‘Just a little tired, that’s all.’I don’t mention the splitting pain in my head, the icy blast in my chest, the taste of death swirling my mouth. If Orthriel registers my mental asides, they don’t mention them either. I take a steadying breath, grateful my Guardian has returned, even if they are keeping something from me.
Maybe we’re all entitled to our secrets.
I pause, sheltering behind a briar thicket. The cloaked figure is still staring up at the trees. I set my intention and close my eyes, focus on my hands. At first, I feel nothing. Only the cold air licking my skin. But then a faint tingle tickles the heart of my palm. Am I doing it? Or is this pins and needles from the cold? I concentrate harder, willing the glow to appear. Manifesting it into existence.
I crack open my eyes. Just a sliver, but enough to see the tiny spark dancing on my right palm. A spark. It snuffs out as I open my eyes wider. The bitter taste of ash swirls my mouth, needle-sharp pains lance my skull, icy fingers pluck at my breastbone. When I try to call forth the light again, there’s nothing.
And my courage gutters too.
Whatever impulse emboldened me to confront the mysterious figure, now standing only a few feet away, withers.
Orthriel is right, I should wake the others. My hands tremble. I’m about to turn back when the cloaked figure moves deeper into the trees. I’ll lose them if I return to camp. Rocks lie scattered on the hillside. I bend to pick one up, but as I straighten, a briar splinters underfoot. Stars and Spheres! The shrouded figure turns at the sound, and I hurl the rock at them without thinking.
The figure ducks, dodging my missile.
It’s not the shadowy figure at the window, or the mutilated creature of my nightmares. Only Blayze. Relief unfurls inside me as the wavering candlelight from his lantern glints off his metal torc and the whites of his widened eyes.
‘I save your neck, and you repay me by trying to bludgeon me to death? You’ll need to improve your aim, Sparkles. I’m a large enough target, surely?’
‘I-I’m sorry. I thought…’ My breath hitches and I stare down at his mud-smeared boots. Stars, I wish that mud would swallow me.
I don’t want to explain about the figure at the window, the phantom eyes trailing me, my dreams. Figments of an overactive imagination. I’ll sound like a fool. A bigger fool than he thinks me already. And for some reason I can’t fathom, what he thinks about me matters. More than it should.
‘I thought you were an intruder. A guard from Galtair.’
His scarred brow lifts. ‘Didn’t I tell you to stay out of trouble?’ His gaze drifts to my hair. I don’t watch for his reaction this time, don’t wait for his disgust to show. I roll back my shoulders. Lift my hood.
‘What are you doing out here in the middle of the night?’ I demand.
‘Not that it’s any of your business.’ He shrugs, sitting on the ground. ‘But I came to coax Fifi down from these trees. I don’t like the idea of her roosting here overnight.’ He glances away. ‘I couldn’t sleep. Delphine’s not well. I told Mar to take my bedroll, try and make her more comfortable.’
‘Astrophel packed a spare. I can ask him if—’
His smile turns bitter. ‘Don’t worry, Sparkles. I’m used to roughing it.’ Blayze lets out a weighted sigh as he lies back, using his pack as a pillow to survey the star-speckled sky. Their pearly light rakes the column of his gilded throat. Living above ground suits the Clanschief. His skin glimmers gold, burnished, as if lit from within. Less sallow than when he first arrived in Estelia.
‘You have no idea how lucky you are,’ he says, as if reading my mind. ‘Cage men in the dark long enough, and they do turn to beasts. Only, to something more savage than rats. You wouldn’t last a night in the Necropole.’ He laughs but there’s no mirth in it. ‘After a lifetime in that pit, and countless stints at its whipping post, one night under the stars deprived of a bedroll is hardly likely to faze me.’ His hand strays to his shoulder.
‘Is that how your back—’ The words tumble out before I can stop them. I look away, praying he won’t see the blanch of my cheeks.
His smirk falters. But only for an instant. ‘Ah, so you noticed the scars then, eh?’
‘No… That is… I…’
‘Care for a closer look, Sparkles?’
Sister save me, he’s lifting his cloak, unlacing his shirt with his free hand, shrugging his bare shoulder into the night. Taut slashes cleave the elaborate inkwork on his arm, winking like silvered scales in the moonslight. I drop my gaze, focus on the squelch of mud beneath my boots. The low rumble of his laugh makes my stomach tighten.
Insufferable.
‘You better be fastening that shirt, Arcuri.’
He chuckles. ‘All decent, so you can spare me those maiden blushes. And just so you know…’ His voice dips, turns husky, almost caressing. ‘That’s not the reaction I usually get when I take my shirt off in front of a woman.’
I resist the impulse to slap him. Even manage to lift my chin. Meet his gaze. Instantly, I regret it. I’m staring into molten gold and can’t draw enough air into my lungs.
‘In answer to your question – yes. I earnt some of them at the whipping post. Others…’ Blayze’s eyes narrow. Darken. ‘Let’s just say my father wasn’t a gentle man.’
I swallow. Throat dry as the dunes of the famed Oralian Waste. My mind turns to all the beatings I’ve received at my own father’s hands. Perhaps I should be grateful he never left permanent marks. The air seems suddenly charged, weighted with a strange tension. As we face each other in the darkness, the gulf between us thins. Narrows to a hairline crack.
