The Ardor - 18. Chapter 18

It was one of those rare mornings I woke up before Maraki did; like the one where he had held me in his arms for the first time. He wouldn’t jump up in panic these Cycles, but still a deep fear inhibited him: he hadn’t taken me since our first time in prison. In the beginning, my injury had prevented it, but it had healed and I was eager to feel him inside me again. Our lovemaking was wonderful as it was. Still, I wanted to know what hold him back. Though he didn’t use words, every change of position, every turning away said enough. There was more behind it than the worry of hurting me; the same reason which had made him overreact that first morning; the same reason which had driven him into self-imposed isolation on the Carris farm; the same reason which guarded itself by tying his tongue up. I loved him too much to push him, and I loved him too much to let him suffer like this. The peaceful way he looked when he was sleeping rendered my previous thoughts to nonsense. I let the fingers of my right hand hover over his arm. His warmth seeped into my skin. I followed the outline of Maraki’s body. His massive form had awed me from the start, and with the added dimension of love, awe had changed into irresistible attraction. I forced myself to retract my hand.

“Why do you stop?” Sleepy amber looked at me.

“I didn’t mean to wake you.”

A shadow passed over his face. “Something’s on your mind…”

The accuracy of his ability to read me astonished me each time, and there was no reason to hold back about my thoughts.

“I’m wondering why you don’t want to take me from behind anymore.”

Panic expelled the last remnants of drowsiness from his face. “Your wound!”

“Completely cured.”

“I’ll hurt you.”

“A little preparation, a little more patience.”

He backed away from me. I grabbed both his shoulders.

“Stay…please.”

My mellow voice gave weight to the request, and Maraki slumped down.

“Do you want to tell me?”

He shook his head, his features sagging. “You must think that I’m lacking trust in you.”

His idea, expressed in words muffled by shame, sounded plain wrong.

“Trust is not about telling everything. Trust is about the things unsaid.” My hands burrowed deeper into his shoulders. “You don’t have to tell me a thing, and nothing will change about my love for you or my trust in you.”

His eyes held a gleam. Did it express affection or unbelief?

“How big is your heart that it can forgive so easily?”

“It must be big enough for a self-conscious Ogrushkai to fit in.”

I threw myself on him, pushing the air out of his lungs, and pressed him against me.

“First!” I said.

When he had recovered his breath, Maraki broke out into laughter. He turned us around, careful, not to crush me. The amusement drained from his face. “I promise you that…”

“You have promised me enough for several lifetimes. You’ll tell me or you won’t. No vows, no oaths.” I didn’t want him to have another obligation to me. I didn’t want him to change for me. I wanted him to be himself. I choked off any retort by placing my mouth over his.

When we came down the stairs to the hall, Kalinj already tended the bar, but this early, the guests still slept off their hangovers. She busied herself with cleaning the counter and sorting the mugs.

“Good morning, gentlepeople.” She had made up her mind that losing the coin toss hadn’t been bad luck.

“Good morning, fair lady.”

She almost giggled but, in the last moment, decided that it was against her grain.

“What about breakfast? You left so early last night that I think you might need it.”

Innuendo belonged to establishments like this, but Maraki squirmed at her implications. I put my hand on the small of his back and gave it a little rub. He relaxed.

“Sounds like a splendid idea, Lady Kalinj,” I said.

“Schmoozing me won’t make the room cheaper.” Her face said something different.

I smiled at her, and she turned away for the kitchen, but I saw her cheeks blushing. Sitting down at the same table as last evening, I bent over to Maraki.

“That will save us another Dram or two.” I kept my voice low and winked at him.

He bared his tusks in reply. I had made enough of an impression on her because the breakfast turned out to be sumptuous to say the least: bread and cheese, porridge, bacon, and eggs en masse. Even Maraki fought to finish it, while I gave up when I was half through my meal. We planned to embark on the last part of our journey as soon as possible, so we paid the moment Maraki shoved the last piece of bread into his mouth.

“What a pity that you have to leave so soon. I’ve never seen Zrenon, my colleague, that industrious… as long as his task led him to the opposite side of the inn.” She snorted of laughter, not a pleasant sound but heartfelt.

Kalinj charged us a ridiculously low price for our stay. Given the number of cutthroats I had met in my life, I sometimes forgot that there were charitable people, too. Kalinj and the Carris family were among them. I smiled at her, this time without any ulterior motive.

“Ah, before I forget: Four men in leather uniforms have asked questions about you two. I’ve told them to ask the rear of a Malmekk instead of me. They’ve left the pub some Parts after you… retired.”

I had already forgotten about those men. “Thank you, Kalinj, and farewell.”

“Live a good live, honored barmaid.” Maraki bowed. The tension of the muscles around his eyes betrayed his worry about Kalinj’s news.

“Now, out you two, before I give in to the temptation to marry you both and keep you as pets.”

The road before us wound itself around rocks and patches of bushes. I turned back where the houses of Nathga had become little specks, dancing in the warm air. Every step took as farther away from the city’s security. My gaze returned to Maraki, whose eyes fixed the horizon but looked right through it.

“I’m sorry. I’ve noticed the four men watching us yesterday but didn’t tell you.” I kicked some pebbles to the side of the road.

Maraki shook his head, getting out of the spell of his thoughts. “Don’t chastise yourself.”

“But we could have already left if I had said something.”

He faced me. “I wasn’t even aware of them. Who is more to blame?”

“You always find a way to be the guilty one, don’t you?” He was doing it again: belittling himself.

Still walking, he laid his arm around me and pulled me close. “That’s because I am guilty more often than not.”

The low rumble of his laugh chased away my anger. “You’re not.”

His arm tightened around me before he laughed some more.

“Their uniforms, they weren’t Nur’Zhul,” I said.

“Not even the Nur’Zhul dare to stray that far away from their border. I think they are bounty hunters. And if they have uniforms, they are likely to be members of a guild.”

“We’re easy to follow: Who forgets travelers like us? They only have to ask.” A human and an Ogrushkai traveling together: If we didn’t raise interest, or even suspicion, who would? “And that we are heading for Telera or the Ogrushkai Union is only logical.”

I looked ahead. Behind every bush and every stone at the side of the road, our attackers hid and waited for their ambush. Paranoia had served me well as a thief; at least, I still possessed all of my limbs, all of them in the right places, but fretting over our situation made it only worse. I cuddled closer to Maraki.

“The border to the Union is close.” He rubbed my arm. “Many patrols are watching for trespassers there, and anyone will think twice before risking a clash with the Ogrushkai army.”

For enough Nur’Zhul Dreks, humans stopped thinking altogether. I knew, for greed had brought me here. The sound of Maraki’s heart, beating slower than any human’s, caught my attention. Part of it was beating for me. What a pompous thought, but still true. Being here, together with him, more than offset the danger and fear. I regretted nothing.

We walked for four hours without rest. Fear clung to my back, whispering its warnings into my ears. Little drops of sweat trickled down my skin; it was cold sweat, though the sun shone down on us from a high zenith.

Maraki pointed at twin obelisks left and right of the path some hundred Steps before us. “These are border stones. We’re almost in the Union.”

Could we have made it? No rocks to hide behind, no bushes granting cover. Our pursuers had let pass all opportunities to surprise us. A bounty hunter guild wouldn’t show so much incompetence, or they possessed enough confidence to attack us on the other side of the border. The first option was wishful thinking; the second one burned a hole into my stomach. I looked up at Maraki.

“I’ll relax when we’re in ruk Cirr’al. Not a Part earlier,” I said.

He turned to me. His brows furrowed and he gave me a curt nod. He lacked trust in the Ogrushkai patrols as much as I did. I looked at the obelisks. Angular symbols covered their dark surfaces.

“What does the writing say?,” I asked.

“I don’t know.”

“It’s not Ogrushkai?”

“It is, but I can’t read.”

I stopped walking. “What?” His mother, his ur’jai, was a shaman. She hadn’t taught him like my uncle had done with me. I had never bothered to ask, had just assumed.

Maraki, some steps before me, turned around. “I told you that I’m not much of a learner.” His gaze moved to the side of the road. “I’m not as clever as you are.”

“You’re both not the brightest lights,” a male voice said, the twang in it swallowing most of the words. A man appeared from behind the obelisks, and I recognized the leather uniform. I wanted to be back in the hideout of the Carris family or even the Nur’Zhul prison; I wanted to be in any place that wasn’t here. Maraki spun around, his hand on the hilt of the sword.

“Discussing illiteracy, knowing that you are followed, is really a dumb thing to do.”

Three more men appeared, two of them aiming at Maraki and me with crossbows.

“On the other side, taking away your hand from that sword would be a really smart thing to do, Ogrushkai.”

Maraki, still touching the hilt, growled. He was capable of doing something rash. If the Ogrushkai were really dear to A’ra’mai, she had one to watch over right here.

A smile curved up the fleshy lips of the man. “Just try it, Ogrushkai. The Nur’Zhul only want the human.”

“And you only want the money,” I said. “Something I can relate to.” That got his attention away from Maraki. Good.

“Spoken like a true thief,” the leader of the bounty hunters said, still smiling.

I returned the smile. “I’ll take this as a compliment.”

“It was, it was. Stealing from the Mogul Emperor, snatching something from right under his nose, takes courage. Having done so and to be still breathing shows skill.” He bowed; and he meant it. This wasn’t the place nor the time for pride, but his praise flattered me. I had to concentrate and stay focused.

“As does hunting us down.” I bowed as well. “Enough pleasantries. I want to make you an offer.”

He laughed out, and the other three men with him.

“My uncle is the arch mage of Telera. He can top the offer of the Nur’Zhul.”

The laughing stopped. From the corner of my eyes, I saw Maraki’s head turning to me.

The leader eyed me while the muscles around his mouth twitched. “So the rumors about your origin may be true after all.” He scratched his chin. “The Nur’Zhul pay twenty-five thousand Dreks. Is your uncle willing to offer that much for his stray nephew?” I had become even more valuable for the Mogul Emperor over the past Tenths, and this sum surpassed my uncle’s possibilities, whether he was willing or not. The muscles in the face of the man still worked overtime; the idea tempted him. I had to fuel his greed.

“Of course, my uncle will pay and the king will be too glad to help him out. You know the Telerans. Too good-hearted for their own sake. Hey, for a little fee I’ll give the performance of my life. You never have seen someone begging like me, and you can easily get thirty thousand Dreks.” Offering the scam added a nice, sly touch to my words. Perhaps a little over-the-top, but bounty hunters thought like this. It showed them I was one of them. Hopefully.

The man pointing the crossbow at me whispered something to the leader, who shook his head and mumbled a reply. The leader faced me again. “There is still plenty of time to consider your offer while heading back west.” Plenty of time to convince, betray, or escape.

“But,” he continued, “keeping an Ogrushkai in check is too much of a risk; especially one that is so attached to his sword.”

The crossbow bolt darted through the air before the last word had faded. I stumbled a step forward while Maraki veered to the side of the road; he was fast, I knew; he could evade it. The bolt grazed his upper arm, he groaned, and green blood gushed from torn flesh. He dropped to his knees, and a fraction later, I knelt beside him. A thousand prayers to A’ra’mai: he was alive. I extended my hand, trembling, and touched the wound. Maraki hissed and pressed his eyes close. I retracted my hand and looked at the blood dripping from my fingertips. They deserved pain. Excruciating, agonizing, debilitating pain. I rose. No cloud covered the sky, but a strong wind tore at me, pushing at my back. I fixated on the man who had shot. He should feel what Maraki was going through. Shivers rippled over my back. The shooter toppled forward and doubled over on the ground. With a strangled noise escaping his throat, he coughed bloody foam that sprinkled the sand of the road in crimson color. The other man fired his crossbow. The bolt fought against the squall, but lost. Half a step before me, it came to a halt and dispersed into dust, scattering in the wind. The crossbow itself dissolved as my attention centered on it. The decay continued: Beginning at the fingertips of the man, the skin of his hands turned gray. Cracks formed all over his hands, giving them the look of dry soil. The index finger of his right hand broke off and shattered on the ground. He screamed.

What was I doing? It had to stop. But how? These thoughts alone made the wind ebb.

The third man ran away from us, deeper into the Ogrushkai Union.

The leader drew his sword. “The Nur’Zhul forgot to mention you’re a sorcerer. You’ll pay for their omission.” He charged at me.

Thinking stopped; me’tai took over instead. My upper body bowed left while my feet circled away in a long step. He went past me, and I sped up to complete the full turn, ramming my elbow into the small of his back. The bounty hunter dropped his weapon and fell flat on his face some Steps beside Maraki. The man spun around and produced a throwing knife from his boots. He aimed it at Maraki, who cowered on the floor holding his arm. The man must not hurt him. No one was allowed to hurt him. Maraki was the only person I had. I extended my hand. The bounty hunter’s sword melted, and like a snake, the metallic liquid slithered over the ground. Drops separated from it and flowed towards my hand; thread-like trickles of iron followed. The liquid form of the weapon rested in my hand now, and I stabbed out. The sword solidified in the man’s chest. He dropped the knife, and I let go of the hilt. Staring at the metal shaft protruding from him, the man laughed out. The laughing stopped and he fell backwards, his legs bending in an impossible angle. With a dull thud, he hit the ground.

I killed a human. I hadn’t killed before, not even an animal. I wasn’t only a thief, but a murderer.

“Come!”

I looked up. Maraki stood beside me and pulled at my arm.

“The other three are gone, but they’ll show up with reinforcements. Run!” He tugged at me once more. I gave in, and my feet moved on their own accord. I didn’t look back.

Murderer. A cold-blooded murderer. That was what I had become.