Page 182 of Of Empires and Dust

“And you need to lay off those elven cakes.” Tanner lurched forwards, dropping his arms and pretending to struggle before pulling Yana back up.

Yana slapped Tanner’s arm, her expression turning sharp and serious. “Careful, boy.”

Tanner just laughed, carrying her from the room and down the hall before laying her atop the bed they shared.

“Get some rest.” Tanner placed a kiss on Yana’s forehead as she pulled back the sheets and crawled into the bed. “I’ll watch over her. Did you see where Aneera went?”

Yana nodded, her eyelids already drooping.

Tanner laughed to himself, then made his way back to Ella’s room. Faenir had repositioned himself at the foot of Ella’s bed. The wolfpine looked like a mound of fur coats, the bed frame straining under his weight.

Faenir lifted his head at the sound of Tanner’s entry, promptly resetting it back atop his paws.

Tanner moved about the room, scratching Faenir on the neck, picking up Yana’s half-empty mug of cold Arlen Root tea, and pulling the ruffled bed sheet up over Ella’s collarbone.

He rested the back of his free hand against Ella’s forehead, checking her temperature. She was far warmer than she should have been, but that was the way she had been from the first night.

The young woman’s eyes moved back and forth behind her lids as though she were roaming through a whole other world in her mind.

He thought back to the night he and Yana had helped the woman escape from Berona, how she had barged into his office wearing nothing but a night dress covered in blood, a sword gripped in her fist and the wolfpine at her side.“It’s not my blood.”Tanner shook his head, holding back a laugh. The situation had been anything but funny, but there were not many young women who would find themselves in that position and think so little of it. She was a fighter at her core, and Tannerunderstood completely how his nephew had been so madly in love with her.

Leaving Faenir to watch over Ella, Tanner brought Yana’s empty mug back down the stairs, set another pot of water over the fire to boil, and cut himself a slice of bread with a wedge of cheese. With a second thought, he cut another slice of cheese for Faenir and slipped it into his pocket. That wolfpine loved cheese.

When the water had boiled, he poured it over the tea-soaked rags he’d left in the bucket, steam pluming upwards. He’d leave them to soak a while, then wash them out with some soap. Tanner refilled the pot and set it back over the fire, tossing in chunks of Arlen Root. Elia tended to chop the root into small pieces, but he had neither the inclination nor the energy.

He splashed some water on his face, then fetched a whetstone, a small jar of oil, and his sword from where it sat by the door. It was a routine he had grown accustomed to over the last week or so. He wasn’t the kind of man who took easily to sitting in the same place for hours on end with nothing to do but twiddle his thumbs. So instead, he sharpened his sword and his knives, preparing for the inevitable moment he would once again need to use them. Of course, sharpening the same weapons day after day was as pointless as lips on a chicken. Which was why every sword within walking distance now had a blade sharp enough to cut leather like cheese.

Tanner ascended the stairs, pushing open the door to Ella’s chambers with his shoulder. He had barely set a foot across the threshold when he realised he hadn’t left it ajar.

A man stood by Ella’s bed, grey-streaked hair falling short of his shoulders, brown robes tumbling to his ankles.

Tanner dropped the whetstone and oil, the jar smashing as it hit the floor. In the same motion he pulled his sword from his scabbard, turning so he stood across the doorway. “Step away from her.”

The man raised a bony finger. “I would rather like not to kill you this time.”

This time?

Tanner moved further into the room, never lowering his sword. Something about the man wasn’t right. “I feel the same way. Step away from her, sit in that chair, and we can talk.”

“My bones are sore anyway.” The man dropped himself into the chair in which Tanner had spent many a night watching over Ella. It was only as he did that Tanner noticed Faenir still lying at the foot of Ella’s bed. The wolfpine was awake, his eyes open. But he simply lay there, his chin resting on his paws, his gaze fixed on the man.

“What did you do to him?” Tanner tightened his grip on the sword’s hilt, setting his feet. The man looked as though he had seen twice Tanner’s summers, his skin wrinkled and pulling tight around his bones, but he sat straight and held his chin high, the smile on his face that of a much younger man.

“I simply told him to obey.” The man crossed one leg over the other, resting his hands in his lap, his blue-grey eyes shifting from Tanner to Faenir. “Isn’t that right?”

Faenir didn’t move, but his pupils sharpened. Something else was happening here. Something of which Tanner had no understanding – which seemed to be a common occurrence of late.

“Who are you, and why are you here?” Tanner shifted his sword into his left hand, skirting the man in the chair and brushing his free hand through the coarse fur on Faenir’s crown. The wolfpine didn’t so much as flinch or grumble.

The man stared at Ella, his expression unshifting. “You may call me Amatkai. I am a… friend, come to check on our dear Ella – and also to wait on another friend, as fate may have it. Many friends for you. He should be here soon, though I wouldn’t serve him that tea.”

“Tea? You’re mad.” Tanner gestured towards the door with his sword. “Stand up. Get out. I’ve changed my mind. We can talk about why you’re here outside.”

Unperturbed, Amatkai tilted his head to the side and gave Tanner a toothy grin.

Tanner stumbled backwards a step at the sight of two long fangs protruding from both Amatkai’s upper and lower jaws. The old man ran his tongue along one of the sharp teeth, his smile widening. He waved a hand, and Tanner howled in pain, his fingers peeling from the handle of his sword against his will, the bone in his pinky snapping as he tried to hold it in place.

“Apologies.” The man opened his hands out. “I see a path where that was not necessary – but on this path it was. The finger will heal.”

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