The Beauty of Darkness (The Remnant Chronicles 3)

In the early evening, when there was still light, I practiced with knife and sword, ax and arrow, not knowing when or where I might need any of them. Since it was his specialty, I enlisted Jeb to teach me the silent art of breaking a neck, and he reluctantly agreed, then showed me more methods to dispatch an enemy without a weapon—though many of those methods were not exactly silent.

Later, when it was dark and there was nothing left to do but sleep, I listened for the sounds of the Rahtan—howls, footsteps, the sliding of a knife from a sheath. I slept with my dagger on one side of my bedroll and my sword on the other, ready. There was always a thought, a task, another bead to polish and add to my string, and then when there was only silence, I would wait for the veil of darkness to overtake me.

The one thing I couldn’t control were my moments of restless half sleep, when I rolled over and my arm searched for the warmth of a chest that was no longer there, or my head tried to nestle in the crook of a shoulder that was gone. In that netherworld, I heard words trailing behind me, like wolves stalking their prey, waiting for it to weaken and drop, strings of words that would pounce. How can you not understand? And, maybe worse, the bite of words that were never said.

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

KADEN

I knew she was hurting. It had been three days. I wanted to hold her. Make her stop. Slow down. I wanted her to look into my eyes and answer a question I was too afraid to ask. But trying to make Lia do anything right now was the wrong course of action.

On the first day when she had joined us on the trail and Tavish had asked if she was all right, I had watched her turn to stone. She knew what Tavish was implying, that she was weak or wounded by Rafe’s departure.

“Your king is where he should be, tending to the needs of his kingdom. And I’m doing what I need to do. It’s as simple as that.”

“I know he made promises to you about Terravin.”

She hadn’t answered him. She’d only looked back at the disappearing caravan and tugged on her gloves, flexing and shoving her fingers deeper into them and said, “Let’s ride.”

Rafe’s expression on that last night when he threw me up against the barracks wall stayed with me. He had been wild with fear—afraid to let her go—but he did. Something I hadn’t done, no matter how many times she’d asked me to free her as we crossed the Cam Lanteux. The thought turned in my head over and over again.

* * *

We were camped in a thin scrabble of beech, tucked up close to an outcropping of boulders. A shallow brook ran close by.

Lia sat off by herself, but not too far from the camp. We all still looked over our shoulders and slept with our weapons ready. We knew there could be more out there. Eben’s account of who he had seen leave the Sanctum, while helpful, could not include who he might not have seen.

I knew what would come next. Once she finished her remembrances, she would sharpen her knives, check her horse’s hooves for stones, scan the trail behind us, or scratch in the soil with a stick, then erase the marks with her boot. I wondered what she drew. Words? Maps? But when I asked her, she only said, Nothing.

I had thought this was all I ever wanted. To be with her. On the same side. She’s with you Kaden. That’s all that matters.

“I’m going to start dinner,” Orrin said, casting a wondering glance Lia’s way. He walked over to the firewood I had gathered and set his spit, spearing the pheasant he’d already gutted and cleaned.

Tavish returned from washing up in the brook. His thick black ropes of hair dripped with water. He followed my gaze, looking at Lia, and offered a quiet grunt. “I wonder what drill she’ll put one of us through tonight.”

“She wants to be prepared.”

“One person alone can’t take on an entire kingdom.”

“She has us. She’s not alone.”

“She has you—and that’s not saying a lot. The rest of us turn around once we reach the Morrighese border.” He shook out his hair and pulled his shirt over his head.

The first few days riding with Rafe’s loyal trio had been tense, but for Lia’s sake, I held back my tongue, and a few times my fist, too. Now they seemed to accept that I wasn’t along to whisk Lia back to Venda and that I had retired my former title of Assassin, at least until Lia was back in Morrighan. Whether I wanted to admit it or not, they were useful too. I knew hundreds of trails along this southern route, but every Rahtan knew them too. These three had surprised me with a few trails that wound through hidden box canyons where I had never traveled before. And with Orrin along, we never had to eat snake. He was able to draw an arrow and bring down game from his saddle while barely slowing his pace. His skill and passion were perfectly matched.

“Have you noticed,” Tavish asked as he shook out his saddle blanket and hung it over a low branch, “every dusk when she says her remembrances, the wind stirs?”

I had noticed. And wondered. The air seemed to thicken and come alive, as if she were summoning spirits. “Could just be the natural shift of air as the sun goes down.”

Tavish’s eyes narrowed. “Could be.”

“I didn’t think you Dalbretch were the superstitious sort.”

“I saw it back at the Sanctum too. I was there watching from the shadows, and I heard everything she said. Sometimes it felt like her words were touching my skin, like the breeze was carrying every single one past me. It was a strange thing.” I had never heard Tavish ruminate on anything beyond trails and suspicions of my true motivations, which had almost brought us to blows. He blinked as if catching himself. “My watch,” he said, walking away to relieve Jeb. He stopped after a few steps and turned.

“Just curious. Is it true you used to be Morrighese?”

I nodded.