Thief With No Shadow (47 page)

Bastian nodded, but she wasn’t sure he’d heard her. He rubbed his face. Stubble rasped beneath his hand.

Liana stood. “Go to bed,” she said, bending to kiss his cheek.

“I will,” he said. But he made no move to stand. When she looked back from the doorway he was staring down at the tabletop, a frown pinching between his eyebrows.

CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

L
IANA DREW BACK
the curtains in the sickroom. The morning was gray. A fine drizzle fell and tiny drops of moisture flecked the window panes. The sight made her heart lighten.

She heard footsteps in the corridor, slightly irregular, as if the walker limped. Her fingers tightened on the streaked green curtain. She turned her head.

Hantje stepped into the doorway. “Is she awake?”

He wore Bastian’s clothes. Their height was similar but he was leaner, still gaunt from his fever. The shirt and trousers hung on him.

“Not yet.” The smile on her mouth was unrestrained and glad; she couldn’t hold it back. “Come in.”

Hantje avoided meeting her eyes as he crossed the room. He didn’t come to stand beside her.

Liana released the curtain. She walked back to her chair and sat.

Hantje didn’t sit beside her in the second chair. He stood and looked down at Melke. She slept with one hand lying on the coverlet, the fingers loosely curled into her palm. Her breathing was soft and even, her face peaceful. Against the worn linen pillowslip her hair was starkly black.

Liana smoothed the skirt over her knees, aware of how close Hantje was, only a few feet away. She watched as he reached down and took hold of his sister’s hand. The movement was slow and careful and achingly gentle, as if Melke was as fragile as the finest porcelain. The tenderness of his touch made Liana’s throat tighten.

“I can’t thank you enough.” Hantje’s voice was low, little more than a whisper. He didn’t look at her.

“Nor can I thank you.”

He glanced at her. “That was different.”

She held his eyes, gray eyes, the color of smoke and storm clouds. “What you did for me was far greater than this.” She touched Melke’s wrist lightly.

Hantje’s eyebrows drew together in denial. “You saved her
life.”

“And you saved mine.”

Hantje’s gaze fell. His cheeks flushed faintly.

The tinge of color gave her courage. Liana looked at the scar beneath his lower lip. “Let me heal it,” she said. Thought of touching Hantje made her heart beat slightly faster.

He shook his head, a sharp movement. “No.”

It was like a slap across the face, that one word, the flat tone of Hantje’s voice as he uttered it, the way his mouth tightened afterwards. Liana looked down at her hands.

Hantje had sacrificed his body for her. He’d let the psaaron rape him. Now he didn’t want her to touch him.

A week ago his feelings had matched hers. She’d sensed it in him, felt it. A blossoming of something, a beginning full of possibilities. What had changed?

Liana raised her head. “If you wish to thank me, then let me heal you.”

Hantje’s gaze jerked to her again. His lips parted, but whatever words he wished to say remained unuttered. He closed his mouth, swallowed. She saw clearly that he didn’t want her to touch him.

Shame heated her cheeks. She wanted to murmur an apology, to slide out of the chair and hurry from the room. Only pride kept her seated. Pride, and the need to understand what had changed.

Hantje swallowed again. “Very well.”

He released Melke’s hand and sat on the edge of the bed, awkward and tense. He flinched when her fingertips touched below his mouth. That tiny backwards movement hurt her. Misery clenched in Liana’s chest...and then she felt him, felt the complex knot of his emotions: incandescent joy that Melke lived, self-hatred, despair, and—

And she understood why he didn’t want her to touch him. She understood why he held himself so rigid, his fingers white-knuckled as he gripped the coverlet.

The shame, the misery, became nothing.

Hantje’s feelings
had
changed. There was no confusion in him now. The emotions were deeper and richer, sweeter.

He ached to touch her. It was a fever inside him. And beneath that was love, strong and pure. Hantje loved her. He wanted to share her life. He wanted to be the father of her children, to stand at her side as the seasons changed and the years passed.

He loved her, and he knew he wasn’t good enough for her. He was a wraith and a thief. He was penniless.

The touch of her fingers hurt him.

Liana removed her hand. Joy swelled inside her. “Hantje.”

She saw him swallow, saw the rapid beat of the pulse at the base of his throat.

“What?” His voice was hoarse.

Liana leaned forward and touched her mouth to his.

CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT

H
ANTJE PUSHED HER
away and scrambled from the bed. Panic thudded hard in his chest. “What are you doing!”

Liana stood. Color flushed her cheeks. Her silver-white hair was as cool and beautiful as moonshine. “Kissing you.”

“Don’t!” he said, taking a step back. The floor swooped beneath his feet.

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t want you to.”

A smile shone in her eyes. “Liar,” she said.

Hantje swallowed. He took another step backwards.

“You want me as much as I want you.”

Hantje shook his head, while his heart hammered against his ribs.
I am a wraith
. “No.”

“Yes.” Liana stepped towards him.

He flinched as she tried to kiss him again, and stumbled back another pace. “No!”

Her hands fisted in his sleeves.
“You want me
,”she said fiercely.

Hantje unfastened her fingers and pushed her away. “No, I don’t!”

Breath hissed between her teeth. She stamped her foot. “I don’t care that you’re a wraith!”

Time stood still for a long moment. His heart didn’t beat. There was no breath, no flow of blood. Just her words.

And in that moment his dream was real, bright and golden, perfect. Liana. A home with children. Watching her sleep at night. Protecting her. His heart began to beat again and blood to flow in his veins...and hope was extinguished.

Liana deserved a man who was worthy of her. Not a wraith. Not a thief.

“I care,” he said, and he turned from her.

She grabbed his arm. “Don’t be a fool, Hantje!”

He halted in the middle of the floor. “Let go of me.”

“No.”

He turned his head and looked at Liana. Her face was determined. She held his gaze and he watched as hope lit her eyes and softened her mouth. “Hantje—”

“No.” He cut her off, knowing what he had to say. “It’s not I who am the fool, Liana. It’s you.”

The words were cruel. He wished them unsaid as soon as he’d uttered them. He saw her head jerk back, saw her nostrils flare as she inhaled, saw the color drain from her cheeks.

He left her standing in the middle of the bedchamber, pale, with Melke asleep in the bed behind her.

It has to be this way.

CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE

B
ASTIAN LOOKED DOWN
at the stream bed. He closed his eyes. All his life this stream had been dry.

The channel that had been choked with silt, the channel that two of his uncles had died trying to open and that no sal Vere had dared clear since, was unblocked. The river had washed the silt away. Now water ran through Vere, as if the stream hadn’t been dry for almost forty years.

He should feel joy. Instead, the sight of water brought tight grief to his chest. The stream flowed, and his parents weren’t here to witness it.

Bastian opened his eyes and stared down at the water. “I wish you could see this,” he whispered.

A useless wish. The past couldn’t be altered.

Come, Endal.
He turned back towards the farmhouse. The grass was still dead and cracks still gaped in the ground. No birds sang. But there was water in the stream. Vere would come alive slowly. One day there’d be green growth and the soil would be soft beneath his boots and his ears would catch the sound of birds singing.

His children would run through thick grass, laughing. They would play on the beach and build castles in the sand.

Children.

Bastian narrowed his eyes and looked up at the sky. The morning drizzle had lifted, but the clouds were still thick and beautiful and full of water. A cool breeze whispered over his skin.

Clouds. Water in the stream.
What am I going to do?

He needed to speak to Melke, to thank her. He needed to do it today. To delay any longer would be unforgivable. She’d risked her life, had almost died to save Liana. To save Vere.

To save me?

Bastian trudged back to the farmhouse. The stone he’d stolen from her was in his pocket, small and smooth. Dread slowed his steps. He didn’t want to explain his act of theft, but he had to, just as he had to decide what it was that he felt for Melke. And what he was going to do about it.

It was a relief to see Liana sitting hunched on the kitchen doorstep. Bastian pushed aside guilt and dread and indecision. He’d talk to Melke later. Now, Liana needed him.

She had sat like this, hugging her knees with her head bowed, when she’d dropped the cooking pot, spilling soup over the floor and leaving them with only bread for dinner. And when she’d found a nest of baby birds that had starved to death. And when every one of the flowers she’d planted had shriveled and died before blooming.

Bastian sat down on the doorstep beside her and put his arm around her shoulders. “What’s wrong, little one?”

Liana looked up. Her smile was wan.