“Judge me, decide I’m less than you somehow, when you don’t even know the whole story!” Mal said, brushing hatefully at the corner of his eye with the back of his hand before taking another sip like he knew how much it hurt Griff to watch him do it. “Yes, I’ve been working at Served With Love. Usually I help protect the transport of certain goods in and out of Mayfair when the dark queen’s people need an extra hired sword. But they also had me plan an attack for them, a murder—yours.” He swiped at his eyes again, then continued. “I didn’t know. I wasn’t holding the knife, I swear. I wasn’t even with them when it happened. I had no idea they were afteryou.”
Griff held up a hand for silence, too busy to listen and not really wanting to hear another word as he pieced things together in his mind that were starting to make terrible sense. The raven feathers newly tattooed on Mal’s arm, the way he was so insistent that they keep moving to get to the treasure, never wanting to take the kind of break they all badly needed—he had assumed Mal had an interested buyer for some of the artifacts lined up back in Mayfair, but he’d had no idea that buyer was the Shadow Queen herself.
Why had he left a good thing, a good man, and come all this way with Mal, when he knew better than to ever trust a word outof the meanest mouth in the city? Why hadn’t he wanted easy? He couldn’t remember just now.
“If I’d had any idea it was you they wanted, Griff, I would have killed them all myself and buried them in their fucking cellar,” Mal said into the tense and icy silence, sounding far more miserable than he had when he was lapsing into the fever. “They’ve made me kill people before. Wardens, usually. I’ve always had the sense that they’d kill me, too, if I refused. It’s clear they hate the Wardens, but so do I, so that’s never been a problem, and the pay is good. But they could never pay me to hurt you. No one could. I wouldn’t. I—I love you. I love you, Griff, and I’m so fucking sorry. I’ll be sorry for the rest of my life, however short it might be. That’s why I made a deal withherto bring this treasure back, in exchange for your safety and the end of my contract with them. So neither of us will ever have to worry about stupid ravens and shadows after this is done.”
Griff’s head was spinning. The orc’s remaining eye kept shifting back and forth between him and Mal like it was following the conversation, and he wasn’t convinced it was just a trick of the firelight.
“You made a deal with the fucking Shadow Queen,” he repeated slowly, at which the undead orc growled. “A deal. This is all about the money for you, isn’t it? Still.”
Mal blinked at him, disbelieving, and drank another long gulp. “Did you hear a word I said, or are you the one with the bad ear? I made this deal forus.” He was practically shouting now, earning another grumble from the orc, and Griff winced as though struck.
These verbal blows somehow hurt worse than any of the times before, even though back then their fists had been landing right alongside the pointed words.
Alys half glanced at the creature, though she had lowered her sword, apparently deciding that whatever was happening betweenGriff and Mal right now was far more of a threat to everyone’s safety than a revenant, even one this size.
“You plotted to kill me for money, Mal—what the hell else am I supposed to think?” Griff demanded, too much blood rushing in his ears and too much pain in his old wound for him to properly take in what Mal was saying. He had too many words of his own to get out first. “And you were going to just give the Shadow Queen this treasure, knowing what it would mean for her side, without ever breathing a word of it to me? You were just going to let me be a part of that, after everything our parents fought for? Seriously? You couldn’t trust me with this after I gave you absolutely everything?”
He had let Mal in, chosen him—not just the idea of him that he’d longed for back in Stormveil but the man himself, the real Mal, the thief with a temper who saw the world with a knife in its hand, ready to stab him in the back—and yet Mal was still only in business for himself.
He should have expected this, because the real Mal was also selfish. His eyes were always on the prize, and the prize wasn’t Griff. Maybe this betrayal was even what he deserved, somehow, for letting Mal down all those years ago when he left. He wasn’t worthy of Mal’s love, he wasn’t enough for him, no matter how he’d tried to be.
Most of all, he should have known Mal would always pick his other great love over him. Mal had a dragon’s heart, strong and cold, and he would always go for the glittering riches, even if they were going to end up in someone else’s pocket in the end.
A blast of icy wind shoved Griff in the back, cutting through his shirt and cloak. He pulled the old black scarf more tightly around himself, wishing he could use it to shut out everything he had just heard right along with the chill.
“I should have expected this,” Mal said at last, quieter, as the wind shivered through his hair and rumpled clothes. “I shouldhave known you would overreact. That you wouldn’t listen no matter what I said, no matter my intentions. You were looking for any excuse not to stay, weren’t you? So many empty, pretty words.” He took a step toward Griff, who instinctively took a few steps back.
Old habits.
“You want to talk about trust?” Mal went on, his voice cold as the sudden wind. “Fine. Let’s do it: I trusted that you could handle the truth tonight. I trusted that we were still going home together. But if you only ever trust one thing I say, let it be this: Trust that I’ll get the treasure with or without you. Trust that I’m going to buy your safety no matter what you really think of me. You can run on home to Liam now and live a long, happy life, safe with the person you really want.” Mal didn’t wipe at his eyes again, though they were streaming harder. “Assuming he’s enough for you. Or do you buy someone else’s love on the side still? I’ve heard the rumors about how you two met.”
As a tremor rocked the ground, Griff let his maul slip from his limp hands, aching and breathless and carved open by the calculated, cutting words that threw him off-balance far more effectively than the earth shaking beneath him. He had chosen Mal. He had intended to stay, at least until he learned who the treasure was really for and what Mal had done. But it seemed Mal had already decided for him how this was going to end. He had never trusted Griff to choose a future together.
Without bothering to look for the source of the crash, Griff took another step back, farther from their camp and Mal. Proving him right.
“Guys,” Alys said suddenly, her voice high-pitched with alarm. She was pointing at the slumped form of the revenant now facedown on the ground. “It’s dead. I mean, dead again.” Emphasizing her point, she jabbed it in the back with her blade. Noresponse. “That wind … I think that killed it somehow. It just shivered and dropped on the spot.”
Apparently, Griff wasn’t the only one not listening tonight, as Mal simply shook his head, then turned to him again to say coolly, “At least when we get home, I’ll have all those silvers to keep me warm in my big bed. Maybe I’ll even pay for a—”
His face changed as another gust of cold wind nearly blew Griff over with all the force of a charging steed.
Alys shouted something and tossed her sword aside, scrambling instead to grab the cloth hilt of the broken one.
“The shadow—the wraith—behind you!” Mal gasped, bolting toward Griff just as he began to realize that it was more than wind closing its icy fingers around him, digging into his injured shoulder hard enough to wring a gasp from him.
More than wind pressing on his throat, preventing him from crying out any last words.
In the heat of the argument, he had stepped outside the circle of Mal’s wards.
Tears slicked Griff’s face in the few seconds before the wraith started dragging him through the trees by his crude sling, dragging him toward his fate and oblivion, where at least he could start to erase Mal’s name from all of his songs.
Chapter ThirtyThe Chill
“What about our deal?” Mal yelled to the night as Griff was swiftly dragged out of reach before his fingers could close around the ends of his old black scarf, his limbs stiff and clumsy with cold. “If you’re so powerful, can’t you do something about your monster that’s broken free of its leash?”
But of course he didn’t expect an answer from the Shadow Queen, especially not when the rogue wraith had just murdered the lackey she was using as her mouthpiece.
