‘We found their camp the night after they left Ennoi. Jeshun took care of the lookout with a sleeping dart and we crept up on the rest of them – they were all asleep. Lerena found the vase almost immediately, in Cydus’s tent. Then a guard we hadn’t noticed returned from relieving himself and sounded the alarm. We fled.
‘They followed us on horses, and only I reached hiding in time. Lerena and Jeshun were caught and killed, in that order. I saw it from the trees. They were tied up, Bel, they could have been turned over to the keepers, but …’ He felt her shiver. ‘Cydus and his men are brutes. They may have been thieves, but that was murder. If you hadn’t interceded when they caught me last night, I’d be dead too, I’m sure.’
Her voice grew hard. ‘I decided that if the lives of my friends were worth a single piece of pottery, Cydus would pay for what he took. I came back to Kadass and waited for the Trusted to arrive, waited until the very day before Cydus planned to give her that accursed vase. I destroyed it when he would feel the blow the most. We may have wronged Cydus, but he wronged us back many times over, and he deserves what I did to him.’
She sighed. ‘I know that doesn’t make it admirable, and that these are the risks you take when you live your life cheating people.’ Tears were running freely now, and he wiped her eyes. ‘But he shouldn’t have killed my friends,’ she whispered.
‘I’m sorry, Jaya,’ said Bel. ‘And you’re right: Cydus had no right to execute prisoners.’ He bit his tongue from reiterating, however, that this was the life she’d chosen for herself.
Some moments passed in silence.
‘Bel?’
‘Yes?’
‘Why did you let me go?’
‘What?’
‘In Cydus’s garden.’
‘What of it?’
‘It’s not typical behaviour, you know. You’re a peacekeeper.’
‘I think you know why,’ he said.
Hours later, Bel awoke. He sat up to see the grille door still unlocked and the keys on the cell floor. On the bed next to him, Jaya lay asleep, the morning sun falling on her peaceful face.
Thirty
Swampwild
Together they sat by the iceplace in the small and simple inn. Losara, not wanting people to pay attention to him, had weaved a slight illusion about himself. His hands were returned to their normal pale tone, though some conceit led him to leave his fingernails black, and his eyes now appeared as their old selves, dark without being void-like. Opposite him, Lalenda sat in a dark green dress, low enough at the back for her wings to jut out. They’d bought it several days ago, a replacement for her worn-out rags.
Losara had imagined that the journey would be awkward, a prolonged version of that first conversation they had shared on the balcony. He had been pleased to discover this was not the case. She did not seem as afraid of him any more, and her great pleasure at being free of the castle was too pronounced to allow for many gaps in conversation. It filled each moment, either with words or without. Her shyness, Losara remembered, had never tempered her tendency to talk, and now that her fear was dwindling, that tendency shone.
‘Did you notice that stormcrow a ways back before town?’ she was saying.
Losara smiled gently in answer.
‘It had a message tied to its leg,’ she went on. ‘Grimra was all for …’
Two mugs arrived, and Lalenda paused shyly in the presence of the barmaid. Once the woman departed, she continued.
‘…Grimra wanted to snap it up, of course, just as he wants to do with everything.’ She chortled. ‘I tried to explain that if he did, someone somewhere would be bereft of correspondence and ever after doomed to wonder why their beau didn’t write, or if their sister was still sick, or any of a thousand things. Of course he refused to understand any of it. In the end, the only way to save the poor creature was to convince Grimra it would be tough and stringy with filthy feathers that would get caught in his throat. I didn’t hold out much hope, as he has no throat that I can see, but his food has to go somewhere, doesn’t it? Anyway,’ she blushed, as she often did at the end of a ramble, ‘I’m sorry, lord. You’re probably trying to sit in peace.’
She still apologised a lot, he reflected. ‘I don’t mind,’ he said. ‘It is peaceful listening to you talk.’ That did nothing to stop her blush, which Losara also did not mind.
From outside the inn came a loud clucking, and the bartender cursed, grabbing a crossbow. As he opened the door, Losara raised an eyebrow at Lalenda. There was always a chance that the hens were simply being traumatised by a fox or some other predator, but more than likely …
‘At least it’s only hens,’ said Lalenda. ‘I’m surprised he hasn’t gone for anything …or any one …larger.’
‘Anyone that we know about,’ added Losara, which made her frown with worry. He liked that she was concerned, but in truth she needn’t be. He was quite sure the ghost was obeying most of his commands.
A low chuckling sounded from the floor and whiteness was momentarily visible swirling up through the floorboards.
‘Grimra,’ said Losara in a low voice, ‘have you been attacking chickens?’
‘Ah, yes,’ said Grimra, and sighed in satisfaction. ‘Grimra has.’ The angry-looking barman re-entered with his crossbow unfired. ‘So tasty and fat they be, Grimra gnash gnash gnash!’
Losara waved his fingers and erected a wall of silence around the table, lest other customers become aware that a large and malevolent spirit was in their midst.
‘Not like stringy stormcrow – Lalenda be right about that,’ the ghost continued. ‘All stringy and feathery and papery … erch!’ He made a spitting sound and for a moment his teeth flashed into view.
‘Grimra!’ Lalenda admonished. ‘You ate the crow, after all?’
‘Erch!’ Grimra reiterated.
‘I thought we agreed that livestock was off limits?’ Losara said.
‘Aye,’ said the ghost sadly, ‘but Grimra be Grimra. So fat and squashy, gnash gnash! How be Grimra resisting? If Losara doesn’t want Grimra, why bring Grimra?’
‘It wasn’t my idea,’ said Losara. ‘In fact …’ From his neck he lifted the pendant that bound Grimra to the world – a simple leather cord through a mottled stone. Reaching over, he dropped it around Lalenda’s neck. ‘It was Lalenda’s idea to bring you, so it’s only fair she bears the responsibility.’
Lalenda looked surprised, but not displeased. She held the pendant up for closer inspection.
‘Lalenda bring Grimra?’ said the ghost. ‘Thank you, flutterbug! Grimra’s favourite!’
He whooshed around, causing several guests to glance up to see if a gust had just blown open the door, and disappeared. Lalenda giggled and Losara gave a little sigh.
‘Well, soon he’ll have plenty of wildlife around him,’ he said. ‘Tomorrow we’ll reach Swampwild.’
Mention of her home quelled Lalenda’s laughter and he felt a twinge of regret at having brought it up. He knew she was tense about her return – she had said as much, if it hadn’t been plain – and after almost two decades away she hardly knew what to expect.
‘Praise be to Assedrynn,’ she whispered, ‘let her be alive.’
He reached across the table to pat her hand.
‘It still feels like you,’ she said.
Losara raised an eyebrow in query.
‘The illusion – it doesn’t change the way your hands feel.’ She put her free hand on top of his, which was on top of hers, cupping it between. The sensation brought him right out of his head. ‘Like silk,’ she said. ‘No. Smoother than silk.’
‘And yours,’ he said.
They made a strange group flying together. Losara lifted himself with power, tempering his speed to match Lalenda’s. She flapped her crystal wings, and her endurance grew by the day. He was able to give her a boost whenever she needed one, letting the edges of himself partially tear away into a swirl of shadow that eddied underneath her wings to lift her. Sometimes the ghost would allow her to ride on his ‘back’. Grimra was fast, and often shot off ahead or went about the land exploring. Often they would see a line of plants bending as Grimra tore along stirring up prey. Rabbits and pheasants would appear briefly, only to be seized in his invisible clutches and torn to pieces.