Page 79 of A Scar in the Bone
“She’s their thrall.” I muttered the words, the taste of them sour on my tongue. That would explain the hollowness of her cheeks, the thin jutting shoulders beneath her cloak, eyes that felt as empty as pits in the ground.
“Can you imagine it?”
Imagine being in bondage to another? It wasn’t such a difficult concept. Not as a former whipping girl. Not after just escaping Stig and his regiment of a thousand.
The brute backhanding her across the face flashed in my mind, and I flinched again, as though I felt it myself. I knew too well what it was to feel pain at the hands of another. Such hurt was very fresh in my mind. Stranger or no, if I could spare her that, I would.
Kerstin motioned ahead and started walking, her boots crunching over the snow-packed ground in the opposite direction they’d taken. “We continue this way, I assume?”
“No.” The sound of my own voice surprised me.
Kerstin looked back at me with a questioning lift of her eyebrows. “No?”
I nodded at the trampled path left by the skelm.
“After them?” Her features wobbled uncertainly, as though she was ready to break into laughter. Something in my face must have stopped her. Her expression flattened. “You’re serious?”
“Let’s follow them.”
“You want to avoid them … not follow. You should know that already, considering what they did to Fell.”
I did know that—which was why I felt this burning compulsion to go after them.
“It’s not as though I’m going to walk up to them with a big hello. We’ll keep our distance.” I placed my right boot in one of the deep ruts they left behind. “They are the ones who buried Fell, you know.”
Understanding eased the slope of her shoulders. “And you plan to what? Get the information of his location from—”
“I have no plan,” I said, interrupting her, not letting her give voice to the improbability that they would ever reveal to me where Fell was buried. “I just know I have to do this.”
WE FOLLOWED THEMthrough the day, keeping our distance and staying well out of sight. Snow drifted down. Not squall-level snowfall, but enough that our scent would be lost, the sound of us trailing them eaten up by wind.
Dusk fell and we took advantage of the cover, creeping closer, moving cautiously over a bluff that looked down on their camp.
Curling my fingers inward, I stroked my silent palm involuntarily, the action as automatic as taking a breath. A hopeless task. I hadn’t felt him in days. He couldn’t talk to me. Buttheycould. They’d put him in the ground somewhere, a location only they knew. They were my only link to him now that the link in me had gone silent.
We crawled on our bellies over the snow to get closer … to see better.
Looking down, we watched them settling in for the night. After a while, I felt as much as heard Kerstin sigh beside me.
“What are we doing here, Tamsyn? Let’s go before they catch our scent.”
I lifted my face to the biting air. “We’re fine. The wind is too strong.”
“Yes, but for how long? What if it dies away in the night while we sleep and we’re not even aware of it? They could come upon us when we are not even awake to defend ourselves. Let’s get out of here while we still can.”
She was right. Weshouldgo. And yet I hesitated, studying the slight figure huddled in their midst for some sign of life, something that would make me pity her a little less so that I could then lie to myself, pretend she was not reallythatbad off, and walk away with a clear conscience.
One of her captors approached her—a dark, mountainous mass of muscle etched against the purpling air. He moved unsteadily on his feet, gnawing the bit of meat off a bone the size of a femur, and I realized he was deep in his cups. Apparently, those flasks of theirs weren’t holding water. He was likely drunk on verdaberry wine.
He called to the witch. His words were unintelligible, but the tone was recognizable. I knew the jeering sound. The inherent contempt.
She didn’t look up, but it didn’t matter. He didn’t need her acknowledgment.
He tossed the bone in her direction, striking her hard enough for her to recoil. His laughter cracked on the air, and I fought against a flash of anger, the heat of it rolling through me.
“Well, he’s lovely,” Kerstin muttered.
The mountain turned away, and I watched as the slight shape of her lunged forward and seized the bone where it had landed, her small face a pale smudge in the shadows as she fell upon it, tearing atwhat little meat was left with a frantic flash of teeth. I exhaled. Well. So much for that. Nothing about this served to make me pity her less.
