Beneath his fingers the fine fur was coming loose, and it fell from her cheeks in a fine cloud of gold as he ran his hands across her skin. It was clear that the process was painful; Hesseth hissed as he Worked, her long claws biting deeply into the wood of the bedframe. Once she cried out, a keening note of suffering more bestial than human—and Damien knew Gerald Tarrant well enough to see the distaste flicker in his eyes. But she offered no pleas, despite the pain, and was clearly doing her best not to draw back from him. She had asked for this, after all. It had been her idea. And—as much as Damien hated to admit it—it was a damned good one.
It’s not just fur she’s sacrificing, he reminded himself. It’s her heritage. Her people. Because they hate humans too much to take her back like this. It was, for her kind, the ultimate disfigurement. And he longed to take her hand, to squeeze it, to try to reassure her as he would reassure a human woman—but the inch-long claws that had already gouged deep furrows in the bed’s frame made such a gesture impossible. And would she accept such a gesture? She had kept to herself for most of the voyage, disdaining the company of humans—even her own traveling companions—for many long months at sea. Would an offer of human contact comfort her now, or merely insult her?
Slowly, carefully, Gerald Tarrant remade her face. Ignoring her soft moans of suffering, ignoring the cries that periodically emanated from her, like the yelp of a wounded animal, pausing only briefly when a spasm of pain wracked her body—and then only because the motion made it hard for him to work—he stripped her face of its natural covering and laid bare the tender skin beneath. Cheeks. Forehead. Eyelids. Nose. The fur fell from her in patches, as though she were being skinned alive. And yet she made no complaint, though her arms had spasmed against the coarse rope bonds often enough and hard enough to draw blood. Is that a bestial nature, you bastard? At last it seemed that Tarrant was finished. He brushed a few loose hairs from her face and sat back to regard his handiwork. Hesseth lay still, helpless and exhausted, panting like a winded animal. And her face . . . was striking. Exotic. Beautiful. Tarrant had left behind thin lines of fur to serve as eyebrows and lashes, and they framed her eyes with graceful symmetry. The eyes were exotic, with a soft fold at the inner corner reminiscent of the human epicanthic. The hairline had been subtly graded, so that it appeared to give way not to fur but to long hair, thick and golden. The cheekbones were high and fine, the nose was more human than Damien would have thought possible, and the lips . . . Tarrant had done something to contract the muscles above and below them, so that they were pulled back into a human fullness. The result was perfectly balanced, breathtakingly beautiful. And awesome, in that its perfection had been sculpted in blood and pain. Even in destruction the Hunter was aesthetic. It was easy to forget that side of him, Damien thought. Just like it was easy to forget that beneath that brutal exterior lived the creative genius who had breathed life into his faith. God of Earth, if only that facet of him could be brought back to life . . .
“The hands won’t pass,” Tarrant said shortly. “Not with claws instead of fingernails. Best to count on gloves for that, and leave the fur to soften the effect if they have to come off. But there is one more thing . . .”
He placed his fingers upon her eyes, touching the inner corners. Her cry of pain was short and ragged, and it seemed to burst loose some dam inside her. When he withdrew from her, there was blood in her eyes in the place of the inner membrane, and tears also. She began to shake uncontrollably. “That’s all,” Tarrant assessed. Oblivious to her suffering.
“If she’s careful she should pass.” He nodded, clearly pleased with his work. “You may release her now.”
Carefully, Damien loosened her bonds. Gently he folded her bruised wrists across her chest and gathered her up in his arms, as he would a child. She moaned softly and pressed her face against his chest, burying herself in his warmth. He wished he had a third hand, that he might stroke her with. He wished he had something to say that could ease the pain, or lessen the humiliation of her disfigurement. But all he could whisper was, “It’s all right.” All he could think to say was, “We’ll get him, Hesseth. We’ll kill the one who started all this. I swear it.”
Carefully, tenderly, he carried her out of the Hunter’s lair, and up into the healing night.
It was midnight when Tarrant left, A bright night, with Domina’s full disk and Casca’s three-quarter face lighting the sky. A brisk night, with uneasy waves that trembled white at their upper edges, as if undecided about whether or not to break into froth. But Tarrant had assured them that the wind would grow no worse for an hour at least—although how he knew that without the earth-fae to draw on was beyond Damien—and so they were setting sail despite it. Or setting oars, more accurately.
Damien strained to make out the form of an island to the east of them, but could see only water. Which didn’t mean it wasn’t there, of course. He had the utmost faith in Rasya’s observations, and if she said there was an island due east of them he wouldn’t think to doubt it. Ever.
An island. That meant land, cresting above the waves.
Earth-fae.
Beneath them the lifeboat struck water, with the deep, resounding slap of a nuwhale’s tail. Rasya swung herself over the side of the ship and began to clamber down toward it. Damien briefly considered insisting that he take her place, that he should be the one to transport the Hunter to shore . . . but they’d had that argument before, several times already, and he’d lost each time. Rasya wanted it this way and Tarrant had agreed, so who was he to interfere? What was he afraid of, anyway—that she’d see his power in action and instantly be corrupted? Give her more credit than that.
He felt strangely out of control, with Tarrant leaving. A curious feeling. As if he had ever really controlled the Hunter. As if anyone ever could.
At last the two men who had helped lower the lifeboat withdrew, leaving Damien and his dark ally alone on the deck. For a moment Tarrant just watched the sea, moonlit waves rippling like mercury beneath a haze of silver spray. Waiting. At last the men’s footsteps were distant enough and faint enough that they could be certain of their privacy.
“You never asked why I came on this trip,” the Hunter said quietly.
“I assumed you had your reasons.”
“And never wondered what they were?”
Despite himself he smiled. “You’re not an easy man to pry information out of.”
“That never stopped you from trying.”
Damien shrugged.
Tarrant looked downward to where Rasya was waiting. Damien knew better than to press him. At last he said, in a voice hardly louder than the breeze, “He came to me, you know. Our enemy’s pet demon, the one she called Calesta. He came to me in the Forest, when I was done healing. I remembered him from her citadel . . .” Damien saw the muscles along the line of his jaw tighten momentarily. Remembering the eight days and nights of his captivity, when he had been at the mercy of a being even more sadistic than himself? “It was he who’d revealed that his mistress had trapped me not with sunlight, as I’d perceived, but with simple illusion. A sorcerer’s trick! It was my own fear that defeated me . . .” The pale eyes were narrowed in hatred; Damien thought he saw him tremble. “He came to make peace, as demons will do when their masters die. I felt myself safe, being in my own domain at last, and made the mistake of listening.” He shook his head, remembering. “He nearly caused me to betray myself. There in my own land, where the very earth serves my will . . . he almost bested me.” His expression was tight, but the emotion causing it was hard to read. Anger? Humiliation? The Hunter had never handled defeat well. “I spent five hundred years making the Forest into a haven which neither man nor godling might threaten. It survived wars and crusades and natural disasters and was as much a part of me as the flesh that I wore . . . and he took me on there. There! Tricked me, and put my very soul in jeopardy . . .”