Instead, he asked, “You want to—what? Be a Warden while also being withme?” He didn’t need any words repeated this time. He only questioned it because he didn’t want to believe it any more than he wanted to think about Griff running back into Liam’s waiting arms. “You seriously think that could work? The elves really have turned you daft, because I thought you were putting all that behind you when you chose me.”
He was so different from Mal: the elegant, elf-loving, dragon-slayer’s son. Too different. Griff was too good for the likes of him.
The eerie wailing reached an earsplitting crescendo and suddenly stopped.
Even Alys was silent and watchful, some fresh worry shining in her wide eyes by the glint of the firelight.
“Must be nice,” Mal said, his eyes sliding away from Griff’s and into the raven-crowded trees. “Never having to worry about where your money’s going to come from or if you’ll even make it back from the next job. I don’t have your training, Griff, and I don’t have your skills. My options are limited.” He palmed at his stupid, useless ear as he narrowed his eyes at a stunted tree. “Your father was the biggest hero. You’re the one with the big legacy. I’m just the sad orphan who’s been trying to hold on to the only people I’ve known all my life, and even that doesn’t seem to be working out for me. You want to be with me? The real me?”
Griff nodded without hesitating. He seemed sincere, and hehadsketched out plans for a future with Mal, a space they could fill together. Space where Mal shouldn’t be. Griff only loved him because he didn’t have a clue what Mal had done. What bargain he had made to try to regain some sense of balance in his world.
His throat was tight, his insides white hot with anticipation of the hurt he knew was coming, but he managed to say hoarsely, “Well then, you’ll have to say goodbye to those dreams of livingup to your daddy’s good deeds forever, or else end things with me now, because you can’t be a Warden and have any kind of life with me.”
Griff’s gaze turned wary. “Why would that be such a problem? I know you don’t like them, but—you likeme.”
“Well, let’s see,” Mal said, letting out a hot breath as he gently set those blueprints down. He hadn’t earned the right to look at them. “Rhun was one of them, but did they ever bother to help Wynnie after he disappeared? Ever swing by the cottage to check on any of us? Didn’t think so. And his friends must have known about this rogue wraith and didn’t bother to warn anyone. If you think they’re all really so perfect, then I have some property up by Deadman’s Dike you’d love to purchase too, and it definitely wasn’t built on top of any old graveyard.”
Griff was silent, watching him.
Even so, Mal could hardly find the words to continue. He put a hand on the scrap of parchment with the blueprints, even though he didn’t pick it up again.
“The world will never be safe, no matter how many heroes take up arms,” he finally went on. “The job seems to have a pretty high mortality rate, too, from what we’ve seen. Your life would be a drop in the bucket, and for what? I figured out a long time ago that good intentions don’t stay the blade. Power does. And if the best and bravest lose the fight … I’ll crawl through the dark and make us a home in the shadows if it means we survive. That’s a victory too.”
“I don’t disagree,” Griff said, speaking more slowly this time, louder, and shaping signs with his hand. “I … I’d choose that too.” He sounded as surprised to be speaking the words aloud as Mal was to receive them. But then, with more confidence, he added, “And I’d rather be yours than be a Warden. The training was always something I had to work at, but being with you? It feels as natural as … well, as being me.”
That was all the encouragement Mal needed to continue. “Good, then, because Wardens are also deathly allergic to boundaries. The amount of times they turn up where I am, you’d think they were as interested in my private affairs as Old Man Corbyn—you know, the Linden Bedroom Creeper. Everyone has an agenda. We both know that,” he went on, stalling. He had to tell Griff about his part in the attack now, before he had their whole life mapped out just to have to burn Mal off the page. “I don’t care that Wardens like playing hero, because they’re lying to themselves when they act like they’re so much better than the rest of us. I doubt most folks would flinch at seeing me bleed. That’s just how things are. But Wardens act like you ought to enjoy the stabbing if they tell you that it’s for your own good.”
He finally drew a breath and brought his eyes back to Griff’s, tired of staring at restless raven’s wings and searching for shadows. “If your heart is really set on this Warden shit, we’ll figure it out. We just … won’t be able to talk about work at all. Certain parts of our lives will have to stay really separate, more separate than I’d like, so I don’t end up in prison or hanged or anything else that keeps us even further apart.”
“Why is that?” Griff pressed, his features once again drawn with caution.
Alys rose abruptly and headed toward the teakettle—giving them space again, Mal guessed as Griff laid a hand on his leg.
“Why can’t we talk about everything?” Griff went on, confusion and hurt in every line of his face. “If I wanted separate, I wouldn’t have come all this way, and I wouldn’t have felt my world collapsing when I thought we were about to lose you.”
Mal’s fingers crept toward Griff’s. This might be the last time he got to hold his hand, and he wanted to remember what it felt like, even if he’d wish like hell later that he could just forget.
Out of the corner of his eye, he realized Alys hadn’t grabbed the kettle after all. She was wielding her sword, watching theapproach of something he hadn’t been able to hear, a shambling creature that stopped at the edge of the ward marking their camp border. It was another dead orc, another revenant, bigger than the ones they had fought near the chest of silvers and missing an eye.
“Why?” he echoed Griff, his mouth still impossibly dry even after a sip of tea. Alys could handle the revenant for now, and if he didn’t get the words out, he was afraid he would never find the courage again. He owed Griff this; the knowledge, and the freedom to choose him or turn away after. “Because I’ve still been working for—”
“Mal Pryce!” the pale orc thundered, a fetid stench wafting over them as it opened its mouth awkwardly, like some kind of puppet. The voice issuing from its desiccated vocal cords was too powerful to belong to such a lowly creature, and Mal knew immediately who was speaking to him, but he sure as hell wasn’t about to bow as the orc’s remaining greenish eye burned into his. “What’s taking you so long? Bring me my treasure, wraith be damned, or your soul and Sayer’s are mine, and I’ll make you watch while I put more knives in him than your flimsy plan ever did.”
Chapter Twenty-NineDragon Heart
Down below his waistline, Griff’s scar throbbed dully as he watched Alys hold her sword, ready to attack the orc’s neck if it dared to put a toe over their wards the way the wargs had done.
Despite the growing pain in his old wound, he got to his feet and reached for his maul, because these things seemed to travel in packs. The motion of grabbing his weapon had become almost second nature, and besides, fighting dead things suddenly seemed far more appealing than thinking about what he had just heard.
Yet the hulking shape of the orc, slightly blurry to his gaze, didn’t move a muscle. It stood there dumbly, watching as Mal hurried after him to the camp’s border, trying to explain himself while Griff’s heart and hopes sank deep into the Mire.
“I was going to tell you—” Mal started to say, but Griff cut him off.
“That you were working for the fucking Shadow Queen? That you—what, that you’re the one who stabbed me? Or you had some part in it?” He could hardly get the words out, a wave of nausea swiftly rising in his throat as he pushed through. “Whendid you plan on mentioning it? After you had your fill of fucking with me?”
“Now! I know I should have done it sooner, a lot sooner, but can you blame me for not wanting to say a word when you’re doing exactly what you always do, what I was afraid of? The thing you promised you wouldn’t fucking do again?” Mal demanded hoarsely as both Alys and the undead orc watched them warily. He pulled out his flask and took a long drink.
“What’s that?” Griff asked, no longer trying to walk away but rounding on him. He at least had enough presence of mind to lower the maul. “What do I always do?”
