Fiery Edge of Steel (A NOON ONYX NOVEL) (27 page)

“The one demon you never want to meet. Grimasca is whatever you’re deeply afraid of.” The wick sputtered and went out, plunging us into darkness. Rafe’s hand found mine and he led me toward the door.

“Think you’ll be able to sleep now?” His quiet laughter echoed in the dark.

T
he rain pounding on
Cnawlece
’s now inaptly named sundeck sounded like a thousand
rogares
banging on the back side of Burr’s metal pots. It made hearing anything else exceedingly difficult. Earlier this morning, I’d tried to study with Fara, but the rain’s incessant beating drowned out the sound of our voices. Discussion had been impossible. Reading, or focusing on anything, had been impossible. The rain rattled everything, and everyone. Even Virtus, who, after a particularly loud thunder crack, had flung himself beneath the dining room table.

In his haste to escape the perceived threat from around and above, he’d crashed into a few chairs on his way under. One of them had fallen into an easel, which had then knocked over a painting of Estes, midshift and (ahem) midthrust, taking the maiden Kora. Since I’d always hated the expression on Kora’s face, I was secretly overjoyed when I realized the crash had irreparably damaged the painting. Delgato wasn’t conscious to complain so I’d removed the painting’s frame, rolled up the ripped canvas, and stuffed the whole thing into a sideboard drawer.

Good riddance,
I’d thought, clapping the dust from my hands.

I’d left the dining room with renewed purpose, the drumming rain sparking my determination to put an end to this maddening silence between Ari and me. But when I put my foot on the bottom stair and prepared to ascend the last half flight to the upper deck, I’d started shaking uncontrollably. I’d crept into Delgato’s room, the first door I encountered, and here I sat contemplating what seemed to be my endless faults: I’d nearly killed our captain; I’d set our boat on fire, not once, not twice, but three times; I was too yellow-bellied to face my loving boyfriend, whose only fault was looking like the demon who’d attacked me; and I absolutely was not assured, in any way, that I could help anyone in the Shallows, let alone the sixteen people, including one eight-year-old little girl, who were missing or possibly dead.

I gave a sigh of utter abdication and slumped onto the foot of Delgato’s bed. No doubt, were the manticore conscious, my prostrate form would have pleased him greatly. But that thought plunged me into an even fouler mood, and so it was that Burr found me about an hour or so later when he came in to check on Delgato.

He gave a shriek and promptly dropped the tray he’d been holding.
Ugh. Great. Yet another calamity I was responsible for.
But then I realized that my self-pity was dangerously close to melodrama so I got down on my hands and knees and helped poor Burr mop up the spilled soup. When we were finished, he promised to return with more, and after an awkward moment when Burr wasn’t sure whether to stay or go (there was only one chair in the tiny room), I convinced him to stay by giving him my seat. I stood by the door, holding my soup. I wasn’t hungry, but I didn’t want to waste it. The soup somehow seemed like an unofficial offering from Burr to me. Hyrkes didn’t usually go around making offerings to members of the Host, but ordinary Haljans gave gifts to one another all the time. It showed they cared. I took a sip and Burr smiled. What was that old saying? That the way to someone’s heart was through their stomach? I smiled back. The rain had lessened a little so I could finally speak without shouting.

“How long have you been Delgato’s cook?”

Burr frowned, concentrating. He was short, but big around the middle. He dwarfed the desk chair he was sitting in and he never would have been able to fit his legs under Delgato’s small corner writing desk.

“Maybe six years, give or take. Who knows? Who can remember anything out here? The only way we even know time’s passing is because the seasons change. Or because Estes’ mood changes. And the Lethe changes with them. But Delgato, he never changed. He was always the same. Until now.”

I winced, but Burr continued eating his soup, oblivious to my guilt.

“Have you always been a cook?”

Burr nodded. “I learned to cook from my mam. She cooked mostly over a fire, but she knew how to use a box oven, and she had an iron kettle and some pie irons. She could make a meal out of almost anything. Fish broth, corn-meal, beans. We almost never could afford fish, but she made sure we didn’t starve. I had a bunch of brothers and sisters. There were nine of us! My mam cooked for us all, and anyone else who brought her food to cook if they paid her or if they let her keep some.

“When I was thirteen, I realized how hard it was for my mam to feed nine kids. So I told her good-bye. She cried, but she was glad to see me go. She wanted me to see more of Halja than just the street I was born on. So I found work on a dahabiya not unlike
Cnawlece
. My first captain wasn’t a bad man, just fairly gruff, as they all are. That captain got killed, when I was sixteen, I think. And so it went. I’ve worked for more captains than I can remember now. But none so long as
him
.”

Burr gestured toward Delgato. It was hard to believe he was the same captain who’d terrified me my first night on board. He looked like a shrunken old man now. There was absolutely nothing sharp left in him.

“Were all your captains killed?” I asked, appalled.

“No, some were maimed. Some just disappeared in the night. I guess they got killed, but I never saw it. Not sure what’s worse. Seeing it for yourself or wondering what happened to ’em. Some
rogares
like to toy with their prey. They’re like spiders or snakes. Those demons”—Burr shivered—“they eat you
alive
.”

“Why do you keep coming back?”

“What else is there? Starving by the docks? Having no purpose? At least out here, I’m my own man. I take orders from the captain, sure. Or I did. But captains never care what food you make as long as it gets to the table on time. It’s what I got. It’s who I am. You know, I’ve seen more of Halja than most New Babylonians.

“Demons’ll get me one day. When that happens, the only thing I hope is that my mam never finds out. I want her to be thinking I’m always out here. On the river.
Forever.
Always watching over it. And it, and Estes, always watching over me.”

I bowed my head. His hope was as close to praying as any Hyrke in Halja would ever get.

Estes wouldn’t listen, of course. Because he was a demon. And demons only listen to pleas that are accompanied by sacrifices. But I wasn’t going to ruin the moment by reminding Burr of that.

I walked over to Burr and placed my hand on his shoulder. He looked up at me, clearly startled that I’d touched him. But he wasn’t fearful of me. He seemed surprised that I’d paid him this much attention.

“Did I tell you how much I love your cooking, Burr? There’s only one other person who makes charred red snapper as good as you.”

“Who’s that?”

I laughed. “Well, maybe not
quite
as well as you. Do you know Alba? She owns a little café on the corner of River Road and Widow’s Walk. It’s also known as—”

“The Black Onion. Sure I know Alba. She’s my sister! My mam was Alba the Second.”

Well, I’ll be . . .
Huh.
Go figure. Burr really
did
know Alba the Third. I shook my head in disbelief. What were the odds?

I told Burr to take care and get some rest before dinner. Then I was just about to walk out when I thought of something else.

“Did your mam ever sing to you about Grimasca?”

“Oh, sure. Lots of times.”

“What did she say about Grimasca?”

“She said he had three white scars on his cheek that he got from a water wraith and that his lover was the biggest, blackest, most beautiful river serpent anyone had ever seen.” Burr sounded grudgingly admiring. But then his voice got lower. “She said they liked to hunt together. That they liked to eat their victims alive. But then one day, Grimasca accidentally bit her and she fell asleep and drowned.”

“What do you think?”

“I think he ate her.”

*   *   *

P
eople always talk about how, when someone is scared, their legs shake, and their heart beats too fast, and their teeth chatter. But, because people
always
talk about those sorts of reactions, it diminishes them. It makes it seem like they’re as common as sneezing or coughing or yawning. The truth is, it takes an almost overwhelming sense of
fear
to produce those reactions in a person, even if every bit of it is irrational.

I placed my foot on the last step of the flight of stairs leading to
Cnawlece
’s sundeck. I saw and felt Ari at the same time. He stood at the far, front end of the deck, overlooking the water with his back to me. His signature was hot, but tightly controlled, as if it were the steam stream from a whistling teapot. He had to know I was there. I gripped the stair’s rail and stepped forward.

“Ari—”

He turned from
Cnawlece
’s railing and the expression of pain on his face nearly undid me. I rushed to him and he enveloped me in a huge embrace. Suddenly, I was crying and he held me tighter and the teapot just exploded. There was a magical burst and then I felt drenched with magic-laced emotion. The intensity and range of them took my breath away. It was like being bathed in white light, but I was the prism so I felt each and every separate emotion all at once: fear, loneliness, desire, joy, relief . . .

I looked up at Ari’s face, half-afraid he might start shifting, but the moment I looked at him, my fear faded. It wasn’t just that
this
was truly Ari and not a hellcnight; it was that, in that moment, I finally understood what had disturbed me so deeply about Jezebeth’s execution. Yes, the execution itself was horrible. But what made it so personal and unsettling for me was that (and this scared the hell out of me) I identified with
Jezebeth
, not Ynocencia. As my behavior from just three nights ago proved, I too was capable of going berserk. And if going berserk was like a bomb exploding, then love was the match that lit the fuse.

Were any of our actions ever rational when it came to love?

I swiped at my cheeks and glanced up at Ari. I don’t know if he’d done it on purpose or not, but he looked completely different. His eyes were sunken from lack of sleep and he had the beginnings of a beard now. I reached up and cupped his cheek with my hand. His whiskers were soft and bristly.

“I’m happy to see you,” I said, smiling through my tears.

Ari and I spent the afternoon on the sundeck together. The rain returned and we curled up under the canopy beside one of the cannons. Though we were content just to be in each other’s presence, the cannons on deck were an unhappy reminder of what lay beyond the immediate circle of
us
.

“Ari,” I said cautiously, eager to apologize but still traumatized enough by the incident not to want to speak of it, “I’m sorry I attacked you the night the hellcnight came on board.” My statement was woefully inadequate.
Attack
didn’t even come close to describing the magical meltdown I’d had. And saying the hellcnight
came on board
made it sound as if it had stopped by for a drink instead of climbing on board to try and kill me. But Ari seemed to understand that it would take a while for me to fully come to terms with what had happened.

“I’m sorry I stayed away from you for so long after too,” I continued. “It’s just that . . . well”—I forced myself to hold Ari’s gaze and not look away—“when I saw you, or what I thought was you, start to shift . . .” My throat was dry and my voice caught. Ari struggled with his emotions. He likely knew I was still skittish about seeing anger or anything even remotely close to battle rage on his face so he looked away. After a long moment he turned back to me and all I saw in his face was determination.

“And I’m sorry I didn’t flay that hellcnight alive and eviscerate it before you ever had a chance to see it,” he said resolutely. I had a feeling Ari was successfully hiding even deeper, darker emotions over the whole event.

“Me too,” I said automatically.

Ari stilled. “You are?”

I paused and thought about Delgato lying in his bed downstairs. And how much Burr cared for him and how he might never wake again.

“No,” I said, sighing. Ari nodded, seemingly content that all was as it had been before, and pulled me to him.