Over the past half-moon, he had begun to question his choice to remain here, to protect Wynn in her efforts as she had once protected him ... from that same creature now lodged in the room across the passage.
Nothing had transpired as he had envisioned at the moment in which he found her again.
Nothing was like it had been once before.
More than two years ago Osha had accompanied Wynn, as well as her companions and his jeóin and teacher, Sgäilsheilleache, into the ever-frozen heights of the Pock Peaks of the eastern continent. He had helped the best that he could in their search for what he now knew as the orb of Water. At the time he had been an anmaglâhk in training, and his mentor, Sgäilsheilleache, had sworn guardianship to Magiere, Leesil, and Wynn.
Osha had stood true to the promise of guardianship ... perhaps most especially for Wynn.
That had grown into something more, though his own kind might have found this loathsome.
While on a ship near the beginning of that journey, Wynn had asked him about himself, about his dreams, and, in all his life no one else had ever done so. It had been almost startling. Once they returned to land and began the climb into the snow-covered peaks, the journey became grueling and so long that customs soon broke for the sake of survival.
In the freezing nights with nothing but a thin tent for shelter, Wynn had slept on his chest, wrapped inside his cloak, allowing him to keep her warm. He had scavenged food for her and melted down water for them to drink, and, when threatened by enemies, she had run to him, seeking protection beneath his arm.
It meant something to him—more than he could put into words.
She was nothing like the humans that he—his people—hated and feared. Later she had tried to teach him how to dance at Magiere and Leesil’s wedding. No one had ever paid him so much notice.
When he had finally been forced to leave, to catch one of his people’s ships waiting nearby in hiding, she had walked to the docks of the noisy and smelly city of Bela with him. And even when they had said farewell, and he had reluctantly turned away through the crowd ...
Wynn had run after him, thrown herself at him, and kissed him.
Even now Osha could still feel the soft press of her small mouth.
Then Wynn was gone, running off along the docks. He had no choice but to leave for the ship that would take him home, along with the journal she had given to him to deliver to Brot’ân’duivé.
Too much had happened since then—too much blood spilled, too much forced upon him ... too much taken from him.
For one foolish moment more than a half-moon ago, he had been reunited briefly with Wynn. He had thought if he could only remain with her, all his pain would cease and the world might make sense once again.
Nothing had come about as he had envisioned.
Wynn had changed. He had changed. And, worse, he was now forced to accept that dead-pale thing waking each night across the passage.
How could Wynn expect this of him?
Osha heard a door open and then voices, though he missed what was said. At the rasping of that thing in the passage, heavy footfalls rushed away down the stairs. Still he waited, knowing that he would hear ...
A knock sounded on his door.
He hesitated, glancing at an object lying at the foot of his bed. Slender and long, wrapped in canvas and left on the floor, as if to be hidden even as a known burden—it was unwanted. His longbow leaned against the wall by the door, ever ready along with a quiver of black-feathered arrows. He had few other personal possessions.
And the soft knock came again.
Osha stepped quickly this time and opened the door.
Wynn, wearing the strange night-blue robe instead of her proper gray one of the past, stood outside in the passage. Though she looked at him, this lasted only an instant before she dropped her gaze and asked him something in his own tongue.
“Are you going to the common hall for dinner?”
Though she spoke his language surprisingly well, she still had a strange way with some words. She always asked about his eating habits, and it had taken time for him to understand that this was her way to avoid saying anything that meant something ... to him.
Obviously that thing across the hall had upset her again—as the vampire had a habit of making her life difficult. Why did she tolerate his presence?
Osha wanted to speak only of the past—their past together. He wanted to ask her what it had meant to her, what it still might mean. But it was now clear that this was the last thing she wanted.
Instead she wanted to know what had happened to him after she had left him on the docks.
Why had he left the Anmaglâhk?
How had he gotten the burn scars on his wrists?
Why was Brot’ân’duivé at war with his own caste?
What was happening among the an’Cróan?
Why had Osha left his home again and traveled halfway across the world to this continent, and why had Brot’ân’duivé brought Leanâlhâm as well?
And then, worst of all ...
What was wrapped inside that canvas lying at the end of his bed?
All that she wanted to speak of were the things he no longer wanted to think upon. So they talked about little else but meals.
“Yes, I will go,” he answered. “Will you come?”
Sometimes, if she did not have duties with the strange one of cold eyes, Premin Hawes, she would go to the common hall and eat with him. He should cherish even that little ... He should have.
She did not answer, and, as so often happened, her eyes strayed to the long, wrapped object on the floor. He tried not to tense, hoping she did not ask about it again. He had not even looked upon what was hidden in there since he had landed on the far side of this continent in following Brot’ân’duivé.
Wynn’s gaze shifted to his bow and quiver. She smiled slightly.
“You’ve become a good archer since ... since before. How did that happen?”
An innocent question, but it was another way to press him to talk about the few years between their journey to the Pock Peaks and now.
“Many things have changed since ... before,” he said, echoing her own slip, her reference to a past that he wished she would acknowledge. “You once tried to teach me to dance,” he countered against her evasion. “I still do not know how.”
He spotted the slight wince of Wynn’s left eye before she turned away.
“I need to see Premin Hawes, as we have more work to do,” she said, this time in her own tongue. Her pace quickened, as if she could not bear him to say anything else. “I wanted to see if you’d eaten, so you’d best go down to dinner.”
Osha stared down the passage long after Wynn had vanished. Much as he wanted to, he did not follow her.
Chapter Two
Wynn left the guest quarters floor and headed back down to the old storage building’s main passage.
After facing Osha, she hoped not to run into Chane again. Shade would be fine a little while longer with Kyne, especially if Chane had caught up to the pair. Wynn continued along the passage, but as she neared the door out into the courtyard, she turned right into a workshop. Then she cut along its near wall to the back corner and then down another staircase.
She stepped out into a narrow stone corridor on the first sublevel below the storage building’s main floor; the hallway was lit by two wall-mounted cold lamps with bulging metal bases. Alchemical fluids provided mild heat that charged the lamps’ special crystals, which, in place of a burning wick, produced light. She counted three wide iron doors on both sides of the passage, and behind those were the lower laboratories of the guild ... except for the last one on the right. Wynn headed for that door, which was as tightly shut as the others, and she knocked softly.