The Sartious Mage (The Rhythm of Rivalry) (9 page)

“Thanks to that scene you made, we have to find another inn.” I spoke with my coldest voice.

We walked the better part of a hundred steps before she spoke. “You’re not going to gag me?”

“How hungry are you?” I asked.

“Starving.”

“How thirsty are you?”

“Extremely.”

“How tired are you?”

“On the verge of passing out.”

“How much worse could things be right now?”

She took a slow breath to think. “Not much worse, I guess.”

“Then I’ll save the threat of the gag for when it’s more useful.”

She kept her head forward but turned subtly to look from the side of her eye. I could tell she was trying to study my face without me noticing.

“What will you do if I do that again?” she whispered.

“Is that something you’re planning?” I would’ve turned to her with a scowl, but I was too tired.

“No,” she answered in a defeated voice.

We walked a whole mile, each too exhausted to argue. She did say one thing, actually, not that I replied. She told me that her feet hurt. I looked at her shoes, possibly for the first time. They must’ve been the same shoes she planned to wear at her wedding. They seemed closer to slippers than shoes, made from flexible leather dyed white. More of her foot was showing than the shoe itself. They were definitely not meant for walking long distances.

When I finally saw an inn, I was more worried than relieved because if it didn’t have a place to bathe, that wouldn’t stop me from renting a room. That meant my promise would be broken—something I’d hoped to avoid. But we needed food, water, and sleep. If she didn’t understand that—too bad. She’d ruined her chance to bathe in the last inn with her demand for my arrest.

I could feel both devastation and relief building as I opened the door to the inn. One of them would overcome me depending on whether there was a bathing room. Lisanda must’ve felt the same way—we were in the same situation, after all. Though, by the look on her face, it seemed as if she felt more optimistic than I did.

“What the Bastial hell is she wearing?” The innkeeper spotted us and rushed over before I got a good look around.

I half expected Lisanda to give him a sharp retort, but instead her face fell to the floorboards.

I ignored the question. “We’re very tired and have had a terrible day,” I said as an excuse to speed things along. “The sooner we can have a bath, a meal, and a bed, the better. I’m hoping you can offer each of these things?” I shook the purse of coins. It felt awkward to show off money like that, but from our appearance, it seemed necessary.

The innkeeper had a small face with a pointy nose. His wide mouth straightened in consideration. With only a few table lamps to light the room, his eyes were just as dark as Lisanda’s hair.

“It’s quite late,” he said. “I can promise you a bath and a room, but let me speak to the cook about a meal.”

A bath! I was so relieved my hunger was forgotten for a breath. But a thought stifled my excitement—how would I make sure Lisanda wouldn’t take advantage of the privacy during a bath to escape?

I had an idea, although she wasn’t going to like it.

“Thank you,” I told the innkeeper. He hurried off to the kitchen.

Lisanda desperately wanted to sit. I could see it on her face as she stared at an empty chair ahead of us. We said nothing as we waited for the innkeeper to return, simply stood and shifted weight from one foot to the other.

“You’re in luck,” the innkeeper told us. “We have some leftover potatoes and bacon, but both will be quite crispy upon their second heating.”

Lisanda pouted softly, obviously hoping for a better meal.

“That would be great,” I answered. “We would like to bathe first, if you don’t mind.” I wasn’t about to take off Lisanda’s tarp until she was ready to change into the tunic. That wedding gown would be too conspicuous.

“Certainly…two baths?” the innkeeper asked hesitantly, giving Lisanda a curious tilt of his head. He clearly wanted her to bathe before she touched a bed or really anything in his inn.

“Yes, in the same room, please,” I said, revealing my plan to keep Lisanda from escaping.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her jaw drop.

“So I suppose you’ll be sharing a bed as well?” he asked.

“If we could share a room with two beds, that would be ideal,” I told him.

Earlier, I’d made the promise of her own bed, mostly because there was no reason to subject her to sharing one with me. With my darkness, I wasn’t the best person to sleep beside.

But I couldn’t give her what she wanted in terms of a bath. Privacy was too risky. She could slip out a window or turn some object into a weapon and conceal it. Separate baths in the same room was the only option.

The innkeeper nodded. “It’ll just be a moment.” He left us.

“You’re a vile reprobate after all,” Lisanda said. “If you think I’ll undress in front of you, you’re wrong.”

“There’s usually a clothing line strewn across the bathing room for drying clothes,” I explained. “We’ll hang the tarp on it with our baths on either side for some privacy.”

“And what’s to stop you from simply walking over to my side?” She glared at me presumptuously.

“Do you want another promise?” I shrugged. “What choice do you have, anyway?”

“I could scream.”

“You could.” I folded my arms. “And then we’ll be sleeping outside with no bath, no food, and no water, and oh yes! You’ll be gagged the whole night.”

She growled and turned away from me. “I’ll take the promise, then.”

With some relief, I said, “I promise to give you as much privacy as I can. I won’t make any attempt to see anything that…to look at you when…” I couldn’t figure out how to word it without sounding like a
reprobate
. “To see you naked,” I concluded.

“Nor will you do anything disreputable in the bedroom.” She scrunched her nose.

Disreputable.
Surprised by the way she worded it, I smiled on accident. “I promise.”

Her stare was so cold, my smile immediately soured. We remained silent until the innkeeper returned.

“All set. Towels, soap, warm water, everything you need.”

I paid him what he requested for the baths, meal, and bedroom. It was about half of what we had left.

As tired and dirty as I was, we didn’t have the time for a long bath or a full night’s rest. I needed to be out of the city as soon as possible. For all I knew, guards had begun searching every building in The Nest. We had to hurry.

Chapter 9: Bath

With no arms, Lisanda needed my help taking off the tarp. It wasn’t easy undoing all the knots. I realized it would be faster to manipulate the Sartious Energy in my wand and around us to make a small razor. That way I could just cut the strips of rough cloth. But I didn’t have the fortitude required for the advanced spell, not without food or rest.

Manipulating SE was similar to sprinting while trying to lift a mountain with your mind, both physically and mentally tiring at the same time, and that was just the start of the process. After grabbing hold of the energy, moving it was even more difficult.

But worst of all was shaping it into something. Heavy concentration was needed to pack the SE against itself in order to create sturdy objects. And the more time it took to handle the SE, the longer it felt like sprinting.

Many people didn’t have enough mental focus to control SE because they were too distracted by the physical toll of manipulating it. This was why mages skilled with the green energy were so rare.

But I always had a knack of concentrating better when my body was in use. In fact, it was often hard for me to develop complex ideas otherwise. That’s why my best plans were created in the moment.

Though in the case of Lisanda, I still had no clue how I was going to trade her for the cure. I figured the plan would come once I got her out of the city.

There was an audible peeling sound when I removed the last layer of the tarp from Lisanda’s body. Her immaculate wedding dress wasn’t even white anymore. Some parts of it could be considered off-white, maybe tan, but most of it was brown. There were black spots where dirt had clumped together in places where her dress had bunched up, like around her waist and under her breasts.

I remembered her skin having a golden brown tint like bronze, but it was not that way now. Mud brown would be more accurate. She turned away from me the moment the tarp was off, yet her gown only started around her shoulder blades, leaving much of her back still exposed to me.

I could see that her neck was soiled by a mixture of dark streaks of mud. As she wiped it from her arms and shoulders, her hair bounced around the top of her back, some strands sticking to her skin. I felt pity as well as guilt.

I hung the tarp from the clothing line between our baths. As in most inns, we’d each been given towels, a barrel of hot water, a small bar of soap, a little bucket for dumping the water onto ourselves, and a wooden tub for collecting the used water or whatever else we wanted to do with it. Some people liked to pour the entire barrel of water into the tub and soak there for a while, but I didn’t have the time.

Lisanda threw her new tunic over the clothing line soon after the tarp was up. A breath later, the room was completely silent. I didn’t wish to undress until I heard her doing the same. The door was on my side of the tarp, but she still could run for it the moment I took off my clothes. I figured the best defense to that was to make sure we were both naked at the same time.

“You promise you’re not going to come to my side?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“Then why are you waiting for me to undress?”

“I don’t want you waiting for me to undress so you can run for the door,” I admitted. “And don’t think I won’t chase after you if you do, no matter how little I have on.”

It was quiet again except for the sound of breathing and weight shifting. I’d noticed that she always preferred moving to standing completely still. She was continually rubbing her shoe on some mark on the ground or along a crack in the floorboard. The tarp on the clothing line between us hung too low to see her feet, but I could hear them doing their usual prodding.

“Why don’t you just wait outside?” Lisanda asked.

“I want to bathe as well.” But it won’t kill me to be dirty, which seems to be the case for you, I wanted to say.

After a few more petty questions, I finally heard her dress drop to the floor and then the sound of water being scooped and poured. I hurried to start as well.

Cleaning my body with the warm water was not nearly as relaxing as it usually was. I didn’t know why I’d thought it would be. We both rushed to clean ourselves as quickly as possible, saying nothing throughout.

As much as she didn’t want me to see her, I didn’t want her to see me, either. Most of that was because of all the cuts across my chest and back, with bruises scattered between them. It was a startling sight for the unprepared eye.

With plenty of unsullied water to spare, I cleaned my clothes as well. I didn’t have a washboard, so it was not as thorough as I would’ve liked, but they still were clean enough for me to look forward to putting them on again. There was little worse than the feeling of taking a bath and then dressing in filthy clothing.

I used Bastial heat to dry my underwear and white undershirt, but the rest of my clothes would have to dry during the night. Although Bastial Energy was a hundred times easier to manipulate than Sartious, it took a lot of heat to dry clothes, and I didn’t have the stamina to dry the rest. I wrapped the long towel around my body, ready to get to the potatoes and bacon.

“Are you almost done?” I asked Lisanda from my side of the tarp. I could hear her drying herself.

“Yes, but will you leave me for a moment?”

“Why?”

“I need to do something.”

“What?”

I could hear her sigh. “Something private.”

“Not unless you tell me what it is.”

“I have to use the chamber pot!” Her voice was shrill. “And I’d rather you not be in the room. Bathing was bad enough with you here. Just give me a few minutes.”

I’d looked around the room earlier. There was nothing she could use as a weapon or to escape. There was a window, but it was small and too high to climb through. I figured a little trust between us could only help.

“Sure,” I said and left.

Outside, the innkeeper found me hovering around the door. “Ready for dinner?” He had a sly grin—must’ve thought using the word “dinner” at this time of the night would be humorous. I was too exhausted for humor.

“Yes.” I nodded with a fake smile.

“Now I remember how I know you.” The innkeeper ran his thumb along his chin. “You’re that Sartious mage…Jek Trayden, right?”

I didn’t want a conversation. I was trying to listen to Lisanda on the other side of the door. She couldn’t reach the window, but who knew what else she had in mind? She might throw something through it to collect some broken glass for a weapon or rip a piece of wood off the tub. I’d made it seem like I trusted her, but to actually do so would be foolish. What could I tell this innkeeper for him to go away?