Breath of Winter, A (7 page)

“Ah.” I winked. “So there was a letter and you do have it.”

He stared, unblinking, giving me no clue whether I had hit my mark.

I leaned closer. “How can we understand both sides of the story if you’re not sharing yours?”

He met me halfway. “Sharing requires a certain level of trust.”

“You don’t trust me.” I could accept that. Trust was earned.

“In my experience, gold buys cooperation, not loyalty.” He held up his coin for me to see. “This was in my father’s pocket when he died. It’s a reminder of the price of loyalty and the cost of greed.”

“I am sorry for your loss.” His tight nod made my heart ache for him. “Where should I start?”

“At the beginning would be nice.” He sat there, eyes downcast, rubbing his coin.

I began the monotonous recitation. “In the time after the divide of the Above and the Below—”

“Not that far back.” His fraction of a smile returned, and I was pleased to have put it there. “As fascinating as the story of creation is, I’m more interested in your story. How you came to work for Hishima, how you ended up in Cathis, your ward’s origins. Mana’s letter offered little information.”

Mana again. His emphasis on her correspondence made me question whether Vaughn had sent a letter, or if he had relegated the task to the person he trusted most and, in turn, she confided in Henri.

I wasn’t sure how I felt about that implied closeness. I bet Vaughn wasn’t thrilled with it either.

“Mercenaries are simple folk. We needed work, and Hishima was hiring. He offered a fair price to accomplish a task for him, and we accepted.” We had accepted too much at face value for that job. “He was the Segestriidae paladin, and I had always wanted to see the crystal city. But all the rest…”

Bracing on his knees, he steepled his fingers. “It was more than you bargained for.”

“Yes.” The bitter taste of the past soured my mouth.

Nodding, he tapped his hands against his lips. “What happened after you arrived in Titania?”

I cleared my throat. “We discovered Hishima hadn’t been entirely honest about the reasons why he wanted us specifically. We’re Deinopidae—hunters. It’s in our blood. What Hishima wanted us to track wasn’t migrating game, but his betrothed. Her name is Kaidi, and Hishima said he feared for her safety. She had run away. He gave us the usual reasons—cold feet, his mother’s disapproval of the match. He swore he only wanted her found so they could be reunited, and I ate the lies he fed me.”

“What about your contract?” He frowned. “Surely you signed one.”

I scoffed. “It was purposely vague. I see that now. At the time, I trusted his word too easily. He flashed his gold and used his pretty words and his jilted love story to secure my loyalty to his cause.”

“What happened?”

“We spent months scouring every southland city for a ghost, that’s what. Everywhere we went, we heard the same story. Headless corpses were being found outside cities infected with plague. The thing was—no one was in a hurry to help us find the culprit. The person was desecrating bodies, yeah, but it’s not the same as killing them.” Gods what an eerie pursuit. “In the end, we didn’t find Kaidi.”

“Vaughn did,” Henri surmised.

“Did he tell you that?” I chortled. “Not quite. His head guardsman did. Turned out Kaidi was the one who had been chopping up bodies. She pulled that trick on Mimetidae land, and Murdoch caught her at it. Do you know him? No? He’s an all right sort. Quiet. He has a clean sword arm, though.”

“I don’t understand.” Henri drummed his fingers on his knee. “Why bother with the dead?”

I whistled long and slow. “Do you know what you’ve got in that cage of yours?”

He paused before saying, “Mana believes your ward is the key to understanding the plague.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“Then pick another question.”

Fine, we would play it his way. “Do the terms
riser
or
harbinger
mean anything to you?”

He held my gaze without blinking. “Should they?”

The words were arranged to form a question, but they lacked the proper inflection.

No curious glint lit his eyes. No eager coin flowed over his knuckles.

Henri knew more than he was telling.

“Henri.” Ghedi skidded to a halt outside the door. “You’re needed in the laboratory. Something got our ward stirred up. She’s climbing her cage. Kaleb gave me five minutes before he sedates her.”

“Sedates her?” Henri turned. “With what?”

Ghedi shrugged. “If I had to guess, I’d say the blunt end of his glaive.”

Henri leapt to his feet. “We’ll continue this discussion later, Zuri.”

“Tomorrow,” Ghedi corrected. “It’s past time for proper visiting hours.”

For a moment, I thought Henri might argue. “Tomorrow it is, then.”

I wiggled my fingers at him. “I’ll be here.”

His hasty retreat made me laugh.

“Were you just…” Ghedi glanced from me to the now-empty hall, “…flirting with him?”

“Flirt in front of one of my overprotective brothers?” I had better sense. “Not likely.”

His hands clenched at his sides. “It looked like flirting.”

“It looked like good manners.” I shifted onto my side. “No wonder you were confused.”

Chapter Four

Straining my ears, I caught the sound of Ghedi’s footsteps fading. The mission I had sent him on was simple but time-consuming since our meals were lowered down a narrow shaft built into the rear wall of the laboratory, or so he had said. I hadn’t seen it for myself. Then again, I hadn’t seen much of anything. Ghedi’s tidbit did tell me how often Henri kept his own company, which intrigued me.

In a nest this size, why isolate yourself? Why choose to be alone?

As I soaked in the blissful quiet, I began to appreciate the appeal of solitude.

“It’s now or never.” I flung aside my covers and planted my foot on the frigid floor.

My glaive was leaning in the corner. It had worked as a makeshift crutch well enough before. If I reached it, I could… Do what? Not hook it beneath my arm. The blade would cut me to shreds. Not grasp the staff with one arm in a sling or hop across the room only to fall flat on my arse in the hall.

I stood there by the bed, my burst of frantic energy draining out of the sole of my foot.

“Going somewhere?” Henri’s appearance in my doorway startled me.

My shoulders bowed. “No.”

“I passed Ghedi on my way here.” He came closer and wrapped his arm around my waist. “He mentioned you were getting restless.” He eased me gently onto the bed. “Be that as it may, you can’t be hopping around your room. Call if you need help. If you fall, you might rip your shoulder open.”

“Don’t you mean my stitches?” I let him lift my leg and prop my cast on a cushion for me.

“No.” He tapped his pointer with his thumb. “My silk won’t tear. You will.”

I shuddered. “Let’s agree to never speak of that again.”

“All right.” He sat at the foot of my bed. “What if we continue what we started yesterday?”

“Do you mean when my gown slid off my shoulder, or when your hand was on my knee?”

Chuckling, he cupped the heel of my unbound foot, drawing that leg across his lap.

I almost swallowed my tongue.

“I was thinking,” he said quietly. “We could begin our conversation where we left off.”

I was thinking his hands were gentle and warm, skilled. I even enjoyed the tidy look of them.

“Zuri?” His thumbs pressed into the underside of my foot, massaging the arch until I moaned.

“Mmmhmm.” My eyes rolled shut.

Either my feet weren’t ticklish after all or his touch was masterful enough I no longer cared.

“Our conversation?” he prompted.

I forced my eyes open. “If we must.”

“Is speaking with me so taxing?”

“It’s not you—or the topic.” I swept my hand around the room. “I’m going mad sitting here day after day with only the same four walls to stare at and Ghedi—who’s gone stir-crazy—for company.”

“You do realize putting weight on your ankle prematurely can cause permanent damage?”

“I know.” I punched the mattress. “I can’t afford to risk it. If I can’t walk, then…” I growled. No one would hire a one-legged mercenary. “I’ll think of something. I won’t die from boredom. Right?”

“The northlands don’t agree with you.” He wasn’t saying anything that wasn’t obvious.

“It’s so bloody cold. There’s paltry game, scrawny plants and all the water’s frozen.”

“Yes.” His lips curved. “Makes you wonder how we all survive up here, doesn’t it?”

“Simple,” I said. “You live underground and pay to get what you don’t have delivered to you.”

The delicious pressure on my arch ceased while Henri shook his head.

“It all comes back to gold.” The refrain fell from his lips with the familiarity of a prayer.

“I shouldn’t have said that.” I should have kept my mouth shut no matter how true it was.

“It’s all right.” He traced the curve of my heel. “It’s a topic I’m well-acquainted with.”

I waited for him to say more, but he lowered his head and kept his thoughts to himself.

“I see.” Here was the problem. “You’re implying that I took advantage of you.”

“Not at all.” He glanced up at me. “You saw an opportunity and you seized it.”

“At your expense.”

“I did hire your brothers, so yes.”

“You needed us.” Even he must see that. “You need us still.”

“I do,” he agreed. “All the expenses are my own fault. I should have been better prepared.”

“Then why argue the point?”

“You are the one arguing. I’m simply agreeing with you.”

“Are you so coddled you expected us to work without compensation?”

“Are you so entitled you think I ought to offer you gold simply because I have some to spare?”

A flush swept over me. Hadn’t I told my brothers exactly that?

“This is an old argument. It tires me. I will say this, and let that be the end of it.” He reached for my hand. “Your brothers are acting as interim guards, and they must be compensated. There are also your injuries, and Fynn’s, to consider. You were sent on Paladin Vaughn’s business. Because I failed to make the proper parties aware, you were both harmed. That makes me liable. I owe you both, and I will pay those debts, including your treatments.”

“I appreciate the gesture.” As much as I hated to say it, I forced out, “We’ll pay our own way.”

“You’re very proud for a mercenary,” he observed. “Most believe in taking what they can get.”

So had I, until Henri. “I’m not most mercenaries.”

“No,” he agreed. “You’re not.”

His assessment of me was far less clinical than I would have liked, considering I hadn’t brushed my hair or my teeth. It was edged with heat and started those blasted tingles sweeping through me.

When I eased my hand from his, my palm was sweaty.

“Now that’s settled…” I poured a cold glass of water from a bedside pitcher. “Should we talk?”

His thumb returned to making those pleasant circles in my arch. “If you feel up to it, yes.”

More like if I could keep from falling asleep. Treacherous feet. While my eyelids grew heavy, I reflected on our conversation from the previous day. “I told you about Murdoch finding Kaidi on his clan’s property and bringing her to Paladin Vaughn. That didn’t sit well with Hishima at all. Luckily for us, it didn’t sit well with her either. She escaped Cathis—with Murdoch’s help—and we tracked them into a mountain pass joining Cathis to Titania.”

“Kaidi escaped from Vaughn and returned to Titania.” His brow furrowed. “Why risk capture? She must have known Hishima would be waiting for her there. What was worth her getting caught?”

“Proof,” I said. “She knew right where to find it too. In Titania, secreted away inside the crystal caverns by Hishima. Our ward was the evidence she sought. Lailah is what Kaidi calls a harbinger.” I studied his face when I added, “She is—or was once—Hishima’s mother. Did Mana tell you that?”

“No.” His thumbs slowed. “Considering her son’s involvement, and her name, I suspected.”

His quiet unsettled me. “Did you know her?”

“I did.” He set my leg aside. “She visited Mother several times a year. She was not kind, but nor was she cruel. As can be the case with those who wield tremendous wealth and influence, it was all my parents hoped for that she used her status well, causing as little harm as possible in the process.”

I weighed his memory of her against the conflict brewing in his eyes, and I told him a hard truth.

“Don’t make the mistake of thinking any part of her still remains. Whoever she once was…that person is gone. That thing, the harbinger, is all the plague left behind.”

It seemed strange to consider that the quietly elegant Henri and brutally ambitious Hishima had been contemporaries, but of course they had been. With that in mind, I chose my words carefully.