Page 8 of This Monster of Mine

“Ifyou last long enough.You can’t handle the stress.”

“Stress is serving drunkards every night.” She rolled up her only spare tunic and packed it. “Pursuing justice is an honor.”

Telmar’s eyes bugged slightly. “You’re mad.”

“Desperate.” Without an ounce of guilt, she stuffed some of Cretus’s bread rolls in her pack. “I’d have saved you the trip if I’d known the Tetrarchy had waived training.”

“I almost wish I’d never told you.” He sighed, fishing out a crumpled bit of parchment and a half-snapped reed pen from his pockets. Wetting thetip with his wine, he scrawled a few lines, poured some wax off a nearby taper, and impressed his seal. “Go with the High Elsar, if you insist. I’ll send word ahead to the Academiae. The Robing is on the first equinox, the fifth day of the Month of Moons. Reach Edessa by then.”

She nodded, pulse drumming. Hefting another amphora from Cretus’s finest stock, she plunked it on the table. “Help yourself. I owe you.”

“It may be the chance of a lifetime, barmaid.” Telmar’s voice was quiet. “But it isn’t worth your life.”

“Just as well then.” Sarai shoved open the door, tying her birrus around her to face the cold. Her lips formed their first real smile in years. “I have no intention of dying.”

She stepped into a sea of snow. There was no further thought, no looking back. Adrenaline pushed her down the deserted street, feet kicking up icy clouds.

The broad logs that formed the town gates swayed under the press of wind. She veered toward the thatched stables on the left, tugging at the stiff door until it swung outward in a rush. She stumbled in to find a group of confused equine faces. But no stable hand. Arsameans were a miserly people, but this night—and this night alone—was when they lost their minds to drink and left their goods unguarded.

Sarai grinned. “Which one of you wants to get out of here with me?”

A glossy chestnut poked its head over a stall door bearing the name “Caelum.” She unlatched the stall, the empty one beside it telling her that Vela had left. The mare trotted out. Whispering a quick thanks to the Elsar, she patted its velvety nose.

“We’re going to Edessa, Caelum.”

The mare whickered, holding still as Sarai tacked her with the only halfway decent saddle available—and climbed on. Her heart pounded so loudly she wondered if the horse heard it too. Wind stabbed at her skin as she left the stables, but none of it mattered. She was finally leaving. Finally able to hunthimdown.

Silhouetted between the main gates, she turned. Snow billowed down an empty street of ice-capped houses, devoid of life and warmth. A fitting final image.

“Goodbye, Arsamea,” she whispered. For all its evils, it was the only home she’d known.

Four years ago, she hadn’t looked back as she left, believing that a greater destiny awaited her. She was no longer that naïve. This was no trade of the High Elsar’s Bright Realms for the Dark Elsar’s ten hells, but of one vise for another. Poverty and Marus’s fist exchanged for a deathtrap of a job and vengeance.

Sarai faced the winding road through the Arsamean mountains. Somewhere, hundreds of miles away, was the monster who had thrown her off a tower.

“I’m coming for you,” she whispered.

The wind took the words and flung them into the abyss down the sheer drop on her right. And as she wound her way down, she could have sworn that the abyss laughed back.

CHAPTER TWO

Rain pounded the cobblestones, sliding off her broken body at the base of Sidran Tower. Pain had long since become a part of her. It ebbed and burned, every drop of rain igniting another cataclysm on shredded skin.

She didn’t know why she was here. Tugging on the weak threads of her memory had only made them snap, faces and voices leeching like blood from her skull. All she knew was that the half of her that had met the ground was pulp, and the rest of her wasn’t much different.

A man loomed over with a horrified curse. “What have you done?” Revulsion filled his voice. “Her face is gone.”

Another pair of boots joined him. “Get her another.” The newcomer had the most beautiful voice she’d ever heard. Smooth, mellifluous, unforgettable. A sliver of sound escaped her lips, a plea. The two men didn’t seem to notice.

“You surely don’t think she can be rebuilt after this! Anyone who sees her—”

“Can be bought,” the beautiful voice noted.

“This is the last time I’ll cover for you,” the other man roared. “Never again!”

A dry chuckle. The scrape of boots against stone. “If only that were true.”

Sarai started awake with a scream, clutching handfuls of Caelum’s mane. The mare halted its pace with a disgruntled snort. Having experienced morethan one such outburst over the past twenty-five days, it waited patiently as she dragged air in through her cupped hands.

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