Page 33 of Kept to Kill
She peered around the chamber. The hairs on the back of her neck were standing up. But she could see the whole room and there was clearly no one in here. She looked at the door. She hadn’t locked it, assuming that the Brothers would simply knock the door off its hinges if they wanted to come in for any reason, and she didn’t think the proprietress of the inn would have any need to come in. Those were the only people here, after all, but perhaps it would be better to bolt the door … just in case.
She got out of bed again and eased the bolt across, the sound much louder than she would have expected, and she cringed, hoping she didn’t wake anyone. They must be tired as well, she thought.
Her thoughts went to Bastian and she couldn’t help the sadness that permeated her being, though she knew he’d never feel anything for her if their roles were reversed. If not tonight, then tomorrow he would die. She hung her head, leaning against the door as she let the guilt she’d been keeping at bay envelop her. She should never have taken those gloves off. She was a fool and her stupidity had cost another person their life.
She looked down at her flesh. It was a rarity to be so completely uncovered. Well, except since leaving her tower, of course. She’d seen more of her own body than she ever had before. One of Vineri’s rules was that she usually remained as covered as possible so that there weren’t any mishaps. She stared at her hands. So innocuous. Just like anyone else’s that you’d pass on the street, yet she’d killed forty-five people. Forty-six tomorrow.
Heaving a great sigh, she wandered over to the table and poured herself a large goblet of wine that she gulped down in its entirely before getting back into bed, even though she could hardly abide the taste. Hopefully the wine would do its job quickly and help her sleep. She assumed there would be another long walk tomorrow and she wasn’t looking forward to it. Her muscles weren’t used to all the exercise.
She let out a small sound of horror. She was worrying about aches and pains when Bastian was going to die. What an awful person she was. She deserved whatever happened to her.
If she was caught and killed for being a witch, then so be it. It would be better that way. Then she wouldn’t murder anyone else, accident or no. She felt the four long scabs on her thigh. She’d have to cut another tomorrow, she thought, closing her eyes as the wine did its work.
The next day, they left the inn early after a small breakfast, Bastian included. He looked as hearty and hale as ever, but Lily knew that the curse could strike without warning.
He came up to her and she kept walking, finding she couldn’t look at him knowing that he would shortly be dead.
‘Are you in pain?’ He fell into step beside her. ‘You’re walking oddly,’ he elaborated at her questioning glance.
‘My legs ache from yesterday,’ she muttered, though in truth her body burned or hurt in a multitude of places. She let out a breath. ‘Is there anything that you’d like … you know, after you … after your body …’
‘You mean when I’m dead? Last rites and such?’
‘Yes.’ Her voice broke on the word and he grabbed her elbow, turning her so roughly to face him that she gasped, but when he spoke, he sounded puzzled, not angry.
‘You really would care if I died, wouldn’t you?’
‘Of course.’
If anything, he looked even more confused by her reply. ‘I had assumed you enjoyed it.’
Now it was her turn to feel bewildered. ‘Enjoyed what?’
‘The power you have.’
‘Enjoyed it?’ She practically shrieked in his face. She took a quick step back, wrenching her arm from his fingers. ‘How could you think such a thing?’ she asked in a whisper.
He opened his mouth to speak, but no words came out. He seemed completely unsure of what to say as she just stood in front of him and stared in anger and upset. How could anyone think shewantedthis?
‘Move,’ Mal’s gravelly voice said from behind her, and she turned away from Bastian, quickening her step to escape him and his horrible assumptions about her. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Quin’s mouth hanging open, but he wasn’t looking at her, so she ignored him and simply led the way down the path.
She looked into the distance. They were still quite high but descending rapidly now. She guessed they’d make the plains later today, and she’d heard talk of another inn, so she wouldn’t have to spend the night out in the open. The forest that first night hadn’t been too bad. The trees had blocked out much of the sky and she’d not been frightened, but as she gazed over all that open land, her heart began to hammer in her chest. It would be days of journeying out there in the immense terrain. Exposed.
She could make out one discerning feature in the distance, and that was a mound with a large walled fortress built on the top. She could vaguely make out birds flying around its towers, but that was all she could see at this distance, especially with the haze that made the horizon appear somewhat wavy.
They walked the rest of the way down the hill in silence, and the trees gave way to smaller shrubs and then nothing but the remnants of the grasses that covered the plains in green but at this time of year were merely tufts of brown sticking out of the boggy earth like macabre little graves. The idea made her shiver. She knew that venturing off the path was dangerous in many parts of the plains near to the thaw. The ground got so wet that people easily became trapped in the mire and sank to their deaths, or so she’d read.
As if he knew her thoughts, Quin came up behind her and said in a low voice, ‘Keep to the path no matter what.’
She looked over her shoulder at him and nodded gravely. Yet another place where dying was so much easier than living.
* * *
Mal walked behind the others,staring out at the lone hill that rose so high and stark against the flats. He’d thought it would appear smaller, less intimidating now that he was no longer a boy, but, if anything, the vice that tightened in his chest was worse now. There was nothing to be afraid of. He knew that. He’d made sure of that long ago. And yet here it was, still dominating the landscape as if it still had a right to be there. As if it ever had.
‘It’s an old temple, isn’t it?’ Bastian said from just in front of him to no one in particular, but Mal found himself nodding absently as he stared at it.
They walked along the wide path, the only way that was guaranteed to always be safe across this large area. The land stretched further than they could see in all directions save the one they’d just come from.
