Sleepless (Curse of the Blood Fox Trilogy, Book #1) (33 page)

“You’re awake,” he said, and the small
crack in his voice tangled my thoughts before I could even form any.

“So are you,” I said, still refusing
to look back at him. I looked at his legs instead, the soft fabric of his
spidersilk pants cushioning my cheek. “How long have you been awake?”

“I never slept.” His soft, enigmatic
voice filled the hushed silence of the empty, dark spaces around us. “You
didn’t dream.”

“Not at all,” I said, wondering if he
had tried to find me in the Dream again. “I don’t know what it was, but it
wasn’t the Dream. How long have I been asleep?”

“Almost a day and a half now.”

My muscles tensed, however much they
could. There was still a dull pain in my stomach. “That long? What did you do?”

“I’ve been sitting right here,” he
said simply. I turned back, just a little, to peek at him. He was leaning against
the wall, tired eyes staring up at the ceiling as if to avoid looking at me as
well. “No one has come for us, no one attacked us. Nothing has happened.”

“There’s no one here?” I asked, taken
aback.

“As far as I can tell. A magic-user
could be hiding their presence, but they would have found us by now if they
were looking. I can’t even feel my… father. There is nothing here.”

It was certainly odd, but what was
odder was that Traken had sat on a stone gore-covered floor for a day and a
half, and hadn’t moved.  

“It doesn’t matter what he wanted now,
though,” Traken was saying. “The scent has left you, and the Week of Colors is
over. He didn’t get what he was waiting for.”

“Oh good, you mean I don’t smell like
sorcerer-attracting magic-scented perfume anymore?” I asked with a dry laugh.
“I suppose that’s a relief.” I didn’t get a response. Traken merely breathed in
and out, staring straight up, his head resting on the wall. I took the time to
peek back at the rest of the cell, squinting through the shadows.

Besides my blood, there were new
decorations to the eerie room. What was left of Derk was pasted to the floor in
front of us, puddled into a half-solid shape that only slightly resembled a
human. He was now just a thick skeleton, skin and clothing melted away in some
fantastic blast of energy. I stared intently, wondering how much time Traken
had spent watching the grisly bones as well.

“What happened here?” I asked. “I
can’t even remember.”

“I’ve been studying it a long time,”
Traken said, referring to the symbols Derk had drawn. “He was creating a blood
ritual for power-absorbing. Perhaps he was going to try and steal what magic he
thought was in your blood. He must have been distracted, though. He didn’t put
a dash through the
Ruleth
symbol, the one representing sacrifice.” His
voice grew softer. “It wasn’t just luck, it was almost impossible. Even in
intense situations, I have never known Derk or any other studied sorcerer his
age to make such a simple mistake with such dangerous consequence. He activated
the ritual, and accidentally sacrificed himself. You were hit with the backlash
of the spell, since there was no longer a caster to grant the request of.”

My mouth was dry. I had been saved by
something so trivial as a forgotten dash? It was humbling to think that a life
like mine could have been ended so quickly, with barely a chance to even
consider that I was dying. Perhaps Traken thought so too, or maybe there was
another reason he wouldn’t look at me.

“You’re tired,” I rasped, determined not
to push. I could only imagine what shape he was in right now.

“I’m not tired, I’m very happy,” he
said easily, gaze finally sliding down to meet mine. He held me in that look
that was sharp as steel. “After the first day, I was sure you weren’t going to
wake up again. Your heartbeat has been faint, and not everyone can come back
from such blood-loss.”

“Then why were you still sitting here
if you thought I wasn’t going to wake up?” I asked with a wary laugh. His eyes
didn’t let up, chin still high, head resting on the back wall as he peered down
through his lashes.

“There was no point in moving.”

A chill spread through me like the
slow onset of winter. What kind of creature was he, truly? A dependency such as
his wasn’t conceivable; it really was almost as if he had been created that
way, stunted on purpose. Suddenly restless, I tried to move, to drag myself up
into a sitting position. I only got as far as lifting my head when his hand
shot up and covered my forehead, pushing me back down gently. My left eye was half-covered
by his ringed fingers.   

“Stay here for a moment. You’re still
weak, and I have to tell you something.”

“This…what?” I grabbed for his wrist
and tried to push it away, but he was right—I was still weak. I could barely
even grip his arm, much less throw it. I kept my hand there though, as if the
strength might return at any second. “What are you doing? Planning to tell me
something I don’t like?”

“Yes,” he said simply. “The unicorn’s
secret, I believe.”

That stilled me.

“Really? Why now?”

“You heard Derk and my master. I’ve
told you myself, even. I’m not ordinary.” His voice grew heavier. “You can’t
understand what the compulsion is like, I know, but I can’t survive without…a
purpose, and my purpose now is whatever yours is. I won’t apologize for it.”

“You never would,” I said, coughing
out an unsure laugh. “That’s what you wanted to say?”

“No, that’s
why
I’m telling you
what I’m about to,” he said, eyes shifting away again quickly. “I may not have
known of my master’s plans for you, or about what he had done… but I did start
to realize when I first picked you up in Rusuro that he might have something to
do with your past. Do you remember when I was telling you about taking animal
shape?”

I nodded, his hand bobbing with my
head. “You said it was dangerous.”

“You need to know exactly what you’re
changing into, piece by piece. You need to cut open the animal and know the
placement of things, the sizes, the way it moves.” He let out a little breath
of air, and I could have sworn there was a bit of shakiness in that action. “A
witch usually can only master one or two forms in their lifetime. I hadn’t
thought to try even one, a cross-blood like me, but my master brought me a dead
dog one day. He told me that this form would be useful later on, that it would
be
essential
. He told me to learn it. It was a black dog that had died
from a fatal sword wound.”

I nodded again. “Okay.”

“No, kitten. You’re not understanding.
The only thing that form has ever been useful for was gaining your trust. I
believe that was the purpose of it… that it was your dog.”

I paused longer this time, peering up
through his fingers at the neutral ceiling. His hand tightened on my head, as
if he expected me to react physically somehow. I hadn’t even thought to do that
yet. The back of my head was burning.

“How did he know?”

“What?” Traken asked.

“He said that he gave that curse to
many of my people, but that all of them died off. Even when the unicorn showed
me my memories, it looked like he came for me first. How did he know I was going
to be the only one to survive? Why leave you out of the attack on Popollo,
bring you a dead dog, then have you follow me so many years after the fact? Why
was I the only one who got special treatment?”

His body twitched underneath me.
“Perhaps it had something to do with those benefactors he spoke of,” he finally
said. His lips quirked. “Seers or Angelbloods could have been involved as well,
though I can’t imagine their advice being that exact.”

“Something isn’t right with this whole
situation,” I said, and felt as if I were downplaying. There really wasn’t
anything
right with the situation, after all. I tried again to move his hand, but it
still wouldn’t budge. “What are you still holding me down for?”

“You really are purposely missing the
point of everything I’m saying, aren’t you?” he asked with a small sigh. “I
don’t like spelling things out. I am chained to you now, Santo. I can’t leave,
but I am integrally connected to something that tore apart your life and is the
source of your hatred. I am the type of person that does things that disgust
you. I wear the skin of a creature that was important to you. I can’t leave
you, but you can choose not to have me.”

His palm was cold and clammy,
regardless of how steady his voice may have been. I sighed as well, letting go
of his wrist and gently laying my hand down on top of his.

“You’re too honest, Dogboy. You act
like you hate choices, but you sure like to give them to everyone else. You
could have just guilted me into accepting this whole bizarre situation. Your
whole life hangs in the balance, and yet you still leave the decision up to
me.” I laughed dryly. “What you told me doesn’t honestly make me happy, but I
couldn’t kill you when it actually mattered so what makes you think I would let
you die now?”

His hand twitched under my own, and
the pressure softened.

“You aren’t cold enough to have
survived this long and killed so many,” he said, and it seemed a little
accusatory. His voice, though, had gained back some of its humor and
sanguinity. “You really are like a child.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking
about,” I said, finally managing to push his hand away. I pulled myself up with
a burst of energy, but immediately leaned against the wall beside Traken when I
had righted. Our shoulders touched, and stayed pressed together.

“I know a lot more than you think,” he
said. “You opened your mind to me, remember?”

I scowled to myself. I had done that,
hadn’t I?

“I shouldn’t have,” I mumbled, looking
down. “Don’t you dare use that against me in the future.”

“Use it against you?” he asked, and
his gravelly voice scoffed. “You saved me.”

I looked at him, turning my head with
great effort. One sly, crocodile eye had shifted to the side to meet my gaze,
warm and irrationally cocky. He was so close that I could see the gold in his
brown eyes.

“You don’t just hear thoughts when you
listen to a person’s mind,” he said. “You hear what they want to say and what
they don’t, you feel what they do and you understand what they can’t put into
words. You told me….”

He trailed off, perhaps not wanting to
share. Maybe I wouldn’t even want to know, but now that he had put the thought
in my head I couldn’t let it go. I shoved his shoulder with my own.

“Yes? Don’t make me guess. We’ll be
here for days.”

The corner of his lips flickered up
for a moment.

“It is hard to put into words that you
will like. You were telling me things, a chaotic mess of things, and yet all
around it was this… warmth, and acceptance, and worry.” He leaned closer, our
shoulders pressed tightly. “The general impression was that you cared about me.”

I stared at him a moment, eyebrows
drawn. His expression was indecipherable, besides those amused eyes, but I had
the feeling he wasn’t kidding. I fought back a rush of red that was trying to
creep across my face.

“That isn’t… you don’t have to make it
sound so serious.”

“It was the most awe-inspiring
sensation,” he continued, barely above a whisper, his teasing voice sending
shivers through my skin. “Your thoughts are crazy and wild, kitten, wrapped up
in this little package that looks so serene. The madness and fervor were
stunning. That song, too… it must have been because of the Week of Colors. It
felt like being torn apart inside. Everything broke, and then came back
together.”

“You have an unhealthy attraction to
destruction,” I muttered.

“It was the purest, most painful kind
of beauty,” he said, grinning wide. “I thought there would be a lot of anger
and hate coming from you, considering. There wasn’t any, not against me. Don’t
you think it’s rather ridiculous to put faith in a killer that doesn’t have
free-will?”

That’s when I shoved my shoulder into
his again, making him fall over a little. He chuckled as he righted himself.

“You always have to look down on
everything I do,” I said, sure I likewise couldn’t reasonably explain my own
compulsions and make him understand. I felt my eyes flair to a determined
brown. “Faith comes from experience. I always travel alone, Traken. I don’t…
experience much with other people. Because of how long I live, they grow old
and fade away, and things eventually fall apart.” My brow furrowed. “Besides my
swords, I am alone. There are strings of friendly acquaintances, aging faces
that I may only see once or twice more in their lifetime, and plenty of
contacts and enemies. Even if the basis for it is something as horrible as your
lord’s twisted motives, you are the one person alive I share any lasting
connection with at all. I could have chosen differently and dealt with the
remorse, but I don’t like tragedies.”

“What a choice you’ve made, then,” he
said, eyes still gleaming like a feral cat. He leaned forward again, tired body
still lithe, and his forehead bounced lightly against my own. “You really do
know how to seep into the skin like poison.”