Not all predators roaming the wilds were of the four-legged variety.
Or at least marginally tamed, like the one sharing my home. Bane raced past me with an indignant meow, swishing his bushy tail as he scurried off down the corridor. Like most cats, he despised having his rest disturbed.
The entire house shuddered in a gust of wind. I grimaced as I entered the main room and followed Bane’s dark shadow to the front entrance. A boom of thunder, accompanied by the loud clattering of rain, drew my gaze to the darkened kitchen window.
Wonderful. That deluge would drench me as soon as I stepped outside.
The house rattled again. But this time, it was not the wind. My pulse sped up as a vehement knock broke through the storm’s cacophony. Not a fox after all, then. My grip on the spear tightened, my annoyance replaced by a trickle of unease.
My neighbors, a grizzled Dwarf named Ulyss Underforge and his Brownie wife, lived more than an hour away by horseback. If they’d encountered any problems, they would have headed to Dalath, the nearest village. And I was certainly not expecting any visitors. The unavoidable consequence of forsaking all one once held dear.
Curse it!I jumped as another knock echoed through the room.
Trying to soothe my frayed nerves, I took a deep breath. If whoever this was meant me harm, they would surely not announce themselves. But being cautious wouldn’t hurt. I brandished my spear toward the wooden door, which I abruptly wrenched open with my other hand.
The wind blew in icy air and biting rain. I blinked, temporarily blind—and then a tall figure appeared on the doorstep, so suddenly that I nearly stabbed it out of instinct.
My heart came to a disbelieving halt before it resumed its beating at double the speed. The world tilted around me, my chest constricting, as my eyes adjusted to the darkness outside and I took in my late-night visitor.
I would have recognized that straight nose, those full lips, the high cheekbones beneath the hood of the stranger’s black cloak anywhere.
Unfortunately.
He had haunted me from the very beginning of it all. For more ages than I could count. And now his ghost had returned from the claws of death itself, still unable to let me go, even after he had destroyedeverything.
Anger replaced my shock, my heartbeat roaring in my ears as Iraised my weapon. “Give me one good reason why I should not impale you, Noctis.” I spat out his name in the common tongue like a curse.
Noctis. The Fallen One. The Destroyer.
He had forfeited the right to any other name. Both in the eyes of the world and in mine. Now, though, he did not look as if he could even destroy my door if I slammed it shut in his face, let alone entire realms. Clinging to the frame with one hand, he seemed unable to stay upright without support.
“Baradaz.” His voice was hoarse, but oh, so familiar as it flowed around my true name in Aurean, the language of the gods: a language I had not heard spoken out loud for so long. “You look good.” His usually crisp accent was softened, beseeching.
Water trickled onto my spotless wooden floor as he swayed precariously. I growled. He hadn’t yet entered my house, but he was already irritating me. A particular talent of his.
My visitor’s hood slipped back, revealing a gaunt, deathly pale face; shoulder-length black hair, the ends ragged as if he had simply cut them with a knife; a feverish light in those dark eyes I knew so well.
“You look awful,” I remarked coldly, keeping my spear aimed at him. I had never seen him in such a miserable state, not even when he’d been dragged out of the Temple of Order after his sentencing—bereft of his powers, a shadow of what he had once been.
“I…” He made a strangled sound, a mix between a cough and a desperate chuckle, his mouth twisting. “I had nowhere else to go.”
Why,I wanted to ask,by everything sacred in the Maker’s creation, did you think you could come here?
How had he found me? How was he even alive?
Another violent cough shook his body before I could demand answers, drawing my attention to his other hand, pressed against his chest. Concern welled up inside me as I saw crimson seeping betweenhis clenched fingers, stark against his white skin, a few drops of blood joining the rainwater on the floor.
The state of my floor was the least of my concerns, though, as the last person I ever wanted to see again collapsed through my doorstep. “Baradaz, please,” he groaned, his eyes rolling back in his head. Out cold.
I stared down at him, too stunned to move, only snapping out of my stupor when Bane crept closer to sniff at the stranger lying in our house. The black tomcat wrinkled his nose, his amber eyes looking up at me with a disgusted expression that said he expected me to deal with this problem. I sighed.
“Believe me,” I murmured, setting aside my weapon and bending down to assess Noctis’s vital signs. “I would love to toss him out. We will have to bury him when he dies on our turf, though.” I grimaced at the unpleasant mix of dirt, blood, and old sweat invading my nostrils. “And with my luck, his corpse is going to lure the nearest horde of Rakash to us.”
Noctis’s skin was clammy at my first touch on the side of his neck, but burned with fever underneath. When I turned him over, he groaned, and his face contorted with pain, yet he remained unconscious.
I stared at him, hesitating. Despite my words, a small—no, a big part of me yearned to throw him out, as if doing so would turn this into nothing but a terrible dream. My gaze darted to the open door, where the storm continued to rage, and then to the blood pooling on my floor. Without my help, he would die out there, cold and alone. A fate I wouldn’t wish on a mindless beast. I had committed many sins, but unlike him, I had never been deliberately cruel. Even to those who deserved it.
I had to get him into a bed.
