Page 52 of Deadly Maiden

Those words twist and strike home in a way I never intended. I did try to heal him. What if… What if, what I did was what helped him to shift?No. Wait.I did that healing after he shifted, not before.

But will I tell him I poked around and knitted dead matter inside him and healed him without asking? Could I have asked permission? No. Is healing someone evil? No.

If he can make vows, then so can I. I will tell him when we are more…established.

I’m afraid to say it here and now. I don’t want to tell him everything, though I was the one who wanted to know more. This budding relationship of ours, me and this dragonshifter, it is so new, so fragile. So amazing, that I don’t want to risk it without thinking some more.

I can wait and say it all later.

Except maybe not Anathema. Darkthings. How can I find out what those are? Saphora could know about them? I will tread carefully and consider this situation. Blurting it out now feels stupid, even dangerous.

And then there is the other piece of history from that battle. A dragonshifter killed my parents.

I will tell him when I dredge up the courage to ask if he killed my parents.

Because I think he may have.

If it were myself who lost a great friend, how would I avenge them? I can seewhyone might kill the killers, but understanding is not an emotion. Also, if he did, he hasn’t told me this.

Who would? Who would confess to such a thing?

Again, I’m afraid to ask. What would it do tome, knowing that? Could I forgive him?

I trust him. I do.

I stop dead.

“There is a letter I want you to read. From my parents. Landos sent it to me. It’s in my pack.”

“Okay. I appreciate this. It must have a lot of significance to you?”

This is the only thing I have of theirs, apart from that will. I doubt a fortress counts. “Yes. Not knowing them is…like I have a hole here.” I touch my chest. “One I can never fill.”

Rorsyd nods. “We should wait until we have a private room. Another fifteen minutes and we can be in the town and find an inn.”

“Sure.”

A dark dot spiraling in from above makes us look up. It’s not a blood hawk—those are red. A raven swoops and lands on the road, totters on its feet.

“It’sthatraven.” Goggle-eyed, I advance slowly with my hand out.

It flaps and launches to land on my palm. Whereupon it promptly falls apart. The raven disintegrates into a little storm of feathers and dust, revealing an ampoule like the one bought at the graveyard by Father, and a round, gold-plated object that sits flat on my hand. It’s a third the size of my palm. It could be a pocket watch. The objects wobble then lie still.

A gust sweeps in and the feathers are whisked away, blowing down the road.

“Curious.” Rorsyd says.

“An understatement. My eyebrows are still somewhere up above in the sky.”

He leans in slightly and points. “That says Slaedorth. There. This seems to be a compass.”

“Does it?” I tilt my head, angle my hand.

The top is a flattish glass dome that protects a painted dial. A red-enameled needle swings as we stare, ending its journey by pointing back along the road in the direction we came from. Delicately, I touch the glass then lever the golden edge with my fingernail, to see if the dome opens. It does not. Though it’s overly fancy, I decipher the engraving.SLAEDORTH.

“Except it doesn’t point north, it points to my family…fortress?”

I pick up the ampoule, which is made of a more greenish glass than Landos’. Inside is the faintest smudge of gheist, the energy that can power a gun. Though the amount is miniscule, my system recognizes the subterranean dark buzz from before, from the day the enforcers came. There is no cork in this ampoule, instead a fuzz of fine gold wires sprouts from a glass plug, sticking out a short distance while inside they wind all the way to the bottom where that oily white sludge resides.

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