"Leesil," Wynn cried. "You're safe."
Hedi went cold.
Leesil. The son of Gavril and Nein'a. The one who had murdered her father in his sleep. And now, of all sick twists… Wynn was his companion and not his target?
He did not acknowledge the little scholar and stared into the darkness, slowly blinking now and again. Everyone else began speaking at once.
"Ah, look at your face!" Magiere said, kneeling beside Wynn. "What are you wearing? Where's your coat? It's freezing out here."
"Magiere, you are bleeding!" Wynn returned. "Let me see your shoulder. What's wrong with Leesil?"
Emel whispered softly in Hedi's ear, but she did not hear his words. Korey came out next around the fireside tree, the hem of Wynn's coat dragging around her bare feet.
"Are Mama and Papa with you?"
Hedi was barely aware as Emel's mouth opened and then closed. He crouched, dropping from her sight. Hedi's gaze turned on Leesil alone.
"No," Emel answered to Korey. "They are not with us."
"We have a fire back here," Wynn said. "Magiere, I need to look at your wounds."
"Not now," she said. "You go sit down."
Hedi still had the dagger in her hand-she felt the hard hilt and the strain of her aching fingers.
Someone passed through her sight. Was it Emel carrying Korey? She heard the others move away toward the fire, and the only one left was Leesil… his hands and thighs stained dark with someone's blood.
He blinked rapidly as if waking, and turned his head toward her. There he stayed, motionless with his eyes upon hers. She understood his expression-recognition.
"Assassin!" she hissed, and charged him.
He did not try to block her swing but only retreated and stumbled. The dagger's tip skidded across his hauberk, clicking across its iron rings as he fell to the forest floor.
Hedi threw herself onto him, where he sat clutching his bundle. She raised the dagger.
"Leesil!" someone shouted from far away, and the voice grew ragged and snarling. "Get off him!"
"Murderer," Hedi whispered. She ripped the bundle from Leesil's arms, and her voice rose so loud it tore at her throat. "Do you know what happened to my mother? My sisters!"
She drove the blade down.
Leesil's eyes awakened-hardened. But not at her. They followed the tumbling bundle she had taken from him.
"Hedi, no!" This time it was Emel's panicked voice.
Leesil reached for the bundle, twisting beneath Hedi. The dagger's tip slid off the hauberk's side and sliced through the inside of his shirtsleeve. Leesil whipped his other arm across her, and Hedi fell away as he lunged for the bundle. She righted herself on her knees, looking at the one man she wanted dead more than Darmouth.
Leesil knelt on the ground with his back to her, gathering the cloak into a bundle against his chest. He stayed there, not turning to face her, not even trying to defend himself. Hedi rose up, turning the dagger point down as she approached Leesil's exposed back.
A figure landed in her way like an animal pouncing from the dark, and its growling words were barely intelligible between distorted teeth.
"Get… away… from him!"
The woman named Magiere crouched, nearly on all fours, in Hedi's way. Her face was so pale it looked white in the darkness, but her irises had no color at all-only black, like her sweat-tangled hair. Her fingernails were pointed like claws. And in her mouth, upper and lower fangs extended beyond sharpened teeth.
The large silver-gray dog leaped through the brush behind Leesil and crept forward with its head low, watching Hedi with crystal eyes.
There were tears running down Magiere's cheeks, but her feral features held no sorrow, only rage slipping beyond the edge of reason.
Hedi looked into the face of a monster and did not care. All that mattered was that Leesil died, here and now. She inched forward, ready to gouge out this monster's eyes.
"Hedi, get back," Wynn cried out. "Magiere! Don't hurt her!"
Hedi rushed at Magiere, and someone grabbed her wrist.
"Stop it," Emel snapped, and jerked her back against his chest, closing his arms around her from behind. "You do not understand."
"Yes, I do!" Hedi shouted, but no matter how she thrashed, she could not break free of Emel's hold. "He is the one! He took my life and did not bother to kill me for it."
"He was a slave," Emel said. "Like all those who serve Darmouth. Like his parents, Nein'a and Gavril. No different from that girl you brought out with you. What would have happened to Leesil's parents if he refused to obey Darmouth? You know the answer. You of all people know how Darmouth works, just as he used you against me for years."
Hedi stopped struggling, but she had no outlet for the hate inside of her.
Leesil huddled on the ground with his back turned and would not move at all.
The monster, Magiere, backed toward him, torso and inhuman jaws expanding in deep, agitated breaths. Her appearance slowly changed, becoming more human as her lips closed. She crouched over Leesil and took hold of his shoulders. By the time she had him on his feet, Hedi saw only a pale, tall woman in leather armor and long black hair.
Hedi kept her eyes on Leesil until Magiere led him out of sight beyond the tree shielding the fire. Then she saw Korey huddled in terror in Wynn's arms. Hedi could only think of what she had lost long ago.
"No more killing," Emel whispered. "There will be more blood in the days to come than any of us can bear."
She did not understand and did not care.
Hedi crumpled. Rage's heat and anguish bled out in tears as Emel gripped her in the black cold of the forest. There had been nothing but deceit and betrayal living under Darmouth. Slaves murdering one another to live one more day.
But Hedi had no pity for Leesil, and wished his life filled with all the suffering forever buried within her.
Magiere sat on a fallen log near the newly built campfire. All of them had returned to the wagon and then traveled northeast along the road. Not far, but enough that they'd never be spotted from the keep upon the lake. Far enough that she would never have to look at it again. Yet Leesil was still here to remind her of what she'd learned of his past in that place.
What she'd learned about him.
Emel gathered canvas tarps from the wagon's back and busied himself constructing makeshift tents. Korey scurried about in wool footings Wynn had fashioned from part of a blanket. By her hair and coloring, it wasn't hard to guess who were her papa and mama. The girl busily helped Emel with his work, which amounted mostly to getting in his way. Magiere wondered how long the baron would wait to tell Korey the truth about her parents.
Hedi assisted Emel as well, keeping her head turned away from Leesil. Magiere didn't believe so much hatred would ever die, and kept her eye on the woman when she strayed too far toward the trees beyond the camp.
Out there, at the edge of the fire's orange light, Leesil sat against a tree, gripping the bundled skulls. Chap paced back and forth at the camp's edge, watching him. The dog was still unsettled. Magiere had not forgotten Chap's maddened outcry in the crypt. It worried her almost as much as Leesil's silence.
Wynn took a blanket from the pile Emel set out and walked with a bit of a wobble to drape it around Leesil's shoulders. Returning to the camp, she retrieved a second blanket and came to drop wearily to her knees in front of Magiere. She dug in her pack and pulled out a cloth and the jar of healing ointment.
"Take off your hauberk and that wool pullover," she said.
Magiere did so, and Wynn began cleaning and bandaging her wounds.
"Is Leesil injured?" she asked.
"He's not bleeding," Magiere answered, though she'd seen the welt line around his throat. "I don't think there's anything to be done for him-for now."