The Ritual (33 page)

“No!” Shani shouted, and Zash dropped his elbow again, looking at her in surprise.
“Please, don’t,” she begged. “Don’t kill anyone else, please, let’s not kill any more people than we’ve done already.”

“Shani–” I began, and she turned to me, her eyes pleading.

“Can we not just leave him? Look at him, he’s pathetic! He’s not even dangerous! He couldn’t hurt us if he tried, surely we don’t
need
to kill him?”

“Need to, no. Want to? Absolutely,” Zash said harshly, and she flinched.

“Please, Zash,” she said, turning back to him. “If either of us mean anything to you, if everything we’ve done together matters in any way, please don’t kill him.”

Zash shifted his gaze to me, and Shani leapt on it as an opportunity. “Rin, you ask him. He listens to you, please.”

I looked at her, wondering again how she could remain so generous, so caring in the face of the world we lived in. Not for the first time I wished I could give her a better life, something more than wandering around to scrape together a living. I loathed Siander, but if I could please my sister by letting him live, then for her sake I would try to save him.

I turned to Zash and met his cold, determined gaze. He still held his dagger to the elf’s throat, and his eyes were defiant, daring me to change his mind.

I began by kissing him, taking the time to think of what to say to him. He responded readily, but when I drew away he whispered, “It’ll take more than just a kiss to change my mind, Little Firelocks, no matter how good.”

It made me smile, and I stroked his jaw, letting my fingers brush past his ear to tangle in his hair. “Remember what you told me on the other side of the mountains?” I murmured. “You said you only made it look casual to kill someone.”

“I did, but I also said that it’s easy when I’m angry, and right now I’m furious.”

“Ah, but Shani is right, you know. He
is
harmless. He is pathetic, worthless, useless, and by letting him live you’ll force him to continue his poor existence without servants, money or property. He’ll be living hand to mouth, will have to work for everything he wants to buy, and he’ll hate every moment of it. Killing him is the soft option.”

I kissed him again, and this time he shoved Siander away and wrapped his arms around me, taking his time to let his tongue wrestle with mine. “Damn you, woman,” he muttered eventually. “Why do you always have to make sense?”

“I just do. So you’ll let him live?” I asked, and he nodded, though he avoided my eyes.

Siander, meanwhile, let out a long, shuddering breath. “Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you,” he garbled. “You won’t regret this, thank you.”

“Shut up, you pathetic bag of shit,” I snapped at him. “I’m pleasing my sister here, but there’s only so much I’m prepared to do for her. Don’t push your luck.”

“And I only said I’d let you live, not that I’d leave you whole,” Zash added, though his heart didn’t seem to be in it. He picked up his belt and put it on, adjusting the sheath of his dagger before sliding the blade back in. Then he looked toward the eastern horizon, where the Whitecaps were still a jagged, hazy line in the distance. The sky was starting to turn a rosy pink, promising more rain for the day, and he sighed as he put on his shirt.

“We might as well get going,” he said, dropping back into the melancholy mood of the past week, and we all took it as our cue to start packing.

“What about me?” Siander whined when we had everything tidied and packed away. “When are you going to let me go?”

“Mior, give me a hand, will you?” Zash asked, ignoring the elf. He picked up another coil of rope, thicker than what he had used to bind Siander with, and let his gaze wander over the trees in the little copse in which we had taken shelter. Finally he selected one and slung one end over a thick branch a few feet overhead before walking back to where Mior was waiting by the elf.

Siander whimpered as they lifted him and carried him to the tree, where Zash grasped the rope tightly and tested its sturdiness – and that of the branch – by hanging his full weight off it.

“Are you… are you going to hang me?” Siander stammered. “You can’t, you promised you’d let me live!”

“I promised you nothing,” Zash said flatly, but he drew the rope between the elf’s ankles and tied it around the cord which bound his legs together, then hoisted him up until he was hanging upside down from the branch, his hands still tied behind his back and his head a few feet off the ground and steadily going redder.

“You can’t do this!” Siander shouted as we made a last check of each other’s packs, ensuring that we had left nothing behind, and started walking. His protests faded away behind us and we were back on the road, and Zash sank into his daytime brooding.

*   *   *   *   *

Nennomar was exactly as I remembered it, yet at the same time its very familiarity felt almost alien to me. It was only just over a year since I had last been here, but so much had happened since then that I felt like I had been away for decades, and that the city ought to reflect it.

The day was miserable, with constant, driving rain that kept people inside and left the streets in the poorer districts sodden. In the affluent east side where we came in it wasn’t so bad, but the wide, tree-lined avenues which normally attracted the nobility for their evening constitutional were deserted, and the branches dripped icy water into my neck as we passed underneath.

As we passed the merchant quarter I wondered whether Naerev still haunted its outskirts, and what I would do if I happened to meet him. Back when I had been sixteen he had intimidated me, and at twenty-three he had repulsed me. Right now I suspected I would be indifferent, though I knew I’d rather not run into him at all.

We passed familiar houses with brightly painted shutters, high-peaked roofs and window-boxes full of flowers. One of them was the house of Shani’s old master Pailev, and I was surprised to see the sign directing us to the rogue tavern on its doorpost. On another house I saw the mark indicating it to be a sympathetic household to half-elves, who would hide us if any royal guards should be out on a raid. A house which I had passed by on numerous occasions held the sigil marking the presence of a fence, specialising in gold and silver artefacts. Had Naerev even known these signs? He had never taken me to this place to fence anything, but that meant little. It didn’t matter either, yet I could not help but wonder.

Zash led us through the muddy streets without hesitation, heading towards the northwest of town, where the cattle markets were normally held. Nennomar was famous for its quality livestock – beef cattle in particular – and the ever-present odour of manure became more pervasive. He seemed familiar with every town and city in Arlennis, and by some unspoken agreement neither Shani nor I had told the men that we had lived here before, and possibly knew the town better than they did. I didn’t really know why we kept silent, except that both of us had noticed the change in them, and I knew it worried Shani as much as it did me.

When we reached the rogue tavern – a predictably dingy place called The Keg – I looked at it with interest. I knew every part of the city, but had never looked twice at this building. During my time with Naerev we had occupied a corner in an old hayloft belonging to an ostler whose main point of trade was in a different district. Naerev paid the man a small fee to leave us alone, and all we had had to put up with was the draught coming through the cracks in the wall and the odd horse that was stabled there.

The tavern itself had settled down for the night, but a single candle still burned on the bar, and when Zash rang the little brass bell next to it the innkeeper appeared in his nightshirt and greeted him as an old friend. He handed us our keys quite jovially, for all that we had pulled him out of bed.

“Go on, get yourself sorted,” Zash said as he handed the key to me. “I’ll just be a moment.”

I went without protest. The rain had not let up all day and I was tired, cold, miserable and soaked to the bone. What I wanted most of all was my customary bath, but it was too late in the night for that and I resented having to postpone it until the morning.

I had just finished draping my sopping wet cloak over the one chair in the room and my damp tunic over the sideboard, and was stripping off my trousers when Zash entered the room, carrying a stack of towels. He dumped them on the bed, quickly stripped off his own clothes, then picked up a towel and walked over to me. I met him halfway and slid my arms around him with a sigh as he started to rub my hair dry.

“My poor, damp, cold Little Firelocks,” he murmured. “Rain doesn’t suit you very well, does it?”

“It’s alright
,” I lied. “I just dislike being wet. Everything chafes.” I snuggled closer to him as he picked up another towel to dry my back and crooned, “You’re so warm… How do you manage to be so warm?”

“Hey, I just found a naked woman in my room, how could I not be warm?” he chuckled. “I just wonder how you manage to be so cold. Your skin is ice.”

“It’s getting warmer now,” I said, glad that he was talking to me rather than brooding. He brought his towel back up to my head and pulled my head back, locking his lips to mine as he dried my hair a second time.

“There, that’s better,” he said after a moment. “You still look like a half-drowned cat, but at least you’re not dripping anymore.”

“Charming,” I said, peering up at him. “You look rather bedraggled yourself, you know.”

His mouth curved. “There’re more towels on the bed.”

“So what are you saying? ‘Make yourself useful, wench’?”

“Wench? I’d never call you a wench. But sure, you can make yourself useful.”

“I’ll show you useful.” I snatched up a towel and started rubbing his head vigorously, and he laughed as he tried to pull away.

“Enough.” He smiled, took my wrists and pulled the towel out of my hands, then pulled aside the covers on the bed. “In you go,” he encouraged me, and I pulled him with me as I let myself fall into it.

“How’s about this,” he whispered, nibbling at my jaw. “I warm you up, we get some sleep, tomorrow morning we have a bath and then we go scope out some burglary targets. It’s been a while since we went out, and we’re running low on money. What do you say?”

“Mmm, sounds like a wonderful plan,” I crooned, letting my fingers tickle his sides. “Especially the warming up bit. You can finish that off first.”

“Finish it? Rin, I haven’t even started…”

*   *   *   *   *

The bath was godly, and the smell of sizzling bacon and sausages from the kitchen had me waiting with my fork and knife at the ready. My breakfast was delivered to my table by a young woman, maybe a little older than me, and when she turned her head to listen to someone else’s question I was surprised to see that she was a half-elf. She caught me looking and gave me a vague smile, and I figured that since this was a rogue tavern she probably managed to get away with working here.

Mior and Shani hadn’t appeared yet and Zash had gone to put on a clean shirt, so for now I tucked in alone, idly studying the other people in the common room. My eyes continued to linger on the woman – she was a sultry beauty, with dark hair and striking blue eyes, and she moved with an easy grace that had the heads of the men in the room turning.

When Zash walked in he didn’t seem to see her at first, since his gaze went straight to me, but she remedied that quickly. “Hey, Sparky,” she said, her face lighting up. “They never told me you were back in town.” She sauntered over to him and stopped him by standing in front of him, then walked her fingers up along his chest before placing her hand in his neck. “Got a kiss for me?”

“Shiza, hey,” he muttered, and gave her a careful kiss on her cheek before disentangling himself gently but firmly. “We only arrived last night. Good to see you. Can I have some breakfast please?”

“Hey, what? Is that all I’m getting?” she protested.

“Yes
, Shiza, it is,” he said, though he softened the statement with a smile before pushing her aside and walking up to sit opposite me at the table. I saw Shiza’s eyes narrow thoughtfully as she looked at me, then she walked to the kitchen, swaying her hips. When I turned my eyes to Zash he gave me a vaguely apologetic smile which I somehow found more endearing than a true apology would have been.

Not that he needed to apologise for anything, really. “Sparky?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.

“She calls both of us that,” he said, grimacing. “Never could tell us apart.”

“Both of you, eh? Still,
Sparky?
”

“Well, she got Mior first, so you can guess. Me… Well…” He coughed. “I, uh, don’t think she realised I wasn’t him at the time. Didn’t seem to matter either, and the name still stuck. She’s the one who taught me about the, uh, you know.” He gestured vaguely at his ears, then his crotch, before looking away and running a hand through his hair.

I sat back in astonishment, then giggled. “Zash, are you
embarrassed
about this?”

“I don’t usually get my current lover to meet my former one,” he said sulkily.

Former
, I thought, trying not to show how pleased I was with that statement. “Well, it sounds like I owe her some thanks.”