Page 137 of Hunted By Fae
Dare gestures to the nearby cart, loaded and stacked with bottles of water and tall pots and firewood. “Throw her on that, feed her, and the work is done. It will be no burden to you beyond that.”
“No.”
That curt answer comes with enough cold that the grass beneath their boots crinkles with the sound of forming frost.
Dare pushes up from the metal barrier. “You must aid me.”
Samick pauses. His muscles slink beneath his leathers as he turns on Dare. There, in his cold green eyes is a mere snowflake of curiosity. “Remind me. When was it this kinta slighted you?”
Samick knows the answer to the question he asks, so Dare does not respond. He only lowers his lashes over his own eyes, watchful.
“Months in our world,” Samick says, “that is the time you had at your disposal to seek your revenge against her. She cheated you, but you waited. When you finally sought her out, and she was gone from her home, lost to the darkness—I must ask, did you even know then what you intended to do with her?”
Dare’s jaw tenses, a darkness flexing in the curve of his cheek. He bites down on his words.
“No, I don’t believe you did.” Samick’s voice is frost. “I don’t believe you have known your goal with that kinta for a moment. All your schemes, your plans, have revolved around finding her, not what you’ll do once you have her.”
“Will you be arriving at your point soon?”
Samick’s eyes flash. “You want to capture her and take her back to the realms.Why? Is it for your grand scheme of revenge? Or is it for Eamon, who is dead, and therefore his bargain is gone with him? You push your purpose and your reasons onto everything but the truth.” He takes a step closer, and Dare feels the ice radiating from him. “I kept my thoughts to myself over your meaningless quest. It did not affect me, and it was your journey to walk. Now, you pull me into your schemes that have no goal beyondbring her home.”
Dare’s jaw rolls, and it clicks faintly.
Samick is unflinching in his cold stare. “You are wrong, Alasdare. You ask me to take a human ward. But then, when I take her to Dorcha—and you are not there, what then?”
Dare’s frown is slight, faint ripples down a sculpted statue. A silent question.
“What is my duty to this woman if you do not return? If you are late, do I throw her into my home and keep her until you return? Do I lock her up at Hemlock to save myself the trouble? But what if you do not return? What if you die, if your kinta dies? What am I to do with the human ward then? You burden me with more responsibility and trouble than you understand.”
Dare’s shoulder lifts as though weaved through with a thread, then tugged, a slight and fluid gesture. “She is only valuable while Bee and I are alive.”
“And what of my place here?”
Samick jerks his chin, his piercing gaze never leaving Dare’s, but the gesture to his specific place in the unit isblatant. The fire he sat at, it is not midway down the camp line. It is with the other warriors on steeds.
“I should risk my position, my reputation for your empty quest of revenge—or is it lust that drives you to burden others?”
“Is that what you think of it?”
“What else is it?” Samick’s teeth grit around the words. “Another of your whims, your pursuits, your thrills, your fancies. It is another quest for a female in your bed—and then you will be done with it, with her, after having dragged the rest of us into it.”
“It is more than that,” Dare seethes. “It is Fate. It is Mother. I wait for the time she nudges me to act. I wait for the direction she points in—and I follow her command.”
Samick considers him for a long, icy moment. “It is your gift that guides you with her?”
“More,” he confesses. “It guides me to you, it guides me to her, and it guides me with the human friend. Fate brought me here to you for a reason. Fate called upon you, brother.”
In their band of soul brothers, Samick and Dare and Rune and Daxeel, there is no one more fearing of the gods, no more devout, than Samick.
Samick feels the most unease in challenging the desires of the gods, of Mother herself.
Dare leans on that. “Fate is the reason I stand here now, asking for your help. Each time I considered chasing the kinta before the darkness came here, I felt that the time was wrong. When I did chase her down to her home, she was gone, but I knew I would find her if I followed my unit. All of that led me to stand before you now, and ask for your help. All of that has led me to the moment I ask you to keep Tesni alive.” Dare sighs something soft. “Mother tells me I need you for this. It can be no other way. All other paths lead to failure.”
“Failure?” he echoes.
Dare does not answer, because he has no further explanation beyond that. Failure could be anything. His end, the end of the kinta, the loss of her human friend, thus the loss of Bee’s sanity—any of these could be the fallout of his failure.
Dare considers the frost dancing along Samick’s fingers, the brew of the ice touch, the threat of rage taking root in him.
