Thief With No Shadow (32 page)

Bastian shoved back the bedclothes and stood. The bare floorboards were cold beneath his feet. There were several hours yet until dawn, but sleep wouldn’t come again. He’d never been awake in quite this way before, with such anxiety and dread, such urgency.

He surveyed the bedchamber. His clothes were packed, what few he had. All that remained was to strip the bed. Mattress and bedstead, the wooden chair, the tall mirror...all were too bulky to take with them. But they could take the bed linen and perhaps sell it for a few copper coins.

He dragged fingers roughly through his hair and rubbed a hand over his face. Sweat was clammy on his skin. Today was the end, the last day that sal Veres would be at Vere.

He dressed swiftly. On his way downstairs he opened Liana’s door. She slept, her breathing soft. The male wraith slept too, his face pale and troubled in the dim light of the burned-down candles beside his bed. Bastian watched him for a moment. A boy, really. Only a few years older than Liana. Needing candles beside him while he slept, because he was afraid of the dark.

It was impossible to hate him.

Bastian sighed and turned away from the sickroom.

The kitchen table was piled high with bundles. Linen and clothing, pots and pans, food. He sighed again and closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose with his fingers. He’d not believed this day would come.

Embers glowed in the stove. They flared eagerly to life as he pushed in fresh kindling. Tea first, then breakfast, and then everything else that must be done today.

A pot sat on the stove, half-filled with water, still faintly warm. A thick layer of silt hid the bottom. Tea leaves couldn’t disguise the taste of mud; it would be there, as it had been for days.

Mud. Water. They were becoming the same thing.

Bastian walked slowly around the table while the pot heated. He touched folded sheets with his fingers, the rim of a drinking glass, fork tines, the blunt edge of an earthenware bowl. So few things they could take with them. Most of it would have to be sold. Some things, though... He laid his hand on a large, rectangular bundle. Some things would never be sold.

Liana had wrapped the book in a bed sheet. He unwrapped it carefully.
Tales of Magic and Magical Beasts.
He traced the letters lightly with a fingertip. This was for his children. He would teach them to read from it, as he’d taught Liana.

But as he turned the pages, brushing his fingers over the tinted illustrations, he knew he’d never have children. Not with the curse unbroken.

Bastian closed the book.

Where would they live? Not by the sea. Inland. Away from rivers. Away from lakes, too. In the north, where it was cold, where the psaaron would be less likely to follow them.

A town without rivers. Did such a place exist?

“G
OOD MORNING.
” L
IANA’S
voice was quiet.

Bastian turned away from the sheep pen and looked at her. The smile on her mouth went ill with the sorrow in her eyes.

It was stupid, smiling at each other on such a morning.

He put his arms around Liana and hugged her close.
All will be well
, he wanted to say, but the words stuck in his throat. He knew they weren’t true.

It was still cool outside, this early in the day. The warmth of the sun was mild on his skin and the light soft. The burning heat would come later, the harsh glare. It would hurry them on their way and make it easier to leave.

Liana sighed against his shirt. “What is left to do?”

“Can you wake her? The wraith. I need Endal to help me with the sheep.”

Liana pulled away from his embrace. “She has a name, Bastian.”

He closed his eyes, too tired to argue. “Please, Liana, just wake her.”

She didn’t speak for several seconds. He heard her scuff the dirt with her shoe. Finally she said, “Very well.”

“Thank you.” Bastian opened his eyes and turned back to the pen. The ewes watched him, edgy. They sensed the tension beneath his weariness.

He picked up a length of rope. “A new home,” he said soothingly, stepping over the fence. “Where it rains and the grass is green. You’ll like it.”

The two sheep sidled away from him.

“Bastian!”

He turned his head.

Liana ran across the bare yard, a piece of paper clutched in her hand. “She’s gone!”

“Give me that.” He snatched the paper from her. The wraith couldn’t be such a fool,
couldn’t—

A smudged map on one side, the outline of feet on the other—and words.

Yes. She was such a fool.

Bastian crumpled the paper in his hand. “Where’s Endal? What’s she done with him?” Why hadn’t the dog barked?

“He’s gone too.”

He stood with his mouth open. The wraith had taken Endal. She hadn’t shut him in her room, she’d
taken
him.

“Bastian...I think we should do as she asks. I think we should wait.”

He clenched his hand more tightly. “No.”

“One day, Bastian! She might—”

“She won’t. This—” he opened his fingers and let the crumpled note fall to the dirt, “—this tells us she’s dead.”

“No.”

“Yes!”

He’d thought the wraith smarter than this, had thought that she’d understood last night.

Liana folded her arms across her chest. “I want to stay. One day, Bastian. One day.”

“No!” Fear made his voice savage. “Go inside and finish packing! Once I’ve caught the sheep, we’re leaving.”

Liana’s chin jutted. “No.”

There was silence, while the sunlight warmed his skin. The yell inside him drained away. “Liana...” He reached out and touched her cheek lightly with his fingers. “I beg you. Please. You haven’t seen this creature. You haven’t seen what it can do.”

Her gaze fell.

“Please,” he whispered.

Liana bit her lip. She gave a tiny nod.

“Thank you.” Bastian cupped his hand behind her head and bent to kiss her soft, shining hair. “Thank you.”

He watched until she had stepped inside the farmhouse. She didn’t understand. The psaaron would break her as easily as it snapped a twig.

The remembered scent was thick in his nostrils, wet and seaweedy. He turned, a swift jerk of movement, fearful even though he knew the tides weren’t yet rising.

No psaaron stood behind him. Not yet.

Bastian looked at the sheep. He rubbed a hand over his face. He needed Endal for this.

The dog had more sense than to enter the salamanders’ den. He’d come back. They’d meet him on the road.

Bastian rubbed his face again, more roughly, and turned his attention to the sheep. The animals didn’t like him trying to catch them. If he had grain in his hand...but he’d used the final handfuls last night, before he’d heard the wraith’s foolish plan.

The salamanders would kill her.

He was less swift than he normally was, distracted, clumsy. The ewe that he finally caught was unaccustomed to the halter around her neck. She kicked and struggled despite her hugely swollen belly.

Bastian tied the rope to a fence post. He wiped sweat from his face. Now all he had to do was strap the bundles on Gaudon’s saddle. They’d go the long way, via Arnaul’s farm. It was a safer bridge, and Arnaul would take the sheep and feed them. Perhaps one of the lambs might even live.

Bastian squinted at the sun as he walked across the yard. They’d be gone by noon.

At the kitchen doorstep he paused and looked back at the sheep pen. The ewe was on her knees, the rope pulling her head up. She was in labor. “No!” He began to run.

Seconds turned into minutes as Bastian knelt beside the sheep, and then hours. He looked up. The sun was high and fierce in the sky. The lamb was coming out wrongly.

Bastian rolled up his shirtsleeves. “Steady,” he told the sheep. “Steady.”

He closed his eyes as his fingers slid inside the ewe, his wrist, his forearm. There was wetness and tightness, warmth. He groped carefully, twisted slightly, pulled.

The lamb came out readily enough. It was dead.

Bastian knelt in the dust. Birth fluids dripped down his arm. He closed his eyes and tipped his head up to the sky.
No
, he wanted to yell.

When he opened his eyes he saw it was past noon. He stood, unsteady, stiff from kneeling so long beside the sheep.

He washed his arm in the trough, then cupped water in his hands for the ewe to drink. She didn’t seem able to stand. “Not today,” he said, while she lay gasping on the ground. “Please, not today.”

But the words made no difference.

Bastian looked up at the sky again, closed his eyes in despair, then opened them and turned towards the farmhouse. “Liana!” he shouted, as he entered the kitchen. “Liana!”

She was in the sickroom, the male wraith’s hand clutched in hers. Her eyes stared at him, wide in her white face. “The psaaron’s here?”

The wraith pushed back the bedclothes.

“No. Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you. It’s one of the sheep. I need your help.”

It wasn’t until the color flowed back into her cheeks that he realized how deep her terror had been. She released the wraith’s hand and pushed at his chest. “No, Hantje, don’t get out of bed. It’s all right.”

The wraith didn’t yield to the pressure of her hand. His fingers were clenched in the sheet. “Are you certain?” He spoke to Liana, but his eyes sought Bastian’s.

“Yes.”

He had a thin face. Too thin. The black hair made his skin seem as white as his nightshirt.

Bastian didn’t need to be told that the wraith was too weak to walk to Thierry. Or even to Arnaul’s. “It’s in the pen,” he told Liana as she stood.

He didn’t follow her from the room. Instead he stayed, looking down at the wraith. “Do you wish to come with us?” But how? Gaudon couldn’t carry this lad as well as their belongings.
And why do I care? He’s a wraith.

He cared because the wraith was thin and weak and still in need of Liana’s care. Because he was young and alone. Because his sister was dead.

The wraith shook his head firmly. “I’ll wait for Melke. She’ll be back.” His chin rose, silent emphasis to the confidence in his voice.

How like his sister with that uptilted chin, almost as alike as twins. The raven-black hair, the pride.

She’s dead, you fool.
But Bastian didn’t say the words aloud. Instead, he said, “As you wish,” and turned on his heel before the arguments spilled from his mouth. Let the wraith hold on to his hope.

Liana knelt in the dirt beside the ewe, her hand on the animal’s flank. He saw how it struggled to breathe. “Can you heal her?”

She looked up and shook her head. “Not quickly. It will take several days.”

“Then I’d best kill her.” He reached for his knife.

“No!”

“We don’t have several days, Liana. We have
now
.”

“But she might recover.” Liana clutched at his arm. “Please. There’s a chance.”

“Leave her?”

She nodded.

“Think, Liana. She’ll die of thirst.”

Liana’s chin became stubborn. “Melke will bring the necklace back. It will rain again.”

“No!” The fierceness of his voice startled the last ewe, standing behind him. “No, she won’t. She’s dead, Liana.
Dead
.” And something in his chest clenched as he said the words. Not grief, it couldn’t possibly be.

She shook her head. “No. I won’t believe that.”

Bastian looked down at Liana. Tears glistened in her hazel eyes. He slid the knife back into its sheath.

“You have an hour to do what you can for the sheep. Then we’re leaving.”

Her fingers tightened on his arm. “You won’t kill her?”

He shook his head.

It took longer than an hour to bury the lamb, strap their belongings on Gaudon, and eat a hasty meal. Bastian’s tension grew, building inside him, little knots that tied tighter with each second that passed. He didn’t attempt to catch the last sheep. There was no longer any point; it was too late to go via Arnaul’s. If they were to reach Thierry tonight they’d have to travel quickly, directly across their own bridge.

He filled the trough with muddy water and left the gate open to the pen so the last sheep could forage. He opened the gate to the garden too. It offered better food than the parched fields.

Liana left the ailing ewe and washed her hands.

Bastian looked up at the sun with narrow eyes. It was lower in the sky than when he’d last looked. The knots of tension tied themselves tighter. He gathered Gaudon’s reins in his hand. “Come, Liana.”

“I have to say goodbye to Hantje.”

“There’s no time.” Urgency was brusque in his voice. “We must leave. Now.” He held out his hand to her.

“No.”

“Liana!” But she was already running back across the yard, stirring dust, the white-blonde hair whipping over her shoulders.