They could smell the salt on the breeze as they crossed the wide, Jandarian grassland, sitting high above the body of water, and Sasha was inspired with another round of questions.
“Land or sea?” she mused.
“Land. The sea is too elusive,” he replied easily.
“I love the sea,” she sighed.
“You remember the sea?” It surprised him. Quondoon was nowhere near the sea.
“Yes.” She nodded. “I do. I suppose I remember the sea the way I remember how to read or how to walk or how to breathe.”
“The seashore was beautiful in Kilmorda.”
“But not anymore?” she asked sadly.
“It will take some time for Kilmorda to be beautiful again.”
“Someday,” she murmured, and Kjell didn’t know if it was something she saw or merely wished for.
“Darkness or light?” she asked after a moment.
“Light.”
When he didn’t elucidate, she chided him. “It is not enough to choose, Captain. You must explain your choice.”
He sighed, but he didn’t mind terribly. “In the light everything is obvious. There are no secrets. You simply have to look in order to see.”
“What was your mother’s name?” she parried, keeping him off balance. It was an effective technique. He hadn’t lied once.
“Her name was Koorah. She was a servant in my father’s castle. She died at my birth.” In three simple sentences he’d told her everything he knew about his mother. Name, occupation, death. Nothing more.
She tipped her head at that, regarding him thoughtfully. He did his best not to squirm in the saddle.
“Bird or beast?” she asked, pivoting again.
“My brother is a Changer. He would tell you there is nothing like being a bird. But I have no desire to fly. I don’t have any desire to change at all. I struggle enough with who I am without shifting from one form to the next.”
“Song or tale?”
“I sing to heal, but I take great pleasure in hearing you speak, in hearing your stories,” he admitted gruffly.
She beamed, her smile lighting her face with such pleasure that he wondered why he hadn’t been trying harder to make her happy. She was so beautiful when she smiled.
“What gives you joy?” he asked abruptly, wanting to uncover ways to make her smile again. He immediately felt ridiculous, as if he were trying to woo her, and his hands tightened on the reins, making his horse whinny in protest and Sasha search his eyes.
She looked away rapidly, her cheeks growing ruddy, as if his question embarrassed her. Or maybe it was the answer that embarrassed her.
A gentleman would have apologized for making her uncomfortable, but Kjell was not—nor had he ever been—a gentle man. He was not educated in the art of flowery words, false sympathies, or fake sentiments.
She spoke quickly, quietly, as if she wanted him to listen but wasn’t brave enough to make sure he heard. “When you kissed me, I felt . . . joyful. In fact, I’ve never felt joy like that in my whole life. I’ve never felt anything like that. If I had . . . my lips would remember. My heart would remember. I want very much to feel that way again.”
Kjell’s heart swelled, filling his chest with a sensation that resembled floating. He drew Lucian to a stop. Sasha halted beside him, confused. Jerick tossed a puzzled look toward them.
“Take the men. Go on ahead. Sasha needs to rest for a moment. We’ll catch up shortly,” he instructed. Jerick immediately signaled the men to keep moving, assuming, as Kjell wanted him to, that Sasha required privacy for personal reasons.
Sasha didn’t dispute his claim, but her brows were drawn, her lower lip tucked between her teeth, biting back her words. He waited until the last man had rounded the crop of umbrella thorn trees ahead and slid from Lucian’s back, no hesitation, no second thoughts. His pulse roared in his ears and tickled the back of his throat, and he reached for Sasha, pulling her from the saddle of the docile, brown mare.
She squeaked, and he felt her surprise against his lips as he lowered his head and pressed his mouth to hers.
He didn’t close his eyes as he tasted her, not in the beginning. He didn’t want to look away. He wanted to see her pleasure, to witness her joy. The horses at their backs made a V behind them, the lemongrass brushed at their legs, and the cooing mutter of sandgrouse nearby registered only distantly, part of the flavor of the experience, a dash of sound and texture.
But Kjell heard only her sigh, felt only the silk of her mouth, and saw only the spikey tips of her lashes as they fluttered in surrender. Or maybe it wasn’t her surrender but his, for his legs trembled and his eyes closed, his lips moved in adoring supplication, his heart broke and bowed down before her, and his chest burned in elation.
Her fingers brushed his face, and her mouth sought his, even when he withdrew slightly so he wouldn’t fall down. Their breath mingled in frenzied dancing, tumbling over and teasing their sensitive lips. He pressed his forehead to hers, resisting the desire to make her sigh again. He’d let himself forget for a moment that he didn’t want her. He circled her waist with his hands and put her back on her horse so he wouldn’t pull her down into the grass.
“That is . . . joy,” Sasha whispered, looking down at him. “It has to be.”
“No. That is pleasure,” he replied curtly, stepping away from her horse. She stared down at him, her gaze knowing, absorbing his terse dismissal.
“Maybe pleasure feels like joy. But pleasure can be satisfied, and joy never needs to be. It is a glory all its own,” she said.
He turned away, almost ashamed of himself, and prepared to mount Lucian.
Suddenly, with no reason or provocation, the mare Sasha was seated on shot forward.
Sasha cried out and teetered, but managed to hang on. She pressed herself against the horse’s neck, grasping frantically for the lost reins. Kjell lunged for the mare, but was too slow. He shouted, alerting his men, and mounted Lucian, pursuing the spooked mare now racing toward the cliffs, bolting like she’d seen a rattler. Sasha could only cling to the horse’s mane, her veil whipping free, the panels of her yellow dress streaming behind her. Kjell spurred Lucian forward, covering the space between the galloping mare and his stallion. Lucian’s superior size and strength made the smaller horse easy to catch, but the mare was undeterred. They flew across the plateau, the drop looming closer, the mare heading straight for the ledge at full speed. Kjell attempted to turn the fleeing horse, to cut her off and change her course, but the mare simply charged ahead, dropping her head and, if anything, increasing her speed.
“Sasha!” he shouted, needing her to look at him, to know what he was about to attempt. She turned her head slowly, her face pressed to the mare’s neck, her eyes wide with horror. If she let go she would, at the very least, be badly hurt. If she didn’t let go, she would go over the edge with the crazed horse.
Kjell drew abreast of the mare, matching her pace. With the experience born of warfare on horseback, of wielding a shield and swinging a sword, of holding on with nothing but powerful legs and sheer terror, he lunged to the side and snaked his right arm around Sasha’s waist. With absolute faith, Sasha released the mare’s mane and hurled herself toward him as he dragged her free. Pulling her across his saddle, his thighs anchoring them both to the stallion beneath him, he bore down on Lucian’s reins, turning him to the left and demanding he halt.
“Whoa, Lucian! Whoa!”
The stallion drew up immediately, slowing until he could safely stop. Pawing and tossing his head, he whinnied desperately as Kjell and Sasha watched the brown mare, without ever slowing or altering direction, careen over the edge and disappear. There was no equine shriek of terror, no smattering of rocks marking her descent, no fading sounds of alarm. She was just . . . gone.
Kjell’s men had joined in the pursuit, fanning into a circle to corral the crazed animal, and they drew up around them, breathing hard, faces shocked. A gull, flapping wildly, feathers fluttering, rose up fro
m beyond the cliff’s edge like it had been startled by the falling horse.
“We’ve disturbed their nests,” Sasha gasped, her face pressed into Kjell’s neck where she clutched him tightly.
She was breathless, panting, and Kjell was still lost in the horror of the narrowly-avoided tragedy. Then Sasha was pushing herself upright, her hands braced against his chest, trying to catch her breath and communicate simultaneously.
“Captain, the Volgar! We’ve disturbed their nests.”
***
From beyond the cliffs, in the space where the horse had disappeared, the sound of beating wings filled the air, a hundred times greater than a flock of gulls, rising over the edge and making the horses shudder and scream.
“Get back!” Kjell shouted, knowing a battle near the drop would favor the Volgar, not the King’s Guard. They raced back toward the hard-packed path that cut the savannah, back across the distance they’d just traveled, chasing and being chased, exchanging one horror for another. But the Volgar didn’t swoop and drop.
They were thin, their skins papery and yellow, their wings shredded like a spider’s web. These weren’t the Volgar who grew large and fat in the valley of Kilmorda. These were Volgar who were becoming extinct. Their eyes glittered desperately, and their beaks snapped and clicked, beating at the air high above the soldiers, frantic for blood but too weak to take it. They circled like vultures, looking for an opportunity—a smaller victim, an exhausted horse, a space between soldiers.
“Dismount and draw together!” Kjell roared. The horses were accustomed to battle, to the shriek of the winged beasts, to carrying a warrior while he wielded a sword, but Kjell couldn’t fight with Sasha in front of him. He slid from the saddle, dragging her with him, his arm around her waist, not even waiting for Lucian to come to a complete stop.
The horses shuddered but didn’t bolt, and the soldiers clustered quickly, drawing the horses down, creating a formation with their backs facing inward and their lances bristling outward. The soldiers on the outer edges knelt, the next row crouched, the inner rows stood, and the soldiers in the center held their lances at near vertical, protecting the formation from directly overhead, making a sphere of sharp edges around both man and beast with Sasha pushed to the center and told to crouch and cover her head.
They watched the birdmen swarm and circle, waiting for an opening.
Kjell saw it before it began, the horror of bloodlust, of hunger and desperation. The Volgar had no sense of self-preservation. Or maybe they had lost all instinct in their desire to eat. They started falling from the sky, several birdmen sacrificed themselves upon the upraised spears. The impact impaled them but also dislodged the lances, creating an opening for the beasts behind them and breaking the formation. One birdman hit the ground and immediately lost a wing on Kjell’s sword. Another bird plunged, then another, their wings folded to increase their speed.
“Scatter!” Kjell roared, commanding his men to change the formation. His men immediately widened the circle and released the horses, slapping their rumps to make them run, creating chaos and distraction.
“Brace!” Kjell ordered, and his men dropped to their knees, still back to back, their lances butted against the ground. Kjell remained standing, giving himself greater mobility, awaiting the next bird’s arrival, his sword black with blood, his stance wide. One birdman drew up mid-dive, distracted by the galloping horses, and the Volgar in his wake catapulted past him. The Guard let them fall, expanding their circle and contracting it, keeping Sasha in the center, protecting her even as the birds pounced.
One minute Kjell was brandishing his sword, separating a birdman’s body from his head, the next he was on his back, looking at the sky. Sasha pressed him into the grass, her eyes pupilless in her face, her skin leached of color, her hair tumbling around them.
Then she was lifted straight up off the ground, dangling over him from the talons of a birdman, her eyes still strangely blank, her arms reaching for him as she was propelled upward.
The birdman stuttered mid-flight, as if the weight of the woman proved too much for him in his weakened state. The other Volgar began lifting off, eager to share the birdman’s catch and escape the weapons that had already decimated more than half of their flock.
“Sasha!” Kjell was on his feet hurling his lance before he could think about missing, before he could even consider the blood that was growing in an ever-widening stain on her pale dress.
The point of his spear sank into the birdman’s throat, reverberating with the force of impact, and Sasha swung her arms and tossed her head, kicking to free herself. The birdman sank, choking on the green-black blood that poured from his mouth, but he refused to release his prize. The other Volgar swarmed around him, talons extended, hearts visibly pounding in their emaciated chests, eager to take her from him. Another lance pierced the captor’s left wing—Jerick’s aim was true—and the mortally wounded birdman, hovering about ten feet above the earth, released Sasha too late to save himself. Sasha didn’t stay down, but shot to her feet, racing toward Kjell, arms pumping, hair streaming, and Kjell brought down two birdmen before he could push her back to the ground with a furious order to “stay the hell down!” His men closed around her again, swords out, faces lifted toward the sky, waiting for the next rush.
There wasn’t one.
Three birdmen lived to fly away, their shredded wings and bony bodies disappearing beyond the cliffs from whence they came.
“God damn you, woman!” Kjell moaned, sinking to his knees beside Sasha. She pushed herself up gingerly, her face tight with pain, one armed wrapped around her middle, her hand pressed to her side, trying to cover the blood that soaked her dress.
“You aren’t wearing your breastplate,” she said softly, her eyes forgiving him even as she scolded. “You didn’t protect your heart, so I had to.”
“The horses are scattered, Captain. But we need to walk. We can’t stay here. The Volgar carcasses will draw other predators,” Gibbous urged. The Jandarian savannah was known for its lions, and though the men had not seen any sign of the packs since crossing from Enoch, they didn’t want to attract their attention. Volgar bled the wrong color and they stank like hyenas, but somehow Kjell thought the lions might not care.
But Sasha’s blood was red, and she was bleeding a great deal. Kjell scooped her into his arms, and his men fell in behind him, loping across the dry grass to the cluster of trees where Kjell had kissed Sasha an eternity before.
“I have to heal her, or the lions will follow her scent, no matter how far we go,” he barked, calling a halt to their progress. He didn’t think about how much blood Sasha had already lost or that his shirt was soaked through where he held her tightly against him. “Stop just beyond the trees. Half of you stay with me, the others fan out. We need to find the horses,” Kjell ordered. He shot out orders—a blade to cut away the back of her dress, a flask to make her drink—and then demanded his men give him enough space and privacy to make her well.
Long grooves scored her back, so deep he could see the white of bone beneath the bubbling blood. He pressed his palms to the wounds and willed them closed. Her blood warmed his hands and stained his fingers, but the wounds did not mend. He turned her on her side, pressing a hand between her breasts and finding her heartbeat. She watched him with calm acceptance and faith-filled eyes, but her face was so pale he couldn’t see the gold in her skin.
“Sasha—sing with me,” he pled, the first waves of doubt making him desperate. Her song was all around him, crystal clear, a chiming he now recognized, a peal of bells that had healed injuries far more grievous than the ones he now struggled to close. Yet he couldn’t close them.
“Come with me and I will try to love you,” she whispered, smiling gently, her eyes growing heavy.
“That’s right,” he nodded. He closed his eyes, letting the pealing pulse beneath his skin, but the gashes down her back mocked him, becoming garish grins that laughed at his failure.
He buried his
face in her neck and wrapped her in his arms, magnifying the clangor of her healing song until he shook with it. His head was a gong, his heart the beat that kept it ringing. And ringing. And ringing.
“Kjell,” someone said.
“Captain,” he heard again, and the knell in his skull became an echo. His muscles were locked and he couldn’t open his eyes.
He could feel Jerick above him and sensed that time had passed while he rang the alarm. The sky was dark, and small pit fires ringed the encampment, keeping the creatures at bay. Kjell concentrated on loosening his fingers one at a time, peeling them from Sasha’s skin, releasing her so he could roll away. He fell to his back with a groan, the blood rushing back into his limbs, his body coming awake.
“We need you. There’s something wrong with Peter. He’s throwing up blood,” Jerick said.
“Sasha?” Kjell moaned.
“She sleeps, Captain. You’ve healed her wounds. She’s fine.” Jerick sounded confused, irritated even.
“I need to see them.”
“Who, Captain?”
“Her wounds. I need to see her back,” he hissed, gritting his teeth against the pins and needles in his arms, the burning in his back, and the stabbing in his calves and feet. Jerick turned the sleeping Sasha toward him, coaxing her onto her belly and moving the tattered edges of her dress away from her injuries.
Even in the orange glow of the firelight, Kjell could see that the gashes were closed, but thick, purple lines extended from Sasha’s shoulder blades to her waist. There was no infection, and the pain had seemingly gone. But the marks remained.