Page 7 of Ember and Eclipse
She’d question him. Besides, slitting his throat in her home made her queasy when she stopped long enough to consider it.
After rising shakily to her feet, she gathered rope and a sheet. She quickly bound his hands in case he conquered unconsciousness once again. Double-checking the knots and satisfied with her work, she set about unloading all his weaponry from him, which he had too much of. The amount bordered on unreasonable, obscene even. Honestly, how many knives did one need in their boots and on various parts of their person?
Once he was properly relieved of all weapons and a coil of witchsilver, she rolled him onto the sheet and piled the rope on top of his chest. His deadweight was outrageously heavy, and the act alone had her sweating in the morning humidity. Wrapping her hands in the sheet for a better grip, she took a deep breath. Then, using the entirety of her strength and weight, she pulled. He moved, but barely. Persisting, she was drenched by the time she got him to the entryway, and her arms and back ached. She was only halfway to her destination and was already over the entire endeavor, but she was nothing if not determined. Besides, dead or alive, he needed to beoutof her home.
There was a smaller structure, just as chaotically built, on the back corner of the islet. Rel assumed it had been used as a storage area and maybe to house smaller animals. There wasn’t anything to go off of, as it had been fairly empty when she inspected it, and the floor was unfinished—all stone and dirt. Taking up half of the shack, though, was an enclosure with thick wooden beams. They ran into the ground and were fitted into the rafters above.
When she finally got him into the cage, she checked he was still breathing one more time before unbinding him and stepping over him. The gate groaned as she closed it and pushed the draw bar through. Lastly, she secured it with the rusted but still sturdy lock.
Digging her fingers into her now spasming back, she studied the enclosure. It would be sturdy enough to hold the hunter for now, especially in his weakened state.
She didn’t even want to contemplate the idea of pulling him back out if he diedorwhen she had to kill him.
“Ifyou survive, you better have answers for me when you wake, hunter,” she muttered as she pulled on the lock one more time.
Chapter VI
WhenRelcheckedonthe hunter the following day, after a breakfast she could hardly stomach, he was sitting upright, his head leaning against the back wall.
“We either had a really good time last night,” he started before she closed the door fully, “oryou tried, and failed, to bash my head in.”
She studied him. There was a nasty bruise on his temple, the blotchy abstract of colors disappearing into his hairline. On that same side, his cheek and ear were swollen. Though alive, she could tell the poison had weakened him considerably.
Choosing to ignore his statement, she asked, “How did you track me?”
“Skipping pleasantries, I see.”
She crossed her arms. “Answer the question.”
He tilted his head down, peering at her through the bars of his makeshift prison. “I followed your trail.”
“Impossible. I erase my tracks except for in the areas I frequent. You didn’t stumble upon me. YouknewI was here.”
“I followed your trail,” he repeated evenly, unbothered.
No one knew she was here, not even the witches in the Coven of Marsh and Flame. She had left them without knowing where she would end up.
She’d taken trips to and from the Mark to gather supplies, but that had been long ago, when she first found the swamp and her home. She’d been self-sufficient for most of the year now. Could she have been marked on one of those early trips, though? If someone tracked her back and the hunters were asking around, it would be nothing a few coins couldn’t get out of them.
“I don’t understand,” she finally said.
He snorted. “They told me you were cunning and deadly—I see they overestimated your abilities.”
“I’m not the one trapped in a cage,” she countered.
“And what will you do with me now that I’m here?” His eyes traveled the length of her body and back up, the slow perusal like tendrils of touch. She shivered in its wake.
When she didn’t answer him right away, he continued, “You don’t look like the torturing type.”
“You just said you were told I was deadly, so which one is it?” It was true, though. Rel wasn’t very set on torment and violent force. And now that she had the displeasure of conversing with him, she was certain a man like this wouldn’t talk just to escape being locked up.
“You can be deadly,” he drawled, “but incapable of torture. Such brutality takes a specific kind of character.”
“I know those characters well.”
They stared at each other for a long moment. She had the distinct feeling she was being sized up, weighed. He was strategizing. And he regarded her likeshewas the one ensnared. Like he had her right where he wanted her.
Clearing her throat to get rid of the eerie feeling, she asked, “How did you survive the poison? It should have felled you three times over.”
