The Dream Thief (23 page)

She controlled her voice. “Are
you attempting to get us skewered with the carving knife or merely tossed out?”

“Yes, sorry, you’re absolutely
right. I’d prefer not to be skewered, at least until I’m done with this fine
plate of desiccated sheep. Try it, love. A bit chewy, but delightfully
piquant.” He glanced significantly at the mutton set before her, then back to
the round-faced wife. His smile gleamed handsome and bright. “Don’t make me say
it again.”

He watched her as she sawed at
the meat, slowly consuming one bite at a time. He finished minutes before she
did, sitting back on his bench, sipping the cider they shared from a mug.

The heavy smack of fists striking
dough filled the air, muffled, oddly comforting. The odor of yeast was a warm
tang on the back of her tongue. Two of the daughters began a lively, hushed
conversation;

Zane spoke beneath them.

“Bad dreams, snapdragon?” he
asked quietly.

She turned a piece of meat over
with her fork. “Yes.”

His gaze lowered. For an instant
Lia dropped her guard; she stared at him helplessly, angry with herself and
him, desperate to stop drinking in the sight of his face and throat and the
slope of his shoulders, desperate to stop the memories of her blind nights with
him from threatening to sweep over her like a black hungry tide—and then he
looked up, and she turned her eyes away.

“I could help you with that,” he
said. “I could help you sleep.”

She took a steadying breath.
“How?”

His mouth crooked.

Lia
felt the animal in her wake at once, its pulse in her blood.

“Herbs,” Zane said, going back to
his drink. “Our baker friend over there, for instance, has added thyme and
rosemary to her bread. Do you smell it? And the mutton was exceptionally
overspiced. I’d wager she has quite a store of herbs in her cupboard. It won’t
hurt to ask.”

Her
hand ached; Lia was gripping her pewter fork so hard her fingers had gone
white. Deliberately, she set it aside. “What do you know of herbology?”

“Only
what’s of use to me.” He shrugged. “A successful businessman learns all the
nooks and crannies of his profession. On certain—delicate—jobs, I find it’s
more profitable to work around a dozing constable rather than a vigilant one.
Most of them tend to drink themselves into a stupor by ten, but for those who
don’t…” He gave a truly wicked smile. “An apothecary shop would be better, but
I doubt we have that option anywhere nearby. Still…a little of this, a little
of that. It could help your dreams.”

“Don’t trouble yourself. I’ll be
fine.”

“Yes,” the thief said, leaning
forward to cover her hand with his own, very briefly. “You will be, because you
have me.”

It seemed that the woman was also
a midwife, most likely the only one for miles around. She proudly possessed an
entire shack of dried plants and flowers, located past the chicken coop filled
with hens— which scattered at Lia’s approach—and a pen of mournful ewes—which
tossed their heads and kept bleating long after she’d vanished from their sight.

Lia didn’t even have the words
for all the wreaths and roots hanging from hooks or mashed into clay jugs
littering the shelves. The thief didn’t need the words anyway. With a mixture
of flattery and brazen charm, he sidled his way into the drafty shack, opening
jars, crumbling leaves between his fingers and thumb, sniffing and occasionally
tasting the dust left behind on his fingertips, thoughtful.

The little girls tracked his
every move with giggles and more whispers, crowding the doorway and blocking the
light, their hands over their mouths. Every now and then Zane would angle a
warm look in their direction, and the giggles grew louder.

They left the farmhouse that day
with a jug of herbs he had blended himself, which he handed up to her after she
was seated in the carriage.

“What am I to do with this?” she
asked, still perturbed.

“Unless we can find some hot
water this evening for tea, I’m afraid you’re going to have to eat it.”

“The devil I will.” She sat the
jug on the seat.

“Language, Lady Amalia.” He gave
her a sweeping bow. “I fear I’ve been a shocking poor influence on you.”

“You have no notion,” she
grumbled under her breath as he closed the door between them.

That had been the last day they’d
had a hot meal. That evening they’d found a new farmhouse—well before
sunset—and then the next morning they were off again…but there was only a
single small hamlet nearby, only a few hours beyond the previous one. They’d
taken a chance on finding another, but there was none. Instead, at last, they’d
sought shelter in what appeared to be an abandoned shepherd’s hut.

The Roma lit a fire that sent
black smoke pillowing out from the fireplace into the chamber. Cursing, Zane
had found a branch to open the chimney; it took the two of them forcing it
together to unstick the old flue.

Snow managed to scour most of the
soot off their skin, but Lia had spent the rest of the night trying not to
cough.

They’d supped on the packet of
cold sausages and bread purchased from the last house; she would not touch the
jar of herbs. Zane slept as he always did when it was the two of them on the
floor: his body molded to hers, his arms pinning her close, her head resting at
his shoulder. It was a sexless embrace, at least for him, she assumed. Beneath
the sheepskin that covered them, she was hot and uncomfortable and unable to
move. When the dreams finally came, she twitched in her sleep like a puppy,
distantly feeling his hand sliding up and down her arm to soothe her. All it
did was make the dreams worse.

The next day the villages
vanished. As they ambled deeper into the wilderness, they found naught that
spoke of people, not even a hint of civilization. No more plowed fields. No
mills, or massive rolls of hay dusted with sugar-snow. No grapevines, no wheat
sheaths, no cattle or geese or sheep. Only the road, narrow and twisting,
climbing nowhere but higher into the purple mountains. Only the woods, hushed
and still, as if the birds and deer and squirrels had all fled because they
knew she was on her way. Steam rose now and again from the horizon, a sign of
hot springs or melt, enormous slow curls dissolving under the sun.

Even the other
drákon
haunted them less and less; the skies echoed with emptiness.

But below, far below,
Draumr
raised her voice in anticipation. They were closer now than ever, and the spell
of the song seemed to thrum from the very core of the earth.

So that next night, that twelfth
night, they lacked even a shepherd’s hut to shelter them, and all the leftover
food was gone. They found a clearing beside the road and pulled over, resigned
to spending the remaining hours of dark in the wilderness. She had argued with
Zane about who would sleep where: he wanted her in the carriage, and she’d
refused. She knew from experience the seats were not long enough for
comfortable rest, and the thought of spending yet another moment cloistered
inside its small space was enough to set her teeth on edge.

The night was arctic-clear. Stars
spangled the sky like the glitter of scales and ice. The moon was a rising
scythe to the east, paling the heavens in a wide circle from jet to lapis blue
through the peaks of the trees.

“You’d prefer it out here?” the
thief had demanded, sweeping his hand to the woods. The other hand held one of
the oil lanterns, casting mad shadows back and forth. “In the freezing cold?
Are you daft?”

“Yes,” she’d bit out. “Quite.”

“Lia—”

“Take the carriage, if you like
it. The cushions stink and the windows rattle. I’m staying out here. In the
cold.”

So, of course, he did as well. It
turned out the gypsy had decided to take the carriage—and everything in it.

There had been no hot water, no
water at all save what was in the flask Zane carried that they filled every
morning. He had fetched the jug of herbs from the carriage and shaken out a
measure into the cup of his palm. He looked at her, his hand held out,
starlight glinting along his hair and skin. Lia gazed back at him, unspeaking.

“I can’t sleep if you don’t,” he
said frankly, and took her hand and poured the mixture into her palm. “Try not
to taste it. It’ll be easier.”

Beneath
the winking stars she had accepted his dry medicine, washing it all down with a
drag from the flask. The flavor of wood and dirt lingered unpleasantly in her
mouth. He’d leaned down and touched his lips to her cheek before turning away,
trudging through the snow to help the gypsy with the horses. Lia had sat upon
the sheepskin and watched them, shadow men frosted silver, the animals snorting
and shivering in their harnesses even though she’d made certain to stay
downwind.

Zane had built a campfire. It
threw a timid warmth against the chill.

His potion worked well. She was
already blinking at the light when he came back to her, pulling her down with
him to the sheepskin, tucking over them a blanket that smelled strongly of
horse, enfolding her in his arms.

The fire crackled and burned.

“Lia-heart,” he murmured, a smoky
voice in her ear. “Tell me about your dreams.”

But before she could drag her
thoughts together for an answer, the shadows billowed around her like the sails
of a dark, beautiful ship.

That night, for the first time in
years, she slept in perfect silence.

She awoke alone.

She was aware that she was cold,
and the soft something beneath her did little to protect her from the constant
chill that seeped up from below. Lia felt heavy and slow, drowsing in the place
between sleep and awake, her mind turning over the sensations that began, one
by one, to intrude upon her perceptions.

A small wind, stirring against
her cheek.

The smell of pine on the wind,
and snow, and cold ashes.

The music of the earth, swelling
to life.

Draumr.
Metals, quartz, hidden diamonds.
But something was missing. Something had been taken away….

The yellow sapphire.

Lia opened her eyes. She was by
herself in the clearing beside the road of yesterday, and where the carriage
used to be there were only tracks laced through the mud and snow. The fire was
dead. And Zane, like the coach and the horses and the gypsy, was gone.

She sat up, gathering the blanket
around her. The breeze returned and ruffled her hair; she ran a hand over her
face, bewildered, and looked back at the prints by the road. They circled off
into the dirt and gravel, cutting back over the marks from yesterday.

The wind whiskered through the
blue spruce and firs, rushing and fading. Lia found her feet. With the blanket
slung over her shoulders, she walked to the embankment where the carriage had been
last night. There were the hoof-prints of the horses, all four of them. Various
human marks, Zane’s boots and the gypsy’s softer-soled ones, meandering around.
But here, just here, it was plain to see how the carriage had turned back to
the road, the horses at first walking, then—as she followed it farther
down—breaking into a trot.

And
pressed through them were the fresher imprints of a man’s running steps. Zane,
sprinting from behind. The entire mess swept over the curve of the hill,
marking the mud as far as her eyes could follow.

She returned to the dead fire,
settling down upon the sheepskin to wait. The forest around her descended into
absolute silence. She wished for birdsong, for the breeze to return, for
anything to break this idle spell.
Draumr
obliged by lifting in harmony,
but Lia was weary of it. She held her hands over her ears and squinted down at
the fallen leaves and pinecones, thinking of worms and dirt and the hard winter
ache in the air, a sullen pang that pinched along her skin.

Clouds began to brew against the
treetops, majestic, heavy clouds that leisurely roiled and ripped themselves
apart, only to blend back together in blotchy confusion. It was going to snow
again. She felt the promise of it in her every joint.

“Zane,” she said aloud, but of
course received no answer.