Thief With No Shadow (19 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

E
NDAL LEANED AGAINST
his leg, warm. His tail beat softly in the dust. Bastian frowned, and rubbed the dog’s ears. There was a song. It had been nudging inside his head, half-remembered, while he watched the wraith unpeg washing from the line. Something about ebony and ivory. The minstrels sang it at the summer fairs. How did it go?

Ivory-white is her skin, and ebony-black her hair,

And her lips, oh, her lips,

As red as rubies, as sweet as honey.

And when she kisses me, oh, when she kisses me...

Bastian stopped rubbing Endal’s ears. He spat into the dirt and glowered at the wraith. She was a woman. He saw that clearly now: the soft roundness of breasts beneath her blouse, the smooth skin, the long, shining hair.

A woman. A wraith.

He snarled at her silently, and she turned and caught him with his lips peeled back from his teeth.

She didn’t recoil, as she’d done when he startled her yesterday. Her chin lifted slightly. There was no trace of fear in her face, in the way that she stood.

That was the line he’d forgotten.
My love has eyes as brilliant as the sky, as deep as the ocean.

The wraith didn’t have blue eyes. Hers were gray. The color of smoke and stone and ashes.

He almost spat into the dirt again.

“Yes?” Her voice was haughty.

He wasn’t going to tell her that he’d needed to feel Endal’s warmth, had needed to pat the dog and rub his ears. “Nothing,” he said, and his voice matched hers in coldness.

He saw disdain on her face as she walked past him, the basket of dry laundry in her arms, and his fingers tightened in Endal’s coat.

Endal whined slightly.

Bastian released his grip.
Forgive me. I didn’t mean to hurt you.
And then he said it aloud, for she was out of earshot. “Forgive me, Endal.”

Endal licked his hand.

The wraith entered the kitchen. Endal stood and shook himself.
Must I still guard her?
His tone was hopeful.

“Yes,” Bastian said firmly.

Endal sighed, and trotted across the yard. He paused at the door and glanced back.

I know
, Bastian told him silently.
I wish you could be with me too
.

Endal sighed again, inside Bastian’s head, and followed the wraith into the kitchen.

D
USK WAS CREEPING
over the hills by the time the last of the firewood was stacked beside the henhouse. Bastian tipped his head back and stood for a long moment with his eyes closed. His arms ached from chopping, from carrying. His skin was sticky with sweat and gritty with dust. Thirst hurt in his throat.

He opened his eyes and stared up at the darkening sky. Blue shaded into lavender. The palms of his hands stung. He looked down at them. The blisters were bloody. Too many graves dug, and the chopping on top. He always gripped the axe handle hard now, too hard, but memory of last year’s accident was still vivid: the handle slipping in his grasp, the blade biting into his leg. There’d been no pain at first. The shock had been too great.

Bastian shuddered. But for Liana...

He closed his hands and felt the sharp, raw pain of the blisters. There was more wood to be chopped, but perhaps no more graves. While he had grain the sheep would be penned here, close to the farmhouse. And maybe the next lamb wouldn’t die.

He turned to the well and hauled water for Gaudon and the ewes and for himself. It was a primitive way to wash, rinsing the sweat and dust from his skin with handfuls of water, upending the bucket over his head.

Bastian used his shirt to dry his face and chest and arms. The first time he’d held the necklace in his hands, years ago, hope had soared inside him. He’d dreamed of large flocks of sheep, of stallions and new-born foals, of unbroken windows and a roof with no holes. He had dreamed that the bathhouse would be used again. Hot and cold water, steam. He knew now that Vere would never prosper. The curse had made them too poor. Extravagances like restoring the bathhouse, with its cracked tiles and broken pipes, would always be beyond them.

Water dripped from his hair and trickled down his neck. Bastian clenched the damp shirt in his hand and looked at the farmhouse. Candlelight glowed from the kitchen window and through the open door. He smelled wood smoke.

Endal met him at the step. He nudged his head into Bastian’s hand and wagged his tail.

Bastian stood in the doorway, reluctant to step into the kitchen. The wraith was at the stove, her back to him. Her presence made him want to turn on his heel and walk away, to not enter his own home.

I hate that woman
, he told Endal. And there it was again, that word,
woman.
When had he started to see her as not merely a wraith?

It was the clothes. The blouse with flowers embroidered at the cuff, the skirt, the way the fabric outlined the curves of hip and waist and breast, making her look soft and feminine. It was the way she hung the washing and cooked the food, as his mother had done, as Liana did.

A wraith in the kitchen soured milk and spoiled eggs, or so the tales said. And yet this one could cook.

Her hair gleamed in the candlelight. The song whispered in his head again.
Ivory-white is her skin, and ebony-black her hair, and her lips, oh, her lips...

Bastian shook his head angrily. Her hair was as black as pitch and tar and soot. There was nothing beautiful about it. He stepped into the kitchen.

The wraith saw the movement. She turned her head and looked at him.

Vermin
, he said silently, so that only Endal could hear. She mocked him when she stood like that, proclaiming herself better than him, standing tall and haughty and unafraid.

He wasn’t going to scurry from his own kitchen because of a supercilious wraith. Bastian leaned against the doorframe and ignored her. He scratched behind Endal’s ears. The dog closed his eyes and sighed with pleasure.

“Do you have any books?” The wraith’s voice was cool and polite.

Bastian glanced at her. “No.”
None that you may borrow.

Her eyebrows arched slightly. She looked down her nose at him. “No books?”

Her disdain brought heat to Bastian’s face. He felt belittled, a grubby schoolboy, ignorant and unable to read.

His fingers tightened around the shirt. He stopped scratching Endal’s ears and straightened. He wished he’d put the shirt on, wet or not, wished he’d taken the time to dry his hair properly, so that water didn’t trickle down his face and the back of his neck.

Vermin.
He almost said it out loud, almost spat the word in her face.
Don’t sneer at me.

Endal yawned and leaned against his leg.
She fears you.

The comment was so startling, so absurd, that Bastian blinked and stopped looking at the wraith.
What?
He stared down at Endal.
Nonsense. She doesn’t fear anything.

Endal yawned again.
She’s afraid of you.

You’re mistaken.

I can see it
, said Endal.
I can smell it.

Bastian glanced back at the wraith. He saw no fear. The set of her shoulders and chin, the expression on her face, were proud.
You smell it?

Yes.

He almost shook his head. All he could smell was food.

The wraith turned away from him. She stirred a pot on the stove. Bastian stared at her back.
Are you certain?
he asked Endal.

Yes.

He smiled as he walked across the kitchen, as he climbed the stairs to his bedchamber. The wraith feared him. Satisfaction was smug and warm in his chest. He wanted to laugh out loud. In the privacy of his room, he did.

S
HOW ME
,
HE
said to Endal the next morning, as he stood in the shadows of the sickroom doorway.
I want to see her fear.

Endal stretched and rolled over on the floor.
Watch
, he said.

The wraith used a wet cloth to wipe her brother’s face. The room smelled strongly of ginger root.

Watch for what?
Bastian asked.

The wraith looked up. He saw her stiffen, saw her sit taller in the chair, saw her chin rise.

Do you see?

That’s fear?
It looked like pride to him, haughtiness, disdain.

Yes.

“What is it?” The wraith’s voice was cool.

Are you certain?

Endal stopped rolling on the floor and sat up. His tone was exasperated:
Yes.

“What is it?” asked the wraith again.

Bastian grinned. “Nothing.”

He left her staring at him, a frown pinched between her eyebrows. There was laughter in his chest. He whistled as he walked down the corridor, as he crossed the kitchen and stepped outside. The sky was high and arching, pale blue. Sunlight warmed his skin.

The ewes clustered in the pen, wanting grain. The whistle died on his lips. “No,” he said, laughter shriveling inside him.

Another one was dead.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

T
HERE WAS A
book. Liana had fetched it for her. Melke put it aside while she bathed Hantje’s burns in ginger juice and spread salve thinly on the fading bruises, while he drank as much of the herbal teas as she could make him. His sleep was restless. He tossed and turned and clawed at the sheets. His eyelids flickered. He spoke, muttering, the words ill-shaped in his mouth, too distorted to be understood.

“Hush,” Melke said softly, and laid her hand on his cheek.

Hantje grew still at the sound of her voice. His head turned towards her.

“I have a book, Hantje. You’ll recognize the stories.”

The tome lay on the floor. It took two hands to lift. The pages were thick parchment and the binding was leather, darkened and worn thin by the touch of many hands. Melke smoothed her fingers over the cover tracing the curling letters.
Tales of Magic and Magical Beasts.
The deserts and mountains and lakes of a continent separated her from where she was born, but this book was familiar. It was
home.

She opened it carefully, smoothing the pages. The print was different, finer and more elaborate, and the pictures were tinted with color, but the stories were the same. She turned the pages with care, looking for her brother’s favorite.

“Here it is, Hantje. Listen.” She read the title aloud: “The Stonecutter and the Gryphon.”

She glanced at her brother and it seemed that he waited, wanting to hear the story as much as she did.

Melke sat back more comfortably in the chair. “It is a well-known fact that gryphons are partial to the sweet flesh of virgins and that their high, rocky eyries are littered with the bones of unfortunate young women. Girls who live in the towns and villages that border the Wasteland often stop and scan the sky with anxious eyes, and no virgin dares step outside when the sun is at its highest and the gryphons hunt.

“Now, it so happened that the stonecutter’s sweetheart was outdoors at noon, the most dangerous hour of the day. Her brother had tumbled from the barn roof and lay groaning with one of his legs twisted beneath him. ‘Don’t go!’ he cried, but the stonecutter’s sweetheart (whose name was Irina) picked up her skirts and ran to fetch the bonesetter. She looked over her shoulder as she hurried down the stony track, but even so she didn’t see the gryphon until its great wings blotted out the sun.

“Irina was a simple girl, the daughter of a poor farmer, but although she could neither read nor write she was wise enough not to faint when the gryphon seized her with its lion-claws and carried her up into the hot, blue sky, and she was wise enough not to weep and cower when it released her on the wide ledge outside its eyrie. She wanted to marry the stonecutter, not die in a high, windy cave, so instead of huddling on the sun-hot rock and begging for her life, Irina ran into the dark eyrie and hid.