Page 78 of A Scar in the Bone
They all stood. They were leaving. Finally.
I released a silent exhale, relief rushing from me.
The same hairy brute from earlier returned, growled something unintelligible at the bound girl, and grabbed hold of her rope. Turning his back on her, he yanked the tether for her to follow. Icouldn’t help wondering if this was the notorious Kaldr. Or was he one of the others?
The wretched girl did follow, taking one halting step and then another—but as she did so, she lifted her face and looked up. Her gaze landed on us, hazel-gold eyes locking directly on me, and the hollowness there felt endless.
Kerstin saw her, too—and sucked in a breath beside me. The sound was a little too sharp, a little too audible, but I couldn’t make myself care in that moment. Not with the captive’s knowing gaze fastened on me.
Kerstin’s hand around mine tightened, the bones of my hand cracking from the crushing pressure, her warning clear, but I didn’t know what she wanted from me. I couldn’t be any more immobile: frozen as a rock, as still as the tree where we took refuge. Unblinking. Without breath. Cold enveloped me, the perpetual heat at my core dying like a breeze gone flat as I was pinned by those knowing eyes.
I’d thought of her as a girl because of her diminutive size, but staring down at her, I was not so certain. Her eyes held a world of knowledge, a wealth of experience that could span several lifetimes, and I recalled that witches, like dragons, lived exceedingly long lives.
The look she sent up to us could only have lasted a moment, but it felt like forever as I crouched, tense as a coiled spring, balanced on my bough.
Then she dropped her gaze and faced forward, offering me nothing more than the view of her hooded head once again. Without a hint that she was aware of us hiding in our perch, she followed after her captors.
21
TAMSYN
WE WAITED SEVERAL MINUTES, ASSURING OURSELVESthat the skelm was well and truly gone before we descended from our tree.
“That was close.” Kirsten brushed her hands down the front of her trousers. “I think I would have preferred to face wolves more than the skelm.”
I nodded mutely as I stared after them, in the direction they’d departed, still seeing those haunting eyes framed in that wan face looking at me.
“She saw us.” The words came out as a whisper even though there was no need for that anymore.
“Hmm. Yes.” Kerstin didn’t sound like she cared either way. “Lucky for us she held her tongue.”
“She has no reason to wish us ill.”
“Doesn’t she?”
I stared at her uncomprehendingly.
Kerstin angled her head thoughtfully, studying me. “Sometimes I forget …”
“Forget what?”
“How little you know,” she finished, the words rolling so easily off her tongue, so matter-of-fact—as though there was nothing in them that should give offense or discomfort. “She’s a witch.”
I tried to ignore the sharp prick upon my nerves at her words, and yet she was not wrong. I’d been brought up in a world where magic was suppressed, even touted as dead. No one talked about itexcept for in the tales that came from the bards, and then that was treated as fiction … entertainment and not to be taken seriously.
“Witches deserve every bad thing that happens to them.” Kerstin’s lips peeled back in a faint sneer as she uttered this.
Her hateful words resounded like the clang of a hammer on stone.
Only … I didn’thatewitches. I knew I was supposed to. As a dragon, I should. The curse of Vala had changed everything for us. And not for the better. We could place the annihilation of thousands of dragons directly at their feet.
I whipped my gaze back in the direction the skelm had departed as if they might suddenly reappear. “How do you know she’s a witch?”
“We’ve known for some time that the skelm keep a witch. I don’t know what kind.” She shrugged. “Doesn’t matter really. She is their thrall. They captured her on one of their raids into the Borderlands or Veturland.” She shrugged again as though it was of no consequence either way. “She was living in some village, pretending to be a human alongside the other villagers. They do that, you know. Try to blend in.”
Yes. Yes, I knew that.
I could empathize. I supposed that was what I had been doing, too. At least for the first twenty-one years of my life. I’d lived in the palace, playing at being human, trying to fit in.
