Page 24 of Prize of the Warlord
He strides away, and I want to run after him and claw at his massive shoulders andmakehim look at me,forcehim to let me go. I want to hurt him—I think I could kill him now if I had a weapon in hand.
But I only stand trembling, with tears flooding my eyes because my parents refused his demands. They refused. They aren’t going to pay for my freedom.
Maybe the Warlord asked for too much. But they didn’t even send a counter-offer.
If it had been Joss or one of my brothers in the Warlord’s grip, would they have paid then? My three siblings are theirusefulchildren, the healthy ones. Perhaps I’m an acceptable loss.
I know that can’t be what they’re thinking. I know they love me—I can imagine my father’s anxious pain and my mother’s furious agony over my capture. But in this moment, I’m so far from them that the idea of them leaving me, abandoning me, feels deeply true. They’ve been leaving me behind all my life, even when they didn’t realize it, when they didn’t mean to.
I can’t help crying. I’m so exhausted—the lack of sleep, the failed escape attempts, the Warlord’s version of punishment, and nowthis. This rejection, this broken hope. I can’t bear it, and I sob quietly into my hands while Zeha waits, stroking her hawk’s feathers. She doesn’t tell me to stop crying, or hurry me along. She simply waits until I have cried enough.
While I’m sobbing, Kaja bumps her weight against my shins and then settles into the snow across my feet. Which makes me sob even harder. I sink down, heedless of the fact that she’s a giant killer beast, and I bury my face in her thick fur.
27
When I’m calm again, Zeha lets me collect the borrowed clothing I took off during the fight, and allows me to relieve myself in the bushes before we return to camp. After tying my wrists together in front of me, she drapes an extra cloak over my shoulders and knots the laces at my neck. “Where we’re going, it will be colder than here,” she says.
“You’re kind,” I tell her.
She smiles, and in the sunlight I see tiny white scars on her skin—scars I hadn’t noticed before. It’s as if a million tiny shards of something exploded in her face, long ago. “I’m kind until I need to be cruel.”
I’m amazed at how swiftly the sprawling camp is packed away into bundles, lashed over the backs of saddles and onto the warriors’ backs. Within an hour we’re ready to leave, and the line of horses files into the trees, led by the Warlord himself.
Riding with Zeha is more comfortable—her saddle has extra padding. But it’s less exciting than riding with the Warlord, and I miss the hectic uncertainty of being in his presence.
After a while, I venture to ask Zeha the question that’s been burning in my mind. “What did you mean, earlier, when you said that some couples can hear each other’s voices through the ether?”
“You may have heard the stories of the Bloodsalt and the northern lands beyond,” she says. “How this entire land was damaged from the aftereffects of one woman’s uncontrollable magic. I’m not sure if the legends are true. Few of our people are born as mages, and when one of us is gifted, the gift usually relates to healing. But we are magically sensitive in other ways. We are born with a link to this land, so we can sense when a breaking of the Bloodsalt is about to occur, in time to get clear of the explosion. We can discern places in the forest where evil is likely to haunt, so we know to plant our tents elsewhere. And the people of my clan can each hear the thought-voice of their soul-partner, their life-mate, when they are unconscious or asleep. For most people it is faint and distant, and it happens at unpredictable times. For others, the conversation is as clear as the one I’m having with you now.”
My heart thumps harder.
“When two people discover that they can hear each other through the ether, it is a sign that their souls have already bonded. They are meant to be a pair until death parts them, and so they request the forging of a life-bond by a Shaman of the Bloodsalt.”
“Are there ever times when other souls communicate through the ether?” I ask. “Surely it doesn’t always mean a life-mate bond or whatever you said. There must be exceptions.”
“None that I’ve ever heard of.”
I remember the voice I heard when I was dying, clear and gruff and annoying.Do you have a spine? Any will to fight? Or are you just a weak little mouse after all? Pull yourself out of this. Show me you have teeth. Bite and scratch.
That’s why the Warlord reacted with such shock when I told him I could hear his voice in that liminal place. My consciousness was in the ether when he spoke to me. And I heard him.
But I’m not one of his clan. I wasn’t born here.
“Could such a conversation happen between two people who aren’t from one of your clans?” I venture. “Like if there was one person from the Bloodsalt or beyond, and one from—somewhere else—could they still speak through the ether? And what would that mean?”
Zeha has been riding with her palm lightly against my waist, and her grip tightens as I speak. “Why are you asking me this?”
I consider lying, but I’m desperate to know the truth.
“When I was dying, I heard him,” I murmur. “The Warlord. He talked to me, and—and I came back from the dark.”
“That’s not possible. Ether-speak only occurs between life-mates, among the people of our clans.” She lets out an exasperated huff. “Have you told him of this?”
“Yes. He seemed very disturbed by it.”
“Of course he did, because it’s abhorrent, and impossible.” She’s speaking through gritted teeth. “Has he bedded you? Touched you?”
“No, and—a little.”
