The wound was deeper than I thought when I hunched over to peer at it. Still, I had nothing to stitch it with. I hoped Dakkari were the fast healers that stories made them out to be. Once, I’d heard of a Dakkari warrior taking five spears to the chest and he still walked from that battle alive.
Quickly, I cleaned the blood away and used most of the fresh water to cleanse the wound. Infection here was highly probable, given the damp, wet state of the Dead Mountain. I worried if I got the smallest of scratches. I’d watched many die from lesser infections over the years. My father included.
“Are you their healer?” came his question.
I was surprised he was still speaking to me. When I looked up at him, I realized that our faces were close to one another’s. I could see a faint scar along the bridge of his nose and a wider one, raised and golden, near the back of his jaw.
In the end, I didn’t answer him. What did he care anyways? To him, I was nothing. I was practically a ghost to everyone else too.
A short grunt emerged from his throat at my silence.
“I’ve angered you,” he commented quietly. “Even human females can kill with their scorn.”
“You can think what you wish but I am too tired for scorn,” I said softly, deciding not to give him anything more than that. Surprise alighted in his gaze before his seemingly ever-present scowl returned. I dabbed the last bit of his wound and straightened, dropping the bloodied cloth in the basin.
I stepped away, cradling it in my right arm and snagging the torch with my left.
As I stepped towards the door, his voice stopped me.
“Just tell me one thing,kalles,” he said. I stared at the door in front of me, at the shadows playing there. “How did you do it? How did you control the fog?”
My lips pressed together. He remembered the way the fog had pushed away from him then. I hoped he wouldn’t let that slip to anyone else. It was safer for me if no one else knew.
“I didn’t,” was all I said.
His slight scoff told me he didn’t believe me.
My jaw clenched. I looked at him over my shoulder, only to see his glowing red eyes fastened on me.
“The stories were wrong,” I whispered. “Horde kings aren’t gods or monsters. They’re just like everyone else on this planet.”
His brow quirked, his sardonic interest clear. “And what am I,sarkia?”
“I think you’re scared.”
The tension in the room snapped tight as my accusation hung between us.
“Maybe not of us, of him,” I whispered. “But I think you’re scared of what’s outthere. Is that why you went into the fog every morning? Because you were trying to figure out its weakness?” I shook my head. “It has none.”
His chains rattled. I watched as he stood from the stone table, though the short leash of his chain prevented him from taking more than a step or two. Still, it drew him closer to me.
That massive body would have towered over me had I not been near to the door. I couldn’t see beyond his wide breadth. Only him.
And I saw it then. His rapt gaze on mine. His furrowed brow. He’d worn the same expression in the fog as he studied me. When he’d claimed, by his own confession, todesireme. As if he couldn’t understand what I was made of and heneededto uncover it.
“And you don’t?” he asked quietly. “You don’t fear it?”
“No,” I whispered. “I don’t fear what’s beyond the Dead Mountain. I fear what’s within it.”
* * *
On my wayback to the sleeping quarters, I spied Kaila carefully stepping from the room. She hadn’t seen me. She moved along the corridors with a stable hand against the wall to act as her guide.
She wove a familiar path, one I was certain we all knew, and I followed her with a sinking feeling in my belly. She turned into a dark room and I saw the flare of a small torch coming to life. I waited a moment and then crept closer.
Peering inside, I saw what I feared. Kaila had the chest open—the key to which only Benn had—and was rummaging through our rations. I watched as she dug out a long strip ofrikcrunmeat, dry and crumbly, and brought it to her lips.
Her teeth gnashed at the meat hard and it was only after she swallowed her first bite that she looked over her shoulder.
