For all her fury, Reva was impressed with her control, the thrusts were quick, precise and not over-extended, forcing the priest back, away from the bed. He parried without difficulty, the blade moving in a fluid series of arcs, the way it had when he blocked Reva’s attempts to find a way past with her knife. Despite her skills, Veliss proved to be outmatched, the priest finding an opening as he feinted a jab at her eyes then swung a punch to her face, sending her sprawling.
Reva scooped up the fallen sword of the man she had killed, placing herself between the priest and the bed.
He stared at her in outraged frustration. “You forsake the Father’s love with this betrayal!” he screamed, skin reddening about his eyes. “Al Sorna’s Darkness has twisted you!”
“No,” she whispered, hating the tears that streamed from her eyes. “No, you did that.”
“Filthy, Fatherless sinn-”
She lunged, fast and low, the blade straight and true, finding his thigh, coming free bloody as he twisted away with a howl.
A shout and the thunder of many feet drew her gaze back to the door before she could press the advantage. The priest hefted a stool and threw it at the nearest window, glass shattering amidst the billowing curtain. He glanced back at her once, eyes bright with hate, then turned and ran, leaping through the remains of the window.
Reva dropped her sword and stared at the curtain as it coiled in the night breeze, the sky beyond black and empty. Metal scraped from scabbards and shouts of challenge filled her ears as rough hands closed on her.
“STOP!” The command filled the room, stilling the tumult.
The Fief Lord cursed as he disentangled himself from the bedclothes, stumbling into her gaze though she barely saw him, her eyes still fixed on the curtain and the window.
“Look at me,” he said, voice gentle, fingers soft on her chin. She looked into the red-rimmed eyes of her uncle and saw tears there as he smiled, his lips forming a fond murmur. “Reva.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Frentis
They lived in the wild for ten days, deep in the forested hills north of South Tower, far away from any roads or likely patrol routes. Still they were hunted, the South Guard venturing far and wide with dogs and trackers, forcing them to move camp every day, sometimes laying false trails towards the Cumbraelin border. The need to keep moving made hunting a rare luxury so they grew hungry, sustained by what mushrooms and roots they could scavenge on the move, huddling together for warmth at night for they dared not risk a fire.
The woman was mostly silent now, still brooding over her failure, a new uncertainty having crept into her gaze. Frentis wanted to find comfort in the change, to be heartened by this signal of frailty, but instead saw a greater threat brewing behind her eyes. He knew her now, though he hated the knowledge, knew that whatever reflection she indulged in could only lead to a fiercer devotion to killing. She might hate others for their gods but she worshipped murder with all the fervour of the worst Cumbraelin fanatic.
“I do not blame you, beloved,” she said one night, the first words she had spoken in days. “Do not think that. I can only blame myself, I see that now. My love for you has made me exultant, Revek’s gift complacent, and so I allowed myself the illusion of invulnerability. A hard lesson, as are all true lessons.”
On the tenth day they found an old forester’s cottage, overgrown and tumbled down, but retaining enough shelter to conceal a fire come nightfall. Frentis went foraging and returned with the usual roots and mushrooms but also a hand-caught trout, heaved from a nearby stream when it ventured too close to the bank. He gutted it, wrapped it in dock leaves and baked it in the fire, the woman wolfing down her share with feral enthusiasm. “Hunger is always the best seasoning,” she said when it was all gone, the first smile in days appearing on her lips.
Frentis finished his own meal and said nothing.
“You’re worried,” she went on, shuffling closer, pressing herself against his side. “Wondering who’s next when we get to Varinshold. Although, I think you already know.”
Frentis found he much preferred her introspective mood, and was allowed enough freedom to say so. She rarely bound his tongue now, seeming to find some comfort in the rare words he spoke, however lacking in affection they might be. Why couldn’t you just die in South Tower? he wanted to say, but paused. He knew they were approaching something, a moment of fulfilment for whatever insane purpose she served, and he had divined sufficient insight by now to know what that would mean. “Are you open to a bargain?” he asked instead.
This drew a frown of genuine puzzlement. “A bargain, my love?”
“My love,” he repeated. “You call me that all the time, and you mean it, don’t you? You’ve lived so long, but you’ve never loved, not until me.”
Her face lost all expression, save a faint wariness to the eyes, and she nodded, probably in expectation of another barb or hate-filled declaration.
“You want me, all of me,” he continued. “You can have me. We can be together, for as long as you want, you’ll never have to force me again. I’ll never fight you again. We go, we leave, we find some forgotten place, far away from people. And we stay there, just you and me.”
Her face remained immobile but for a faint twitch to her lips, an occasional blink to her eyes.
“You can read my feelings,” he said. “So you know I am sincere in this.”
When she spoke her voice was thick, whether with anger or sorrow he couldn’t tell. “You think that’s what I want?”
“No, it’s what I’m offering.”
“In return for what?”
“Turn away from this path, no more killing. Abandon whatever task waits in Varinshold.”
She closed her eyes and turned away, profile red and perfect in the firelight. “When I was as young as you are now, I knew only hate. A hate as bright and glorious as any love, the kind of hate that calls across the void when married to a gifted song, finding the ear of something that also had a bargain to offer. And I made it, beloved. I made that bargain, sealed it in an ocean of blood, so I can’t make yours.”
She opened her eyes, turning to him, her expression betraying such a depth of sadness and confusion he found it hard to look at her. “You talk of finding a forgotten place. There are no forgotten places, not for the Ally. Our only chance is to fulfil his scheme, don’t you see? Give him his moment of triumph, the last stroke of the brush to his grand design, only then can we make our own. Then, my love, then I promise you, there will be no need for forgotten places, no need to hide. We’ll give him his victory, then burn it all down and him with it.”
He looked away and she moved closer, her arms slipping around his waist as her head rested on his shoulder. “I’m going to kill you,” he said. “You must know that.”
She kissed his neck and for once he didn’t flinch, though he had the freedom to do so. “Then, beloved,” she said in a whisper, breath hot on his neck, “you would doom yourself and every soul in this world.”
They hid for another three days until all sign of pursuit had faded, the forest free of the distant barking of dogs or the scent of soldiers’ fires. They journeyed north, remaining cautious, avoiding roads and well-trammelled tracks, too wary even to risk stealing from the few farmhouses they saw. The woman’s purpose consumed her now, allowing no chance of failure. She spoke rarely, made no more use of him at night. They travelled, they slept, they foraged, nothing more.
It was another two weeks before they reached the flatlands and the road to the Brinewash Bridge, both notably thinner and besmirched from so long in the wilds, something the woman seemed to find comfort in. “Escaped slaves are rarely well-fed,” she said the night before they were to enter the city. They camped on the riverbank a few miles upstream from the bridge, lacking any coin for the toll and wary of drawing the eye of any guards who might be in attendance.