The Kiss of Deception (The Remnant Chronicles 1)

Griz put his hand out to help me up. “Be careful, girl. Don’t turn your back on Malich so easily,” he said in clear Morrighese.

I stared at him, more shocked at his speech than his kindness. He kept his hand extended, and I hesitantly took it.

“You speak—”

“Morrighese. Yes. You’re not the only one with secrets, but this one will remain between us. Understood?”

I nodded uncertainly. I had never expected to share a secret with Griz, but I’d take his advice and not turn my back on Malich again, though now I was far more curious why Griz hid his knowledge of Morrighese when the others openly spoke it. Clearly they didn’t know of his ability. Why did he reveal it to me at all? A slip? There wasn’t time to ask. He was already tramping back toward camp.

When Kaden and Finch returned with two hares for dinner, Kaden noticed Malich’s swollen lip and asked what had happened.

Malich only briefly glanced my way and said it was the sting of a wasp.

Indeed it was. Sometimes the smallest animal inflicts the greatest pain. He was in a fouler mood than usual for the rest of the night and lashed out at Eben for fawning over his horse. Kaden took a look at the horse’s leg, carefully examining the hoof that Eben had been checking again and again.

“He raised it from a foal,” Kaden explained to me. “Its front fetlock is tender. Maybe just a strained muscle.”

In spite of Malich’s jabs, Eben continued to check on the horse. It reminded me of how he was with the wolves. The boy was more connected to animals than people. I walked over to look at the horse’s leg and touched Eben’s shoulder, hoping to counter Malich’s harsh words with more hopeful ones. He whipped around and growled at me like a wolf, drawing his knife.

“Don’t touch me,” he snarled.

I backed away, remembering that though he might look like a child, even one who might forget himself from time to time and listen to a story around a campfire, an innocent childhood was not something he had ever known. Was he destined to be like Malich, who boasted how easy it had been to kill the coachman and Greta? Their deaths had cost Malich nothing more than a few thin arrows.

That night Kaden laid his bedroll close to mine, whether to protect me or Malich I wasn’t sure. Even with my bandaged fingers, Malich had taken the brunt of our mutual animosity, though certainly this afternoon he had intended to even the score. If Griz hadn’t come along, it could easily have been me with the bruised and swollen face, or worse.

I rolled over. Even if I ended up starved in the middle of nowhere, as Kaden predicted, I had to get away. Malich was dangerous enough, but soon I’d be in a city with thousands more like him.

We can’t always wait for the perfect timing. Pauline’s words seemed truer now than ever.

CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE

KADEN

We stopped midday at a shallow watering hole to fill our canteens and water the horses. Lia walked along the dry streambed that had once fed it, saying she wanted to stretch her legs. She’d been quiet all morning, not in an angry way that I might expect from her, but in some other way, a way that I found more worrisome.

I followed, watching her as she stooped to pick up a rock and turn it over. She examined its color, then skipped it along the dry bed as if she pictured it skimming along water.

“Three skips,” I said, imagining along with her. “Not bad.”

“I’ve done better,” she answered, holding up her bandaged fingers.

She stopped to slide her boot along a sandy patch, noting the gold glitter of the sand. Her eyes narrowed. “They say the Ancients pulled metals more precious than gold from the center of the earth—metals they spun into giant lacy wings that flew them to the stars and back.”

“Is that what you’d do with wings?” I asked.

She shook her head. “No. I’d fly to the stars, but I’d never come back.” She picked up a handful of the sparkling sand and let it sift from her fist to the ground as if trying to catch a glimpse of its hidden magic.

“Do you believe all the fanciful stories you hear?” I asked. I stepped closer and closed my hand gently around her fist, the warm sand slowly escaping between our fingers.

She stared at my hand clasped on hers, but then her gaze gradually rose to mine. “Not all stories,” she said softly. “When Gwyneth told me an assassin was on his way to kill me, I didn’t believe her. I suppose I should have.”

I briefly closed my eyes, wishing I could bite back my question. When I opened them, she was still staring at me. The last of the sand slid from our fists. “Lia—”

“When was it, Kaden, that you decided not to kill me?”

Her voice was still even, soft. Genuine. She really wanted to know, and she hadn’t yet pulled her hand away from mine. It was almost as if she’d forgotten it was there.

I wanted to lie to her, tell her that I had never planned to kill her, convince her that I’d never killed anyone, to take back my whole life and rewrite it in a few false words, lie to her the way I already had a hundred times before, but her gaze remained fixed, studying me.