“It was just a stick!”
“It burned you.”
He said this more gently than I expected, but I still shoved the tea at him, sloshing a little across his chest. He glanced down at it like he’d never seen a cup of tea before, but after a few seconds he wrapped his hand around the cup and drank.
“Not bad,” I said.
“What?”
“It didn’t burn me bad.” And I showed him my hand.
“Would a stick pulled from any other fire have burned you at all?” he asked.
I scowled at him. “You only care cause the burn hurt you. But it ain’t hurting no more, right? So could we just drop it?”
“It’s not about the burn hurting me–”
“Oh, shut up.”
“Ananna–”
“Shut up!” I was regretting coming back to the cave now. I should have just trudged back to the manticore. The damn beast probably slept through the whole thing, but at least she wouldn’t nag me about getting burned by magical fires or look at me like I was this big disappointment cause I was the one in love with him and not some pretty little river witch.
CHAPTER FOUR
I woke up the next morning to the manticore licking my face.
“Stop it!” I shouted, rolling away from her. “Feels like you’re skinning me alive.”
“Girl-human,” she said. “The Jadorr’a asked me to fetch you.”
“Again?” I twisted my head around and squinted up at her. Sunlight shone around her big glossy mane. “I ain’t in no danger.”
“He said it was urgent. I told him I wouldn’t do it, that I am not his personal servant, but…” Her tail curled up into a tight little coil at the base of her spine.
“Urgent?” I asked. “Is it the Mists?”
“Oh, no. He said it wasn’t a matter of danger.”
“Then what is it a matter of?”
She blinked her big golden eyes at me. “I don’t know.”
Figures. Still, I roused myself up, taking my time cause it was the worst thing I could do to Naji, making him wait. Me and the manticore strode side by side down to the beach, where the smoke from the bonfire bloomed up against the sky, dark gray on light gray.
I crossed my arms over my chest. “Where the hell is he?”
“He said he would meet you here.”
I sighed and scanned over the horizon. Nothing but emptiness. Except–
There were two people standing beside the fire.
I’d gotten so accustomed to the aloneness of the island that the sight of two human figures at once startled me. One of ’em was definitely Naji, cause he stood farther back from the flames, wearing some dark cloak I didn’t recognize, one that wasn’t tattered beyond repair. And the other–
I leaned forward, squinted.
“Marjani!” I shrieked
“What is that?” asked the manticore.
“Remember how I said a friend was coming to pick us up from the island? Well, she’s here!”
“We can leave?”
“I hope so.”
The manticore reared up on her hind legs and let out a string of trumpets and then raced toward the fire before I could stop her. I pounded along in the sun, the wind cold and biting, my breath coming out in puffs. Marjani stared at us. She was wearing a bright red fur-lined cloak that I gotta admit I wanted. It looked warmer than anything I’d nicked from the Wizard Eirnin’s house.
“What the hell?” she said.
The manticore skittered to a stop a few feet away from her. I snuck a look at Naji – he had his arms crossed over his chest, his face dark with intensity. “Don’t get too close to the flames,” he said.
“I won’t,” I said. The sight of him twisted my stomach up into knots for a few seconds before I shoved it all away.
Marjani’s voice interrupted my thoughts. “Is that a–”
“Oh! This is the manticore,” I said, like I was making introductions.
The manticore lowered her head, all deferential and polite like she was meeting a lady. She must’ve wanted off the island more than I realized.
“My name is Ongraygeeomryn, and I am most grateful for your assistance.”
“You never talked that nice to me,” I said.
“You never had a water-nest.”
Marjani stayed calm, although the longer she looked at the manticore the deeper her frown became. I ran up to her and threw my arms around her shoulders and she laughed and hugged me back.
“I am so glad to see you right now,” I said. Now that I was across the beach I could just make out some big white sails way off in the distance. It was a bigger ship than the Ayel’s Revenge, probably a warship, though I couldn’t tell from that far off.
“They wouldn’t come any closer,” Marjani said.
“How’d you get on land?”
“I climbed.” She jerked her head over to the place where the beach dropped off, and there was a hook wedged into the sand.
“That held?” I said.
“Barely.” She smiled.
“You came back,” I said, cause part of me still thought it was hard to believe. I knew it wasn’t the easy thing to do. Hell, probably wasn’t even the most honorable, what with Naji being a murderer and a mutineer and all. At least she didn’t know about what I’d done to Tarrin of the Hariri, about how I’d had to kill him in self-defense. I didn’t like thinking about it.
“Of course I did,” she said. “I promised. Besides, I need your help. His too.”
Naji glanced at her, his eyes all suspicious. “Help with what?”
“I’ll explain once we’re on the ship. I don’t imagine the crew’s gonna be too happy about sitting out this close to the Isles of the Sky for much longer.” She turned to the manticore. “Naji told me about the, ah, arrangement you made with Ananna. I’ll allow it, but you should know I’m not taking you aboard if you intend on eating any of the men on that ship.”
“What?” The manticore bared her teeth and hissed.
“Sorry.” And Marjani pulled out a pistol and pointed it at the manticore’s heart. The manticore drew back, not quite into a cower. She kept her teeth out, though. “You’ll stay in the brig for the entire trip. I’d muzzle you if I could.”
“But you’ll let her onboard?” I asked.
Marjani sighed. “I’m not about to double-cross a deal you made with a manticore.”
I wondered if Naji’d told her about the three impossible tasks as well. Probably. But I doubted he’d tell her about the kiss. Hoped he wouldn’t.
“Get your things,” she said. She threw me a second pistol and a pouch of powder and shot. “And keep that damn manticore in line.”
The manticore hissed, crouching low to the ground.
It didn’t take long for me and Naji to gather up our clothes and Naji’s weapons. I didn’t talk to him, didn’t even look at him, but as I walked out of the cave he put his hand on my arm and said, “We should take the caribou.”
“Don’t touch me.”
Naji didn’t say nothing for a few moments. Then: “It hasn’t quite finished drying out yet, but perhaps we can find a place on the ship. Payment for bringing a manticore on board.”
He was right and I knew it, even though the thought of spending another minute alone with him, remembering everything about what happened the last few nights, the good parts and the horrible parts both, made me want to throw up.
“Fine,” I said, dumping my clothes on the ground.
We wrapped the meat in his old assassin’s robe. There was so much we only took half the strips, leaving the other half there to rot or feed the noisy creatures of the island.
I hated every minute of it. I kept waiting for him to say something about the fire or even about the kiss, but he never did.
Marjani was waiting for us by the fire once we finished, sitting on a piece of driftwood with her pistol pointed at the manticore. The manticore was curled up on the sand, eyes full of hate.
“I didn’t look at it once,” Marjani said as Naji and me walked up. “But you’re insane if you think I’m going to forsake a fire in all this coldness.”