As often happened when the caravan stopped to trade in a town’s market, Halani went searching for Asil at one of the stalls. Halani rarely admonished her mother for her waywardness. It didn’t stop the behavior, and such distractions sprang from Asil’s desire to please those she loved, especially Halani. This time it was to buy her daughter a tasty confection.
Telkak’s display table of cakes was an irresistible draw to passersby.
Halani spotted Asil there. Her heart dropped into her stomach when she recognized the customer next to her mother—the nasty Guild trader who’d spat at Halani the day before and looked as if he was tempted to do the same to Asil.
Hackles raised, Halani marched toward the table, ready to do battle with those who would treat her mother badly. She didn’t see Malachus until he suddenly appeared next to the Guild trader and almost strangled the man with his own robes.
Malachus didn’t ask Asil if she wanted him to play defender, and by the time the confrontation was over and the Guild trader had stormed off with promises of retribution, Asil had stars in her eyes and extra pastries in her arms, courtesy of Telkak.
Even Halani, far more guarded than her overly trusting mother, offered a smile to this outlander who’d come to Asil’s defense. This time she didn’t speed off with Asil in tow, staying instead to thank him for his gallantry.
She liked his smile, an expression more open than his dark, enigmatic gaze. His Common was fluent but accented, much like that of the mercenary-traders but lacking a drawl theirs possessed.
He’d stayed in her thoughts the entire day, even while she and the other free trader folk enjoyed Savatar hospitality in Azarion’s camp. Halani idly wondered if she’d see him again before they departed the Goban market to return to Empire territories.
The celebration in honor of Gilene’s return lasted far into the night, until Asil had fallen asleep against a pile of furs and Halani feared she’d have to prop her own eyelids up with sticks to stay awake. Hamod and several of the free trader men matched their Savatar counterparts in numerous drinking challenges. No doubt several of their number would stay the night in the encampment, too inebriated to walk back to their wagons.
Sleepy and overheated, Halani escaped the qara for the cooler temperatures outside. It meant facing a barrage of bloodsucking midges, but she craved a respite from the celebrations, the noise, and the heat. Outside, a welcome breeze evaporated the perspiration gathered on her brow. The moon had sunk lower though the stars remained bright. She’d have to beg a couple of torches from the Savatar for the trek back to the caravan.
“Halani.”
She turned to find Gilene headed toward her. Garbed in Savatar finery, she was a majestic sight, wearing her natural gravitas like a mantle.
Halani bowed. “Agacin.” She still found it hard to reconcile the reality of Gilene’s sorcery. Fire, the greatest of all the elemental magics, flowed through this woman’s hands.
Gilene paused midstep and her half smile faltered. “Don’t,” she said. “I’ve been called agacin so many times the past two days, I’ve almost forgotten the sound of my own name.” She reached Halani, the light from nearby torches casting her slender shadow in sharp relief. “Why did you come outside?”
“To cool off and enjoy the quiet.” Halani peered into the darkness with a frown. “Also to figure out how I’m going to get several drunk people back to our camp without someone breaking their neck in the fields.”
Gilene chuckled. “You’re all welcome to stay as long as you wish.”
Halani appreciated the offer. She liked the Savatar, finding them fierce and boisterous, hospitable and generous. And she loved seeing Gilene with Azarion, the way he looked at her and she at him, as if they only existed for each other. But she missed the wagon she shared with Asil and her own narrow bed.
“Consider your offer accepted,” she said. “You’ve saved me from a long, torturous lurch back to the camp with several stops in between so someone can fetch up their stomach.”
This time Gilene flinched. “This will be a place of misery and despair by noon with all the moaning and groaning. I wouldn’t blame you if you chose not to stay yourself.”
The two women exchanged grins before Gilene turned serious once more. “May I ask you a question?” At Halani’s nod, she gave a deep sigh and said, “Will you forgive me for lying to you and the others about Azarion? I know Hamod feels used and made a fool of, though such was never our intent. I fear you feel the same way.”
Halani recalled Hamod’s defense of his anger. She understood both sides. Life and circumstances often called for questionable choices. Desperation made people hard, willing to risk themselves and others to escape a terrible fate. While she wished Gilene and Azarion had been truthful, she didn’t resent them for their deception. She would have done the same. The ataman and his fire witch were good people trying to make amends and show their gratitude.
She reached for Gilene’s hand, twining their fingers together. “I’m not my uncle. There’s nothing to forgive. I don’t regret helping you two. Nothing bad came of it, and I made a friend.”
Gilene visibly wilted before pulling Halani into her arms. The two women hugged. When they separated, tears glazed Gilene’s eyes. “I’m glad,” she said in a voice as fervent as her embrace had been. “I was afraid I’d lost your friendship. I have few, so they’re precious to me.”
Saddened by the hints of a lonely past revealed in Gilene’s statement, Halani squeezed the other woman’s arm. “We’re friends and will remain so. Mama adores you too. She may hold it against Azarion for taking you from us.”
“I’ll miss you both when we go our separate ways.” Gilene wiped at her eyes. “I pray we’ll meet again.”
“Me too.” Halani doubted that would happen. Once Hamod and his group concluded their business at the Goban market, they’d return to the Empire and the familiar roads on which they typically traveled and traded. Gilene’s future lay with Azarion and his clansmen over the Gamir Mountains and into the west, where the great steppe lay beyond the reach of the Empire’s clutches, protected by geography and the great Fire Veil. The likelihood of her seeing Gilene after this was slim.
“Does he make you happy, Gilene?” She would worry less for Gilene if she were assured of her friend’s happiness.
Gilene nodded, her features softening. “He does. We were adversaries once, then allies, then lovers, and now friends as well.” Her widening smile made her almost beautiful. “He has my heart.”
Lovers, then friends. A juxtaposition Halani hadn’t expected but one that worked well for this couple. “It’s obvious to all that you certainly have his.”
They remained outside a little longer, chatting of inconsequential things, until Halani yawned thrice in a row. She gave Gilene an apologetic shrug. “I’m asleep on my feet. I need to get Asil and anyone else still able to stand and leave for our camp.”
Hamod was too deep in his cups to make the walk back to their wagons, and Halani refused the offer to put him in a cart and drive him there. “I trust he’s in safe hands here,” she told Azarion. “Kursak or Marata will come for him later, once he’s slept off some of the effects from all the wine and mare’s milk he drank.”
A dozen of their number stayed while the rest chose to join Halani. She held on to a groggy Asil, promising her she’d be in her bed in no time. They traveled in a loose-knit group, their path through the high rye grass illuminated by the torches they carried.
Kursak, her uncle’s second and the caravan’s wagon master when Hamod was absent, yelped a curse that made Halani and the rest of their group start. He bent, disappearing behind a wall of swaying grass. Beside him, Seydom moved the torch he carried to give better light to what Kursak inspected. His own “God’s teeth, this isn’t good” chased away Halani’s drowsiness.
Alert now, Asil surged toward the two men to see what had captured their interest. Halani pulled her back. “Wait, Mama.”
Her heart sped up when Seydom waved her over. “Halani, you need to see this.”
After a stern command to Asil to stay put, she joined Seydom and Kursak, gasping at the sight that greeted her.
Three dead men sprawled in the grass, unseen and unnoticed until a traveler stepped on them as Kursak had. Halani swallowed back a second gasp when Seydom bent the torch closer for better light. She recognized all three men.
Crouched beside one with a knife through his throat, Kursak glanced up at her. “Looks like we’ve stumbled upon a botched robbery.”
What they’d stumbled upon smacked of something more than a robbery. Two of the three had sold a magical draga bone to Hamod. The one wearing the knife in his neck lay on his back, a strung bow half hidden beneath him and a quiver of arrows beside him. His companion had collapsed in a heap across the third man’s legs and lower torso. He displayed no obvious injuries, but his head was bent at an odd angle, and he watched the stars with an unblinking gaze.
An odd grief settled on her when Seydom’s torchlight shone a little brighter on the last man, arrow shafts protruding from his body as if he were a grotesque pin-poppet. His features were slack, and his hand lay pale next to the entrance point of the arrowhead in his chest.
Malachus.
Kursak pointed to the mercenaries. “If I’m right, the one with the knife in him shot that one . . .” He gestured toward Malachus. “He and his friend took him for dead. Their last mistake. He wasn’t dead enough. It looks like he took them both by surprise. Stabbed the archer and broke the other one’s neck with his legs. He knew how to fight. The other two must have ambushed him.”
Halani had witnessed death many times. She robbed graves and attended burials. Healed the sick, shrouded the dead, and comforted the living. And she never grew used to it. Deaths such as these were the worst, where violence ended a life. For her it was proof that men, by their very nature, brought the worst miseries on themselves.