Page 96

Ryon looks to Hector, who bunches his body against the base of a tree, watching the mixed-Glacians with weary vigilance, then to Baltisse who sleeps between Salem and Esra, the latter grimacing with pain. He sees Rivdan and Tasheem, red-faced and panting in the heat, and Gerrot, apparently awed by the leafy canopy above. Last, he looks to Ruby, still adorned in her captain’s uniform and resolutely ignoring Salem’s livid stare.

“No,” Ryon allows. “Though,youare entirely unlikely in as many ways as one can be considered. So perhaps you’re to blame.”

Dawsyn sinks to the ground on a dry patch of dirt and weeds. “Perhaps,” she mutters, looking up to the dappled light, and wondering if while she sleeps her skin will leak the feeling of futility into the soil, and she’ll wake knowing what next there is to do.

CHAPTERTHIRTY-EIGHT

Dawsyn does not sleep for long. In fact, the entire camp was awakened in the night when Esra rolled onto his side and screamed with renewed pain. Then a second time, and a third.

The fourth time Esra’s cries pierce the air, it is quickly followed by the sounds of Salem staggering to his feet, storming at Ruby with a maddened, “Yeh-motherless-wench-I’ll-wring-your-fuckin’-neck-for-what-you-did!”

And so, not only awakened but now on their feet, the entire party – save Esra – hastens to stop Salem from doing as he promises.

Ryon lies flat on his back with a twisting, writhing Salem captured atop him, trapped in the cage of his arms and legs. It would be comical, if not for the burst blood vessels in Salem’s eyes and his obscenely purple complexion.

“Stop, Salem! She’s here to aid us!”

“Don’t fuckin’ care why she’s ’ere. She ain’t stayin’!”

Dawsyn does not flinch at the venom in his tone. She remains between where he wrestles Ryon and where Ruby stands huddled amongst Rivdan and Tasheem.

“She played no part in the fire, Salem,” Dawsyn adds.

“She wears the same fuckin’ garb as those bastards tha’ came to me inn and torched it! Look at Esra!”

“Andtheywill pay for it, Salem. But Ruby did nothing. She hasn’t earnt your anger.”

“I’LL KILL THE WHOLE LOTTA ’EM!”

“Good god, Salem. You sound like a blithering idiot,” Baltisse comments. “Let go of Ryon’s ear, before he drops you in the river.”

“They took everythin’. EVERYTHIN’!”

“The entire continent heard you, Salem. You’re being a child. The captain didn’t take your toys.”

Salem turns a frightening shade of deep puce and Baltisse huffs her impatience. “Can’t I just put him to sleep?” she asks, raising an eyebrow at Ryon who dodges a stray elbow that Salem throws back, barely managing to keep hold of him.

“Fuck!Salem, give up, man! Don’t youdare, Baltisse. Give him a minute.”

“I’m sorry, sir,” comes a voice. Ruby has stepped forward, an ill-advised choice considering Salem’s renewed energies to reach her. “Truly.”

“They set it alight while we slept! While we SLEPT! We nearly died! An’ all because I dared to put a roof o’er their heads!” he cries, gesturing to Dawsyn. “All because yer fuckin’ Queen wants this daughter of a Sabar wiped from the earth! That’s thedemonyeh serve!” he roars, his voice cracking, eyes streaming. “Esra’s face won’t never look like it should! He covered my body with his! He saved my sorry life! The poor lad’s been threatened an’ beaten enough in his life. He don’t deserve what they did!”

Salem finally slackens then, his face crumbling. His body shakes, and Ryon heaves a sigh of relief, loosening the arm against Salem’s throat to pat him roughly. “It’s all right, you old codger,” he says, panting heavily. “Let it out.”

Baltisse merely wrinkles her nose at Salem, but Ruby leans to the ground beside him so that her eyes are level with his, and says, “I cannot help your friend.” She looks over to the place where Esra lays prone and unconscious once more. “But I can promise you this: the Queen wears a ring on her right hand with the Terrsaw Emblem. They say it was taken from King Sabar’s body the night he died. One day I will cut that ring from her finger, and it will sit on the mantle in your new home.”

They all watch warily, lest Salem decide to take liberties with the shortened distance between he and his target. But he only looks keenly into her eyes in a way Dawsyn recognises as his custom, and seems to find no duplicity in them.

“I’ll hold yeh to it,” he puffs.

Ryon rolls him over, releasing him, and both men sit panting on the forest floor.

“Why didn’t yeh spells work, Baltisse?” Salem laments, his face turned to Esra. “They ain’t never failed before.”

Baltisse blanches, and all look back to poor Esra whose right ear, eye and cheek are shocking shades of black and red. He will bear the scars for the rest of his life. Whatever Baltisse and Dawsyn did to him, it was merely enough to save his life but not his flesh, and his wounds may foul yet.

“I assure you, I expended all the power I could, but my stores were already low after lifting an entire house off you. If it weren’t for Dawsyn aiding me, he and I would likely be dead.”