Page 27 of Zel
“No one knows everything about me, Zel, not even my old apprentice.” That caught Zel’s attention just as Ulrich had intended, but he did not elaborate.
“Am I your new apprentice, my lord?” Zel asked.
“You are more than that as my betrothed.”
“And despite not sharing all your secrets with your apprentice, would you with a bride?”
So very clever, Ulrich thought, as he looked at Zel. “I would.”
“Then might I ask…” Zel brought them to a halt along the path they trod down. “Will you always be this way? Pained by your arm, I mean?” Zel gently squeezed Ulrich’s hand. “There is no way to reverse this curse you bear?”
If Ulrich did not already know Zel planned to betray him, he might have believed the question was borne of genuine concern and curiosity. “There might be,” he admitted, but he had no intention of elaborating on that yet either.
They had reached their destination.
Ulrich darted his eyes into the trees around them.
“My lord?” Zel followed Ulrich’s gaze.
“Sit tight and have no fear,” Ulrich said, lifting Zel’s hand to kiss the chilled and seemingly delicate fingers in his grasp. “I will let no harm come to you. But we are not alone.” Ulrich tore his grasp from Zel’s and darted into the darkness of thicker trees, leaving Zel, so very lovely and alluring, even bundled against the cold, that any bandit would gladly take the bait.
Ulrich watched from the shadows, having gone the opposite direction from the hiding place of the bandit who was watching them. He had not known exactly where he might find ahighwayman in wait, but he knew the most likely places along the paths in the wood where it was dangerous to tread alone.
For mortals, anyway.
Zel spun the correct direction moments before the bandit revealed himself. Ulrich made note of how Zel’s hand jerked, as if reaching for a dagger that wasn’t there. Good instincts. Honed.
“What a fool your escort is to leave such a fragile flower alone,” the bandit said, circling Zel with his own dagger drawn.
Zel’s entire countenance shifted. No longer politely composed and demure, Zel went taut like a wolf ready to spring forth and rip the man to pieces with bare hands and teeth. “You would do yourself a service to walk away,” Zel warned.
“Why would I do that, pretty petal, when your company would be so sweet.” The bandit lunged, but a fire filled Zel’s eyes, and a snarl formed, as if that nickname was especially unwelcome.
The bandit meant to frighten, overpower, and claim—not injure. Not initially. So Zel easily deflected the first blow, showing off the true skills of a Thieves Guild assassin. No skirts or long flowing braids could hinder Zel’s fluid and elegant movements. Being smaller and weaker than the bandit meant little, for Zel was fast and knew exactly how to redirect the bandit’s strength against him.
A second swipe of the bandit’s dagger was deflected, a third, then a fourth came at such a perfect angle that Zel was able to twist the bandit’s arm, spinning him to have his back to Zel and his arm pinned behind him.
The bandit slammed his head back, too tall to strike any part of Zel, but enough disruption for him to break free. Still having hold of his dagger, the bandit turned and launched himself to tackle Zel to the ground.
Zel caught the trajectory of the bandit’s arm bringing the dagger down. It stopped, a mere prick away from nicking the skin of Zel’s neck. Zel did not look afraid at all, and Ulrich knewwhy. Zel had fallen on purpose, ended in that exact position on purpose, for that hold would make it only too easy to tilt the dagger upward and pierce through the hollow of the bandit’s throat.
Impressive, but as much as Ulrich wanted to watch Zel complete the act, he also wanted that soul.
Ulrich pounced from out of the trees much like the bandit had. He was half shadow, like the haze of clouds over the face of the moon, as he hurled the bandit off of Zel, sending the dagger skittering across the dead grass and brittle leaves. Ulrich rose like shadow too, towering to an even greater height, and the guise of a mortal elf fell away to reveal his abyssal majesty.
He lifted the bandit from the ground by the edges of his dirty, tattered surcoat. The man barely got out a scream before Ulrich was siphoning his soul from that open mouth and swallowing it like wine. It tasted just as heady, lessening the sharp sting of Ulrich’s senses like wine could too. But as he had told Zel, this was the only time when Ulrich felt no pain at all.
Aside from touching Zel.
The eventual husk of the bandit stared blankly, still alive for the briefest of moments before Ulrich dropped him to the cold ground with a crunch.
Ulrich turned toward the still horizontal figure of Zel on the path. There was the fear Ulrich had caught a glimpse of when he looked up at Zel’s window that first night. Clearly, Zel worried about becoming one of Ulrich’s future meals. Good. It was good for Zel to feel some fear. Fear could lead to so many useful truths.
Ulrich straightened his robes, immediately veiling himself again in his disguise. “This one we can leave.” He looked at the body and then back down the path toward the fork that led to the Dark Forest. “Herr Candy will find use for it.”
Without elaborating further on that either, Ulrich returned to Zel to offer a helping hand.
“Thank you, my lord.” Zel took it, also straightening disheveled clothing once back on solid ground. There was a stiffness to Zel’s posture that Ulrich did not think was solely because of him. “I could not have survived such an encounter without you.”
