.
“You wore magic-bound steel against your skin?” he says.
