“To have words with the king.”
“No!” I spring into action, hurtling across the paving stones, and just manage to throw myself between him and the tunnel entrance. He’s so massive, he could easily push me aside without a thought, but I spread wide my arms, making myself into the best barrier I can manage. “Don’t do it, Valtar. Alderin is already suspicious of you with that gods-damned scar of yours and your gods-damned sneaking about and all those gods-damned knives. If you do anything that might be construed as a threat, he’ll kill you. He’llkillyou, Valtar. I know it.”
Valtar does not look at me. He stands there, the living embodiment of rage contained in a pillar of ice. His gaze fixes over my head, staring into the black mouth of the tunnel. His breath issues in two white streams from his flared nostrils. The muscles in his throat work, and his jaw clenches so hard, I swear I can hear his teeth grinding.
At long last he turns his face to one side, his features cast in contrasting halves of shadow and light. “You are too trusting,” he says at last.
I blink. It’s an odd comment to make. Does he mean ofAlderin? Or himself? I suppose it doesn’t matter. What matters is some of that pressure inside him seems to be easing out. And that’s all I can hope for just now.
“A character flaw,” I say softly, and manage a little smile. “Not much to be done about it, I’m afraid.” I stretch out my unburnt hand and almost,almosttake hold of his. At the last moment I stop, withdraw, and put both hands behind my back, fist clenched around my burn. “Please, Valtar. Please, don’t go to the king.”
His teeth flash. “I thought the whole point of this championship was to find you a man worthy of defending you?”
“I don’t need to be defended from Alderin!”
“The way I see it, you may need that defense more than any other.”
I shake my head, struggling hard not to roll my eyes. “If you go and get yourself killed, who will be left to defend me then? Or do you suppose one bout of knife practice is enough to set me up for the rest of my life?”
Still not looking at me, he lifts an eyebrow and rolls his jaw.
“I mean it,” I persist. “I won’t have you putting yourself in needless danger. Now that I know where we are”—I swing an arm to indicate the terrible breadth of wilderness below us—“I’m going to need whatever allies I can muster if I’m going to get out of here.”
At this he turns to me, surprised. “You still mean to escape? Even now?”
I nod firmly. “This is certainly a wrinkle in my plans. But I’ll figure something out. I always do.”
Valtar sighs and shakes his head slowly. “Better to die devoured by monsters than to die in captivity?” he suggests.
“If it’s good enough for a gremler, it’s good enough for me.” I shrug. “We all die eventually.” Another silence falls between us.I’m suddenly much colder than I was before, and the night feels late. “I must go back,” I say with some reluctance. “Philippa will be worried.”
Without a word, Valtar walks me down the tunnel to the pulley lift. But when I step inside thescintil-lit box, he does not join me. “Are you coming?” I ask.
“Later,” he says, and begins to shut the door. He pauses, however, and adds, “You should practice. With the knife. Whenever you have opportunity.”
“Will you give me more lessons?”
A moment of hesitation. Then: “Yes.”
“Tomorrow night?”
The line of his cheek tenses, as though something has hurt him. But he nods.
“Excellent. I’ll meet you here then. Same time, same place. Wear something you don’t mind getting slashed up a bit.”
At that his tension eases. Perhaps it’s only a trick of the lonelyscintilglow, but I swear I even glimpse a flash of dimple. “Agreed.”
“Good night then, Valtar.”
He slides the door shut. But just before it clunks into its groove, I hear that deep rumble of his voice say: “Good night…Rosie.”
21
Valtar
The lift door slides shut, blocking her from my sight.
I stand for a moment in the darkness of that tunnel, listening to the gears and chains creak as the box descends. I listen until I know she is far below, well on her way back to the dark center of the mountain.
