"S-stay here," she said, forcing the words out, her chest so tight she could barely breathe. "I'm going out, but you need to stay right here."
"I don't--"
She ran to him and grabbed his hands, startling him, and he stumbled back, but she kept hold of him. "Gavril, please? Just do as I ask. For once, do as I ask."
"I don't understand."
"Do you trust me?"
"Of course."
"Then stay here." She dropped his hands and ran for the door. She threw it open. Two bandits stood there as if listening in. She didn't look at them. Just said, "Keep him inside. Please," then ran behind the house, ignoring shouts to stay where she was.
She rounded the rear of the house and stopped short. Five figures were buried there. Three guards. One old woman. Moria ran to the fifth figure. She dropped in front of her and pressed her hands against the woman's neck, knowing even as she did that the skin would be cold. Ice-cold.
The woman had to be thirty-five summers, but she seemed so much younger. And she looked . . . Moria let out a heaved breath, tears prickling her eyes.
She looked like Gavril. Like an older sister. A beautiful woman with skin as dark as her hair, short curls wrapped in bright ribbons, like a child's. And her expression . . . That was a child's, too, and it was Gavril's as well, that look on his face when he'd witnessed the massacre and again today, when he'd realized the bandits were going after his mother. Shock and confusion. The other victims looked terrified. Kiri Kitsune looked bewildered and lost, a little girl who did not understand what had happened and, moreover, why it had happened to her. And that was the worst of it, the look on her face.
Moria looked over at the bandits, who had now come to the side of the house, watching her, and she swore a couple of them were smirking. As if they'd already seen this, circling the house earlier. Seen it and yet played out the sadistic game, letting Gavril look inside for his mother, perhaps being relieved she'd escaped and then coming out to find . . .
Her hand tightened on her dagger, red-hot rage filling her. Then she heard a shout followed by running footsteps, and she forgot about the bandits. She raced back around the house just as Gavril appeared. She charged toward him and stopped so suddenly that he smacked into her.
"No," she said.
He reached as if to shove her aside.
"No, Gavril." She put her hands against his chest, pushing him back, and she knew the bandits would realize there was more between them than hate, but she didn't care. Nothing mattered now except stopping him from seeing what lay behind the house.
"Keeper . . ." he said, his voice low.
"She's gone," Moria said quickly.
His breath caught. "My mother--"
"--is dead. She's been murdered, and I'll not have you see her. Not like that."
"I must--"
"No." She looked up into his face. "Do you remember my father? The last time I saw him? I would give anything to pluck that image from my mind, and if I can block this from yours, then I will."
"How was she--?"
"No."
"I--"
"No!"
He stepped sideways then, too fast for her to stop, and she lunged into his path, but he'd frozen there, staring. When she glanced over her shoulder, she could see one of the buried guards.
The look on his face was the exact image of his mother's final one. Loss and confusion and disbelief. Moria struggled to keep her voice steady as she said, "Please, Gavril. Don't take another step."
"I need . . . I need . . ." He swallowed hard and looked away from the dead guard. "She must be buried."
"Looks like she already is," one of the bandits said, but Moria spun on him, and he had the decency to close his mouth.
"I must dig her out and bury her properly," Gavril said.