Night wasn’t so different from day this far into the Mire, he decided as he observed his surroundings, save perhaps for somechange in singers in the chorus of constant background noise. There was an owl now talking itself into alertness, the far-off hunting cry of a pack of coyotes, a few less midges buzzing around his ears.
He listened hopefully for the jingling of a mule whose saddlebags were weighted down with heaps of silver coins, but so far it seemed that Prancer had truly decided their company wasn’t worth the trail of treats Alys had laid out, or else he’d met his end with the hungry wyvern. The only sign of Prancer they had found was a second of their packs not far from where they had last seen him, mostly full of clothes and a few of Griff’s supplies that hadn’t fallen out with the lost medicine.
He also hadn’t seen any more glimpses of a phantom Rhun—not that he would follow or trust anything he saw in the Mire again.
Near the fire, Alys was pacing, unraveling in the face of all that was troubling them: the shadow that might not really be her father giving them his old things—perhaps going after the treasure too. Griff’s near death, and her part in losing the mule and the last of their lifesaving medicine in one swift and stupid move. He had been filled in on a great many things in his waking hours, none of it good.
Alys kept one hand on her sword hilt, the other clutching the neck of a familiar amber bottle—a jug of whiskey like the one from which Mal regularly refilled his flask. She took a long gulp from it every so often as she peered out into the night with a defiant scowl, not her usual dreamy stare that would suggest she was only half anchored in this world.
When Griff called out to her, his good arm ready to embrace her, she merely shook her head, her lip quivering—she was fighting her own battle, he realized, something Wynnie had taught them all was best accomplished alone. The guilt of losing much-needed supplies when they might have an unseen adversary waseating her alive. Their most powerful tool against death out here, the medicine he affectionately called Cherry Pie, was gone because of her. She was also probably grieving the belief that she had found her father again, and she didn’t know how to sit with any of it.
“Hard to talk to her when she’s like this—trust me,” Mal commented softly. “Guilt’s not exactly a lesson Wynnie taught; not sure she’s ever felt it.” He had settled against the same tree as Griff, his leather-bound book held open to the flickering firelight with one hand while his other, heavily bandaged hand rested in his lap. Every so often, he peeked over the top of the book and glared balefully out at something in the surrounding night. Griff supposed Mal was searching for the shadow that had tried to kill him, and he didn’t want to think about that now that he had much worse pains than the ones from his old stab wound.
From his moments of wakefulness over the past several days, Griff knew Mal had spent his time tossing and turning on a bedroll beside him, unable to find a position that didn’t irritate one injury or another—especially after Griff stayed awake long enough to stitch up the biggest of Mal’s gashes. The elven salve seemed to have had some effect after all, and the wounds were more or less healing nicely, save for a bit of yellow ooze seeping from the stitches.
Griff leaned around the tree to watch as Mal listlessly turned another page, his gray eyes following Alys’s silhouette as she paced, concern etched deep into his brow. That same worried look lingered as he turned to Griff.
“Need me to look at your bandages again?” he asked.
Griff glanced down at his shoulder in its crude sling. Just a few hours ago, the latest bandage change had revealed only a hint of pink, the greatest improvement yet. Having kept down a fair amount of Alys’s attempt at supper, he was feeling more like himself than he had since The Incident, as he had taken to calling it in his head.
“No,” he answered softly, worried that raising his voice might disturb Alys. Reaching out with his good arm, he invited Mal to draw closer, up against his side. “But it’s tomorrow. And yesterday, you said—or was it the day before that?” He interrupted himself, a hint of embarrassment creeping in at the thought that he had mistaken the day. “Anyway, right after I got hurt, you said I should tell you some things tomorrow. Which is now. Or as close enough as I can tell after losing all that blood.”
“You’re at least three days late,” Mal said as he let the cover of his book fall back over the pages and followed the summons of that arm into the warmth of Griff’s side. “But just this once, I’m not holding any grudges, even if we’re going to have to run the rest of the way to reach that treasure now.” Settling in hip to hip, Mal studied the pallor of Griff’s face before meeting his eyes. “All right, talk pretty to me.”
Griff brought his good arm up around Mal’s shoulders, and from there ran his fingers through snarls of gold hair.
Mal’s brows drew together slightly as he took in the sight of a gesture Griff hadn’t made toward him in many years—but as Griff’s fingers worked their way into his hair, he relaxed against him.
“Actually, I want to ask you about something I’ve heard you say a few times,” Griff said, tightening his arm around those narrow shoulders. As if his fragile skin that had nearly been shredded to ribbons could somehow act as a shield against the threads of fate. “You think you’re cursed for some reason?” When Mal nodded, he continued softly, “Well then, I’d like to understand. To listen. No judgment.”
Out past the circle of firelight, Alys’s pacing paused.
She sighed and took another gulp of whiskey. Maybe she was feeling cursed, too, having trusted the shadow and now questioning her judgment.
“I do need to let you know about that,” Mal admitted softly, only frowning briefly at Alys. “I don’t exactly understand it all myself, but something happened when I died for a minute back in Thrallkeld. I feel like … the gods have it out for me. Like I have bigger debts than the ones I can count. I don’t know how, and I don’t know when, but I’ve got to live while I can, get rich while I can, because soon I’m afraid it’ll all be over for me.”
“Yet I take it going home now is out of the question?” Griff asked with open eagerness. “Because I’d really, really like that.” He could live with the random attacks of pain from his scar even if it meant never becoming the Warden he had always felt destined to be, maybe find some other antidote even if it took years. But if they stayed in this swamp much longer, he wasn’t sure he’d come back alive.
Home. What he wanted to build with Mal. Rooms upon rooms that they could fill together, where the hearth was already blazing with the fire of all his feelings for this man, old and new, freshly fueled and going steady. They didn’t need any treasure for that.
“If we leave now, the Mire wins. Theshadowwins, and—put it this way, we’ll have both suffered for nothing. We can’t do that,” Mal insisted, and Griff had to admit there was something about the spark in those silver eyes that fed the fire inside him too. He could certainly live better if he had a chance to wear those healing bracers. Maybe return them to Stormveil after, if he could convince Mal to let him have them as his share of their earnings.
Pulling Mal a little closer with his good arm, he turned his attention to his lover’s dilemma. Curses weren’t a magic Griff knew or understood any better than Mal despite his extensive studies in Stormveil’s library. The elves’ magic was that of healing the body, of nature, whistling to move the wind or stir up the tides, not altering the threads of fate.
True curses fell within the Shadow Queen’s realm, a fact that rankled those who believed she was originally an elf—a being who couldn’t wield such dark magic as necromancy. It would at least explain her very long life, though others suspected there had been several queens through the centuries, each taking up the same title and purpose. Still, no matter her origins, she didn’t care who she cursed or who had to die for her cause.
“You spend a lot of time telling me I’m not allowed to die—what if I demand the same of you?” Griff said at last over the crackle of the flames and the crunch of Alys’s boots as she picked up her pacing again, now in a more erratic line.
“Feels like the curse has changed lately. Now it seems to be that the gods want me to watch you almost die over and over,” Mal lamented.
Griff didn’t understand. “Why would that be your curse?”
But when Mal’s only answer was to pull out his flask and take a liberal swig from it, he tried a different approach. “I was hoping to go first, you know. Supposing we get a say in such things. I don’t much like the idea of living in a world without you—I’ve tried, and I was pretty shit at it.” He rubbed Mal’s arm, his broad hand warming the other man’s shoulder.
Mal tipped the flask back again before answering. “You can’t go first. Hell, I don’t want you to go at all, that’s the point of any of this. You, staying.” Another drink, a shake of his head, and he pulled his knees up with a mild grimace. The motion must have tugged at his stitches. “Look, I’ve already made my peace with it. Sometimes knowledge is the best armor anyway.”
In the distance, Alys stepped from the halo of firelight altogether, retreating to a twisted tree just outside it that offered several low-hanging branches.
