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It was the jade.
Nerron couldn’t shake the sight. He still felt some awe, even though the Jade Goyl he’d dreamed of as a child bore very little resemblance to the innocent baby face riding in front of him. The Jade Goyl of his fantasies had drowned the onyx in their underground lake, just like they used to do with their bastards. As a child, Nerron had gotten so lost in these dreams that he used to search his own face for traces of jade. Children were such sentimental idiots. Life had woken him from such dreams; it had taught him to despise his own skin and his own heart, and it had taught him not to trust stories with happy endings and heroes who would save him or the world. Yet what he felt stirring inside himself since he’d seen the jade were exactly those awe-drenched delusions. Too bad this Goyl-forsaken land had no child-eaters. They would have cleansed his head with a cup of blood.
They stopped at a river to water the horses—the only thing for which the Pup stopped. Nerron led his horse to the water, and he saw Will pull the swindlesack off the crossbow. The Pup now did this every time they stopped. He cocked the string quite easily. Then he aimed at a tree more than a hundred yards away—and shot. Strike. Incredible. A crossbow was not an easy weapon to master, but the Pup handled it as though it had been made for him.
Of course!
Nerron’s horse lifted its dripping muzzle from the river as he began to berate himself with every invective ever hurled at bastards above or below the earth.
A message for the Fairy...
And he thought Milk-face was naive?
He looked around, but what the devil! Why shouldn’t those Mirrorlings hear that he’d seen through their lies. Embarrassing enough how long it had taken him. He dragged his horse away from the water.
Will was cutting the bolt from the tree trunk.
“You’re supposed to kill her, am I right?” Nerron grabbed Will’s shoulders and shoved him against the tree. “You’re not after the jade!”
Will’s eyes showed golden speckles.
Nerron grabbed Will’s hand that held the bolt. “I assume her immortality is not a problem for this crossbow. But have you forgotten the Cossacks? And even if you manage to kill her before she kills you,what if she takes the jade with her?”
The Pup tore himself free.
“I hope she takes it with her. I never wanted it, or have you forgotten that?”
“The jade is the best thing that’s ever happened to you!” Nerron wanted to smash Will’s soft face, make the stone come back, but there they were already. His glassy guard dogs. They didn’t look too good. The bark was growing faster than they could peel it off.
“Let him go.” Sixteen. Sixteen times ten faces, and all of them wanted the Pup. How did she like the jade? Or was she more into the soft human flesh?
Seventeen went to Nerron. He had blood (if it was blood) stuck to his skin like colorless oil. He’d been a little too thorough peeling off the bark.
“Get out of here, Stoneface. He’ll find the Fairy without you. You said it yourself. He doesn’t need you anymore.”
Really? The Pup had never needed him more. Will was still holding the bolt. The crossbow was silvering his mind. The crossbow and Sixteen.
“Is that so? And who kept him from becoming raven fodder?” Nerron stood so close to Seventeen he could see himself in his eyes. “Let me think. That may have been me. I’m not going anywhere. We had a deal.”
Nerron wondered whether the coldness in Seventeen’s smile was stolen, like the smile itself, or whether that was his own metal ingredient.
“Ah, the mirrors. Believe me, you’ll never see them, or those who are waiting on the other side.”
Seventeen wore his human face like a badly fitting mask. “We haven’t killed you yet, Stoneface. That is payment enough.” Sixteen went to stand by her brother’s side, to reinforce his threats. “And did you find the Fairy? No. So what should you be rewarded for?”
Filthy mirror-brood.
The Bastard was sick of being cheated. Lied to. Robbed. If anybody did the cheating and robbing and lying, it should be him.
“I will find her,” he said. “And a deal is a deal.”
Sixteen’s finger was growing silver claws.
Get out of here, Nerron, before your legs turn to silver.
But he couldn’t. He was too angry. That damned rage. And his pride. Broken too many times. Far too many.
Sixteen was really looking forward to turning him into a hunk of precious metal. She was almost as keen as she was on the Pup. A silver Goyl. Probably a first, Nerron. Not the kind of precedent he wanted to set.
