She watched his face as she worked, treating the annoying flutters in her gut as simply fear at being this close to him once more. He looked different since she’d last seen him. Still handsome but more haggard, with a scruffy beard hiding the planes of his face and his hair clipped much shorter than she remembered. The beard still didn’t hide the pinched tightness of his mouth, though his closed eyelids obscured the intensity of his gaze. His changed appearance didn’t surprise her. Siora might be hunted by the cat’s-paw, but the cat’s-paw was hunted by everyone now. He’d need to disguise himself if he wanted to go among people anywhere in the Empire.
The knots would hold long enough for her to get away and far enough down the trade road before he’d have the means to track her again. She’d be long gone with his horse, his supplies, and his coin. She wasn’t a thief, at least not by trade, but she’d be a fool if she left behind those things that made it easy for him to catch her. Some would say she was a fool for bothering to save him in the first place.
It would have been wiser to have been done with the bindings and put distance between them as soon as possible, but she set caution aside for a moment to slide her fingers along his nape and scalp. The lump left by her striking him promised a nasty headache when he woke and one more reason he could add to his list for taking revenge on her. His skin was warm under her fingertips, his hair like down feathers. Siora caught her breath and yanked her hand back, mortified at those brief observations. She lunged to her feet and wiped her hands on her skirt before returning to the mare.
Gharek’s saddlebags contained enough rations to last her more than a week if she didn’t indulge and supplemented them with begging and shade-speaking if necessary. The coin he carried she’d reserve for other purposes such as bribery. Blindness and denial were expensive services but necessary ones for those like her who were on the run.
The saddle strapped to the mare’s back had a very low pommel, a cantle, and stirrups to aid the rider in keeping their seat. Siora was glad for the last. She was a small woman, and this was a tall mare. A stirrup would provide the leverage she needed to climb atop the horse’s back, and Gharek had tied them low to accommodate the generous length of his legs. As long as the mare stayed still enough, Siora could climb onto the mare without much difficulty.
Surprisingly, the horse proved to be disagreeable to the idea. Every time Siora slipped her foot in and grabbed the saddle, her four-legged companion shuffled sideways with a protesting snort.
“What is the matter with you, horse?” she snarled under her breath.
“You’re trying to mount from the wrong side. She isn’t used to it.”
Foot still trapped in the stirrup, Siora stumbled at the sound of Gharek’s slurred voice and lost her balance. She hung off the side of the disapproving, snorting mare for a moment before falling to land on her backside. The horse eyed her with contempt.
Siora leapt to her feet, picking sticker burrs out of her palm and off her skirt. She peered at Gharek lying where she left him, careful not to get too close.
He’d turned on his side to face her, his body contorted from her binding him. His face was obscured by the night, but she felt the weight of his gaze on her, a wolf watching the activities of a clueless sheep and deciding when best to pounce. He was awake and no doubt working furiously at the knots she’d tied. Time to leave.
“Where am I?” He sounded a little less groggy.
“Woodland outside the cursed city,” she replied, careful not to say Midrigar’s name out loud. To do so invited the attention of things best left unaware of your existence.
“You hit me,” he said.
She nodded, forgetting he probably couldn’t see the movement. She circled the mare farther away from him and this time took up a spot on the proper side for mounting. “I did. Whatever held you let go when I did so.”
He winced. “Gods protect me from saviors like you. You’ve made my life a misery with your brand of liberation.” Angry sarcasm had seeped into the groggy confusion muddying his voice. He wiggled in his bindings. “And you’ve trussed me like a pig.”
Wary, she widened the distance between them. “For my own protection. Were our circumstances reversed, what would you do?”
The thin, humorless smile he offered didn’t reassure her, nor surprise her. “Do you really want me to answer that?”
Siora cringed inside. He’d probably watch with a smile as the ghost-eater dragged her into the city and wave a casual goodbye. She expected such from him, but it still stung. She reached inwardly for stoicism and said, “It crossed my mind not to be so merciful.”
“What stopped you?”
One answer to that question she chose not to dwell on too closely. A second was much easier to espouse. “Estred.”
He jerked in his bindings, hands busily searching for the knots she’d made so he could untie them. “You aren’t worthy to say her name. You betrayed her when you betrayed me, and then you abandoned her. You cut your wounds deep, beggar woman.”
A clutch of bitter tears hurtled into her throat before seizing it closed. For a moment Siora forgot caution, forgot the urgency to leave and the risk she took in staying any longer. Estred had grown very attached to Siora in the months that they’d been nursemaid and charge. And Siora had returned the affection. Had Estred’s father been any man other than the cat’s-paw, she would have stayed and braved his fury at her betrayal.
“You’ve hunted me for months now,” she said, proud of the way her voice sounded calm, even emotionless, though inside she was a turmoil of emotions. Gharek wouldn’t hesitate to turn any chink in her armor into a weapon. “For what? The vengeance you promised when I revealed the whereabouts of an old woman you abducted and used as bait in the hopes of carving up a draga disguised as a man?”
That fateful decision had altered the life courses of several people. She’d never wavered in her belief that it had been the right thing to do for all involved, but some nights, regret overwhelmed her and she wished fiercely that circumstances had been different. Gharek’s accusation only made it that much worse. Still, she defended her actions. “Your present fate is as much your fault as it is mine. Your daughter would be shamed by the idea that you’d shed innocent blood for her, and whether or not you choose to believe me, if I hadn’t told Malachus where Asil was, you’d be bones under dirt right now or a soot stain on the floor. And then where would Estred be? She may not have her nursemaid any longer, but she still has the most important person of all—her father.”
Gharek’s upper lip curled and his gaze in the thin lamplight nearly drowned her in its contempt. “Painting yourself the heroine? That’s rich. And you can take your golden sanctimony and shove it straight up your arse.”
Her fingers curled around the mare’s reins in a fist. She was tempted to throw all caution aside, step in front of him, and land a solid kick on his bound body for his remark. A glint in his eyes told her he hoped she’d succumb to such an impulse. She’d be within reach then and, bound or not, he’d figure out a way to capture her. His words sliced sharp and no doubt sincere, but they were said with purpose. In the time she’d come to know the cat’s-paw, he never did anything without purpose.