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“There are worse places in the realm to be,” Garion said gently.
“I’ve been in most of them,” Charlie replied, remembering too much.
The wings of a dragon, a kraken’s salty brine stench, ash on his tongue, the corpse army of hundreds churning in the mud. It washed over him, impossible to ignore.
“I’m sorry, I don’t know,” he muttered. “It’s difficult to—”
Garion’s hand crept over the tabletop to land on Charlie’s own. “Stay still?”
“It’s difficult to see my place in all this.” Charlie kept his eyes on their joined fingers, his ink-stained skin against Garion’s. “I thought this was the right idea. I thought this was how I could help.”
“Itisa good idea, but we’ve been here all of an hour, Charlie. Breathe a bit,” the assassin said. “Besides, Queen Erida isn’t going to jump out of a closet and punch you in the face. And if she does—”
Beneath the table, something glimmered, bronze and deadly. Garion’s other hand spun the dagger with lethal intent, the blade blurring with his skilled motions.
“That’s all our worries ended,” he said, slipping the dagger away again.
“Killing her is only part of it.” Reluctantly, Charlie pulled his hand back. “There’s Taristan to consider, and worse things behind him.”
The mask of the Amhara slid down over Garion’s face, his expression going blank. “What Waits.”
Charlie gritted his teeth. “I know. It still sounds foolish, even to me.”
“I saw the dragons with my own two eyes. I’ll believe anything now,” Garion bit out, frustrated. “And I’ll follow you wherever it is you wish to go.”
Again, Charlie’s head throbbed. He sensed the implication laced through his paramour’s words, and it set his hair on end.
“I won’t abandon her, Garion,” he said through clenched teeth. “I told you before.”
He expected Garion to argue. To lay out every good and logical reason to run. Instead, the assassin shoved back from the table, a winning smile plastered across his face. Even his eyes sparkled, matching the easy grin. But Charlie saw through it, to the tightness in his shoulders, the twitching of his hands.
“Garion—”
“I know,” the assassin said, before crossing the common room.
To Charlie’s horror, he did the worst thing possible.
With a smile and a word of greeting, Garion talked to the other patrons. His Amhara-trained charisma crackled through the room, enticing the barkeep and the innkeeper, and pulling the other Calidonian regulars under his sway.
Charlie wanted to sink into the floor.
Instead, he forced down the rest of his wine, and stood to join.
To the folk of Lenava, Charlie was a priest on a pilgrimage to Tiber’s holy temple at Turadir, set among the famed silver mines of the eastern mountains. Garion was his hired bodyguard, a mercenary from one of the lesser guilds in Partepalas. It was an easy arrangement, and an easy lie to tell.
Charlie even blessed a few merchants in the market, trading prayers for less conspicuous coin. They spent most days tramping between market and harbor, under the guise of preparing for the journey north along the coast. Truly, they collected what little they could: news, rumors, stories from old sailors and young farmers alike.
Garion was the more charming of the pair, his easy manner trainedinto him by the Amhara Guild. He charmed all manner of folk, filling the tavern with patrons every night, only to listen rapturously to their tales of the greater realm.
Most stories conflicted, and Charlie’s head spun trying to piece together the truth of it all.
If nothing else, I have done this, Charlie thought one morning, Andry’s letter in hand.
He passed it over to a ship bound for Kasa, its crew sailing for warmer waters beyond the gray horizon.
Charlie hoped the letter would find Andry’s mother safe and cared for, among her own family, far away from the grim fate of the world. If anyone in the realm deserved something, Andry Trelland deserved that.
Every day, Charlie felt a little less useless, even as they sat and contemplated the rain. Now, when he woke, it took a moment to remember the world was ending, and the warm body next to him was real. Not a dream, not a wish. But Garion, right beside him, already awake and staring. Lenava was as far from a golden summer in Partepalas as one could be, but the slow moments felt the same. Unburdened, good.
