She turned away, waiting until the last moment to break eye contact and pivot entirely. Then she marched to a shadowy corner where fat mushrooms stacked downward on the limestone wall. A crouch, a grab, and her hands touched leather.
She was gentle with the baldric, careful to keep the knife hilts from scraping or the leather from dragging. Even as she crossed the wet earth, she kept the leather stretched long and the buckles quiet.
She offered it to him. “They need to be oiled.”
No reaction. He simply refastened the blades across his chest, methodically and silently, before strolling toward the overhang’s edge. Rain misted over him, and for the first time since Aeduan had awoken in the forest, Iseult’s lungs felt big enough to let in air.
He was going to help her.
He wasn’t going to kill her.
“Are you ready to leave?” she asked, gripping her Threadstone. I’m coming, Safi. “There’s no time to waste.”
“We can make no progress in this weather, and darkness will soon fall.” A yank at the buckle beside his shoulder; blades clinked in warning. “We travel tomorrow, at first light.”
Then the Bloodwitch sank into a cross-legged position on the damp soil, closed his eyes, and did not speak again.
*
The Hell-Bard commander returned from the jungle, movements imbalanced as he shuffled to Zander’s pack and rifled through. If he noticed Safi’s gaze boring into him, he gave no indication.
Night was drawning near. Safi had hoped they might make camp, but Lady Fate was not favoring her thus far.
The commander withdrew dried meat, and after easing off his helm, he placed it beside the pack. A sunbeam broke through the forest’s canopy. It flashed on the back of his neck, where blood crusted.
And where a white cloth peeked out.
He had gone into the woods to tend his wound. Safi would stake her life on that. He barely moved his left arm; his left shoulder looked a bit larger, as if bandages filled the space inside his leathers.
It’s a bloody wound, then. Safi’s lips twitched at this tiny stroke of fortune. She must’ve reopened the wound when she had pummeled him, and that meant he’d lost blood. That meant he’d grown weaker.
Her lips curved a bit higher.
The Hell-Bard noticed. “Don’t look so smug, Heretic. You’re the one tied to a tree.”
You’ll be tied up soon, she thought, although she did erase her smile. No sense giving away her tricks. “I was simply admiring the view, Hell-Bard. You look so much better without your helmet on.”
A distrustful line crossed Caden’s brow—and he was Caden now, without his helm. The Chiseled Cheater who had consigned her to life on the run. To a life lived as prey.
Caden sauntered closer. Closer again until he was within reach, if had Safi not been bound.
He extended a strip of dried meat. “Pork belly?”
“Please.” She fluttered her lashes. “And thank you.”
The line deepened on his forehead, and he quickly examined Safi’s bound arms and fettered feet. But she was still trussed up tight. “Why the good mood, Heretic? Why the nice manners?”
“I’m a domna. I can smile at even the ugliest toad and flatter him on his perfectly placed warts.”
A huff of breath, not quite a laugh. Caden offered the pork; it hovered inches from Safi’s lips, forcing her to extend her neck. To chomp down and tear. Demeaning. Weakening.
So Safi grinned all the more cheerfully as she chewed and chewed. And chewed some more before the salty toughness would fit down her throat. “It’s … dry,” she squeezed out. “Could I have some water?”
Caden hesitated, one eye squinting. A look Safi remembered from their night at the taro tables. A look that said, I’m thinking, and I want you to see that I’m thinking.
Then came a shrug, as if Caden saw no reason to refuse, and he untied a half-drained water bag from his hip. He held it to Safi’s lips, and she gulped it back.
He let her drain the bag. “Thank you,” she said after licking her lips. She truly meant it too.
He nodded and replaced the bag on his belt, a movement that his left fingers clearly didn’t like.
“Hurt?” Safi chimed.
“Hell-Bards can’t be hurt,” he muttered.
“Ah,” Safi breathed. “That must make it so much easier when you’re killing innocent witches.”
“I’ve never killed innocent witches.” His head stayed down, still fumbling to lace up the bag. “But I have killed heretics.”
“How many?”
“Four. They wouldn’t yield.”
Safi blinked. She hadn’t expected him to answer, and though she couldn’t read him with her magic, she suspected he spoke the truth. He had killed four heretics; it had been their lives or his.
“What about the entire ship of Marstoks you just slaughtered? Do you count them on your list of murders?”
“What ship?” The line returned between his brows. His gaze finally flicked up.
“The one you burned to embers. The one the empress and I were on.”
“Wasn’t us.” He bounced his right shoulder, a vague gesture toward Lev and Zander. “We’ve been tracking you since Lejna.”