Page 94 of House of Dusk
“Yes,” he admitted.
So. That was it, then. This was her best option. A man who by his own admission was trying to restore the god of death, who already carried bits of divine memory and spirit. And yet, she could see no other way to reach Timeus.
“Take me there,” she said. “Help me get my novice back, and—and I’ll give you what you want.” She held out her wrist, the black lines of the Serpent’s mark standing out against her lighter skin.
His lips parted around a silent huff. Had she surprised him? Misgivings chased her, but she drove them back. Waited for him to speak.
“The ruins are to the south,” he said. “It should take us no more than a few days.”
Us. She drew in a breath, feeling the weight of it in her chest.
“So we go together,” she said. “We...work together.”
His smile winked at her, and for a heartbeat his teeth looked sharp as fangs. “We work together.”
“Does that mean I can trust you now?” she asked. “You still haven’t explained who you are. Who you were, before all this. How you ended up collecting the memories of a dead god. Did you grow up in a cult of serpent mystics?”
He didn’t answer, only turned his face away, staring into the fire. A tiny thorn of guilt pricked at her. Still, she would not take the words back. She waited.
“Trust is too easily broken,” he said. “You know my goal. I know yours. That will have to be enough for now.”
He stood then, turning away. “You should sleep. You’ll need your strength to reach Stara Sidea.”
• • •
Her burns were already substantially better by the next day. Instead of feeling like she was being flayed with a dull knife, it only felt as if hungry rodents were nibbling at her. She’d endured worse, had marched on feet so raw her footprints were scarlet. Held her post through the night with an arrow in her shoulder, the shaft broken off because there was no time to seek a physician.
“Do you need to rest?”
She stumbled to a stop, blinking past the late-afternoon brightness to find Nilos halted on the path ahead. Concern crinkled the corners of his eyes. She almost believed it.
“I can keep going,” she said, grimly.
The corner of his mouth quirked up. “I’ve no doubt youcan. But that doesn’t mean youshould.”
She huffed out a breath, aware that her legs were trembling, that some part of her had collapsed with relief just to have this small break, halting to argue. “Shouldn’t you be encouraging me to keep going? More pain and suffering to feed the Serpent?”
“The Serpent wasn’t the one that burned you.”
She clamped her lips tight, trudging onward. Nilos joined her, keeping pace, radiating an infuriating aura of smugness.
They continued south, into softer, greener land. She’d spotted a few curls of smoke, heard the soft bells of goats. There were people here, somewhere.
“We’re nearly there,” said Nilos, nodding along the gray-green slope. “See?”
Sephre squinted ahead, but all she saw was a small stone-crafted shelter with thatched roof, so covered in lichen and moss it seemed just another large boulder.
“Stara Sidea is an old shepherd’s shack?”
His bark of laughter surprised her. “No. It’s another day by foot. But we can shelter here tonight. Your burns need tending. And sleep is the best physic.”
That might be true, assuming she could in fact sleep. Last night she’d been so exhausted that sleep was deep and dreamless. Tonight would be different. And if the nightmares came, she had no holy flame to drive them back.
But the shelter was snug and warm, and Fates, she did need the rest. She didn’t even have the heart to muster up a protest when Nilos left her there, saying he had to fetch supplies. Supplies from where, she wondered. Did he know this place?
She wakened from a doze at the sound of footsteps, blinking groggily to find Nilos returned with an armful of blue and tan cloth. “New clothes,” he said.
She frowned at the bundle, running a hand over the sleeve of her habit, picking at the yellow flames.
