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Her brows arched. “The usual monster?”
“The wyrms. The night hounds. They’re just beasts.”
“Big beasts.”
“And they act like beasts. These demons are something else. They’re smarter.”
“So is an ogre.” Her tone said that she wasn’t arguing with him, but simply seeking clarification.
“True, but most ogres just want to be left alone. The only reason the Horse Guards are called in when one begins killing humans is because they’re so blasted big. But every single demon is…”—he hesitated, searching for the right word before settling on—“malevolent. As if their only purpose is to hurt and terrorize people.”
Understanding dawned on her face. “So that’s why, despite all of the animals in the forest that the demon could have hunted, it killed Fas Lergin?”
Bannin nodded. “Just as it’ll likely hunt us.”
“I hope so.”
So did Bannin. Better them than people who weren’t prepared to fight it.
Sarya seemed to ponder all that he’d told her for a moment. “Malevolent. So it was taunting us last night.”
“By scattering the bones where it did?” At her nod, he said, “Most likely.”
She looked to him curiously. “Is that why you’ve been away from Galoth these past three years? You’ve been slaying demons in that valley?”
“It is.”
Where had she thought he’d been? And hadn’t he told her during his visits? Thinking back, he’d told her plenty of stories…but he hadn’t told her that.
Nor had she asked.
That realization made his chest ache, but only for a moment. Because she was asking now.
“So you’re returning there to fight more demons after the harvest?” Her golden brown eyes had taken on a faraway look as she gazed down the road, her voice tinged by a note of yearning.
What was she longing for? To fight demons? To leave the village? Or to leave with him?
Bannin opened his mouth—then shut it again. A battering ram demanded answers. But this was a dance.
So he only said, “I’ll stay until we slay the demon. Even if it’s after the harvest.”
A variety of emotions flitted across her face before her expression hardened into resolve. “Let us hope it doesn’t take that long.”
What did that mean? Was it only that she wanted to kill the demon as soon as possible? Or was there more to her meaning? Did she wish Bannin gone earlier, too?
He bit back a growl of frustration as he tried to figure out exactly what she’d meant…and he was determined not to ask. He would not demand answers.
In the end, Bannin was only certain of one thing: he wasn’t very good at dancing.
Chapter 5
Sarya the Lacking
Despite all of the stories he’d told her, she hadn’t really known Bannin at all.
A tight, painful knot of confusion and shame had taken up residence in Sarya’s chest, and had grown steadily throughout the morning.
How many times dismissed him as the Blowhard? Until yesterday, she’d thought his many stories were exaggerations, with him playing the jester beside Warrick the Cursebreaker. And she had liked to think that way, in truth. Because Bannin had disturbed her. Because he’d disrupted her peace, had flirted and made her laugh when she’d wanted to feel nothing for anyone again. And her attraction to him was easy to disregard when he seemed not serious at all.
Yet the boy who’d left Galoth seeking to prove himself in the wake of rejection was no jester. And there could be nothing more serious than killing a princeling for what he’d done to a girl—or hunting malevolent demons to stop them from killing people.
And although Bannin did not credit himself with saving Galoth, it hardly mattered to Sarya that he hadn’t brought the jewels back by his own hands. Warrick the Cursebreaker was not from Galoth; he came from the Dead Lands, half a world away. If not for Bannin, the barbarian would likely have never even heard of the curse or the missing jewels, let alone spent ten years looking for them.
Sarya had always been thankful for Bannin’s part in breaking the curse—she would still be stone if he hadn’t been so dedicated—yet she had let herself think so little of him, because he’d always been going on about his adventures, and she’d assumed that he was a glory-seeking blowhard and flirt.
But was that truly what his stories had told her, or was it what she’d wanted to hear?
She had no time now to think back and discern whether there was a difference between what he’d said and what she’d believed. And no matter what, her thoughts had been…unkind. She didn’t know if kindness was a true and powerful magic, as the barbarians in the Dead Lands claimed it was—but whether magic or not, Sarya knew the value of kindness. Hadn’t Bannin’s kindness helped her to find this place, where she’d been able to heal? And in return, she’d fought against liking him. At least she could forgive herself for fighting her attraction to him—in grief and pain, she hadn’t wanted to be close to anyone in that manner—but she’d never been as generous in thought to him as he’d been in deed to her.
