Eventually, too exhausted to take another step after so much missed sleep, Mal realized they would have to make camp and call it a night, resigning himself to being stared at by more nagging ghosts while he slept. Only he hadn’t seen any for an hour or so now, which was strange.
He supposed he should take the small victory. Tomorrow the lake should be within their sights as soon as they cleared the next stand of trees—already he could smell a hint of brine on the breeze—and then the ghosts and ravens could all fuck off back to his bosses and tell them he had done it with time to spare. Just like he had boasted he would.
Griff tethered Prancer while Alys picked a spot to stake Leo’s head for the night.
Mal was supposed to be laying out their bedrolls; he planned to put his own right next to Griff’s, to give them a bigger space to hold each other when they rested, but instead he wrapped one of the flat beds around his shoulders like an extra-thick cloak.
And as Griff stepped back from the mule, Mal saw it: an extra shadow, little more than a flicker at the corner of his eye as it darted behind the tree where the mule was tethered. Its real face was already burned into his memory.
He wasn’t surprised that the broken blade hadn’t scared it off for good, though he had dared to hope it might stay away a little longer.
“Alys,” he called, reaching for a stick and starting to scratch Vic’s ward into the ground again. He didn’t know how much ground the symbol could protect at once, but Vic had used it on the cottage before to at least temporarily get rid of their ghost who kept coming back. If it could force the shadow to stay at the edge of their camp rather than slinking up behind any of them, maybe they could still get the sleep they badly needed.
He shivered again as Alys joined him, looking curiously at the lines and swirls in the dirt. “I think this kept us safe last night, or safe enough, so I want you to know how to draw it. Just in case there’s some point soon where I can’t.”
Griff must have been listening in, as he stopped portioning out their dinner rations and followed Alys, kneeling beside Mal and pressing a hand to his forehead. It came away slick with Mal’ssweat. “Pull up your shirt for me,” he instructed, slipping into his role as healer for a change. “I need to look at your stitches.”
“I feel fine,” Mal insisted, but he did as he had been asked, lying sideways on Griff’s bedroll so that Griff would have access to his stitched-up side. “I mean—mostly. I’ve been cold all day. And my side feels like I got hit with a flamethrower, but I thought that was just what wyvern scratches were like. That was my first time getting my ass kicked by one.”
Griff nodded absently at this self-assessment as he inspected the wounds, Alys watching anxiously over his shoulder. “There’s a spot here that’s oozing fluid. Don’t worry, I’m not going to touch it yet, but it’s definitely infected.”
And they were all out of the medicine that could have spared them any worry, all because Alys had drugged their mule without considering the consequences.
He knew she hadn’t meant for something like this to happen, and couldn’t have known that it would. Still, he understood the guilt shimmering in her gaze again as she hastily excused herself from his bedside, her hand pressed to her lips and her eyes damp.
Griff put a hand on his back for a moment as he explained, “I’m going to have to open up the stitches for a better look.” And though he looked like the suggestion pained him, he gritted out, “You may want a sip from your flask before we get started.”
Mal hardly made a sound as Griff worked, though he panted plenty, growing sweatier even as the air around them cooled.
The tenderness of his side had deepened over the past several days thanks to bits of dirt he must have pushed into the muscle when he’d picked at the wound before splashing whiskey in it. The infection would probably be hard for Griff to reach with only a salve.
Their resident healer was just opening up his kit to find the right tools when Mal laid a hand on his arm. “I’m going to stay,”he muttered softly, too-bright eyes holding Griff’s. “Trust me. I’ll show you how it’s done.”
He would do it better than any locksmith too. Be more for Griff, do more, love him more, provide a safer home. He would be enough.
“I didn’t think there was any question of that,” Griff murmured, but the way his gaze swiftly fell suggested he feared otherwise.
Mal’s head fell against Griff’s shoulder, in need of someplace to lean just to stay partially upright. “I liked that letter you wrote me,” he whispered, lacking the energy to speak louder anymore. “I was wrong when I told you I didn’t need any new ones. I like when you say pretty words, even if I don’t always say the right thing back. Words are hard for me, but—even being cursed doesn’t feel so unbearable when you’re around.”
With that, he vomited all down Griff’s back until there was nothing but bile coming up, then lapsed into a fitful fever sleep to the sounds of Alys sobbing.
Chapter Twenty-SevenFuneral or Feast
They tended Mal tirelessly as they waited for the fever to break. Of course, Griff couldn’t let himself look at Mal for too long, pale and sweating on that bedroll, or he knew he would break down himself. Couldn’t let his hands or his mind idle, because they would lead him down the kinds of dark trails he knew he shouldn’t wander.
Mal might not have known it, and surely would have argued to the contrary, but he was the light that made Griff want to be better, to be strong enough to fight to protect it and wise enough to know when to put his sword down and simply bask in its glow. There was so much good in the world, and all Griff had to do was look at Mal’s willingness to challenge the dark to be reminded of why he’d wanted to be a hero in the first place.
Griff had never known anyone so beautiful. So confident, so defiant, so absurd, so determined to write his own rules for the world.
That was his man.
But he couldn’t fight this battle for Mal, no matter how much he wanted to—not without the medicine he no longer had. He’ddone what he could, cleaned and dressed the wound again and cradled Mal’s burning head in his lap until he was so tired that he accidentally drifted off for a minute, but the rest was up to Mal. All he could do now was wait with him.
Mal would wake up, or he wouldn’t.
Mal would stay, or he wouldn’t.
Mal would finally agree to go home before they lost their lives over some stupid treasure, no matter what kind of artifacts it might hold, or they would have a serious problem.
