“I can’t—”
“Youcanand youwillbecause you have no choice.” His sharp voice echoes up and down the tunnel. “Stop this right now, and get walking. Only forward, never back!”
Merc pulls me forward and I’m so shocked that I forget the rioting sensations in my body. As he drags me along, I paddle at the puddles with my leather slippers, the cloak tangling around my legs.
“Let go of me—”
“Make me.”
“That’s unfair.” I yank at his hold. “You’re bigger than I am. Stronger. Harder—”
“Make me.”
“What are you—”
“You want me to let go?” He jerks me around and shoves the torch at my hand. “Lead on, and I will. But either you’re walking ahead of me or I’m dragging you behind. One of two is happening here, and thatisyour choice. But going back isn’t, and stopping here isn’t. What’s it going to be.”
Between one blink and the next, I see Mare defiled in the nest of the blankets I stole for her.
“This isn’t fair,” I choke out.
“What makes you think life is.” His words are edged with a savagery that draws my stare to the scar on his face. “Don’t be weakandstupid. Nothing is fair, no one is going to save you except yourself, and going back isn’t an option. So am I dragging you or are you stopping this right now.”
How has this all happened? I wonder. What am I doing here—
“I was orphaned,” I find myself repeating in a numb mumble. “… on the birthing bed. And left in the village square…”
“What way are we doing this. That is theonlyresponse required.”
I’m trembling so hard, my cloak is like the torch’s flame. The whole of Anathos feels against me, from my village to this man who is yelling at me to the fate that has stripped me of everything, down even to those precious herbs and the cheap mementos I’d collected in my hovel under the stairs. And then there is this supposed past of mine, of which I have no conscious knowledge—and don’t believe, no matter Mr. Lewis’s apparent conviction.
“I was orphaned, on the birthing bed,” I whisper as something prowls around my subconscious, something more threatening even than this tunnel or the hard, frustrated mercenary before me. “And left in the village square…”
“And you think that makes you special? We’re all abandoned the instant we’re born.”
“Why is fate so cruel.”
There’s a long pause, nothing but the sound of dripping water and the hiss and spit of the torch between us. Then his grim response: “You don’t know what cruelty is.”
I think of all the times I’ve been shunned, by all the villagers whose bairnsI saved. Lifting my chin, I say with force, “You havenoidea what I’ve endured. And that crowd wanted to kill me over a lie—”
“But theydidn’t. So are you going to do the job for them after you got away?” Merc points over my shoulder with a jab. “You stop now and you might as well have marched into that square and let them set you afire back there.”
I open my mouth to respond, but all I have is a roar in between my ears and a pounding in my chest.
He drops his arm. “I was wrong.”
“A-about our arrangement?”
“No, there’s a third option.” He steps back. “I leave you here. I am not wasting my life on your weakness, no matter how much I want to fuck you.”
With that, he pivots away and starts walking again, taking his presence—and all the light we have—with him.
The darkness crashes into me as he rounds a bend and goes out of view.
I am alone in the tunnel.
FifteenAn Impasse.
