Page 6

5

A PAT ON THE HEAD

I abandoned the glow stones and hurried through the bedchamber and into the great room. Light from the stars was just enough to show me a path through the furnishings, though I’d spent enough hours there to know it by heart.

I sidled up to the edge of the window. First, I listened. The laughter was replaced with shouting.

I peeked down the hillside. Glowing light shifted. Shadowy figures carried torches around our home below. Orange fire flared in the cooking pit and painted the faces of five strangers and my master, who stood quietly watching them. Even old and slightly bent, Demius wasn’t a small man, and I was surprised that two of his tormentors were larger than he. One was strong enough to lift a full raincatcher over his head and slam it to the ground, wasting our precious water.

While I watched, I quickly shrugged out of the purple gown, placed the crown in the center, and rolled them up together. I couldn’t very well fly down the hill wearing such a thing.

A sharp growl of thunder rattled the windows, reminding me that the old man wasn’t defenseless. One fool glanced up only briefly, then resumed his game of destruction.

Suddenly, another man appeared behind the rest. His face was hidden by his hood, but a dark beard jutted out of the shadows. The strangers turned to face him, and after a quiet conversation I couldn’t hear, the five dropped what they had in their hands and slinked away, into the gully, with their shoulders hunched and their tails between their legs.

Demius offered the bearded one his hand, then gestured for the man to move around the fire to stand beside him. And together, they watched the flashwaters come.

Confident that Demius was safe for the moment, I hurried back to the antechamber to throw on my own clothing. I grabbed my glow stone and hurried to the door to add the wadded purple gown to the satchel before stepping outside.

The shush and roar of the flashwaters filled the canyon, interrupted briefly by men’s screams in the distance. I might have felt worse for them had I not known their days were already numbered.

I paused to allow my eyes to adjust to the starlight and looked down at the fire. Now, Demius and the man who had come to his aid stood across the fire from each other. The flames were still bright, and with his hood lowered, I could now see the stranger’s nose and smile, a portion of his brow, and a flash of his eyes.

There was nothing friendly about that face.

Demius lifted one arm and patted the top of his head as if he were looking for his hat. It was an old signal he hadn’t used since I was a child—a signal intended for me. It was an order to stay put. There was danger. And if I was watching, I was to hide. When his arm dropped back to his side, his shoulders fell, but he held his head high.

And as I stood there, sick with dread, I shook off that earlier training. I wasn’t a child anymore. And Demius needed my help!

Suddenly, a long sword rose high in the air, paused behind the stranger’s shoulder, then swung out over the fire. It reached for Demius and moved on, completing a circle. And I exhaled with relief. My master’s head remained on his shoulders.

He made some grasping gesture and bowed. Even when his head toppled off his neck, fell beside the fire, and rolled out of sight, I kept expecting him to straighten and demand that the stranger put it back.

That stranger retreated in surprise when Demius took a step to the side…before tilting and falling, avoiding the flames before it gave up the fight.

Demius was dead.

Demius was dead?

Demius was dead!

In the span between one breath and the next, my shock turned to rage. The bastard that killed my master had to die…now…by my hand, not at the mercy of some blue dragon!

My thoughts bounced around my brain like a flock of panicked birds while my feet flew down the path, sure, steady and quiet. Screaming would only warn him. The week before, when we’d fled from the party, we’d hurried straight down the slope. But picking through the rocks took time. I could reach the house much faster if I ran flat out. The starlight was all the illumination I needed.

I made the first turn and summoned the energy to run faster to the second. At that turn, I stomped on something large and bruised the pad of my foot badly. But it didn’t slow me. Only made me limp a little.

There were no weapons in the satchel strapped to my back, and I couldn’t tear a man apart with my bare hands, no matter how capable I felt at the moment. So I searched for a large sharp rock, found one at the bottom of the slope, and snatched it up without slowing.

Demius!

The stone gully beneath my feet was hard and smooth and announced my every step. The bastard wasn’t alone, and creatures of various sizes turned to face me, though none of them sought to stop me.

My attention was on the beloved form now laying prone beside the fire and the large man kneeling beside him. With my free hand, I removed the strap of the bag and swung it off and around, to bash the murderer sideways. It didn’t knock him to the ground, but at least I had his attention as I leapt for him and lifted the rock high. I only screamed when I was unable to bring it down on his head.

Someone held my wrist where it was. They squeezed until the rock fell from my failing grasp. Then they released my hand only to knock me off kilter and grab my ankle. Two heartbeats later, I hung upside down, staring above my head at the man I’d intended to kill.

Completely the wrong man. Dark shaggy hair that was loosely tethered. Severe blue-green eyes lit at the edges with the reflection of the yellow fire.

“Go on. Slit his throat,” said my captor from somewhere near the foot he held. “He’ll bleed out quickly and we can be on our way.”

“Can’t do that,” said the other man as he climbed to his feet. Then all I saw were his boots.

“Why not?”

“Because he is a she , and it’s still illegal to kill female younglings.”

I was lifted further from the ground, my robes fell away from my legs and over my face, and as I fought to cover myself, my captor grunted and tossed me aside. Landing on stone knocked the breath from me, and I gasped for air.

The first man went back to squatting beside Demius’ body.

“Don’t touch him,” I hissed.

He looked at me quizzically. “You’re telling me you didn’t kill him?”

“Never!” I struggled to my feet, forced myself to breathe deep.

“If you were hoping to catch his powers, you’re too late. We saw them ascend as we arrived.”

“Then he… he didn’t get them either. Good. That’s good.” Some consolation, at least.

“He?”

“The man with the sword.”

“The man you mistook me for?”

“I…assumed.”

He straightened and faced me. When he saw my hair, his face fell slack, but he quickly recovered. “Then it’s lucky I wasn’t alone.” He nodded to his big friend, the one who had lifted me like a child. Thick horns protruded from the sides of that one’s head, though the rest of him was human enough.

The huge man snorted at me for good measure.

“I was…blinded with rage,” I told them. “I apologize.”

“Looks old,” said the first man, and nodded at the head lying alone by the fire.

I intended to shoo them both away from my master, but the big one stepped into my path. But big meant slow, so I feinted to my left, and when he turned to catch me, I passed on his right, then fought to catch my balance before falling on the pile of Demius’ robes.

Before I could stop him, the first man poked the head with his finger, and it rolled. “Faybowse,” he muttered.

Faybowse. To find death. Not by dragon, not by accident.

As if summoned by the word alone, the man who’d killed Demius strode into our midst. “Surely, you don’t mean to linger here.”

Blindly, I reached for a large chunk of the shattered rain-catcher and lifted it, sure that I could fell this brazen killer with one blow, then beat him until he, too, found faybowse. But again, something caught my wrist, and my fury left my chest in the form of a squalling scream.

“How dare you?” The beast pulled the wood from my hand and threw it into the fire. His gaze bore into mine and told me this time, I would not be released.

The killer stared at me, his mouth agape. “What have I done?”

I swung my body toward him and spat, aiming for his eyes. “How dare I? You’ve killed him! An original! An Everfolk! May the Severe God torture you for eternity!”

The horned one snorted again. “Tearloch, she’s mad. Let me put her out of her misery.”

“No. I don’t think she’s mad at all.” The first man, Tearloch, came to stand by the killer and turned him so his face was well lit by the fire. Then he addressed me. “The man with the sword…looked like this man?”

“Just like.”

“Look closely.”

The hate in my belly eased a little when I realized this one was missing a few things. “He must have cut off his beard, removed his hood. But he’s the man.”

Anger flashed in Tearloch’s eyes, and his jaw flexed. “This is not the man.” He lowered his chin, his eyes shrouded in shadow. “He is his brother. Trust me when I say the guilty one will pay for this Everkind’s life, along with others.”

I shook my head. “He must swear it. Swear it to Hestia you did not touch him!”

The killer’s supposed brother knelt on one knee to press his hand to the ground, where red rock mingled with Hestia’s black heartstone. “I swear I did not harm your friend.” Orange light sizzled around the edges of his fingers as Hestia judged his oath, then it faded as quickly as it had come. If he’d lied, the ground lightning would have punished him. I had to believe him.

Yet another version of the killer stepped forward. Pale gold hair. Taller. He too was furious, but he was also concerned for the other one.

I struggled against the giant’s hold. “ Another brother?”

“Aye,” Tearloch said. “Three brothers, one possessed by a sorcerer.” He pointed to the shorter version, whom I’d first accused. “This is Bain. This is Dower.” He nodded to the giant holding my wrist. “That is Sweetie. And this…” He gestured to the gap in our circle that was now filled with a short, pretty woman with blue-black hair and blue robes. “This is Minkin.”

Her brown skin glowed and sparkled in the firelight like dragonspice. Beneath sharply slanted eyebrows, her warm eyes took in my face, my clothes. She, too, seemed surprised by my hair and I wondered if it was sticking up on end. I knew it couldn’t be the color that disturbed her and Tearloch, the clear leader of their band, for many travelers through Redstone Canyon had hair as white as mine.

“And the one who killed my master?”

“Huxor,” she said. “He caught the power of a greedy sorcerer and…changed. And now we must chase him down.”

“To kill him?”

“No. To convince him to use the sorcerer’s power to change Sweetie back.” She nodded at my captor, then gave the big man a smile and a wink. And, as if softened by her attention, he released my wrist.

I ignored the bruised skin and went to my knees beside Demius’ body. “Then pray you find him,” I said, over my shoulder, “before I do.”