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Nurse Chardryn seemed the clear choice, for she carefully guarded her apothecary chest and monitored the contents. But anyone in Elina’s retinue could have found an opportunity—particularly the maids and attendants.
In truth, after Elina had ripped out his heart with her tears and her story—and knowing that she would soon learn that Iarthil had betrayed her, as had whoever “cursed” her—Warrick was tempted to simply kill them all.
But that would not be the right thing to do. Surely at least a few of them were still loyal to her. He would not kill innocents.
So for now, the right thing was to prepare the tonic under Chardryn’s watchful eyes, but use a bit of thieves’ trickery to make certain the bloodbane was never added to the cup.
“Warrick?”
Elina. He glanced through the carriage window. She reclined inside after sharing a saddle with him that morning. They’d both been quiet during the ride—Warrick brooding, and Elina almost shy with him, though whether that was a result of the cunt licking or her confession, he didn’t know. Yet now her brows were arched high and her voice betrayed a note of alarm.
She gestured to his chest. “You’re, uh…glowing.”
That announcement was followed by every attendant within the carriage crowding Elina’s side to look at the golden glyph that covered much of his torso and the upper part of his right arm.
Warrick had no need to look. He’d seen it many times before. “When did it start?”
“He asks when it began glowing,” said Iarthil, riding up beside him.
“It began just now,” she said with a smile curving her lips. “I like to watch him. So I have been for a while.”
Warrick held back his grin until the serjeant translated her answer.
She grinned back. “Ask him what the glow means,” she said and Iarthil did.
“That a ghost is nearby. Likely ahead of us, as I only just now came near enough for the archer to glow.” Warrick gestured to the glyph, which resembled a bow and a quiver of arrows. “That means we’ve entered its haunt. So I will speak to it when I see it.”
Iarthil stared at him. “A ghost?”
“As I said.”
“Is the queen safe from it?”
“She is.” Warrick impaled him with a look. “She will always be safe with me.”
“Serjeant?”
Iarthil turned to Elina and spread his hands, as if to convey that he was trying to translate something that was beyond his ken. “He sees ghosts. We’re in a haunt. He’ll talk to it. We’re safe.”
Now Elina stared at Warrick. “Can we see it?”
Of course that would be what she asked. When Iarthil translated, Warrick held out his hand to her. “You can if you are touching me. Come.” To the serjeant he said, “Tell her it might be gruesome.”
“I will bear it,” was her reply, and she clambered nearer to the window. Warrick pulled her through and onto his lap before urging Troll into a canter. Iarthil followed, along with a half dozen knights.
“Ohhh,” she breathed, her gaze sweeping either side of the road, where shriveled trees stood over rotting vegetation and moldy soil. “I have seen blights like this before. I was told it was because of insects—or a disease that killed everything. But it is a haunt?”
Mayhap some blights were caused by those things. This one was not.
He gestured ahead, where a bridge crossed a sluggish brown river. In the summer’s heat, the water had retreated from the banks, which were thick with mud.
Elina’s breath caught. Her fingers spasmed on his arm. “I see her.”
A woman, her hair white—though that was true for all ghosts. Mud was packed into her eyes and the gaping hole of her nose. Bilious green skin sagged in sheets from bony limbs.
The ghost stood on the muddied bank, downstream of the river crossing. He guided Troll onto the bridge, where Warrick could easily look at her and be seen in return. Dropping the eastern tongue, he spoke in the language of home. Ghosts always understood him, though Warrick couldn’t always understand them. Yet he’d learned enough languages that he could converse with most.
“I see you,” he said. “Who has wronged you?”
Mud fell in thick glops from the woman’s opening mouth. Elina gagged and turned her face, squeezing shut her eyes. Warrick wrapped his arm around her, tucked her head under his chin.
“Renil.” The name fell from her mouth like another glop.
“Did he kill you? Or did he wrong you in another way?”
She wrapped swollen fingers around her throat. “Throw.”
“From the bridge?” It was almost always so when the ghosts were near to one. At her nod, he asked, “What village?”
She pointed north.
“I will find him. Do you mark your body?”
She pointed to the mud at her feet.
“I will have your people come for you. What name will they know you by?”
Her blackened tongue pushed more mud from her mouth. “Fajana.”
