Thief With No Shadow (37 page)

“No!” It was a scream.

R
IDING WAS THE
only thing Bastian could do. The rain was a torrent, choking him, blinding him. Voices rippled over his skin and sang in his head while dusk darkened towards night.

A white flash of lightning braided across the sky. Thunder boomed. The colt shied, rearing. Hard ground came up to meet Bastian, knocking the breath from his body. Pain jolted in his head.

He lay dazed, drowning in half-heard voices and drenching rain.

Bas?
Endal was a black shape above him.
Get up!

Dizziness, and water in his eyes and mouth.

Endal nipped his arm.
Get up!

It was easier to stay where he was, with the cold rain and the cold mud and the voices crawling over his skin and singing in his ears.

And then he remembered why he had to get up.

Panic pumped inside him. Liana.

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

T
HE SUN SANK
behind the hills. As daylight faded from the sky, the last of Liana’s hope disintegrated, became dust inside her, became nothing.

She was hollow.

Liana drew the curtains closed. “I must go,” she said.

“No! I won’t let you—”

Hantje’s voice faded in her ears. His mouth moved, but she heard no words. His face faded too. She no longer saw him.

The corridor was wider than it had ever been. Longer. Darker. It swelled and stretched as she walked, her feet not quite treading on the floor. She was light and floating, hollow.

The psaaron waited for her in the kitchen, more monstrous in candlelight than it had been in daylight.

The sharp spines of its crest almost brushed the ceiling. She couldn’t smell it. The scent of psaaron, of seaweed and salt, of rain and wet plants, had soaked into the house, into her skin.

Behind the psaaron were an empty, open doorway and an empty, darkening yard.

Bastian, where are you?

Liana stepped into the kitchen, walking but not walking, too light for her feet to touch the flagstones.

“You come to pay your family’s debt.” Water swirled in those words, it rushed over creek stones and foamed on sandy beaches.

“Yes.”

The psaaron tilted its head to survey her, stripping her naked with its eyes, peeling off her clothes and leaving her bare.

The hollowness inside her became greater. There was grayness at the edges of her vision, a leaching of color. She was feather-light, a skin only. The psaaron couldn’t hurt her because she wasn’t here. No blood, no bones, nothing. Empty.

“No!” Hantje pushed through the door behind her.

Color snapped back into the kitchen. Her feet were on the floor again. Blood and terror rushed inside her.

Hantje gripped her roughly, his fingers tight around her upper arm. He shoved her behind him and she stumbled, almost falling. “You shall take me!”

The psaaron threw back its head and laughed. The sound filled the kitchen: mirth, delight, waves crashing on rocks. The long tendrils that hung from its chin trembled. Fat drops of water fell to the flagstones.

Liana clutched at Hantje’s nightshirt.
No
, she tried to say.
Go back to bed. Don’t try to save me.
But her mouth wouldn’t utter the words. They stuck in her throat, unspoken.

Abruptly there was silence.

She couldn’t look at the psaaron, couldn’t raise her eyes to look at Hantje. Cowardice twisted in her chest. Cowardice and shame.

“If you must punish someone, punish me.” Hantje spoke loudly. “I’m a wraith. And a thief.”

Don’t do this, Hantje.
But she couldn’t unclench her fingers from his nightshirt and push him aside. She was unable to open her mouth to offer herself to the psaaron instead.

Something stirred in the kitchen, as if the creature drew breath. “A wraith.” It stepped close. Cool moisture washed over Liana’s skin.

“I had this one’s mother,” the psaaron said. “The experience was quite delicious.”

Liana felt a touch in her hair. She closed her eyes tightly. Terror whimpered in her throat.

“Quite, quite delicious,” said the creature as its fingers brushed over her cheek, wet and rough-scaled.

Terror rose higher in her throat. She couldn’t breathe. The stink of seaweed filled her mouth and nose.

“But a wraith...”

The touch was gone.

“A wraith would be even more delicious.”

Liana opened her eyes.

Dampness swirled across her face as the psaaron reached to clench its hand in Hantje’s hair, pulling his head around, forcing his chin up.

Liana saw the pulse jerk below his jaw as he met the psaaron’s gaze.

The fish-mouth opened in a smile, showing sharp, serrated teeth. “I like to punish thieves,” the psaaron said. Its voice was as harsh as a winter storm, dark and ice-cold.

Hantje didn’t flinch. “Then take me.”

“I shall.” The scaled hand tightened cruelly, and then the psaaron released Hantje’s hair.

Relief leapt sickeningly in Liana’s chest, followed almost instantly by horror. Not Hantje.

Hantje twisted his nightshirt from her grip. “Go to your room, Liana,” he said, not meeting her eyes. “Lock the door.” He turned away from her.

Liana shook her head, unable to speak. This wasn’t how it should be. Not Hantje. Not anyone.

She stood frozen as Hantje walked to the kitchen door, a faint limp in his step. The psaaron followed, a creature of scales and sharp spines, wanting to hurt.

They were gone.

No.

“Hantje.” At last she could speak, could move. She ran down the corridor. “Hantje!”

He paused in the doorway of the sickroom and turned his head to look at her. She saw his determination, his fear. He said nothing. Another limping step, and he was gone.

The psaaron followed.

“No!” Liana cried. “He’s not a sal Vere!” But her courage was too late, too little.

The door to the bedchamber closed. The key turned in the lock.

H
ANTJE’S HANDS WERE
steady as he undid the buttons, as he shrugged the nightshirt over his head and folded it neatly. His fingers didn’t fumble as he untied the drawstring of his underbreeches. He stepped out of them, folded them, laid them on the chair, and turned to face the psaaron.

His heart flinched in his chest. The psaaron was no longer sexless. It had chosen to be male for tonight.

Hantje stared into the psaaron’s eyes. Terror was tight on his skin. He deserved this. He deserved pain and blood and degradation. He deserved anything this creature did to him. There was no punishment great enough for what he’d done. No way to wash the stain from his soul. No way to bring Melke back.

Grief was pure and sharp in his breast, and his guilt so intense that he almost vomited from it.
Melke.

His fault. It was his fault. All and everything, his fault.

He couldn’t save his sister, but he could save Liana. Hantje swallowed. “Well?”

“Come closer.”

There was a scream in his throat and cold sweat on his skin. He took a step towards the psaaron.

“Are you ready, wraith?”

A new smell mingled with the deep, dark scent of the ocean: something sharp and rank and male.

Terror beat in Hantje’s chest.
I deserve this.
“Yes.”

And then his punishment began.

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

T
HE DARKNESS WAS
absolute. Bastian ran, staggering beneath the weight of rain and voices and exhaustion. Endal was at his side. The colt kept pace, lame.

Too slow. Too slow.

Endal
, he shouted silently, groping in his pocket for the necklace.

The dog pressed against his leg.

I need you to take this to Liana. You must hurry.
How fast could the dog run those miles?

He lurched to his knees and fumbled to place the necklace around Endal’s throat. Voices stroked over his skin and sang in his veins and twisted inside him.

Endal jerked away. He uttered a sound, frantic and high-pitched, almost a shriek. His panic bubbled in Bastian’s mind, incoherent, screaming.
Off off off off!

Bastian grabbed him. “It’s all right! It’s all right!”

Endal howled, struggling in his grip, tearing at the necklace with teeth and claws, frenzied, desperate.

Bastian yanked off the necklace and threw it on the ground.
I’m sorry
, he said, hugging the dog to him while rain streamed over them.
I’m sorry.

Endal shook, every muscle trembling. His whimper was audible.

I’m sorry.
Bastian pressed his face into the dog’s wet fur.
Forgive me, Endal. I didn’t know.

Endal whined. He tried to lick his cheek.

Bastian hugged the dog a moment longer, then released him. No hope remained. He couldn’t run fast enough to save Liana from the psaaron, and Endal couldn’t do it for him. She would be screaming now, as Endal had screamed.

W
ATER ROARED BENEATH
Arnaul’s bridge. Rain sluiced over Bastian’s skin and voices filled his head. It was eight miles to Vere, and the night was as black as pitch. Endal ran in front and the colt followed, pressing close.

How many hours had he been running? What was the psaaron doing to Liana?

It was hopeless and yet still he ran, staggering, sliding in the mud, falling, dragging himself up. His breath came in sobs. He couldn’t save Liana, couldn’t stop the creature from breaking her; but he’d run until his heart burst in his chest if it meant an hour less agony for her.

The land began to rise. The downpour eased slightly. Bastian stumbled on rock, on lumps of limestone. The rain became gentle, a drizzle, a mist, nothing. Thick clouds hid the moon and dead grass crunched beneath his boots. The air was dry. Vere.

Bastian pushed ahead of Endal and went down the slope fast. He was sightless in the dark, reckless with desperation, stumbling and falling, hauling himself up.
Faster.

A rock caught his boot. He fell, clutching at air.

B
ASTIAN SWAM SLOWLY
out of blankness.

A warm tongue licked his cheek.
Bas?

He opened his eyes. He was lying in bed. No, not in bed. Where? Darkness. Night time. The scent of dust and blood. Pain in his head and a nudging of urgency.

Endal?

Get up, Bas. Get up!

He didn’t want to get up, couldn’t think of any reason to. He wanted to lie here and wait for the sun to rise.