Page 32

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

I’m still fuming when we reach the cabin, and not even the fact that it’s very comfortable can shake my mood. I’m not sure which part annoys me more, and that in itself is a surprise. If someone had told me a year ago that I’d be upset about the temples declaring me outcast, I would have laughed it off. It’s not like I have a particularly high opinion of the temples, after all.

But to be declared outcast—no longer a son of the gods, unrecognized by them and therefore essentially less than every other being in the world—is a major thing. The temples reserve it for the worst of the worst, crimes so heinous that any decent person is sickened by them. Raising zombies, for instance. To cast me out, simply because I refuse to give them the stone… that’s infuriating. Offensive.

It completely reinforces my opinion that the gods need to do something about their priests.

Sweetie gives me a shove, though it’s without her usual vim, and I glare at her. “Not tonight, you demon. I’m not in the mood.”

Her nostrils flare and ears go back, and I realize how stupid it is to offend the horse I’ll have to ride tomorrow. “I’m sorry. I’m not annoyed with you.” She’s been shockingly well-behaved lately. “Are you warm enough?”

She glares for a moment longer, then tosses her head in dismissal, and I take that as my cue to leave. It’s likely that she’ll be warmer in the shelter with the other horses than I will be in the cabin.

I deliberately dawdled over getting her settled so the others would go inside and I could have some time alone to sulk, but now that I’m actually going to have to face them all and tell them what’s happened, I realize I didn’t spend nearly long enough dawdling. I’m sure I could give her hooves more attention. Or maybe brush her coat… again. For the third time.

I hesitate midstep and cast a longing glance back toward the shelter, then sigh. Sweetie might turn carnivore and rip my throat out if I go back there.

Instead, I enter the cabin.

In my snippy mood before, I didn’t really take in the details when I dropped my pack inside the main door. Now, I do, and realize this isn’t a run-of-the-mill cabin for farmworkers to save time on travel from the main bunkhouse and back every day while working these fields. This was once someone’s home, and it’s been kept in good order. The main living space has a kitchen along one wall, with a proper stove as well as the large hearth, a cozy table, two chairs, and two overstuffed armchairs with accompanying footstools. The floor is covered with a dusty but pretty braided rug.

I raise my gaze to the loft, where I can see Jaimin’s tall form, and then movement from the left catches my eye, and I glance that way. There’s an open door, and through it I spy Arimen sitting on the end of a big bed, chatting animatedly to… Coryn, I hope. I can’t see him from this angle, but I can’t imagine who else it would be.

A folding screen partitioning off the corner completes the cabin, and I send up a prayer to the gods that it’s hiding a tub… though the thought of having to fill it myself isn’t all that appealing.

“Could you all come in here, please?” I call. Before I can have a hot bath and hopefully a hot meal, I need to tell them the news.

“Are you okay?” Coryn asks as he emerges from the room, concern shining from his eyes, and I muster a smile. It feels twisted and off-center.

“Yes. Mostly. I know I’ve been… less than enthusiastic today. I’ll try to be better.” I really shouldn’t make promises I know I can’t keep.

Arimen pops out from behind Coryn’s wall of muscle. “All you can do is try,” he says earnestly. “Just be guided by the gods.”

I try really hard not to grimace. This news isn’t going to hit him well.

Jaimin comes down the ladder, his face a little wary. He’s not sure what I’m planning to say, and I feel a sharp stab of regret that I’ve made him worry about that. He deserves better from me.

“So.” I take a deep breath. “My master reached out to me earlier. The temples have responded to the demands made by the academies.” Their interest sharpens, and Arimen bites his lip.

I run them through the first parts, about reparations and apologies, and then I hesitate.

“Wasn’t there more to our demands?” Jaimin asks intently. “An apology to the mages and an assurance of our safe conduct on this mission?”

Here it comes. “Yes. They declined that part. Instead, they cast me out and declared me a fugitive.”

The words fall like stones into the shocked silence, and eventually I can’t take it anymore.

“I, uh, I haven’t consulted with the stone about this yet, but since anyone with me will probably be considered an accomplice, maybe it will release you?—”

~No~

“Or maybe not,” I concede. “I’m sorry. Hopefully if we encounter any more priests, they’ll be content to come after me and leave you all alone. It might be best if we try to avoid them, though.” I don’t want to go to prison, ever, but especially not before I finish this mission. Tia’s counting on me.

“I don’t understand,” Arimen says blankly. “How… Maybe they just need to see the stone. Once they do, they’ll stop this. We’re on a holy mission!”

His earnest naivete only makes me feel worse. “Unfortunately, it’s not possible to show them the stone at this point.” And I don’t think it would make a difference. They know what we’re trying to do, and they haven’t addressed it at all. Instead, their focus has been on retrieving the “holy relic.”

“Didn’t the councils smooth things over with the temples after we left Lenledia?” Jaimin asks. “I assumed that the bishop at the Sanctuary just hadn’t received the news yet.”

I shrug. “That’s what I thought too. But apparently, the temples told the councils one thing and then continued with their plans to arrest me anyway.” I’m a tiny bit bitter about that. I’m trying to save the world, dammit. Or at least find the person who’s going to do it. Doesn’t that take precedence over kowtowing to the priesthood?

Arimen is still shaking his head and muttering about how the temples have betrayed the gods, and why can’t they see how important this is, but Coryn is quiet.

“If we’re stopped by priests again, let me handle it,” I tell him. “Don’t do anything to get on their radar.”

His placid calm vanishes, and suddenly he’s scary Coryn—the soldier who hacks his way through the enemy and deliberately drips blood from his sword onto unconscious prisoners. “Anybody who tries to get to you will go through me,” he declares. “Anybody who tries to take the stone from you if it doesn’t want to go will meet my sword. I know what my role is on this journey, and it’s not to let you handle any trouble.”

I’d be offended by the implication that I can’t handle myself when there’s trouble, but I’m too busy being touched by the sentiment behind his words. Still…

“Coryn—”

“No.” He holds up a big hand. “You might be in charge when it comes to the mission and the magic stuff, but protecting everyone is my job. Maybe I didn’t know Tia all that long, but you get to know people when you’re traveling together, and I know she’d never have let the temples take you. Let me honor her by standing in her place now.”

My eyes burn, but I refuse to let the tears fall. Instead, I clear my throat, give myself a moment, then just nod. “Thank you.” The words are choked. “She liked you a lot, Coryn. I think she was already planning the best way to keep you when this is all done.”

His smile is sad, not like his usual grin at all. “I wasn’t planning to let any of you out of my life forever either.”

“That human is a rare gift,” Leicht says, startling me. Aside from an outburst of rage when he heard Master’s news, he’s been unusually quiet for the past two hours. “I would not allow the priests to have you either. Humans aren’t the only ones who have instructions.”

I blink. “What does that mean?” I ask, but apparently he’s done with talking, so I muster a return smile for Coryn and say, “Leicht likes you too.” He beams, genuine pleasure returning to his face.

“Are we all agreed, then?” Jaimin asks, looking at Arimen. “We go on with our mission and hope the temples don’t find us, but if they do, we let Coryn defend Talon and the stone and get away as fast as we can.”

Arimen lifts his chin, green eyes flashing. “Agreed. When this is over, I’m going to find a way to fix the corruption in the priesthood. Our gods deserve better.”

Because apparently saving the world isn’t enough—he has to fix our religion as well. Was I ever that young and enthusiastic?

“Now,” he continues, “I found an old handwritten book of folklore in the bedroom, so after dinner, we can read stories!”

Gods’ turds.

“…never expected that she would befriend one of the godsborn and be swept off to new adventures away from the farm, but when she looked back on her life, she knew she’d lived it the way she was supposed to. After all, how could one refuse the will of the gods?” Arimen sighs and lowers the book, and I jerk out of my doze. In the chair across from me, Jaimin’s eyes have a glazed look, and Coryn long ago stretched out on the floor for a nap.

“Thank you, Arimen,” I manage, just in case he has any plans to read more. Whoever collected all this folklore was determined about it—the book is thick . The first few stories were mildly interesting, but I’ve heard versions of them before—as a child—and it didn’t take long for me to zone out. “I think it might be time for bed. We have an early start tomorrow.” Something I never thought to be grateful for.

“Oh! Good point.” He glances down at Coryn and his brow furrows. “Was I… boring?” His suddenly stricken expression has Jaimin hastening to reassure him.

“Coryn has to be extra alert all day, as our guard, and that means he needs a lot of rest at night. The brain is very strange like that.”

“Ohhhh. Is that why I’m always so tired when I’ve been studying all day?”

Jaimin nods. “Yes, exactly. Why don’t you wake him so he doesn’t have to sleep on the floor all night?”

Ten minutes later, Arimen and Coryn have disappeared into the bedroom, and Jaimin and I are up in the loft, where I look at the rather lumpy—though large—feather mattress.

“A mattress indoors is better than the mud,” I mutter, unrolling my bedding beside Jaimin’s as he takes off his boots.

“It is.” The usual note of amusement is absent from his voice. “What an unusually positive perspective from you.”

Sighing, I take off my own boots and then join him on the mattress, extinguishing the magelight as I do.

“I owe you an apology,” I say to the darkness. He doesn’t respond, but I can sense he’s listening. “I was rude this afternoon, and I shouldn’t have snapped at you. You’re thinking of me, I know that.”

There’s a moment of silence, then a quiet rustle as the mattress shifts. I think he’s rolled over to face me.

“I care about you,” he says softly. “Leicht being bonded to you is dangerous. It’s going to upset a lot of people, and I want to make sure you’re as safe from them as possible.”

“Tell the healer his concern is unfounded. The dragons will stand by us,” Leicht announces cryptically.

“What’s that supposed to mean? Why will they?”

He doesn’t answer, and I turn my attention back to Jaimin.

“I know. I appreciate that—so much more than I can say.” I don’t add that soft words are hard for me. We’ve been traveling together long enough, been through enough, that he’s aware of it already.

Although, it’s only been a few months. It just feels like forever.

“It’s… I…” The explanation he deserves gets stuck in my throat.

“You don’t want to solidify the bond with Leicht because that will feel like you’re erasing Tia completely?” he suggests, and a breathy sob explodes from me. “That’s not how it is, Talon. The people closest to you know that. You and Leicht were the ones who loved Tia most, and neither of you will ever let her be erased. She’ll always be part of your lives… but those lives will look different without her. And you know she’d hate it if either of you was killed because you refused to strengthen the bond out of some sense of loyalty to her.”

Sucking in a deep breath, I examine the truth of what he’s saying and then accept it on a sharp exhale. “How do you know me so well?” I murmur.

“I care about you.”

He said that before, and the words are innocuous enough, but something in his tone makes my heart beat faster. I don’t know what to say next.

“You shouldn’t.”

“You’re an idiot.” Leicht’s growl of annoyance echoes in my head.

“Fuck off. This is none of your business.”

He huffs, but I once again feel that sense of distance that means he’s put some kind of privacy barrier between our thoughts.

“Why shouldn’t I?” Now Jaimin’s amused, and while I’m glad to hear the fondness I’ve grown so used to from him, I can’t help wishing I hadn’t made him want to laugh at me in this moment. Maybe Leicht’s right and I am an idiot.

But… if Jaimin really does mean what I think he means— hope and yet fear he means—how do I deal with that? I’ve never felt that way about a person before. Not really. Not where it means something, with someone I know well and who knows me.

Not with someone who might feel the same way.

This wouldn’t be a meaningless sexual encounter. It wouldn’t be careless flirting to enjoy an evening or two. If something happened between me and Jaimin, it would be…

Earthshaking.

Heart-stopping.

Perfect… until I ruined it.

“I’m not… I don’t…” Fuck, I don’t know how to put all that into words. “I jumped out of a window and fell down the mountain trying to fly ,” I try. “You’re the plague slayer.”

There’s a little pause, and then he says, “Could you make a light?”

But the darkness is so safe. So insulating. If I make a light, he’ll be able to see how hard this is for me. “I don’t want to.”

He chuckles. “Please, Talon.”

Damn him. How can I refuse him anything? Him, the man who’s supported me so unfailingly since this journey began?

I make a small, dim magelight, but the sudden glow in the dark makes it seem brighter than it is.

He props himself up on one elbow and looks down at me. Shadows play over his face, but even in the dimness I can see his beautiful eyes. His mouth is serious now, the ever-present quirk missing, but somehow the ghost of it is still there.

I never would have imagined anyone’s face could be so dear to me.

“Plague slayer is a ridiculous label,” he says solemnly. “I know it, and you know it. Yes, I cured a plague. I have a gods-given Talent, and I worked hard and studied hard, and maybe the gods never intended the plague to strike and were glad for me to cure it. We can’t know. The truth is, I’ve been an outlier my whole life. I’ve always felt like I was apart, different. I thought when I came to the academy it would be different; that being with others like me would finally mean I was part of the group.”

“But there are no others like you,” I realize, then wince.

He nods sadly. “Not for the reason they think, but yes. People are so in awe of the Talent I was born with that they think I’m different—better—than them. They treat me with deference, even when I hadn’t earned it. I don’t ever want you to think of me that way, Talon.”

I grimace and sit up. “The thing is,” I say candidly, “you are better than most people. Not because of your Talent—that just makes you Talented. Master Meele is extraordinarily Talented, and yet he’s an ass and an idiot and certainly isn’t better than anyone.”

He laughs quietly, and I revel in the sound.

“No, you’re better than other people because of how you treat them. You care. Part of that is the healer in you, but there are other healers that don’t care anywhere near as much as you. Healers who wouldn’t have bothered helping people in the village we stopped at after the first zombie attack. You heard they had no healer, and you went out to aid them, even though that’s not what you were there for.”

“It’s my calling.”

I nod. “And that’s what makes you better than other people. That, and how hard you work, and your sense of humor, and the way you can make oatcakes taste… well, not good, because that’s impossible, but better than paper and ashes.”

“Thank you,” he says dryly. “It’s good to know that if I decide to give up healing, I have a future career making oatcakes to look forward to.”

I take a deep breath. I seem to be doing that a lot tonight. “You know what I meant. You’re an extraordinary man, Jaimin. It would be impossible for me not to recognize that.”

He smiles faintly. “And yet, you don’t watch your tongue with me.”

My wince is involuntary. “I really am sorry I snapped?—”

“No, not what you said this afternoon—though your apology is accepted. I meant, you’re not constantly careful of what you say to me. You talk to me as though I’m part of the group—the way you spoke to Tia, even. As though I’m a close friend.”

“I’d like to think you are.” I tread carefully with him for the first time since we left the City of Knowledge. “I’d like to think you’re the best friend I’ve ever had aside from Tia.”

“I’d like to be more.”