Cold
iron padlock. Not so different from the training locks, but oh so different in
what it binds, what it means. Her fingers shaking, she manages to shift the
tumblers with an absurdly thin pick; the hasp slides loose and she jerks it
from the chain, throwing it aside in her haste to yank the chain free, to open
the door…
They spill out past her, shoving, elbowing. The slavers’ mark is still raw on most of them, ugly black-edged red on their foreheads, and for the first time she feels the rage that Dalav and the others do…
She’s supposed to keep them gathered in the safety of her conjured mist, but they ignore her. She grabs the last of them – sweetDesna , just a child! – but the
others have already fled. Out of her sight. Out of mist, into moonlight, where
the rest of the team should be quietly replacing guards so they can -
And then the screaming starts.
She freezes, a rabbit under the hawk, clutching the child to her side and muffling its cries in her cloak. The mist obscures the village square as surely as it hides her, and she can’t see past it. She needs to see, needs to know, but with the child…
Biting her lip, she pulls the child against her and creeps out of the mist, following the path she should have led all of them along, shortest distance to the cover of the buildings, with the lights carefully doused. She flinches each time steel strikes steel behind her, or someone grunts or moans or screams, but keeps moving, bent over, just an old woman in a shabby dress, clutching her grandchild by the hand, fleeing death and destruction and, oh, Dalav…
Silence.
At the edge of town the team waits. Their faces – no, she won’t look, but Kalen grabs her upper arms and pulls her to a halt in front of him. Team leader. Veteran.
She breaks. “Where’s Dalav?” she demands, her hands freeing the restless child only to clutch at Kalen’s tunic. Ignoring his expression, ignoring the shake of his head, because to acknowledge it is to admit it. To accept it. And she can’t…
Kalen is a foot taller and a hundred pounds heavier, but she shoves him backward and spins toward the village square. She runs a few steps but knows already, sees the blond head at an impossible angle and the red pool…
Deianira jerks upright in bed, the scream – this time – still caught in her throat. For a moment, the moonlight through her window and the tears on her cheeks leave her confused, caught between reality and memory, before reason reasserts itself. The width of Andoran and half a year separate her from that village and that night.
But there will be no more sleep for her tonight.
They spill out past her, shoving, elbowing. The slavers’ mark is still raw on most of them, ugly black-edged red on their foreheads, and for the first time she feels the rage that Dalav and the others do…
She’s supposed to keep them gathered in the safety of her conjured mist, but they ignore her. She grabs the last of them – sweet
And then the screaming starts.
She freezes, a rabbit under the hawk, clutching the child to her side and muffling its cries in her cloak. The mist obscures the village square as surely as it hides her, and she can’t see past it. She needs to see, needs to know, but with the child…
Biting her lip, she pulls the child against her and creeps out of the mist, following the path she should have led all of them along, shortest distance to the cover of the buildings, with the lights carefully doused. She flinches each time steel strikes steel behind her, or someone grunts or moans or screams, but keeps moving, bent over, just an old woman in a shabby dress, clutching her grandchild by the hand, fleeing death and destruction and, oh, Dalav…
Silence.
At the edge of town the team waits. Their faces – no, she won’t look, but Kalen grabs her upper arms and pulls her to a halt in front of him. Team leader. Veteran.
She breaks. “Where’s Dalav?” she demands, her hands freeing the restless child only to clutch at Kalen’s tunic. Ignoring his expression, ignoring the shake of his head, because to acknowledge it is to admit it. To accept it. And she can’t…
Kalen is a foot taller and a hundred pounds heavier, but she shoves him backward and spins toward the village square. She runs a few steps but knows already, sees the blond head at an impossible angle and the red pool…
Deianira jerks upright in bed, the scream – this time – still caught in her throat. For a moment, the moonlight through her window and the tears on her cheeks leave her confused, caught between reality and memory, before reason reasserts itself. The width of Andoran and half a year separate her from that village and that night.
But there will be no more sleep for her tonight.
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