Chapter OneA Knife in the Dark
Griff Sayer had always known his family was going to be the death of him, though he didn’t imagine it would happen quite so violently.
An early heart attack, perhaps, from the stress of his seemingly inseverable ties with thieves and extortionists and worse. An accident at work due to a distraction, maybe, like when he hammered his fingers last week upon hearing that his ex–best friend Mal was back in town again. A self-inflicted wound as he relived his worst, most painful moments, a slip of a knife that turned out to be too dull—well, he’d already been there. Even a covert poisoning wasn’t out of the question, something untraceable slipped into a drink handed to him by a fan after a performance at the Maiden’s Arms to silence him for knowing any number of things he shouldn’t.
Being stabbed was, all things considered, fairly low on Griff’s list of ways he’d thought he’d go out.
It also hurt a hell of a lot more than his adoptive mother had led him to believe over the years when she’d shown off her many grisly battle scars and lectured him on the most effective ways to survive torture.
But Wynnie wasn’t there with him in the Wyrmwood on this brisk spring night among the trolls and orcs and other things that worshiped the shadows. She wasn’t there to frown at the way he whimpered, so undignified, as he clutched the gushing wound off to the side of his abdomen with both hands and sank to his knees in a bed of leaves and bracken while the stars watched from on high. She might as soon have shouted at him to get up and chase after his masked assailants as smoothed his waves of dark hair back from his sweaty face with a tender hand and reassured him all would soon be well.
Lady Wraith, people called her in the city and far beyond. Famed for her obsidian eyes, her predator’s stare, her mess of scars … and, most notably, her frequent victories against death. So many she didn’t seem to belong to this world or to the shadow realm. It had always seemed to Griff like a fine line to walk, having one foot in each world; somehow, she made it look easy.
Dying outright was, he had to admit, surprisingly difficult; his stubborn heart was still pumping fast and strong, though that was spilling more of his innards into his shaking hands. He fell back against the forest floor as his head spun, still having enough presence of mind to keep holding pressure to the wound the way he’d been taught.
Wynnie would want details later, he knew, so she could take matters into her own hands. And he would give them to her, all except the part where the bandits had gotten the jump on him because, while he was supposed to be on watch, he had been drinking. About Mal.
Again.
Griff could have sworn he had seen him at the market the other day, a tall and slim figure just the same height, with hair a certain dark shade of gold—only it had turned out to be his own boyfriend, Liam, the one who was a dead ringer for Mal in the right light.
He raised his head a fraction and tried to count his assailants.
Three, four, five—oh, not five. Four. The fifth person clad in black was smaller than the rest. Her pale, angular face was unmasked, a gash welling on her cheek, strands of black hair ripped from the two neat knots on either side of her head where she usually kept it bound. She was fighting all four masked figures at once with her sword and staff, a whirlwind of devastation to anyone who found themselves within her reach as she stabbed and slashed and threw elbows.
He’d come here with Vic, his other childhood guardian. Wynnie’s wife. She was soft where Wynnie was hard—which, growing up, had made one of them far easier to love, and was the reason he had agreed to this trip to help her check her hunting traps in the first place—but she was almost as fierce in battle. Even four to one, he knew in his bones that she wasn’t outmatched.
The bandits quickly fled before her swift and silent rage, melting back into the shadows of the Wood. They must have gotten whatever they’d come for, perhaps not solely Griff’s life after all—one of his packs was dangling from the hand of a fleeing figure.
The moment they turned and vanished, Vic dropped her sword and staff and bolted toward Griff, fear flashing in her gray eyes as she fell to the ground and pressed a small, warm hand to the side of his face.
Up close, he saw her tears.
Vic never cried, not that Griff had seen. Mostly, she was quiet, or else she teased and laughed in her soft, private way, only around those she trusted.
“Griff, stay with me,” she pleaded, smoothing sweat-slicked curls back from his forehead. “No, no, no, no …”
The fear in her wide, whitish eyes was turning to outright panic, and Griff wondered if their masked attackers had donesomething to her that he hadn’t witnessed on account of bleeding out and all.
Orcs had hurt her more than once before she fled her homeland, and she still flinched in proximity to most men, even human ones. Even now, unless she had a weapon in hand.
He tried to ask what had happened to her, but all that came from his throat was a wet gurgle. More blood.
Then darkness.
“It’s all gone,” Vic breathed. She had, in the brief moment Griff had apparently flirted with unconsciousness, dumped out what looked to be the contents of all the bags they had brought with them, most carefully packed by Griff himself. “Bastards took everything—all our bandages and salves. Our rations too.”
That was inconvenient. He would have appreciated a bandage about now.
Seeming to have pushed through the worst of her shock, Vic gathered herself enough to start reaching for the things they still had at hand, like somebody’s change of clothes. “We need to pack the wound, slow the bleeding,” she muttered to herself, clearly thinking Griff was too far gone to hear.
He managed to slur a protest. “Fine.”
Vic’s gray eyes darted back to his; he knew she had heard that line from him often enough to be weary of it, and she had never once believed him. She shook her head. “This isn’t fine. You’re not fine. Nothing will ever befineagain if we don’t get you some help …”
Griff didn’t see what all the fuss was about; he could hardly feel the wound anymore. That had to be a good sign; perhaps the bleeding was slowing. Besides, they were deep in the Wyrmwood, at least a few days’ march from Linden, their boot-scrape of a village on the outskirts of Mayfair. There was no way to reach help in the case of a near-fatal event, which was why Griff had so thoughtfully packed a full healer’s kit.
“Not my son,” Vic sobbed, tears and blood streaking her face. She rarely called him that.
