She didn’t fall for his trap, turning instead to hoist herself into the saddle, this time from the correct side. The mare stood still as Siora adjusted her skirts. The stirrup lengths had worked well in helping her get into the saddle but were far too low to be of any use to her now that she was seated on the mare’s back. She’d have to ride carefully to keep from falling off. Beggars were lucky to own a pair of shoes much less expensive horseflesh, and it had been a long time since Siora had ridden a horse.
She tossed Gharek’s knife into a bramble bush not far from him. She hadn’t saved him from a Midrigar demon only to leave him completely defenseless. He’d figure out a way to retrieve the knife, bound or not, but by then she’d be far enough away that it wouldn’t matter.
“You’re stealing my mare.” Loathing melded with the anger in Gharek’s voice. “Not only a traitor but a thief as well.”
Siora tired of his insults. She’d been the unwitting accomplice to his imprisonment of an innocent woman. She’d known of his reputation but had willingly turned a blind eye to it. As a servant in his home, she’d learned more of the man than the henchman, had seen him as a loving parent, a fair employer, and even on occasion when he thought no one observed, a melancholy, vulnerable man. Those things had seduced her into the delusion that he was simply misunderstood or judged too harshly because he worked for the empress. Guilt still rode her hard at such willful delusion; not because she’d turned on him, but because she hadn’t turned on him sooner.
She paused in guiding the mare toward the path leading out of the woodland to the trade road and Wellspring Holt in the distance. Her reasoning told her he was most likely using every tactic at his disposal to delay her long enough so he could free himself, recapture his horse, and kill her.
“Borrow,” she snapped back. “You’re welcome to her when I’m far enough away from you. And I’m no traitor. My loyalty was always to Estred, not you. Your fear for her has blinded you to compassion, to mercy, even to humanity. Estred needs her father, not the father you were becoming.” The more she spoke, the angrier she grew, the more indignant. The more reckless. “You had no right to abduct Asil and hold her captive. As for this mare, consider her repayment for saving you.”
“There’s no debt,” he snarled, making thrashing noises in the brush.
“So say all who feel neither guilt for a cruelty visited nor gratitude for a kindness offered.” Siora touched the mare’s sides with her heels to coax her into a steady walk away from Gharek.
“You can ride across the entire Krael Empire and you’ll never get far enough away, Siora!”
It was the first time she’d ever heard him call her by her name, and it sent both hot and cold shivers riding along her skin. She shrugged. “So has it been since we began this dance, you and I.” The dark prevented her from pushing the mare into a pace faster than a cautious walk, even with the aid of the lantern’s pallid light. “I just need to stay far enough ahead until you give up this quest, remember you’re no longer the empress’s cat’s-paw, and return home to the child who misses you,” she said over her shoulder.
“Why do you think I’m here?” he shouted after her as she rode toward the wood’s edge and away from him.
“To take your promised revenge,” she replied in a soft voice he couldn’t hear. “But not today.”
His virulent curses followed her through the trees, finally fading until all she heard was the rhythm of the mare’s steps and the sounds of woodland creatures. Compared to the barren silence surrounding Midrigar, the woods here were almost noisy, and Siora kept her ears open for the howl of wolves and her eyes wide as she guided the horse through the maze of sentinel trees.
She thanked any gods who might be listening when the wood thinned, and she spotted hints of the trade road, a silver ribbon under the moon’s light. The crackling tread of hooves on underbrush gave way to a louder clop when the mare stepped onto the road’s hard-packed dirt.
During the small hours, as the night waned but dawn was still beneath the horizon, the road was deserted, at least by the living. Siora’s gladness at traveling the road alone and unaccosted changed to horror at the sight of several ghosts once more rushing toward her, wispy, tattered flags caught in a wind she didn’t hear or feel. They twisted and clutched the air, silently screaming as they resisted the draw of a force that pulled them toward the wood, toward Midrigar in a relentless tide. They wore the same expressions as those pitiful faces on the barn wall and in the fields as she’d fled from Gharek.
They broke against her and the mare before spilling around the pair like waves against a great rock. Their terrified expressions tore at her, and Siora reached for several, offering herself as an anchor. It was a futile gesture. Revenant hands passed through her clothing and hair, leaving cold trails on her skin as they clutched at her. She peered into every face, no matter how gruesome or decayed. Her heart thundered in her ears as she searched, frightened she’d find her father’s ghost among these captive unfortunates. Relief at not seeing him combined with horror as the dead were sucked toward Midrigar while she stood in the road, helpless to stop it. She’d managed to save a living man from this evil. She couldn’t save the dead.
Whatever scooped ghosts up as if they were fish in a net and bewitched Gharek until he was no more than a puppet pulled on harsh strings, Siora remained immune to its power. She’d felt the frigid abyss of its regard in the woodland near Midrigar, understood in the instinctive way of a rabbit being stalked that it would devour her if it could, but for reasons unknown, it held no sway over her.
Her imperviousness to its power had allowed her to help Gharek, an irony in itself considering what bound them together. There was no ethereal weapon she might wield to break the grip this thing had on spirits. She was a shade speaker, not a necromancer. She could speak to and hear the dead but possessed no death magic, knew no spells to beat back an entity that stalked the departed. She was merely a voice for the voiceless and could only watch as each ghost was snatched toward the black wood, where it disappeared into its depths.
The mare snuffled and shifted her weight, either unconcerned or unaware of the ethereal chaos swirling around her. Siora peered into the tree line a final time, listening for footsteps or sepulchral voices. The darkness, and its sister, silence, stared back. Her sympathy for the dead would get her killed if she returned to the wood, and she didn’t believe the mercy she’d shown Gharek would be returned. She urged the mare into a trot, away from the wood, and cursed Midrigar, away from the dead empress’s assassin.
Wellspring Holt offered temporary safety, a place where she might briefly catch her breath before fleeing once more in the hope Gharek wouldn’t find her and, if the gods were kind, finally put aside his need for revenge.
The town was just waking when she reached its outskirts. A rising sun crested the horizon, riding a fiery line that burned away the night. Morning dew sat cool and damp on her shoulders and hair. Tired, hungry, and yawning from lack of sleep, Siora maneuvered her way through a growing crowd of vendors and customers filling the streets, the first to set up their stalls, the second risen early to buy the choice items for sale. She dodged beggars, who watched her pass with the same weary, desperate expressions she wore when she begged, and avoided the vile-smelling trenches that lined the cobblestone streets and alleys and carried the effluvia tossed from chamber pots.