"Again?"
The nausea rolled back up again. "I used power once. As a child. It was a fluke— it was supposed to be a fluke."
"What happened when you accessed it the first time?"
He found me,the words bubbled up, images of terrified guards, the bowery mother's resigned face, a cell so deep I couldn't see the light.They dragged me into the dark.
"I killed someone," I said. "He burned alive in the snow."
He digested this. "Was he deserving?"
"Probably." I ran over the guard’s face in my memory, the clearest part still in my mind, watched it move from jovial to something twisted, ugly, when I tried to pull away. To terror as his face melted off. "It happened quickly."
"I'm sorry," he said.
"For what?" I looked up sharply.
"That you had to see that. It would make me not want to use magic as well, to see someone die."
I shook my head. "You're a mercenary. You kill people all the time."
"Do I?" He shrugged, looked away. "I feel like it's different. But also, our group are mostly scouts. They pay us to handle the monsters."
Someone had wrapped some cloth around a construction ofbent branches, and Tyralk, the younger orc, was trying it. He was clearly in pain, but still laughed with the others.
Khal reached out a hand. "We'll be moving. Do you want to walk? I could carry you."
I would offend him if I didn't take his hand. I let him pull me to my feet, let go. "I can walk."
He nodded. He glanced at my feet, and a shadow crossed his face, but he strode back to the orcs, interacted with Tyralk. They seemed to be arguing without venom, and Khal took the pack off his back.
"Hey!" Tyralk yelled some insults, and they bantered as Khal swung the rig of bone and hides on top of his own, tying leather straps into place. They all spoke so easily with each other, even with Vrathgar, the scarred one, skulking murderously ahead.
The people in my father's house didn't act like they liked each other like this. Maybe some of the people in the warrens had. I couldn't remember. My chest hurt. Only Thea had been warm, and now she was alone.
But she's safe,my mind whispered.She's safer than you.I stumbled on. I had to believe that. Life had to have purpose, if I was going to survive.Thea wouldn't have escaped, but you will.
As I walked, the old one fell in step beside me. "Good trick," he grunted. "Fire."
I didn't know what to say, nodded.
"Can you do that again? Many times? Or one time?"
"I don't know," I said. "I've never done it more than once."
"Once is good. In winter, you practice. Ice, snow. No spread. The wizards learn that way, grow strong."
I was no wizard. I was a shambling disaster. But I nodded. I had no wish to make yet another orc look on me in disgust.
"Here, look." He stopped, pulled at a vine that crawled up many of the trees. "If weak, you eat this." He pulled off a seed pod, crushed it between his teeth.
If this was a trick to kill me, it could not be worse than ablade. I copied him. It was not unpleasant. Not like the stews at the castle, but crisper and more alive than anything I'd have eaten on the warren streets.
"Good." He smiled, so many jagged teeth.
I nodded.
"Many such things. They keep you alive."
