Page 107 of Bloodguard

Mama did ent make it.

Oh, stars.

Dahlia wonet waek up. Leith, help me. Whut do i do 2 waek hr up.

No!

Dahlia dyd. Imma lone. R u ded? Please dount be ded, 2.

In the last few letters, Rose’s handwriting is barely legible. I know she’s sick and starving even before she finally admits that she’s dying, too. She pleads for Leith to help her, to save her, that she’s scared and doesn’t want to die alone.

The final letter is from a leader from Leith’s village. It’s dated fourteen months after Leith arrived in Arrow.

Two Leith of Grey,

I'm surry. We fond ur family and buried dem together. Dey wer ded a long time.

chapter 39

Maeve

I brace myself against the counter to remain upright, tears blurring the writing before me. Years. His family’s been dead foryears.

All this time, he’s stayed alive, fighting to fulfill the dreams of a family long dead, a family he’s trying to bring home.

The shop owner skips out from the back room, abruptly stopping when he sees the doll lying on the desk and the letters surrounding it.

His eyes widen as realization strikes.

But realization doesn’t strike him nearly as hard as I intend to.

I intend to strike him dead.

I unhook my cloak. It flutters as I toss it away and unsheathe my sword. Toso hisses, leaping up and racing on all fours along the counter. Now that the shop owner sees my face, he damn well knows exactly who I am. He barely calls me by my title before he races behind the doors and locks them tight.

My anger makes me strong. I kick open the doors and sweep into a dark storage room. It’s large and dusty, shelves piled and spilling over with valuable goods this devious little shit hoards for his own profit.

How much hurt has this man caused? How many lives has he ruined? How did no one realize this sooner?

I start forward, spinning away from the first shelf that the shopkeeper topples over to stop me and dodging the others that follow. The heavy and sharp contents slam and break against the old wooden floors. They create large piles covering the entry to the solarium.

The owner is pushing and throwing everything he can at me. I hop over tools, toys, clothing, and boxes of dried goods, my quick footwork mimicking an odd dance.

Toso bounds over the mess, his growls growing more menacing. I stalk toward the solarium, taking my time so my sensitive eyes adjust from the dark storage room to the bright space filled with sunlight. I freeze beneath the archway.

A dome encompasses the entire roof of the aviary. There’s a large opening in the corner where the glass dome ends and the tiled roof of the remainder of the house begins. It allows the enormous birds access in and out, as well as exposing them to the elements, including those harsh enough to kill them.

Tethered across several posts are incredibly old and malnourished hawks, straining their bodies to reach the scraps of food intermixed with their waste on the floor. Their feathers are brittle from age and the disgusting conditions they’re kept in. These birds are barely capable of flight. To task them with carrying supplies is heartless.

And to send them to the distant regions where migrants and gladiators arrive from? Impossible.

“How long have you been pocketing money and supplies meant for starving families?” I demand of the shopkeeper who’s nearly halfway across the aviary.

He stills with his back to me. “Who said I’ve done that?”

“Are you this much of a monster?” I challenge. “Or are you so ignorant that you’d insult someone with a sword?”

Fingers wrapped around my sword hilt and attention still on the man, I point to the rope binding the hawk with my free hand. Toso follows my direction and skitters to the perch. “Set them free,” I tell him, opening and closing my fingers in a biting motion, and off he goes. He gnaws through the rope anchoring the bird before bouncing along to the next perch.

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