While I turn away, his vacant expression as he looks toward the horizon haunts me, the kind of thing I know I will never forget.
Both of our veils have dropped.
But only one of us is prepared to acknowledge this.
Thirty-TwoOne Final Parting Gift.
I’m sitting on the stoop of the house next to the saddle, our packs, and his surcoat when Merc finally returns. I don’t look up at the man or the horse, because I’m afraid of what’s showing on my face. With me no longer hiding behind a hood or a veil, I’m going to have to work on composing myself when I’m anything but composed.
And I’m not talking about what I found upstairs. No doubt he saw the bloodstains on the first floor, too, and as if more would be a surprise?
Merc clears his throat. “You look ready to go.”
Getting to my feet, I brush off the seat of my makeshift pants and glance back at the door. “I collected any food that seemed remotely edible in a sack, and I found two water bladders and filled them. But I’m not sure whether we shouldn’t leave it all behind—”
“Don’t worry about the symbols.” The horse shakes his head as if in disagreement. “They don’t mean anything.”
Is he serious? “Only enough to ensure the violent deaths of every living thing here.”
“I’m referring to whether we should be concerned with contamination. All three of us drank the water last night. Dark magic goes there first. If this place was actually cursed, we’d feel it by now.”
“Or be dead,” I say with horror.
“And we didn’t eat any of the crops that were poisoned.”
“I thought… that was frost.”
“No. All the grass is still alive.”
Fates. But at least he sounds like he’s back in control, as if whatever happened at that field was left behind with the ruined vegetables and wilted leaves.
“We’re in this together, Sorrel,” he says brusquely as he saddles up the chestnut.
“At least until the Badlands.”
There’s a pause. “Yes, that’s right.”
I nod, as if we’ve reshaken on our agreement.
“I’ll just be getting my things, then—”
“They’re right here.” I’m surprised he hasn’t noticed. “So. Shall we saddle up?”
He says something that I don’t catch, and then he’s over at the pile I made of his things. With sure hands, he takes off the shoulder holster that mounts the broadsword on his back, pulls his surcoat on over the steel mesh on his chest, and then restraps the weapon’s heavy weight. While he’s tying his pack on the side where it was yesterday, I go to put on my own, and stop as the wool coat I’ve been wearing since last night registers.
My eyes shift again to theSandPmarking by the entry.
Before I can think too much, I take the coat off and go back into the house. As I return it to its place on the peg, I take a last look around. My eyes linger on the bloodstains. I don’t want to wear the clothing of a dead man, as if a violent mortal event is something you can catch, like a cold.
Back outside, I feel Merc watching me as I pick up my pack and put it on. I don’t wait for him to help me onto the chestnut. With a move that feels practiced, even though I have no conscious recollection of doing it before, I jump, find the stirrup with my left foot, and swing my right leg over the horse’s rump. My weight finds the back ledge I was on before as if I were made for the saddle or the latter was made for me.
“Well, you’ve come a long way.”
The comment is a throwaway from him, made as he puts his boot where my slipper shoe just was and mounts by swinging his leg forward, over the mane.
As he unsheathes his broadsword and sets us off, the words linger.
I start to think about all the things I’ve done that I couldn’t possibly have imagined as recently as a day ago: I’ve swum to freedom, I’ve ridden a horse—I helped kill abalas, for fate’s sake. I’ve eaten meat, traveled a great distance, run when I had to, hidden when I needed to, survived the forest, the night, the daybreak…
