“I was only trying to get answers.”
“I know.” She pulled a stool closer to the bed. “And you were frightened. I’ll sit with her. Go find your answers.”
*
The air was dank, as it always was here, as if the chilly breaths of the dead still hung here in the darkness, unable to escape. The tunnels were both sanctuary and prison, stuffy like the tombs that Sylvey had begged me to save her from. I listened to the silence, the solitary sound of my boots scuffling on the cobbles, and I imagined Kazi slipping through here undetected. The tunnel was deserted now except for guards at the entrance, but today when she had passed there had to have been dozens of workers passing through—and none had stopped her?
Still, I looked at the wagons parked along the perimeter, the pallets, the shadows, all providing places to hide if you were careful, and it was only a spare number of paces from the workyard to the T where another set of tunnel systems branched off the main one. I stopped at the faded crest that marked the entrance, barely illuminated with lantern light, the only thing that indicated the vault was down this way.
You were harsh with her.
I remembered shouting, feeling out of control. One minute I had been thinking about dancing, and the next I was unwrapping a bloody cloth from her leg as she doubled over in pain. Right beneath my nose something was going on, and I hadn’t seen it. I was afraid to tell you. Had I refused to see it? I thought about her damp back. I had noticed the beaded line of sweat on her brow too. It’s the warm night. It wasn’t that warm, and there was a breeze. But I had accepted her explanation and let myself be distracted by other details.
I went past the entrance to the vault and walked to the end where she had gone—so much farther out of the way. I turned the final corner and barked a command to dogs I couldn’t see. They came out of their alcoves to greet me, moaning and cooing, with their hind ends wagging, hoping for a scratch behind their ears. The ashti looked just like any other dogs, though closer to the size of a timber wolf—and sly. They could have killed her. They had killed before. Her reflexes had to be fast to escape them.
The dogs kept intruders away, but most would-be trespassers were far more terrified of dying from their poisonous bite than from being torn apart. It was an unpleasant way to die, and not many had the antidote. It came from the far north where the dogs were from. Kbaaki traders had gifted them to us generations ago after we gave them refuge during a late winter storm. The milksap antidote didn’t grow here, and the Kbaaki still brought us a supply once a year when they made their pilgrimage to the south.
I bent down, holding the torch closer to the floor. A stain had been smeared. She had taken the time to clean up the blood, trying to cover her tracks. Why?
Mason’s words stung me over and over again, like a wasp that wouldn’t die.
She can’t be trusted.
I stepped up to the door and checked the lock. It was secure and appeared to be undisturbed. I turned and scratched each dog behind the ear, and they whined their appreciation.
It was true—the vault wasn’t marked. You had to know where to turn, but what made her pass up two other passages and come all the way out here? Only curiosity? I had told her about the vault in the first few days we were together. She’d been fascinated by it, the idea of a shelter carved into a granite mountain and the history and stories that began there. Even though I knew she didn’t believe it all, I’d been happy she had taken a genuine interest. It wasn’t surprising that she wanted to visit the source of my claims, and I should have known by now that Kazi didn’t wait for permission for anything.
Be sure to save time for a tour, Jase. Kazi wants to see the vault. Jalaine had tried to say it offhandedly as she left for the arena this afternoon, but her tone had been thick with pride. Kazi was Vendan, an outsider, and she wanted to see the vault. It was an acknowledgment that for us was a sign of respect. And for Jalaine, I guessed, it brought Kazi deeper into our inner circle—the vault was our beginnings, where our schooling began, the source of much of our history.
Without the vault, none of us would be here. It was nothing but a dusty, mostly abandoned relic now. Nash and Lydia still did some transcribing there, as we all had once done, but I hadn’t been inside in months. In spite of the broken, decayed furnishings, it was still remarkable in many ways, the natural filtration of the mountain still providing fresh air and water, but beyond that it was uninhabitable, partly by design. It was meant to be remembered as it once was.
It’s Jase’s fault.
I returned to the main house. Servants were still clearing the gardens after the party, all the guests now gone or retired to Greycastle. Wren and Synové had all but ripped Kazi from my arms when they burst into the drawing room and saw her. There was no trust there, and they assumed the worst until they saw the healer and Kazi’s stitched wounds. Then an expression of guilt washed over them. They knew she had been bitten, but they too had said nothing. Of course, they had no way of knowing that the dogs’ bites were deadly. Once assured she would be fine, they allowed a crew to escort them back to the inn.
I opened the door to Kazi’s room. My mother still sat on the stool, and Oleez was in the chair on the other side of the bed. I noted that Kazi’s dress had been removed and replaced with a nightgown, and her hair had been unbraided from the top of her head, falling in loose waves across her pillow.
“I’ll sit with her now,” I said. “You can go.”
Once they were gone, I walked over and looked down at Kazi, still lost in her drugged dream world, her chest rising in reassuring soft breaths.
You were watching my chest?
I remembered when she caught me in this confession, how I had tripped over my words trying to explain, as if I was twelve years old. We had both distrusted each other then. That day already seemed like a hundred years ago.
I kicked off my boots and eased down on the bed beside her, pulling her close. She nestled in with a gentle murmur, her arm locking around mine.
You’ve infected me with a poison that I don’t want to flush out.
I lay there next to her, and even though the healer assured me she would be fine, I pressed my fingers to her wrist, feeling the thrum of her pulse.
I can’t promise you any tomorrows.
And that was all I wanted.
CHAPTER THIRTY
KAZI
When I had stirred in the predawn hours this morning, it was to a memory, a scent, a touch. Jase. He was kissing my neck; we danced beneath the moon; he pressed a wish stalk to my ankle; he was whispering about tomorrows. But when I opened my eyes to reach out for him, he wasn’t there, and the nightmare of the night before flooded back in. Had I dreamed it all?
The horrible, cramping pain was gone, but when I wiggled my toes there was a stiff ache. I remembered Jase’s anger and his accusing questions, and when he walked through the door with a breakfast tray a few minutes later I braced myself for the worst. Instead, he set the tray on a side table and didn’t mention the last part of the night at all, but the strain of what he wasn’t saying showed in his stiff movements.
“Jase, about last night…”
“I’m sorry for shouting,” he said, “especially since you were in so much pain. I should have warned you about the dogs. Maybe then you wouldn’t have slipped past the guards.”
Ah, there it was. An accusation couched in an apology. “I didn’t slip past the guards, Jase. I walked past them, and they didn’t stop me. I guess with all the activity they didn’t notice me. I didn’t know I needed permission to visit the vault. Do I?”