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The knife felt solid in my hand, real, balanced, as though it had always belonged to me. I smiled, and the watcher’s eyes narrowed. He sensed a change in our dynamic. He was the hunter, and I the prey? But my smile said otherwise.
“Come here you wretched fool!” He lurched.
I could have danced aside and shoved him off the edge of the broken bridge, but as my heart raced and hot blood burned through my veins, I needed this. Needed to make him hurt, and hurt Razak through him. I sidestepped and caught his shirt in my left hand, stopping his unbalanced fall.
I’d saved his life. His expression said as much, and he might have thanked me, had I not thrust the dagger into his neck—once, twice. Scarlet blood spurted, the man’s mouth opened in a shockedO, and it was only now he truly saw me, trulyknewme. Wasn’t so easy a catch now, was I?
He groped at the air. Thin fingers skimmed my shoulder, desperate to cling to a life fast draining out of him. He grabbed my arm, tried to pull me into his dying moments. I slashed his forearms, forcing him back, separating us. He reeled again. His boots slipped on greasy boards and for a few breathless moments, he teetered on the edge of the broken bridge.
A man’s life hung on the end of a thread, a thread I held. I could have pulled him back, although it was unlikely that gushing vein would heal.
“When Razak joins you in whatever damnation I’m about to send you to, please do give him my regards.” I kicked his chest. He rocked, thrust out his bleeding arms, desperate for help, but as he danced, the boards underfoot snapped and the watcher vanished over the side.
The waterfall roared, swallowing any scream. The mist rolled, unperturbed. He was gone. The only evidence he’d ever existed was his bloody knife clenched in my hand.
I wiped wetness from my face. His blood or mist, it didn’t matter.
It was time to find Arin.
CHAPTER12
Arin
Dravenand I embraced as friends. He wrapped me in his arms, and I pulled him close. It felt wholesome, as though our friendship might survive all this insanity. He smiled, let go, and gathered his single traveling bag from the ground. The supply caravan behind him was noisy, full of kareels and carts, wagons and traders. Draven cast his gaze over them and at what would be his new home for several days, until he reached Ogden’s court and the true journey began.
“We’ll meet again at the Overlook,” he said, tossing the bag over his shoulder.
“We will.”
“The next full moon. You had better be there, Arin,” he teased, but there was enough weight behind the order to suggest he’d hunt the four corners of the courts if Lark and I weren’t at the Inn.
I nodded, fearing my voice might break if I replied. I hadn’t expected his leaving to hurt.
He grabbed the reins of a large, grumbling kareel, settled on its saddle, gave me a single nod, and then plodded into the moving caravan. A strange kind of panic gripped my heart as I watched him go. What if Ogden had him killed… because of me?
He looked back once, threw a wave, and smiled when I raised my hand. Then he was gone, lost in the disturbed sand, somewhere under the stars.
We would see him again, and by then, we’d have Pain’s crown and Razak would be stopped, either in Justice’s clutches or we’d find a way to finish him for good. It was good, positive progress. The kind of progress we sorely needed.
I returned to the bar where I’d last seen Lark, but he hadn’t returned. He hadn’t been at Draven’s farewell either, I’d assumed to avoid an awkwardness between the three of us, but now I wasn’t so sure. He’d been gone a long while. He’d likely returned to our cabin.
I hurried through the crowds, eager to get back to him. The fluttering sense of panic Draven’s leaving had left me with hadn’t subsided. If anything, it was growing worse. I flung open the cabin door, and of course, there he was, seated in a chair near the back of the main lounge with just one lamp for illumination. “There you are!” Relief stopped my heart’s flutter. “Draven is on his way.” I closed the door behind me, sealing the general nightly hubbub outside. “I’m sure Ogden will take him back in. The king liked him. It was me he despised.”
Lark rose from the chair, not having said a word, and as the lamplight crawled over him, dark splatters marked his pale face. “You’re hurt—” I swept to him, touched his cheek. Blood, I was sure of it now. His lips did that typically Lark smile by ticking up at one corner.
“I’m not hurt,” he said, his voice thick.
“You must be.” Splatters dashed his neck and his shirt. So much of it. Then I saw his right hand, and the knife, both coated in what could only be blood. If he wasn’t bleeding, and he wasn’t hurt, then someone else was. “What happened?”
His gaze skipped over my face, my eyes, and his ticking smile died. He turned away and set the knife down on a sideboard, propped back against it, and folded his arms. “We have a problem. One less problem than we had earlier in the evening, but a problem, nonetheless.”
So much blood. The more I looked, the more of it came to light. What had he done? “Lark, did you hurt someone?”
“He deserved it.”
“But you’re not hurt?”
“I’m fine.”
