I don’t want to give her the pleasure of asking what that means, so I just nod. We reach the door to our cell, and the guard wrenches it open. Haia shoves me roughly inside, and another crew pushes Meroe after me.
“You’re going out tomorrow morning,” the Butcher says, loud enough that it echoes through the room. “Get a good night’s sleep.”
“What?” Ahdron surges to his feet. “Going where? I need—”
“Ask Isoka,” the Butcher sneers. The door slams, and I hear the bar slide into place.
I’m left alone, again, with my pack mates. Ahdron strides over and slams a hand uselessly against the door. Then he turns to me, eyes alight with rage.
“What did she tell you?” he says. “Where are we going?”
“Somewhere called the Wrecks,” I tell him. “She wants us to hunt a hammerhead.”
I don’t know what that means, but Ahdron’s dusky skin pales, and he slams his hand against the door again and spits obscenities in a language I don’t know.
“What’s a hammerhead?” Meroe says. “Is it—”
“Shut your rotting mouth,” he snarls, turning on her. “If I had a real pack instead of this rotting useless…”
Meroe tenses but doesn’t step back. For a moment I think Ahdron is going to hit her, but he just turns away with a bitter laugh and walks off. Meroe looks at me, and I shrug.
“Do you have any idea what the Butcher was talking about?” she says.
“Only that it’s probably bad news,” I tell her. “Come on, let’s see if they’ve left us anything to eat.”
It turns out there’s half a bucket of crab juice, still as delicious as ever in spite of being only lukewarm, and most of a loaf of stale bread, plus canteens of freshwater. We eat in silence. I spot the Moron, out on one of the little islands, sitting cross-legged with his eyes closed. Berun doesn’t seem to be around. No doubt hiding somewhere.
Halfway through her second helping of crab juice, Meroe drops the bowl and swears. I look up to find her clutching her hands together, eyes squeezed tightly shut.
“Are you all right?” I say.
“It hurts, is all,” Meroe says. “I’ll live.”
I look at her hands, and remember her grabbing the sword-tentacles of the blueshell, pushing them away as blood ran down her palms. The twisted place in my chest gives a twinge, like a cracked rib.
“It’s probably time to change those bandages,” I tell her. “Do you have any fresh ones?”
She nods, uncertainly. “Sister Cadua’s people gave me a bag. Over here.”
I pick up some canteens and follow her back among the nest of carpets. There’s a hollow space where it looks like she’s been sleeping, with the blood-spattered dress I’d first seen her in lying crumpled beside it. She produces a bag of reasonably clean linen strips, and I gesture for her to sit down. I kneel in front of her, and start untying the strips that bind her palms.
She winces as I work, looking over my head. After a while she says, “I thought you were angry at me.”
“Why would you think that?”
“Because of what I said about Zarun.”
“I’m not angry.” The knot is tight, and I’m tempted to just slash it with a Melos blade. Instead, I tease it gently apart. “I just wanted you to understand. I’m not—”
“A good person,” Meroe says wearily. “You mentioned.”
“It’s more than that. Where I come from, the streets of Kahnzoka, it’s not so different from this.” I get the knot untied, and unwind the tight linen strip. “I had to hurt people to survive there, and I’ll have to hurt people to survive here.”
“It doesn’t bother you?”
“No. Grow up the way I did and it wouldn’t bother you, either.” The last of the bandage is stuck to her skin with dried blood, and I grab one of the canteens. “This is probably going to sting.”
She hisses as I pour the water over her, still looking resolutely away. Once it’s softened a little, I peel the bandage off, then clean the wound with more freshwater. It looks better than I was expecting, a nice clean cut, not too deep and no signs of festering. I wrap it in a fresh bandage and get to work on the other hand.
“So what about me?” Meroe says.
I pause for a moment, and look up to find her staring at me. “What about you?”
“What am I supposed to do?” she says. “To survive. I can’t fight like you can, obviously.”
I look down again. “Plenty of people can’t. They manage somehow.”
“Ahdron thinks I’m useless.” Her tone is perfectly cheerful. “Should I ask him to kill me and be done with it? Or should I ask you?”
“I’m not going to kill you,” I growl. She’s making fun of me.
“Why not? I’d rather get it over with quickly than have some monster eat me.”
“You’re not useless.” I peel the second bandage away and wash her slashed palm. “You just have to learn to be a little more pragmatic.”
“Pragmatic. I like that.” She laughs. “Not evil, just … pragmatic.”
“Just stay close to me,” I mutter, as I tie the bandage up again. “I’ll keep you alive.”
“How generous of you.” She flexes her fingers with a grimace. “But if you’re not a good person, you must want something from me. What is it, I wonder?”
“I told you I have my reasons.”
Meroe stands up, abruptly. “There’s one more.”
“What?”
“Bandage.” She pats her side. “I can’t reach the knot. Can you help?”
“Oh. Sure.” I step back. “Who did these in the first place?”
“Berun,” she says. “I got him to talk to me, a little. He knows a lot about this place.”
“He…”
I pause. Meroe has nimbly undone a set of buttons at the back of her dress, and now she shuffles her arms out of it. It’s still belted, so the top flutters down to hang like an extra layer of skirt, leaving her naked from the waist up. Another bandage runs from under her left arm up around her neck.
She’s not as shapeless as she seemed in that ill-fitting dress. And … toothsome, Ahdron had said. I glance over my shoulder to make sure he’s not watching. When I turn back to her, she’s looking at me with a curious smile on her face.
“What?”
“Nothing.” She tugs at the bandage, arching her back. “Here.”
I step close to her, untying the knot at her shoulder. Her breath tickles my cheek. When the linen comes free, I peel it off, stopping when it starts to stick to the wound, a long, curved gash under her arm and onto her back.
“Lean forward,” I tell her.
She obeys, and I step behind her and pour more water from the canteen. It trickles across her deep brown skin, and I see muscles tense in her shoulders. When it soaks the injury, she hisses through her teeth.
Her skin is so beautiful, smooth and perfect. I think of the scars on my own body, a hundred little trophies from a hundred little battles. Faded, now. Since I learned to control my Melos armor, I haven’t taken many scars, at least not where it shows. But my hands are still rough and callused, and my bloody history is written on my skin for anyone to see.
Meroe will have at least one scar to match mine, when this wound heals. The thought tugs at me in a way I don’t like, as I rinse the injury and wind a fresh bandage.
“What did Zarun want?” she says, unexpectedly. “If you don’t mind my asking.”
“I don’t mind.” I shake my head to clear it. “I’m not entirely sure. I think he wants me to work for him—be part of his clade, I suppose it would be.” I pause to tie off the bandage. “He may also want to rut me. I’m not sure how serious he was about that.”
“To—” Meroe looks over her shoulder at me. “Really?”
“Like I said, I don’t understand everything.”
“And you’re … considering his offer?”
“For the moment, I don’t think it matters. The Butcher showed up and the two of them got into it.” I shrug. “If Zarun can help, it won’t be until after this assignment, at least.”
“But if he can help, you’d take it?”
I feel myself flushing a little, and it makes me angry. “The Butcher seems to be trying to get us killed. I’d rather not spend more time under her thumb than I have to.”
“Even if it means crawling into Zarun’s bed?”
“I have rutted far worse men than Zarun,” I tell her, “for far less.”
“Oh.” Her voice is small. “I … didn’t know.”
“Don’t look so rotting shocked.” I turn away from her. “And do your rotting dress up, unless you want the boys to come stare at you with your tits hanging out.”
“Sorry.” There’s a hasty shuffling of cloth.
“Did you need anything else?”
“What?”
“With the bandages,” I grind out. “Any more help.”
“No.” Meroe pauses. “If you go work for Zarun—”
It’s obvious what she wants to ask. What about me? She’s using me, for the protection I can provide, just like everyone else. It doesn’t make me angry. Everyone uses the people around them, as best they can—the way I used Hagan and Shiro, the way my bosses used me, the way I’ll use Zarun. That’s just the way the world works.
“What?” I say, when she stays silent.
“Nothing,” she says. “Never mind.”
I snort. “Go get some sleep, Princess. You look like you need it.”
* * *