Sword-Maker(12)

I wondered briefly who she was talking to: me or to herself? But I let it go, thinking of something else. “There’s more to honor than that.” I intended to explain thoroughly, but broke it off to catch her as her legs buckled and she slid down the boulder to huddle against cold stone. And discovered she was right: I couldn’t pick her up. So the two of us sat there, cursing private pain, hiding it from one another behind sweaty, muttered curses and denials to half-gasped questions.

“Dance with me,” she said. “Do you want me to beg?”

I gritted it out through tight-shut teeth. “I don’t want you to beg. I don’t want you to dance. I don’t want you to do anything but heal.”

Del curled one hand into a fist and thumped herself weakly in the chest. “It’s all I have—it’s all I am … if I don’t kill Ajani—”

I turned toward her awkwardly, trying not to twist sore flesh. “We’ll talk about that later.”

Her voice was startled. “What are you doing?”

“Trying to peel back some of your layers so I can get a look at your wound.”

“Leave it,” she said, “leave it. It is healing without your help. Do you think they would have let me go if I was in danger of dying?”

“Yes,” I answered bluntly. “Telek and Stigand? And all the rest of the voca? Stupid question, bascha … I’m surprised they didn’t kick you out before this. I’m surprised they didn’t kick you out the day I left.”

“To do that would have dishonored Staal-Ysta,” she said faintly. “I was the chosen champion—”

“—who was meant to die in the circle, dancing with me,” I finished. “Telek and Stigand threw you to the sandtigers, bascha—no joke intended—and they had no intention of you surviving the dance. Your death would have satisfied the honor of Staal-Ysta, and my victory bought me out of the year you pledged me to. In the South we call it two goat kids for a single breeding … it’s what the voca wanted. You dead and me gone. As it is, we’re both gone.”

“And Kalle stays behind.” Her tone was bitter as she twisted away from me and sat up very straight, easing the layers of rucked up wool binding her sore ribs. “So, they got what they wanted. I have lost a daughter, who was perhaps not meant to be mine … but there is still her father. And Ajani I will kill.”

“Which means we’re back where we started.” I drew in a deep breath, caught it sharply on a twinge, let it out slowly again. “What I started to say earlier—”

“I did not come for your advice.” Del pushed herself up awkwardly, straightened with infinite care, walked very slowly toward the roan.

The abruptness of it stunned me. “What?”

She caught the gelding’s reins, led him to a tree safely distant from the stud, tied him. “I did not come for advice. Only for your dancing.”

So cool and clipped. So much like the old Del, with no time for other’s feelings. Full circle, I thought. Back where it all started.

But not quite, bascha. I’m not the same man. Because—or in spite—of you, I’m not the same man.





Five




I sat on my bedding by the fire cairn, scratching sandtiger scars, drinking amnit, thinking. Thinking; what in hoolies happens now?

So, she wanted to ride with me. For a while. To dance with me in the circle, until she was fit enough to challenge Ajani. Which meant she’d intended all along to leave me, once she found me. Once she was fit again.

Which meant she was using me.

Well, we all use one another. One way or another.

But Del was using me.

Again.

Without, apparently, considering my own feelings. Or else she had considered them, and thought I’d be happier without her. Once she was ready to leave.

Or else she was merely concocting a wild tale to cover up the real reason she’d tracked me down, which had less to do with Ajani and more to do with me.

No. Not Del. She’s nothing if not determined.

Nothing if not obsessed.

Which meant Ajani was still the most important issue, and I was merely a means to make her fit enough to kill him.

Which came back to me being used.

Again.

A little part of me suggested it didn’t matter, that having Del around was enough compensation. Because, of course, she would share my bed again, and that ought to be enough to make any man overlook certain things.

Maybe, once, it would’ve been. But not anymore. I could overlook nothing. Because a bigger part of me didn’t like being reduced to a means. I deserved better.

And a still larger part reminded me with exquisite clarity that Del hadn’t thought twice about offering me as bait to the voca on Staal-Ysta to buy a year off her exile.