Page 9 of A Blade of Lies and Spirits

I could get a torch and find some salt.

My fingertips throbbed. The climb down was going to be fun.

“Demon.” My voice echoed in the hush. “We should get them out and away from here.”

“No, leave them to rest for the moment.” Walker’s voice, cold and hard, made me shiver. His brows rose, then he shifted until he was next to me.

“Hold on. I’ll help you down.”

It was nice that I didn’t even need to ask.

He helped me back down the cliff face, and I tried my best to put my anger and disgust on hold, as vengeance was best served cold. Representative Malcolm had already paid for what he’d done, although not enough for my liking. I couldn’t turn back time and handle that. But, if either of his children, Mara or Onni, followed in their father’s footsteps, they would have a steep butcher’s bill to repay.

I looked sidelong at Walker. His face was set in unfamiliar lines, harsh as the rock around us. The mixture of emotions, horror and pain roiling out of the air here shuddered through my mind; if I didn’t find another outlet, it would cling to me like a burr for days.

I couldn’t handle that. I didn’twantto handle that. Not when Walker was here, and I could find comfort in his arms. One of the best ways to keep out unwanted emotions was to replace those emotions with other ones, which I knew I could do with ease with Walker.

“Do you mind camping here instead of staying with the siblings?”

He regarded me, his expression easing. “Camping is definitely fine with me. I’m as welcome as a rash in town.”

My heart raced. It wasn’t often I exposed any weakness with another person, but with Walker, I felt it might be safe. “We could lay together? Push away the darkness of this place?” The whispers. The terrible emotions.

“I can help you with that,” he replied, a flash of grief came and went across his solemn face like a trick of the light.

He took my hand, murmured words I couldn’t catch. The pain lessened, and my fingers were now merely reddened. My eyes widened. Healers, like mind mages, were heavily regulated in the Guild. As I understood it, he shouldn’t have been permitted to leave the major cities—it was an unusual talent, much sought after, but open to terrible abuse.

The healers back home did fine without Guild regulations holding them in place, though. So, I had to believe that healers weren’t half as dangerous as the Guild wanted us to believe.

If I didn’t know anything else, I’d know that after meeting Walker.

“So, how do you get approved to travel?” I flexed my hand, enjoying the lack of pain.

He smiled. “They trust me.”

Yeah, right. “Why does the Guild treat its healers like criminals, anyway?”

“Healing has its roots in necromancy, since the soul is what gives the body life. That’s why all healers in the Guild are licensed before they can treat people. They draw on the soul’s energy to fuel the body’s healing. Necromancy is a discipline that’s been abused in the past, has a reputation for evil. Add that to the fact that death makes people uncomfortable, so they don’t see that life springs from it. So healers end up watched like hawks.”

I grimaced; it made unpleasant sense. “I owe you.”

His return glance was amused. “I’m sure you can find a method to repay.”

Walker took the lead, his pace quick and sure as we made our way back to where we’d planned to camp, leaving behind the rough terrain for our little slice of paradise. But in the silence, the emotions of the place threatened to take over. I pushed aside the feelings rising inside of me, and sought a topic to distract us.

“So is that why the people here hate you so much? The whole healer thing?”

Walker glanced back at me. “Yes, word of what I am spread to this area before they’d ever met me. Basically, they object to necromancers, and in their eyes, that’s what I am, so they want nothing to do with me.”

Ouch. I wouldn’t normally feel bad for a good-looking man with a great deal of magicanda respectful position in the Guild, but I did. If I wasn’t so spent from what we’d just seen and experienced, I might say something sympathetic to him. Instead, I just focused on putting one foot in front of the other as I walked.

It was a relief when we reached our camp location. I looked around the tiny oasis tucked into a pocket further down the canyon. Several dwarfed trees grew by a small pool of water.

We settled near the pool and drank deeply. Walker’s bag produced bread, cheese, and a blanket to sit on while we ate.

The wind sighed with phantom voices. My shoulders tensed. I needed to keep the voices at bay. So, I held out my hands to him in invitation. He drew me close. I buried my face in his neck, inhaling the scent of sweat, the warmth of his flesh against me, the sound of his heart—the sensations of here and now to build a wall against the ghosts of the murdered babies that had followed us and flitted in the rocks.

Neither of us spoke as we stripped and crawled beneath his blankets. He simply held me close against his body, his hands running up and down my skin. I did the same, the best I could, with my hands trapped against his chest.

---