The Ritual (15 page)

“I can’t do it. I can’t stay awake.”

“I know… I’m sorry.”

So
now
you apologise? For something you can’t even do anything about?
It was my last thought. I felt his lips against my forehead, then everything faded away.

*   *   *   *   *

For a time after that my memories were fragmented. I remembered lying on my back and staring at the sky, not understanding why I was moving. Someone held my hand and squeezed it at regular intervals, but then a liquid trickled down my throat and I slipped away again.

Later there were snatches of muttered discussions which were either too quiet for me to hear, or I was too far out of it to remember what was said. I did remember feeling shivery despite being covered with a blanket, and there were dark dreams of fire and pain.

When I finally woke up properly and felt coherent enough to speak, I was in a bed somewhere, I presumed in an inn. Sunlight came streaming through a window ahead of me and the bed smelled of clean if slightly musty linen, and when I blinked the blurriness out of my eyes the room resolved into standard fare – smallish, with a double bed and a chest for belongings. There was also a chair by the bed, and in it was Shani, facing towards the window and muttering to herself as she moved her fingers.

She’s practicing magic,
I thought, and tried to say her name. I produced nothing more than a croak, but it got her attention, and she shot upright and scrabbled onto the bed. “Rin? You’re awake?”

I tried to speak again, then coughed to find my voice. “I think so.” I sounded like an old hag, creaky and wavering, and Shani grabbed a cup from the nightstand and held it out to me.

“Here, drink something,” she said, and I gingerly pushed myself upright and took it from her. She peered at me as I sipped and asked, “How do you feel?”

I gave her a watery smile. “I’ve felt better. Where are we?”

“Tizar, on the other side of the mountains. Mior and Zash got us to another rogue tavern.”

“Gods.” I rubbed my face. “How long have I been here?”

“It took us three days to get out of the mountains, then two more to get to Tizar. We arrived yesterday. More water?” She took the cup from me when I nodded and refilled it from a pitcher nearby.

“So I’ve been out of it for what, five, six days?” I winced and lifted up the blanket to look at my leg. To my surprise and great relief it was still attached, and it didn’t look much different from normal, apart from the bandage that enclosed it from my knee right up to my crotch. When I shifted it experimentally it twinged, but not excessively so, and I nodded in cautious satisfaction.

“They kept you under, right from the moment we found you,” Shani said, craning her neck to look too. “The scratches weren’t as deep as Zash feared, but dragon claws are dirty so they festered, and you lost a lot of blood too. They gave you poppy juice so you wouldn’t toss and such.”

“So how did I get here?”

She giggled nervously, as if she still couldn’t believe it. “They carried you, built you a litter. At times I thought you’d tumble down the mountain, all three of you, but they got you here. I held your hand whenever I could… Gods, Rin, I was so scared for you!” She launched herself at me and hugged me tightly, and I hugged her back just as fiercely, though I was still amazed by her words. I could not imagine Zash going to the trouble of finding branches for a litter and carrying me, but then had to concede that I could not think of any other way in which they would have got me down the mountain. Had I expected him to leave me behind? After Naylis, maybe, but when I thought back to our conversation in the cave and remembered the fear in his voice I knew that I didn’t leave him as cold as he wanted me to think.

“I’d better go tell them you’re awake,” Shani said, starting to get up.

“No, wait!” I said, snatching at her arm. She looked at me in surprise, and I motioned for her to settle down again. “I have something to tell you first.”

It took me a while, with many breaks to moisten my throat with more water, but eventually I managed to relay the full conversation I had overheard between Zash and Mior. Shani looked at me with growing disbelief as I spoke, and when I’d finished she shook her head in denial.

“No,” she said. “You must have misheard them. I can’t believe they would mean us harm. Mior would never hurt me.”

I grimaced, seeing my fear confirmed. “You’ve slept with him, haven’t you?”

She blushed, but stubbornly shook her head again. “That’s got nothing to do with it, he just wouldn’t.”

“So you have.”

“Yes!” she exploded. “Of course I have! I love him, Rin!”

“Have you told him that? And does he love you?”

“No, I haven’t,” she said sulkily, then glared at me. “I haven’t forgotten what you said before, you know, about not trusting them. So no, I haven’t told him that I love him. But I do.” She sighed, sagged, took my hand and absentmindedly stroked my fingers. “He’s amazing, Rin. With anything he teaches me it’s like I’ve known it all my life, and all he had to do is remind me. He’s patient, encouraging, playful… With him there’s nothing I feel I couldn’t do. Can you understand that?”

The problem was, I could, because Zash made me feel exactly the same way – when he was being nice. How could I rebuke her for her feelings for Mior when I was just as deeply in love with Zash?

“And he?” I asked nonetheless.

“I don’t know.
When he looks at me… I’ve never seen anyone look at me like that before. Making love to him is–”

“I don’t want to know,” I interrupted her, the sudden ache in my heart almost too painful to bear.

“Is beyond words,” she continued anyway. “If he doesn’t love me, then I envy the woman he will.”

I dropped back into the pillows, suddenly weary beyond reason. “I’ve told you what I heard, Shani. They’re hiding something, and whatever it is, it isn’t good for us.”

“So you’re asking me to leave him?”

“What else can we do?”

She squeezed my hand. “Rin, that conversation was more than a week ago now. A lot has happened since then. Plus, Zash mentioned something about being held by the balls and… and didn’t Mior say he wouldn’t do it?”

“Mior isn’t the one calling the shots.”

“And you think Zash could do it, whatever ‘it’ is, after what happened to you? If he wanted to hurt you he could have just left you to that dragon!”

“It’s not about hurting us, Shani,” I said, wishing she would understand. “It’s about that
bloody
plan of theirs, whatever the fuck it is.”

“Again, Mior says Zash can’t do it.
I
say he can’t do it. I’ve seen the way he’s been looking at you, Rin.”

My heart stuttered. “What do you mean?”

“When we finally got to you in that cave you were unconscious, and he was frantic. He carried you for five days through murderous terrain, and every night he sat by you. Oh, he tries not to show it, I’ll give him that, but he’s not indifferent to you. Far from it.”

“I know he’s not,” I said hoarsely, “but that’s–”

“And you love him as much as I love Mior. Don’t even
try
to deny it, Rin,” she hissed when I drew a breath to protest. “Don’t treat me as if I’m
stupid
. If you can’t tell him, then at least have the guts to admit it to me!”

I closed my eyes, defeated. “I love him, yes. But I still don’t trust him.”

“Suit yourself. Just don’t ask me to leave Mior, because I can’t. I just can’t, Rin,” she repeated softly.

And now that she had admitted it, I had to acknowledge the truth to myself as well – deep down I felt exactly the same, and all my arguing mattered as little to me as it did to her. Zash was dangerous, unpredictable and untrustworthy, but he was also caring and gentle, in his own way. For all his exasperating qualities there were just as many that made my heart beat faster, and I had never felt as alive as I had in the past few weeks in his company.
Live dangerously, or don’t live at all,
I thought, and it almost made me smile.

“Well, I guess we’ll just have to be smarter than them then,” I sighed.

“That’s the spirit,” Shani said, perking up. “Which means you need to get your strength back. I’ll go find the boys and get you something to eat.”

Food. My stomach growled its approval, and Shani chuckled as she left the room.

I must have fallen back asleep then, because the next thing I remembered was opening my eyes and looking straight into Zash’s velvety black ones. “Hey,” he said, and his smile was almost shy.

“Hey,” I replied, sitting up and self-consciously pulling up the blanket. I was wearing a tunic and nothing untoward was showing, but his intent gaze made me nervous.

“I, uh, brought you some food,” he said, picking up a tray from the chair behind him, and I gratefully transferred my attention to the contents, stretching out my hands as my stomach growled again.

“Thanks,” I said as he placed it on my lap, then I winced, hissed in pain and muttered a curse when the weight made the wounds on my leg throb.

“Shit, I didn’t think,” he said, trying to take it away again.

“No, it’s fine!” I said, yanking it back. “It feels fine. Just stings a little, but I’m too hungry to care.” I demonstrated by tearing off a big chunk of bread and dipping it into the bowl of stew on the tray, then stuffing it into my mouth in one go. The stew was plain fare, a bit heavy on the sage, but it could have been a bowl of grasshoppers and I’d still have pretended the same interest in it as I did now. Zash settled on the bed by my knees, and I desperately tried to think of a safe topic to talk about.

“The leg’s doing alright then?” Zash enquired, and I nodded vigorously.

“Feels fine,” I assured him again through a mouthful of bread. “Haven’t tried to walk yet, but I’m sure I’ll be fine.” I swallowed and looked away from his still too-intent eyes and plucked at the blanket as I added, “Thanks. You know, for getting me here and stuff. Shani told me what you did.”

“Don’t mention it.” He was quiet for a little bit while I gulped away more food, then said, “I owe you a pair of trousers.”

“What?” I asked, baffled.

He gestured at my legs. “We had to cut them off you to get to the scratches.”

“Oh.” Heat flushed through me at the thought of him handling my naked legs, but then a thought occurred to me. “Well, if you owe me a pair of trousers, then I owe you a shirt.”

“You do?”

“I bled all over your other one, didn’t I?”

He laughed. “True. Maybe we need to go shopping.”

My heart skipped a beat. “Shopping?”

“Mmhmm,” he said, his eyes twinkling. “Count Mohander Ti’zenna has his estate here in Tizar, and he is said to have the largest wardrobe in history.”

I stared at him, unable to hold back my incredulous grin. “You want us to go and
steal
some new clothes?”

“Why not? We can steal some of his other stuff too, if it makes you feel better?” His grin back at me made my heart beat faster, but I tried my best not to let it show.

“You want us to steal clothes from some foppish elven lord whose tastes probably run to ribbons, bows, clanking ornamental metal buttons and more feathers than a peacock?”

“You don’t think I’d look good in feathers?”

I made a show of looking him over from head to toe, trying to ignore the flush it brought to my skin. He was dressed in just his trousers and shirt, barefooted, and he looked washed and good enough to eat. “No. Stick with velvet, it suits you.”

“So I’ve been told.” His eyes lost their playful gleam and became more intent again, and he moved closer. He glanced at my empty food dishes and lifted the tray from my legs, placing it on the bed beside me. “No clothes then. Want to just steal his jewellery instead? You’ve not tried your new lockpicks yet.”

I licked my lips and saw his gaze flick down to follow the motion before moving back up to mine. “That seems like a better plan to me,” I said huskily.

“Think you can do tomorrow night? Think your leg can take it?” He scooted closer still, and raised a hand to brush the hair from my forehead.

“Is that a date?”

His lips curved. “If you want it to be, sure.”

I was by no means certain that my leg would be alright, but by now I wouldn’t have said no for all the jewels in the world. He bent closer still, until his lips were only a few inches away from mine, and I could not tear my eyes away from his mouth. He brushed my hair away again, but this time his hand tucked it behind my ear, trailed further around the back of my head, and I closed my eyes in anticipation of his kiss.

Then my brain decided to get involved. “Are you being nice now?” I heard myself say, and his movements stilled.

“Maybe I am,” he murmured after a few heartbeats, but the heat of his lips moved away from my mouth and instead went to my forehead, where he planted a kiss that burned on my skin for a long time afterwards.

“I’m glad you’re alright,” he added, and then his manner turned brusque as he rose and picked up the tray. “There’s a bath downstairs, if you want to wash,” he said, walking to the door. “If you do, Mior has some salve to put on your leg, and he can bandage it up again.” Then he left the room and I was alone, wanting to strangle myself for having chased him away again.