Warrior's Dawn (Fire and Tears) (14 page)

Had he been pretending at the tenderness she’d seen in him upstairs? Had she fooled herself into thinking he was more than the rude, arrogant traitor she’d thought him before this mission?

He didn’t react at all when the knife at her throat shifted so that the sharp edge pressed more firmly against her skin. No gesture, not even a blink to indicate he might care if she died.

“I wish we could keep her,” the Sorcerer said, her tone actually regretful. “I wouldn’t mind indulging in these beautiful tits of hers either.”

Mina jumped when the woman squeezed her breast, but she kept her gaze focused forward, watching everything Althir did. Still no reaction, only a slight head tilt and a disinterested stare.

“But I’m afraid needs must,” the woman sighed.

The knife at Mina’s throat dug deep enough to draw blood. She held still as all the fear and anger, the sense of betrayal and failure all drained away under the sure knowledge that she was about to die, to finally join her family. There were worse ways to go. And a sliced throat was quicker than a Sorcerer’s altar, or being turned minion.

She stared at Althir as she waited to die, a part of her acknowledging how much she hated him in that moment for his betrayal. But even her anger over that couldn’t permeate the numbness settling over her.

Because she was watching him, she caught his gaze when he looked directly at her, then ever so slightly nodded down toward her sword. She blinked.

“Are you sure you want to waste killing her here?” he said, his gaze moving back up to the Sorcerer. “Lot of hate in her, for some reason. She’d make a fabulous sacrifice.”

“Offering her up to me now?” The woman’s voice rose in amusement. “Why, Althir. I didn’t know you cared.” A very brief pause and then she murmured, “But who precisely do you care about?”

“Oh that’s easy. I care about me and only me. You know that.”

The woman laughed, a light, happy sound. “My dear, dear Althir. I have never doubted, not once, that your main interest was always you.”

He smiled, a sexy lifting of lips that made Mina frown again. Because the knife about to take her life shifted, moving away from her throat this time until the flat side of the blade rested against her chest, just below her collarbone.

Althir’s gaze lowered a little, almost coyly, but Mina saw the way he focused in on her sword. Her frown deepened. Her short sword would hardly kill a Sorcerer. They had protections.

True, the swords were elf made, and elf weapons were able to get around a lot of the Sorcerers’ spells. But this close, surely the woman behind her had protected herself even from an elf sword.

Then Mina remembered Althir specifically telling her this weapon could cut through a lot of magics. Did he mean something like this? And could she believe him now? She pressed her lips together in a tight line.

If she was going to die anyway, she wanted to go down fighting, not as a blood sacrifice on this woman’s altar, and not as an easy, motionless victim. She didn’t even bother to tighten her grip. She simply sighed and swiveled around in a tight arc to the Sorcerer’s side, plunging her sword through the soft flesh just beneath the woman’s ribs.

Talliah’s eyes widened at the surprise attack. She glanced at the sword, looked up at Mina with a glare that held the power to kill, and raised her own knife. Mina dragged her weapon sideways, cutting across the woman’s abdomen as she ducked under the swing of the knife, working on instinct more than thought. The blade still sliced across her shoulder, but it didn’t do any more damage than the numerous cuts Mina had already accumulated.

She continued to drag her sword through the Sorcerer’s belly, only pulling free and jumping away from her when she sensed the knife dropping toward her again.

The Sorcerer stumbled a step, the momentum of her lunge with the knife throwing her off balance. She looked down at the gaping wound in her stomach, then up at Mina.

“Shouldn’t have been possible,” she choked, and blood bubbled out of her mouth. “But my name… Can’t use it now.”

She lurched toward Mina again, the knife still clutched in her fist, but the wound slowed her and Mina danced away. The Sorcerer fell face first onto the hard marble. Blood spread from her wound in a wide circle that soaked the woman’s body and seeped across the floor.

For reasons beyond logic, Mina did not want that blood to touch her. She walked backward, watching it spread and keeping her distance.

She was as surprised as the woman had looked. She’d actually killed a Sorcerer. Shock made her forget for too long that other enemies were still in the room. When thoughts of the other elves startled her back to the present, she spun to face them.

Only to see both sprawled across the marble, Liroc with two arrows sticking out of his chest, Vernil with a single arrow through his throat. Her mouth dropped open as she faced Althir, and her eyes widened when she spotted the bow in his hand.

“But…elves can’t kill other elves. Everyone knows that. It’s why the Sinnale were asked to kill the traitors, why your king and queen started trading weapons with us again. How…?”

Althir dropped the bow over his head, once again angling it across his back. “Taboo is not the same thing as impossible,” he said in a flat voice. “That fact was emphasized to me when my own brother held a knife to my throat.”

After everything that had just happened, Mina wasn’t sure she could take any more shocks. She wasn’t even sure how to process this latest bit of information.

She stared at nothing and shook her head, too stunned to think.

Althir snatched the List vessel off its pedestal while she tried to recover enough to function. “We need to get out of here,” he said, gesturing to the Sorcerer’s body on the floor. “That made a lot of magical noise. Everyone with even an ounce of magical ability within a hundred-mile radius just felt that.”

Her adrenaline jumped again, pushing her to movement finally. She ran back toward the stairs with Althir at her side. Every nerve stood at alert, waiting for the next attack, but none came. They left the List fortress in a rush without encountering any more soldiers or guards. But when Althir would have turned back in the direction of the border, she grabbed his arm.

“This way.” She dragged him a few feet, then started to run.

“This is moving farther into Sorcerer territory,” he muttered, not even sounding winded.

“I know.”

“Which means we’re moving farther away from where we have to go.”

“I know.”

“Why then?”

“Because they will look for us in the other direction first.”

The streets were virtually deserted as night had moved on and the battle must still be engaged. Mina was counting on the distraction of that battle to give them just a little time to reach a safe place.

A place she hadn’t entered since the war began.

“I hope you know where you’re going,” Althir grunted.

“I know exactly where I am,” she assured. They plunged down the backstreets and dark alleys, covering the short ten blocks that took her home.

Chapter Thirteen

Walking into her former home, Mina’s heart ached for all the losses. She hadn’t been here since just after the war started, when the initial invasion swept over this part of the city, pushing the populous west if they wanted to survive.

She took Althir in through the back entrance, directly into the bakery kitchen. Her family had owned two shops, a bakery and a chocolatier—the results of a good marriage between her grandmother, whose family were bakers, and grandfather, the offspring of chocolate experts. Each shop had its own kitchen and the family had occupied the two floors of rooms above the shops.

She’d spent most of her time learning how to make chocolates, so that kitchen held the most memories. The bakery was a little less painful, but even less painful was still overwhelming.

The deliciously rich scents that used to fill this building had long since drifted off, though a very faint hint of vanilla and cinnamon hung in the air underneath the aroma of disuse. She tried to keep the tears welling in her eyes from falling as she studied the area.

Dust covered everything. No footprints on the floors. No one had trampled through the place in a while. That was good.

If they were lucky, some of the belongings her family had to leave behind were still upstairs. She pulled absently at her bloody, torn tunic. The way she looked now, she’d never be able to pass as anything but…

As the idea occurred to her, some of the pain of being here eased, giving her something else to concentrate on—doing what she was so good at doing for the war, collecting information.

But first she had to get Althir settled.

“Help me check the second floor,” she murmured. “If it’s clear, we should be safe here for a while.”

He didn’t comment, just followed silently. When they were sure the building was secure and hadn’t been occupied in some time, Mina showed him to a spare room—not her parents’ or her brother’s. The idea of Althir in her brother’s room made her throat close.

“There might be some spare clothing in that wardrobe. Take what you need. The water in the pumps should be good too, but be careful.”

“You’re hurt.” He nodded to the various patches of blood covering her tunic. “You need bandaging. Your shoulder is still bleeding where Talliah struck you.”

She tried to see the wound but gave up when the effort proved futile. All she could see was more blood. “None of it is going to kill me. I’ll see if I can find some bandages.”

“I’ll take care of it. Sit. You need to rest after the blood loss.”

“I’m fine, Althir. Just… Just…” She swallowed.

Being in her old home was proving a lot more difficult than she expected. The odd mixture of feeling safe and feeling empty here in this quiet monument to her once loving family had the tears leaking down her cheeks without her permission.

Althir’s eyes widened. “Mina. Are you more seriously hurt than you’re telling me? Where? What’s wrong?”

She would have laughed at the panic in his voice if she had the strength. Wiping the tears off with dirty hands, she shook her head. “It’s not the injuries. Don’t worry. I’m fine. I’ll be right back.”

She hurried into the hallway so she didn’t have to talk while memories and regret clogged her throat. Somehow, even having an elf here seemed wrong. And yet…

She remembered the way Althir had acted in the List chamber, his casual dismissal of her. He’d looked like he meant every word he said. She couldn’t spot any sort of lying or deception in the way he spoke with the Sorcerer. The betrayal of it had cut deep.

But then he’d signaled her to use her sword. And he’d killed the other elves—something that should
not
have been possible. Proving once again that there was more to him than she knew, more maybe than she wanted to see. The elf casually discussing sex and blood magic in the List chamber was the Althir she expected, the man she thought he was before setting out on this mission with him.

She’d started to believe he was different. And she couldn’t deny she wanted him to be because her feelings toward him had changed dramatically.

But which Althir was the
real
one? The one who would betray her so casually? Or the one who nearly panicked when she started to cry in front of him?

She had so many questions. She had to get her erratic emotions under control. Then she could talk over what had happened and what they needed to do to get back to friendly territory.

Stepping across the threshold into her former bedroom felt so natural and so odd all at once, she paused for a long time, just staring at the large bed and small desk by the window. A window she’d stared out, entertaining her naïve, innocent dreams for a future that would never be.

With a hard swallow, she went to the wardrobe in the corner. A few things remained, nothing of value—which would have been looted long ago—but a few well-worn garments had been left piled at the bottom of the wooden cabinet. She rifled through the dregs until she came up with a pair of trousers and tunic that would suit once they started back through the city. After a bit more digging, she found a dress that would fit her plan to get the information they needed to get back.

When she came up from the depths to toss the dress onto her bed, Althir stood in the doorway. She jumped a little, then cursed under her breath. “Damned silent elves,” she muttered.

“I found bandages and got some water to clean those cuts,” he said. “And all the blood.”

Self-consciously she touched her cheek. She probably looked like an escaped sacrifice. “You don’t have to do that. I can take care of it.”

“You wouldn’t be the first soldier whose wounds I’ve dressed. Sit.” He nodded to the bed.

“Female soldiers?” She raised her brows.

She’d have to take off her tunic for the wounds to be properly treated. But she did need to get all the blood off and some of the deeper wounds bandaged. The many cuts suited her plan, but the Chemist wouldn’t believe she hadn’t been bandaged at all before being sent to him.

Still, stripping off any of her clothing in front of Althir seemed a bad idea. Especially now, when she wasn’t entirely sure she could trust her instincts about him.