Page 139 of Throwing Fire

I release mine so the Horse-men can drag him to the hanging-place.

The Horse-man doesn’t dawdle. With a high yell that’s not too far off a whinny, Drogan’s lieutenant gallops off, dragging Jaxon behind him.

I follow at a more sedate pace. Put my arms around the two women waiting for me behind the line of Horse-men.

“You don’t need to watch this,” I say to Kez.

She rests her head against my shoulder. Slips her arm around my waist. Payton wraps her arm around my waist from the other direction; we walk together in the Horse-men’s dust.

“I feel like I do,” Kez says. Same thing she told me last night when I suggested she stay in Drogan’s yurt with his heavily pregnant mate today. “I need to see it end. I need closure.”

I don’t argue any more with her. My kitten knows her own mind.

“Payton, you okay?”

I don’t know Payton’s mind as well as I know Kez’s. I know Payton doesn’t think of Jaxon as an ex. I know she slept with him on her maker’s orders and not because of any feelings she had. I know Jaxon wasn’t kind to her. Doesn’t equate to wanting to watch him hung.

“Yes,” Payton says. I feel her squeeze Kez’s arm across my back. Maybe she’s not here because of Jaxon. Maybe she’s here because of Kez.

“Either of you want to leave at any point, just say the word.”

They nod in tandem.

By the time we catch up with the Horse-men, the show’s over. A crowd rings the scaffold where Jaxon hangs still under Helas’s unblinking eye, three bottles of Hex around his neck along with a plaque that says “yaul.”

“Sinner,” Kez says quietly as Acker comes to stand next to her. Exeter takes up a flanking position on Payton’s other side with Mike beside him. Good men.

“May he find peace and forgiveness in Helas’s embrace,” one of the nearby Horse-men responds in the same tone.

“May we all,” Payton says.

I nod. I stand with my arms around the girls, letting them find what they need. Closure. Revenge. Justice. Whatever name they put to it in their hearts, I let them have it. I’ll wait as long as they need. I want them to know it’s over.

Maybe the war ain’t won. Maybe this was just the battle, not the war. Maybe we still got enemies without and within to face.

But for today, for now, it’s over.

For today. For now. We’ve won.

The End