Thief With No Shadow (35 page)

Movement rustled behind her.

Melke froze. Terror clutched so tightly in her chest that her heart failed to beat.

“Little wraith...” The low hiss of sound drew her head around.

The adult salamander stood behind her, so close that heat brushed across Melke’s skin. Her scent was strong, heavy and spicy.

Melke’s heart began to beat again, to batter its way out of her chest so loudly that surely the creature heard it. The sound filled her ears, deafening.

The salamander turned her crested head. Slitted nostrils moved delicately as she inhaled.

You cannot smell me. Peppermint, only peppermint.

The creature raised her head, lowered it, scenting. The cruel, lipless mouth opened. Her teeth were sharp barbs.

Peppermint, only peppermint. I am not here.

A plume of flame curled out of the salamander’s mouth, bright and hot. Melke felt it lick across her ear, heard the dull hiss of burning hair, smelled skin and hair burn.

The salamander smelled it too. Fire flared in her eyes.

There was no time to unsheathe her knife, no time to raise her hands and defend herself. No time even to scream.

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

T
HE BRIDGE SAGGED.
The creak of timber was audible above the swift rush of water. “No.” Liana shook her head. Bastian saw terror in the paleness of her face. “No.”

“Yes,” he said calmly. “We have to, Liana.”

“No.”

“We’ll be quickly across.” Bastian ignored the knot of fear in his belly. “A few seconds and—”

“No!” There was a note of panic in her voice. “You can’t make me, Bastian. I won’t!”

He understood her terror. He struggled with it himself. So much water, so swift and deep, so deadly. “Liana, we have to.”

She shook her head again.

“The pile is still standing. It’s perfectly safe. Look, I’ll take Gaudon across first.” He tightened his grip on the reins and stepped firmly onto the bridge. Two steps, three steps. The planks creaked and the bridge swayed. Water hissed and rushed. Sweat was cold on his skin. “Come, Gaudon.” He tugged at the reins.

But Gaudon utterly refused to step onto the bridge. He wouldn’t be coaxed and he wouldn’t be pulled. White showed at his eyes and his bay coat was dark with sweat when Bastian finally conceded defeated. Relief leapt beneath his breastbone, and panic too. The sun was sinking towards dusk.

“Arnaul’s.” He held out his hand to Liana. “Come on.”

She shook her head. “It’ll be dark soon.”

“We can sleep there. Arnaul won’t mind.”

Liana shook her head again. “No.”

“We don’t have time to argue—”

“Bastian, please, let’s go home.”

She was exhausted. He heard it in her voice and saw it in the dark smudges beneath her eyes. How many hours had she slept last night? “No,” he said. “We can’t. The psaaron—”

“Arnaul is closer to the sea. If the psaaron comes tomorrow, do you want to bring it there?”

He opened his mouth to tell her that the psaaron wouldn’t come tomorrow, that it had never come before the tides were full, but the image she’d conjured in his mind was vivid and horrifying. It dried the words in his mouth. The psaaron standing in Arnaul’s yard, its scent sending the horses mad with terror in their stalls.

Psaarons were as ruthless and unpredictable as the sea. If Arnaul sheltered them, who was to say that the creature wouldn’t curse him too?

Liana was right. They dared not sleep at Arnaul’s. It was best to return home and be gone at daybreak, to cross Arnaul’s bridge and avoid his house entirely.

B
ASTIAN SADDLED
G
AUDON
in the chill gray of predawn, the time when night slid into morning and everything held its breath. The ailing ewe had died while the sun was down, but Bastian ignored the limp huddle of her body. There was no time to dig graves and bury sheep. Endal wasn’t back yet, but there was no time even to be anxious about him. They’d find him. They’d meet him on the road. He wasn’t lost.

He didn’t believe that the psaaron would come today. It was the first day of the equinox and the tides had barely begun to swell. The creature had never come so early before, but fear still rode him, pushed him.
What if—

“Liana!” He strode across the yard.

Her voice came faintly from inside.

Bastian halted on the doorstep. He turned and looked over his shoulder. Color flushed the sky, pink, a hint of gold, the pale and blushing glow of dawn. Fear prickled over his skin, raising the hairs.

“Liana! Hurry!”

A scent teased at the edges of his memory, dark and sea-rich. It stroked over his skin, moist. He inhaled it as he breathed.

Childhood terror surged inside him.. He jerked around. Nothing. A bare and empty yard. Gaudon standing saddled. No psaaron.

“Liana!” It was a bellow, afraid.

“Coming.”

And there it was again, the scent, filling his mouth and nose. The smell of wet things, of dark caverns beneath the ocean, of salt spray and sleek fish and rotting seaweed, of rain and flood-swollen rivers, a smell that was rich and deep and monstrous.

The scent was familiar. It had lived in his nightmares for eighteen years. The emotion it elicited was familiar too.

Bastian jerked his head around again.

The yard was no longer empty. Gaudon pulled back on the rope that tied him to the fence, frenzied, trying to free himself. His whinny was shrill.

Sea-man, mer-man, fish-man. Arms and legs like a man, but with serrated scales, not skin. A ridge of rough spines cresting a domed skull and long, dripping spurs hanging like wattles from the chin. Webbed toes, and webbing between the long, clawed fingers. Eyes as deep as the ocean, blue and green and gray, with flecks of gold.

Moisture rolled off the creature like mist rolling off the sea, cool and damp, leaving tiny droplets of water on Bastian’s skin. The dusty ground was wet where it had walked.

The fish-mouth opened, showing carnivore’s teeth. “Do you have my family’s tears?”

Bastian heard the sound of water in that voice, of waves on rocks and rain falling, of something as deep and inexorable as the ocean tides. Vengeance.

Terror clenched in his chest.

The psaaron stepped closer. It towered over him. The thick scales were the color of seaweed, green and brown, blending into each other. “My family’s tears.”

This time he heard an undercurrent of grief in the deep voice, but he was nine years old again and terror had made him mute. He could only shake his head while coolness breathed over him and beads of water gathered on his skin.

He heard footsteps behind him, tentative, on the flagstones. “Bastian...?”

He blocked the doorway. Liana couldn’t possibly see the psaaron, but her voice told him that she knew, so faint, trembling with fear.

Bastian turned his head.

Candles burned on the long, scrubbed table, casting cheerful light. Liana’s face was bloodless, as pale as ivory. She clutched the back of a chair with white-knuckled fingers.

And behind her, shouldering his way through the doorway, came the male wraith. Determination was fierce on his thin face. He limped across the floor on bare feet and stood in front of Liana, too weak to protect her, needing protection himself, but as full of foolish bravery as his sister had been.

“Where are the tears?”

The psaaron’s voice was in his ear, so close that he heard the sound of shells tumbling over one another in the surf. Cool water slid down his cheek. The scent of salt spray and seaweed smothered him, choking.

Bastian took a stumbling step into the kitchen, a second, a third. He was a child again, panic- stricken, terrified. Fear shrieked in his chest:
Don’t touch me!

The psaaron followed, ducking its spiny head as it stepped through the doorway. The wraith didn’t move, except to lift his chin higher.

It was like a slap across Bastian’s face, that raised chin, so calm and unafraid, as if the wraith took him by the scruff of the neck and shook him.
Stand tall, be a man.

Bastian swallowed. He tried to hold his head up, as the male wraith did. His heart beat so fast it must surely burst. He couldn’t seem to drag any air into his lungs.

“Where are—”

Bastian found his voice, hoarse, the words rasping together. “It was stolen. We had the necklace, but it was stolen.”

“Lies!” The word was the roar of waves surging against sharp rocks.

“No,” the male wraith said, his voice cool and unfaltering. “He tells the truth. He had the necklace, but my sister took it. She has gone to recover it. She’ll be back soon.”

There was a taut moment of silence, while Bastian’s heart labored in his chest. The wraith’s stance was bold, as proud and unafraid as if the psaaron was a fish flopping on the floor. Bastian didn’t need Endal to tell him that the youth’s haughty expression hid fear. Liana stood behind the wraith, her head bowed so that her forehead pressed against his shoulderblade. She clutched his upper arm with tight fingers.

“If you come back tomorrow my sister will—”

The sound of foaming water filled the kitchen, the sound of waterfalls and fierce rapids. Laughter, anger. “While you flee? I see the horse outside. You plan to run.”

The wraith appeared undaunted. “Wait with us, by all means.” He gestured grandly to one of the chairs. “My sister will be back by nightfall.”

She’s dead, you fool. Dead. She won’t be back.

And tonight the psaaron would punish them. Now it was neuter, but when the sun sank behind the hills it would choose, male or female, him or Liana.

Liana, tonight.

No.

Bastian cleared his throat. The lie came awkwardly from his mouth: “Your sister may need some assistance. Liana, perhaps you should go to help her.”

The wraith’s gaze shifted sharply. Bastian met his gray eyes and saw that he understood. “Yes. My sister isn’t the best horsewoman. Liana, why don’t you—”

“Bastian should go.”

Liana had lifted her head. She stared at him over the wraith’s shoulder, fiercely.

“No.” Bastian tried to speak calmly, as if the psaaron didn’t stand beside him, but desperation edged his voice. “Liana—”

“Melke
will
be back. She will! If she needs help, then it’s best that you go, Bastian.”

He shook his head. It was only a tale, an excuse for her to escape. “No. Liana—”

“Let the man go.” The weight of oceans was in the psaaron’s voice.

Bastian shook his head again. Panic tightened his chest.

“Go, Bastian. Go!” Color rose in Liana’s cheeks. Her eyes shone with a brightness he recognized as hope. She truly believed that Melke would return.

“No.” He wouldn’t leave her, couldn’t leave her. Not to flee, and not to rush off on a futile chase. Liana hoped; he didn’t. Melke was dead.

“You’ll be back by nightfall with my sister.” That was the male wraith, as calmly as if he spoke of the likelihood of rain tomorrow or asked what time lunch would be served.

Bastian shook his head again. The risk was too enormous. If anything delayed him, if he failed to be back in time... The psaaron wasn’t human. It would have no compunction in punishing Liana for a crime she hadn’t committed, no compunction hurting her, breaking her. “No.”

“Please, Bastian, go.” It was as if a fever glowed in Liana’s cheeks, glowed in her eyes. Hope.

“No.”

He flinched as the creature moved past him. A sensation crawled over his skin, as if sea foam licked him, cool and salt-stinging.

“Go,” said the psaaron, as it sat. The chair creaked beneath its weight. There were wet footprints on the flagstones where it had walked. Eyes the color of the ocean stared at him. Beautiful eyes. Ruthless eyes. The eyes of a creature that could weep its soul as tears, a creature that could change gender with its mood, as the tides changed. A creature that could inflict brutal punishments.