"Go back to camp for the rest of the night. I have a meeting to attend to - if I return to find any of you gone, I will hunt you down and not leave you injured. I will finish the job. "
They left without looking at Throe - or him, for that matter.
Wise choice.
His anger was sharper than the blades he had just used.
* * *
As Throe was left alone in the alley, he positioned his hand flat against his abdominals, exerting pressure to reduce the blood loss.
Although his body was crippled with pain, his vision and hearing were preternaturally acute as they trained on his environment: The buildings arching above him were tall and without lights. The windows were narrow and had thick, rippled glass. The air smelled of cooking meat, as if he were not far from a restaurant that grilled a great deal. And off in the distance, he heard the horns of cars and the rush of the brakes on a bus and a woman laughing shrilly.
It was still early in the night.
Anyone could find him. Friend. Foe. Lesser. Brother.
At least Xcor had left him with his dagger in his hand.
With a curse, he rolled over onto his side and tried to push himself upright -
Didn't that solve the problem of everything registering so brightly and loudly. Upon a fresh onslaught of agony, the world receded, the bomb exploding in his gut of such magnitude that he wondered if he hadn't ruptured something.
Easing back to where he'd been, he thought Xcor might well be incorrect. Mayhap this alley was a coffin for him, rather than a serving plate for the Brotherhood.
Indeed, whilst he lay in his suffering, he realized he should have known better. He had grown to be at ease around that male, in the same way one who handled tigers might become lax: He'd taken for granted certain patterns of behavior, finding in them a misguided safety and predictability.
In reality, the danger had not dissipated, but grown.
And as it had been from the very first moment with Xcor, he remained trapped by the circumstances that had brought them together.
His sister. His beautiful, pure sister.
I have had her with us all along.
Throe moaned, but not from his wounds. How had Xcor gotten the ashes?
He had assumed his family had performed a proper ceremony and taken care of her as was appropriate. And how could he have known otherwise? He had not been permitted to see his mother or his brother once the deal had been struck, and his father had passed ten years before.
The unfairness was legion: In death, one would hope for her to have the peace she deserved. After all, the Fade had been created for souls as light and lovely as hers had been. But without having had the ceremony -
Dearest Virgin Scribe, she could have been denied entrance.
This was a new curse upon him. And her.
Staring up at the sky, of which he could see nearly naught, he thought of the Brotherhood. If they did find him before he died, and if they did take him in as Xcor assumed, he would do as he was required to. Unlike the others in the Band of Bastards, he had his own fealty, and it was not to the king or Xcor or his fellow soldiers - although in truth, it had begun to swing in the direction of those males.
No, his allegiance was to another. . . and Xcor knew that. Which was why that despot had made the effort long ago to gather some further assurance against Throe extricating -
At first he assumed the stench upon the warm breeze was from a garbage bin, the result of the wind switching direction and catching the odor of some abandoned food waste. But no, there was a telltale sweetness in the horrid bouquet.
Lifting his head, he looked down his body and across yards and yards of pavement. At the end of the alley, three lessers stepped into view.
Their laughter was his death knell, and yet he found himself smiling, even as flashes of dull light suggested that knives had been taken out.
The idea that fate had thwarted Xcor's plan seemed a perfectly acceptable note to go out on. Except his sister. . . how could he help her if he were dead?
As the slayers approached, he knew that what they were going to do to him would make the pain in his stomach seem like nothing more than a stubbed