Mal chuckled darkly, though he didn’t really feel like laughing. He slapped a mosquito whining too close to his ear with extra vigor, but that did nothing to ease his misery.
“Hey, Griff,” Alys cut in as she tied her damp, sweaty hair into two topknots on either side of her head in Vic’s usual style. “Speaking of scars, I’ve been thinking: I want you to train with me. I want to teach you some proper sword work.”
Mal thought it was an excellent suggestion. He was, of course, trying to keep Griff safe, but maybe Griff himself could help more in the effort. Especially if Mal failed and didn’t make it back with the others.
Griff, however, seemed to take offense. “I’ve trained with Wynnie and Vic, same as both of you,” he protested, sounding more confused than hurt. “And I trained in Stormveil too. And with the Wardens. Just because I don’t like hurting people doesn’t mean I can’t, if the occasion arises.”
Mal had never thought much of the elves. Why care about a race of beings who thought they were too good to even live among everyone else and let the world go to shit while they watched from on high? He glanced at Griff and said matter-of-factly, “Clearly you need her help. You almost got gutted in the Wood. And we all know how you handled that mule heist.”
“You want to stay with Mal, don’t you?” Alys pressed, as if she had overheard at least some of their private exchange, or guessed at Griff’s feelings more easily than Mal had. “There are things out here worse than what’s in the Wood, so I need to know you’ll have our backs if we find ourselves in over our heads—which means fighting dirty, like the elves and Wardens never would have taught you.” Softer, her eyes glinting with meaning, she added, “The last thing I want is to lose you again, least of all to a stupid mistake.”
“Fine,” Griff sighed, clearly outmatched, and likely lacking the energy to argue after several hours of riding and ducking to avoid low branches. “I’ll train with you, Alys.”
He didn’t suggest that Mal join in, and Mal didn’t offer. The last thing they needed was to raise blades against each other, even in a practice setting, after all those years of swinging fists. It would feel too real.
“Good, then.” Alys smiled at her protégé. “You’ll be a regular legend in no time.” Finished with her hair, she started unbuttoning her shirt—an old work shirt, patched at the elbows, one she had borrowed from Mal’s pile as usual—letting the uncovered skin breathe without a hint of bashfulness.
Things like this had been such a common occurrence growing up that even Griff didn’t bat an eye. Alys had always preferred men’s clothes. But when Mal shrugged and decided to part with his shirt too, he caught Griff openly staring.
Mal was covered in scars. Little ones, mostly. Knife marks, or sword. Slashes, drag marks, a few that looked like stab wounds. He had plenty of bruises, too, from fighting for sport. But where Griff’s gaze seemed to stick was on the garish, inches-long mark carved over the left side of Mal’s chest where it looked like someone had tried—and mostly succeeded—at completely and roughly opening him up, hewing into muscle and bone.
Returning Griff’s stare, Mal ran a finger lightly up over the mark and said without emotion, “Rough crowd down in Thrallkeld. Didn’t make a lot of friends. The leader of the thieves’ guild there, Renaud, tried to cut out my heart when I challenged his authority. Damn near succeeded, as you can see. I made some stupid mistakes back then too.”
“What stopped him?” Griff asked, his gaze troubled as he continued to study the scar that, all these years later, was still gruesome, even if its color had faded with time.
“An accidental fire,” Mal said simply, his eyes sliding away from Griff and toward the denser trees ahead of them, making clear he was done talking about it. He wasn’t sure he was ready to let Griff into that part of his world just yet. How many other menhad done the same, only to get burned by Mayfair’s Most Eligible in the end? Griff had left a boyfriend back in Linden just to be here, after all. “We should go. Get this shit show on the road—time’s wasting again, and we’ve already done too much of that. Two days too much, by my reckoning. Mule’s had enough water anyway.”
“You want to ride for a while, since you’re in such a hurry?” Griff offered Mal the lead with a meaningful glance at the thief’s own bandaged ankle, where one of the travelers had slashed him with a knife. “My leg feels some better today, so I can walk. Must be all those herbs you brought me.”
The comment slowed Mal’s steps for a moment, brought him a little closer to Griff and the pack beast. “I—told you no one was dying on my watch,” he said earnestly, finding himself trailing into silence as he returned the other man’s steady gaze. But he didn’t stay there long, unable to be too distracted from the matter at hand. “That arrow wound still needs rest, though. Mount up.”
As they resumed their slog, Alys drew a knife from her belt while Mal pulled out the map again. Selecting a sapling, she put a distinct angular cut into a green twig and left it to dangle just out of casual sight. “I’m going to make us a trail, to get back to civilization as quick as we came,” she told them, slapping a mosquito as it landed on her slick stomach.
“Good thinking,” he agreed.
Much better thinking than whatever had possessed her last night. Still, he didn’t want to dwell too long on that, or on why it bothered him so much—Griff kissed people all the time. Of course, he didn’t usually have to watch. He had certainly kissed his share of girls from Mayfair to Thrallkeld, moving from one to the next without ever settling. Because he’d never found the right taste in the warm and willing mouth against his. Never the right shape of the thigh beneath his hand. They were all beautiful in their way, and they certainly made him feel things, even ifthey weren’t quite right for him in the end—but Griff was beautiful too. Plenty of men were, and he felt the same sorts of things about that. He supposed he was attracted to all kinds of people, now that he considered it, but when it came to who made him feel the most—who occupied his thoughts far more than the rest—it was unquestionably Griff. And now, more specifically, thoughts ofhimbeing the one to kiss Griff, which were definitely new.
What the hell was he supposed to do with that? If Griff stuck around long enough, maybe they would both have a chance to find out.
The sky, or what they could glimpse of it through patches in the trees, began to change toward afternoon. As the sun slipped lower, it became a muted glow, clouds gathering more thickly with each passing moment. Dark birds descended quickly from lofty heights into the thick canopy overhead, and just a few minutes later the patter of raindrops began to disturb the puddles at their feet, drumming lightly against the greenery that surrounded them and quickly growing heavier.
As Mal hastily stashed away the fragile map, lightning flashed and thunder rolled, shaking the treetops. “Let’s find someplace to wait this out,” he suggested, glaring balefully at the ravens who would no doubt be reporting on his progress just like the green-eyed ghosts. “I’d rather we keep your leg as dry as …”
His voice trailed away and his heart plummeted at the sight of the empty, rain-soaked road. While he was lost in thought and Alys was busy marking their trail, Griff and the mule had vanished.
“What happened? Did you see which way they went?” Mal demanded.
But Alys only shook her head, wide-eyed, sapling knife still in hand.
“Griff!” Mal shouted into the trees.
All he got were a few annoyed answers from the birds there. When no voice called back, he kicked a rock into the puddle ahead of them before reversing their course to follow the mule’s hoofprints. Of course, those were rapidly being washed out by the driving rain.
“Fuck!”
After catching his breath, he tried again: “Griff!” The word rang out into the greenery, thoroughly irritated, though a close listener could note there was a touch of desolation to his cries beneath the anger as he added, “Come back!”
He was going to be the death of Griff. Or Griff was going to be the death of himself, and Mal was going to have to watch—he’d been sure he could keep him safer out here than he could in Mayfair, and so far he had never been so wrong about anything in his life. Except, apparently, how that infuriating moron felt about him.
