Crumpet wrinkled his nose in distaste. He must have remembered their last encounter with the mage. Then he lowered his furry fists and sighed, nodding reluctantly.
Relief surged through Vaskel. At least he wouldn’t be responsible for something befalling Lira’s beloved baking assistant.
The flutterstoat unfurled his wings and flapped them, hovering in front of Vaskel before flying toward him and throwing his small arms around the hellkin’s neck. He gave him a brief squeeze, chattered something that Vaskel understood as a version of ‘good luck’, and flew away.
Vaskel watched the white silhouette grow more distant and finally get swallowed up by the dark. Then he pivoted back toward the castle and took long strides toward it.
As glad as he was that Crumpet was on his way back to Lira, he felt the absence of the creature as he walked under the portcullis and into the courtyard. Several torches burned around the stone walls, dappling light on the strewn dirt and straw, but there weren’t even the handful of guards that they’d encountered last time.
Vaskel stiffened, swinging his head from side to side. Since when was a castle—even a quiet one with an ailing laird—unguarded? He eyed the stairwell leading inside the castle, but Crumpet had already told him that Marina and Thrain weren’t up there. It was possible they were in one of the other wings of the castle, but his gut told him he needed to find Malek.
As much as he hated the idea of seeing the mage who’d murdered Pirrin again, he also knew that Malek had information on Marina. Even if he didn’t know where she and Cali were, he needed to know how much contact he’d had with the hellkin. He needed to know how much Malek had told Marina about him and their crewing days. He was under no illusion that Malek might very well be leading him into a trap, but he was desperate for information, and Malek knew something.
He curled his hands into fists and readied himself to see the dark mage he’d hoped he’d never have to encounter again. But before he could head to the dungeons, a figure burst from another entrance to the castle.
“I hoped I’d see you again,” the hellkin growled as he raced toward Vaskel, his tail slashing behind him.
Vaskel’s own tail lashed through the air as he feigned moving to one side, then switched at the last moment, dodging the hellkin and pivoting behind him. He brought a sharp elbow downhard on his attacker’s neck, grunting with satisfaction when the hellkin stumbled to his knees.
It wasn’t the guy’s fault. Vaskel had decades of experience on him and more battles than the young hellkin could imagine, even if he wasn’t as young and bloodthirsty anymore. Since the hellkin wasn’t using a weapon, Vaskel didn’t draw his blade, preferring to dispatch his opponent in hand-to-hand combat.
Before the hellkin could rise, Vaskel leapt up onto its back, using his knees to pin the arms while he hooked one arm around the hellkin’s neck. Vaskel held on despite the thrashing and struggling, tightening his grip until the body beneath him slowed and then went limp. When it collapsed to the hard dirt, Vaskel jumped free and landed in a crouch.
Breathing hard, Vaskel glanced around and then took the hellkin by the ankles and dragged him behind a dilapidated cart, kicking some loose straw over him and quelling the urge to flick festering manure on the unconscious figure.
Now he had some idea why there were no guards around. If Marina’s hellkin crew was wandering the place, he suspected the guards had been dispatched.
With his senses on high alert, he continued through the courtyard. When he caught another flash of movement from another arched doorway, he let loose a string of hellkin curses. He instinctively stepped back and crouched into a fighting stance to take on the next hellkin—until Thrain rushed out.
He blew out a relieved breath. “Thrain! Where?—?”
“No time for small-talk, laddie.” Thrain ran to him, his long beard swinging from side to side. “Where’s the cookie?”
Vaskel pulled it from hi pocket. “Here, but why?—?”
Thrain roughly snatched the cookie and shoved it in Vaskel’s mouth mid-sentence. “Sorry, Vask. Open wide.”
Thrain’s meaty hands covered his lips and muffled Vaskel’s mumbled shock. “Mmmpfiggwilskerpiff?”
“You’ll thank me later.” Thrain gasped, beads of sweat clinging to his forehead. “If I was in time, that is.”
Vaskel chewed and swallowed and pulled Thrain’s hands from his mouth. “You want to tell me what’s going on?”
The dwarf jerked a thumb behind him. “Found Marina, but she wasn’t in her room.” He put a hand to his side as he winced and gulped another breath. “She was in the great hall. There was no way to signal you. No windows.”
He held up a finger as he bent over and continued gasping for air. “Hold on. I ran a lot of stairs.” He finally straightened. “I convinced her I was desperate to win her back. I might have even cried a few tears.”
Vaskel eyed him, wondering if Thrain had been acting or not.
“The long and short of it is I got her to eat the cookie.” The dwarf puffed out his barrel of a chest. “But then I remembered you needed to eat yours and I had no way to signal you so I told her I had the trots and ran to find you.” He grinned, his teeth a flash of white nestled in his dark whiskers. “Which I did.”
Vaskel took a few seconds to take in Thrain’s story. “Do you think she took long enough to eat the cookie, so that we were eating at the same time?”
Thrain shrugged. “Dunno, but I know I ran faster than I ever have before. Couldn’t have been more than a couple of minutes, and Marina likes to take her time with food.”
Vaskel didn’t feel any different, but Erindil had never mentioned what would happen when and if they broke the soul bind. He hadn’t expected a flash of lightning, but he would have thought there would be some reaction. His heart sank. Unless he’d been too late.
He shoved up his sleeve, his breath trapped in his throat. The marks were still there. He squinted in the moonlight. But were they lighter? Were they fading, or was it wishful, desperate thinking?
