“Too much time,” she whispered.
With a grunt, I stood up. “You’ve got all the time in the world, my Northern bascha. You’re young. You’ll heal. You’ll recover your strength. You’ll dance again, Delilah—that I promise you.”
“How old are you?” she asked abruptly.
I frowned down at her. “I thought I already told you.”
“No. All you ever said was you were older than me.” Surprising me, Del smiled. “That I already knew.”
“Yes, well … I imagine so.” Irritated, I scratched my sandtiger scars. “I don’t know. Old enough. Why? Does it matter? After all this time?”
“You’re the one making age an issue, Tiger. I only wanted to know how old the old man is.”
“How old are you?” I countered, knowing perfectly well. But it’s a question women hate.
Del didn’t flinch. Nor did she hesitate. “In three more days, I will have twenty-one years.”
“Hoolies,” I said in disgust, “I could be your father.”
Del’s face was serious. “He was forty when he was killed. How close are you to that?”
“Too close,” I muttered sourly, and went off to appease my bladder.
Nine
Del and I rode steadily northeast for two more days. We took it pretty easy on several counts: one, the stud; two, me; and three, Del herself. Neither of us is the kind of person who enjoys poor health. Neither of us is the kind of person who likes to talk about it, either, which meant we mostly kept our mouths shut regarding respective wounds.
But we did notice, of course. I noticed Del, she noticed me. But we each of us said nothing, because to say something meant admitting to discomfort, which neither of us was prepared to do. Call it pride, arrogance, stupidity; only the stud was completely honest, and he made no bones about it. He hurt. And he told us.
I patted his neck, avoiding healing claw scores. “I know, old man—but it’ll get better, I promise.”
Del, who rode in front of me amid bare-branched trees, twisted her head to mutter over a shoulder: “How do you know? You don’t even know where we’re going.”
“We’re going to Ysaa-den.”
“And if you find no answers there?”
That again. It had briefly been a topic of discussion the day we’d set out. She was unconvinced I had made the right decision to follow the hounds to their origins. But since all of her decisions were governed by an insatiable need for revenge, I’d told her I wasn’t so certain she could be trusted to give me an unbiased opinion regarding much of anything; she had retreated into haughty silence, as women so often do when the man catches them out, and had said nothing of it again.
Until now.
I adjusted my posture to the motion of the stud, trying to find a position that didn’t pull at healing scar tissue. “Del,” I said patiently, “you didn’t know where you were going when you went south to find your brother. I don’t notice that it stopped you, since before we met up we’d never heard of one another—well, maybe you’d heard of me—and here we are now, riding together in the North. All of which means you didn’t much care that you didn’t know where you were going. You just went.”
“That was different.”
I nodded wryly to myself; isn’t it always different?
Del peered at me over her shoulder, setting her jaw against the pain of twisting her torso. “How will you know when you’ve found whoever—or whatever—you’re looking for?”
“I just will.”
“Tiger—”
“Del, will you just stop trying to grind me into the ground in hopes I’ll give in to you? I’ve made up my mind, and I intend to carry out my promise.” I paused. “With you or without you.”
Silence. Del rode on. And then, mostly muffled, “Those beasts were never after you.”
It was half challenge, half boast. Also truth; it had become fairly clear months before the hounds wanted Del’s sword, or Del, or both.
But that was then. Things had changed. “They are now.”
Del stopped her gelding. Turned more squarely in the saddle, which hurt her, but didn’t stop her from staring back at me intently. “What?”
“I said, ‘They are now.’ Why do you think the one stole the ward-whistle?”
Del shrugged. “That was Cantéada-made. Magicked. Lure enough, I think, without thinking it was you.”
The stud reached out to sample the gelding’s bluish rump. I pulled him back, chastised him a bit, turned him off diagonally in hopes of interesting him in something else, like maybe a tree. “They came once before into my camp. All of them. And they tried to take my sword.”