Now Shae’s looking at him, a hint of a smile lighting up his face. “Thank you.”
Warmth chases down Arthur’s spine, and he grins back.
?
CHAPTER SEVEN
Shae
Over the next few days, Shae practices riding. Mostly at the walk, and a few tries at the jolting trot. Even half an hour a day leaves him impossibly sore, but he doesn’t mind. He almost regrets getting used to the way Duchess moves under him, and the way he has to move with her to stay on comfortably. The less he has to focus on the mechanics of riding, the more he’s able to ruminate on the true mystery plaguing him.
Why the fuck is he being so nice to me?
It has to be some sort of paladin thing. Maybe Arthur’s sworn to Vara to always be polite even to disgusting dark mages. Maybe the Radiant Order only accepts helpful human-shaped herding dogs. The mansmilesat him. Which probably doesn’t mean anything. Arthur’s the sort of man who smiles at everyone.
Shae’s just not used to counting as everyone.
Riding at the walk is more effort than it looks, and a while into the day’s journey, Shae’s ready to return to his own two feet. As soothing as it is to move along with Duchess’s steady gait, he’s about to reluctantly ask to get down when a flash of ice burns his right hand. He flinches.
One of his rings, alerting him to danger.
“What is it?” Arthur asks, ever observant. He tugs Duchess to a halt.
Shae drops the reins to look at his hand, touching each ring to confirm—yes, the one on his middle finger. Ghosts, restless and hungry. He tries to remember the map in his head. He’s been so distracted by Arthur and learning to ride and the summer breeze in the trees andArthur, but he thinks there should be a village up ahead. “How near are we to Hannick?”
“Another mile or so.”
That’s as far as his ring can sense. Shae twists his ring and takes stock of his strength. He feels good right now, his soul replenished by the paladin’s constant warmth. He can handle a few ghosts, if the villagers don’t get in his way.
“Then Hannick has a ghost problem,” he says. “Uh. Help me down?”
Arthur’s broad hands settle firmly around his waist, and Shae’s suddenly breathless. His blood pulses towards Arthur’s touch, his skin warming. He manages to swing his leg over awkwardly, then lets himself down. The ground is farther away than he remembered, and with wobbly legs, he falls back against Arthur’s chest.
He jerks out of Arthur’s grasp before he combusts on the spot.
Arthur slides Duchess’s reins back over her head, now that Shae isn’t pretending to use them. “Are ghost problems something you deal with?”
“If the locals pay me.” His lips twitch in an unhappy grin. “And they always pay me.” If they don’t, he threatens to raise the dead right back up again if they don’t. That generally works very well. Arthur would probably disapprove, because Arthur’s a nice person.
Shae can’t afford to be nice.
***
The ghost problem isn’t in Hannick, though. At least, not the inhabited part of it. The paladin’s aura drives off the worst of the cold, but Shae still feels the grief and frustration permeating the landscape, and it leads them out onto an overgrown dirt path. The only footprints Shae sees belong to animals.
Half a mile later, they find the burned-out church. Years of rain and wind have swept away the ash, but the remaining stone walls are still blackened and crumbled, the wooden roof and doors and window frames entirely missing. The building looks like a corpse itself, and Shae can’t help shuddering with the chill and stepping closer to Arthur.
Maybe too close. His arm brushes Arthur’s elbow, and Arthur naturally moves away.
“This looks like a Harvest Lord chapel,” Arthur says. “Hannick must have rebuilt it elsewhere after the fire.” There’s no question they would have rebuilt. The people of Charain are loyal to their gods. Shae doesn’t feel that sort of devotion to the divine, but he understands it.
He’s about to suggest they look around back for a graveyard when another alarm ring stings his right hand. His forefinger, this time, the plain silver band that alerts for—
“Demons,” Arthur says, hand on his sword hilt. “Not close, but we should be careful.”
Shae forgets sometimes that Arthur has magic too, that his brilliant aura is more than just the best source of life and warmth Shae has ever found. “Let’s find the graveyard quickly.”
The graveyard behind the church was once fenced in, but all that remains of the fence is the occasional splintered post. Stone blocks and statues as grave markers all line up in rows, surrounded by the encroaching forest. Not all the trees are intruders, though. Shae spots the fruit trees he recognizes from other graveyards dedicated to Maiza, the Harvest Lord. More fruit trees and more gravestones climb up the hillside and farther into the forest, spilling out from the original boundaries.
