Thief With No Shadow (8 page)

Melke clutched the tarnished stem tightly. “You won’t need it?”

The girl shook her head. “One is sufficient.”

“Thank you.”

The hound rose to its feet as she walked across the room.

“Melke.”

She paused unsteadily in the doorway. “Yes?”

Liana knelt beside the bed, Hantje’s hand clasped in hers. Her face was in shadow and her hair shone whitely in the candlelight. “Take some bandages for your feet.”

She nodded stiffly.

“There’s hot water in the kitchen, and food, should you want it. And if you need help, Bastian—”

“I need no help,” Melke said, and then flushed at her ungraciousness. “Thank you, but I shall require no assistance.”

Liana nodded. “Very well. Good night.”

“Good night.” The words came awkwardly. Her throat was almost too tight to utter them. Liana’s kindness hurt more than Bastian’s hatred.

The hound followed at her heels as she left the bedchamber. Her progress down the dark corridor was slow. Her body winced with each step that she took and her breath came in shallow grunts. The candles and bandages were almost too heavy to carry.

The kitchen was dimly lit and as empty as it had been two mornings ago, when she’d come to steal the necklace. The door that had stood open to the dusty yard was closed and bolted against the dark.

A staircase led up from beside the scullery, servants’ stairs, steep and narrow and uncarpeted. Melke struggled to lift her feet. The hound followed behind her, its claws clicking on the bare wood. At the top, panting and light-headed, she leaned against the cold wall and closed her eyes.

She rested there for seconds, perhaps minutes, her cheek pressed to the wall. The effort of opening her eyes, of moving, was too great. Easier to stay here than to—

Her eyes opened suddenly. The warmth at her calf was the hound’s breath, feather-light on her skin where its teeth had ripped through her trousers and drawn blood. She lurched forward, tightening her grip on the candlestick. The hound followed.

There were several closed doors and one ajar. Melke pushed the door open more widely. It was a maid’s room, small and plain and unadorned. The narrow bed was bare. Linen and blankets lay on a wooden chair underneath the window. A tiny shelf was fixed beside the bed and three clothes hooks were screwed into the wall. There were no other furnishings: no clothes press, no looking glass, no washstand with basin and ewer, no rug. A chamber pot sat discreetly beneath the bed.

Her bag lay on the floor, its contents spilled out. There was no need to guess who’d been so rough.

Hatred. It was what she’d earned. She had broken the vow she’d made to Mam and Da, had become the thing she’d never wanted to be.

CHAPTER TEN

H
E WAS TOO
late by several hours. If he’d had Endal with him he would have found the animal alive. As it was...

Bastian closed his eyes. Flies buzzed heavily.

You owe me this sheep’s life, wraith.

No. That was unfair. It wasn’t the first death this spring. Three other ewes had died in lambing and he’d been able to do nothing more than watch helplessly. The animals were too weak. Life drained out of them as quickly as water leaking from cupped hands. It had been futile to send Endal running for Liana, futile to hope, but each time he had.

There had been two sheep dead like that in the past fortnight, with Liana coming to stand silently beside him, her hand reaching out to hold his. And the third... Endal hadn’t brought Liana back. He’d found the dog after hours of searching, sitting at the foot of a tree, and the death of a sheep had been eclipsed by a far larger disaster.

Catastrophe. Utter catastrophe.

Don’t think about it.

Bastian opened his eyes and looked grimly at the carcass. Four sheep had tried to give birth now, and all had died. No lambs lived. Five ewes remained, their bellies round and awkward.

The odds were not good.

Failure sat heavily on him, pressing him into the cracked, dry ground. It wasn’t merely a sheep or a lamb dead, it was the farm one step closer to dying. If Endal had been with him, this sheep would have had a chance. If not for
her...

Bastian spat into the dust.

The hat, with its broad, battered brim, shaded his face, but still sweat stung at the corners of his eyes and trickled down his cheek. The sound of the ocean was in his ears, a whisper of waves dashing against the shore. This close to the sea, the air should have been moist; it was dry and harsh in his throat.

Bastian wiped the sweat from his face. He unslung the waterskin, pulled the stopper and drank deeply. The water was lukewarm and tasted of dirt.

The walk back to the farmhouse was long; the tiny flock roamed widely these days, trying to find sufficient food to survive. He missed Endal’s presence at his side, his pragmatic dog comments, his alertness, his uncomplicated cheerfulness. Bastian’s boots scuffed dust from the hard ground and snapped the brittle grass stems. With each step he took, the farm died slightly. The curse would claim Vere this year.

Which means the psaaron will come. Which means—

For an instant Bastian smelled the dark, sea-rich scent of the creature. Childhood terror surged inside him, closing his throat, making the hairs rise on the back of his neck. And with the terror, inextricably linked, were grief and despair.

For twelve years he’d been unafraid. He’d
wanted
the psaaron to come. He’d wanted it more fiercely than anything else life could give him. But now, when the creature must surely come, he no longer had the necklace. And he or Liana must pay forfeit for that loss.

Fear twisted easily into rage. Bastian bared his teeth. The wraith. He’d see her dead before he allowed the psaaron to touch Liana. Let the wraith be broken. Let her bleed. Let her pay the price.

The wraith was fortunate not to be in the yard. He’d have spat at her again.

The walk back to the dead sheep with the shovel, the chipping away at hard dirt to dig a hole, the dust he inhaled and blinked from his eyes, the blisters that formed on his palms and the sweat that dripped off his face—all served to dull his rage.

He pushed the sheep into the hole with the blade of the shovel. It fell with a thud, limp and heavy. The flies that blackened eyes and nose, gums and tongue, rose buzzing and then settled again.

Bastian took off his hat and wiped the sweat from his brow. His mouth tightened as he looked at the sheep’s grotesquely swollen belly. If he’d arrived sooner, he might have been able to save the animal. The lamb might have lived. New life at Vere.

He filled the hole, his jaw clenched. Sour hatred fermented inside him.

The remaining ewes had already straggled some distance away, searching for grass. Bastian leaned on the shovel and watched them. They were the same pale gray as the dirt, too thin, with their fleeces hanging in loose folds. It would be a miracle if any of them survived lambing.

He shouldn’t have bred them this year, but he’d known that the rain would come, that the river would run again and the grass grow.

Bastian closed his eyes. Vere was a weight on his shoulders. Even if he had the necklace, even if the psaaron took it and lifted the curse, would Vere survive? Grass would spring up again and trees put out leaves, but he had no money to buy new stock. He could scarcely buy food for himself and Liana, and the house was close to derelict.

Bastian opened his eyes and saw dry, sparse grass and dirt and scrawny sheep. He sighed and straightened. Vere was his responsibility.

Back at the farmhouse he watered the two horses. Gaudon was no longer useful on the farm; Vere was too harsh for an old horse. The hired roan... Bastian rubbed his jaw. He’d have to return it. Tomorrow. Market day in Thierry. For an instant his day brightened, the gray weariness lifting. Silvia.

“And you’ll come too, Gaudon,” he said, smoothing his hand over the horse’s warm flank. “Market day.”

Gaudon’s ears flicked. Did he understand? Bastian ran his fingers through the horse’s mane.

The last of the famous sal Vere horses. Too old to work on the farm. Too old to chase wraiths. “Market day,” he said again, a promise to himself and the horse. They’d need to leave at dawn; Gaudon’s pace was slow, and he wanted time with Silvia. An hour. Perhaps two.

Silvia.

Anticipation was warm in his chest. Bastian whistled under his breath as he hauled another bucket from the well. This one for himself, to wash away sweat and dust. The whistle died when he saw the cloudiness of the water.

Soon there’d be no water on Vere at all.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

M
ELKE WOKE TO
a bright square of sunlight warming her chest. Her eyelids rose drowsily and she saw a bare wall and a small, empty fireplace. Awareness came as sharply as a blow across the face.

There was too much to remember, too many splinters of memory. Stealing and running. Fear. The black hound. Cold river water in her mouth and the necklace’s song prickling over her skin. The hot, choking scent of the salamanders. Hantje.

What have I done?

She sat up too quickly. Muscles cried out in silent protest. She hissed an indrawn breath and was answered by a deep growl.

The hound stood at the foot of the bed, even blacker in daylight than he’d been last night.

Melke gasped another breath, and stared at him. He was as large as a wolf. Larger. With fierce, pale eyes and snarling teeth.

She dared not move, dared not even blink her eyelids. Long seconds passed, then minutes. The square of sunlight moved on the bare mattress. Her bladder was full and her stomach cramped with hunger. Thirst was a sharp pain in her throat. The water she’d gulped in the cart yesterday hadn’t been enough.

Coward
.

“Good morning, Endal,” she whispered.

She doubted whether the hound heard her; she scarcely heard the words herself. He looked away and yawned. A few more seconds passed, and he sat down heavily on the floor and yawned again, stretching his jaw wide.

Breathing became easier. She could think of things beside fear.
Hantje
. Liana was with him; she healed him.

Hantje didn’t need her. She couldn’t heal.

Melke rubbed her face, feeling grime there, as gritty as sin on her skin. She’d roughly bathed her feet last night, but sleep had been more important than washing her face and making the bed, more important than picking her belongings off the floor. She swung aching legs over the edge of the bed and reached down for the bowl of water she’d placed there.

It was empty.

Melke rubbed her dirty face again. Her skin crawled with filth. “Were you thirsty?”

The hound made no reply, other than baring his teeth slightly at her.

Melke sighed. “Very well,” she said. “Let us fetch more water. I need to wash my face.” Perhaps if she talked to the beast, his hatred of her would ease.