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20-3

20 – 3

A traveler.

How euphemistic.

I nod. “Well met.”

He echoes me, that damnably familiar smile still in place. I know I've seen it before, but where? It wasn't on Pike, he never smiled, nor was it on Merigold. Her smiles were either transparently false or so bloated with smug glee that there was no room for anything else.

Vance, then, or the thugs that followed him? Perhaps. I don't remember how they smiled or the sound of their voices. I do remember how they looked when Juliana was done with them: battered, bruised, and beaten.

He asks, “Have you been in town long?”

“Yes.”

“So, you know your way around.”

“I do.”

“Oh, good!” He sighs through his smile, relieved. He clasps his hands together and his loose sleeves ride up, giving another glimpse of the tattoo: blue ink, cresting waves, and a looping whorl of wind. He leans in to confide, “I was at the market, and I got turned around, and now...” he shrugs, the picture of helplessness, “I've – no – idea where I am!”

Port Viara's docks. That's where I saw it; and it wasn't on one face, but many. It was in the eyes and faces of every man that surrounded us that night, that hemmed us and herded us like cattle. It was anticipation, and theirs was barely kept in check.

I see it in you, Windrunner. Do you see it in me? Is it the same thing we look forward to, I wonder, or is it something else you want from me?

“I'm Connall, by the way,” he says. His real name? Is he arrogant enough for that?

Perhaps.

“Anya. Where are you trying to go?”

I'm not.

“Morrow's,” he answers; and though there's nothing strange about how he says it, I can't help but feel I'm being tested. “Do you know it?”

If it is, I almost fail. To hear her name from his mouth sets alight the smoldering coal of hatred sunk deep into the pit of my belly. It makes me want to abandon subterfuge, to snatch the knife from his belt and stain its gleaming steel with red. My teeth grind with the want of it, the line of my jaw flexing to keep it in check. I clear my throat, “I do.” Then, “I can take you there, if you'd like.”

I look into his eyes, see the anticipation brightened with a gleam of eagerness. It's in his smile, too, giving a keen and unsettling edge to an otherwise innocuous expression. Am I doing what he wanted me to? Have I stepped into his trap?

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“I would,” he nods, stepping into mine. He tucks an arm behind his back and bows, waving the other in a grand invitation for me to lead on. I'll do exactly that. I'll take him up into the hills that cradle Amberdusk town, where the trails are remote and, at this time of day, empty of other people. There, he'll teach me everything I need to learn.

He leers at me as we walk. I can the greedy weight of his eyes on my legs, bottom, and back. His breath is a wash of sour-scented eagerness on the nape of my neck. His fingertips brush my hip; once, then twice. We make eight paces before he tries to pinch me. I let him; teeth grinding, jaw flexing. Deep in the pit of my belly, the coal burns brighter and brighter.

“This way,” I turn on to the rutted path that'll take us up into the hills. He uses the turn to let his fingers trail across the small of my back.

“You're quite beautiful, Anya,” he says. The path is just wide enough for him to walk beside me; which he does, far too closely. He drops his hand, brushing my bottom with his palm as it returns to his side. “I don't imagine you've heard it much before, but it's true.”

Oh, I have; and from far better than you, Windrunner. I force myself to smile at him, to thank him for the compliment he paid me, while the coal burns. He beams, bumps his hip into mine. His knife presses into my knuckles. All I'd have to do is turn my hand and take.

- - -

Amberdusk town is hidden from us by the crest of the hill behind, the farmhouses by the rise of the hill ahead. The narrow, rutted track is framed in yellowed blades of knee-high grass. Connall keeps grabbing me; my hip, my shoulder, my bottom, the back of my neck. Every time I say nothing to stop him, so that he stays complacent, and every time he takes my silence as permission to be bolder.

He stops us, an unwelcome hand on my wrist; and pulls on it until I'm turned to face him. He squints against the light of the setting sun and lets his eyes travel greedily over my face, down my neck, and onto my chest. They stay there for a moment. He smiles, brushes the hair from his brow, and looks back up to meet my eyes. “I know this isn't the way to Morrow's.”

I'm meant to be charmed by this. Bilous disgust and thorn-knot revulsion crawl up my throat. I swallow them down, push them into the hateful blaze in the pit of my belly. I arch my brows, force myself to sound flirtatious. “It's not?”

He shakes his head, stepping in. He moves the hand on my wrist up to my face; the other, he lands on my hip. His mouth is wet, his breath sour, and I think he means to kiss me. “You know it, too,” he whispers, a snake's slither through fallen leaves. “don't you? You brought me here for a reason, didn't you?”

We've come far enough, I should think. His knife is belted on the left side of his waist, to my right; which is the hand that he has on my face. I reach out, let my fingers slide along the bottom of his leather vest, until I close them over the hilt. It slides free of its sheath, weight falling into my palm. He feels it, does the Windrunner, but if there is one lesson I have already learned, it is that speed is how one survives.

I've always been fast. This road I've walked has made me faster.

I stab him in the side, under the bottom of his leather vest. I drive the point of the knife through cloth and skin, digging and twisting the blade until it is buried to the guard. It's a sharp, well-kept knife. It doesn't take more than a second. “Yes,” I hiss, “I did.”

It takes a moment for my words to reach him. He's in shock, I should think, his mind clouded and confused. His blood spills down the blade as I draw it out, spilling over my fingers. I stab him again above his hip-bone, then a third time below his navel.

That's when he comes back to himself, rage twisting his features. Dull aches bloom from where he's grabbed me, sharp points from his nail digging into my skin. “Bitch!” he spits, “Fucking – you whore!”

Blood rushes from the wounds I gave him, a thick flow of reddened black that soaks and stains his legs. It's not enough.

I have to keep going. I want to.

The fourth wound is the lowest yet, just above his belt. He howls at that one, pouring newfound strength into his grip. I measure it against the bramble-beast's talon, against Flint's cruel strikes, against the cutting edge of starvation. I measure it against watching Juliana die, and it is found lacking.

The fifth goes into the pit of his arm, up to the guard. My hand and my wrist are stained, soaked and slick. When he shoves me away I lose my grip, but not my balance. What is a narrow, rutted trail against a flooded tunnel in the dark?

Connall reaches for the knife, yanks it free with a growl. He pays no mind to the near-torrent of reddened black that spills forth. “Fucking – ” he snarls, “Fucking kill you!”

I curl my lip, sneering back. “Try.”

What will you do, Windrunner? I have survived worse than you. I have outlived worse than you.

Look: you are pale, unsteady on your feet. The narrow, rutted trail tangles your lunge, turns your under-hand stab into a fumbled, overbalanced strike. You stumble. Will you fall?

No; but oh, it is close, Windrunner. Your dark eyes, once filled with anticipation, now fill with nothing. You are unfocused, distant. Dying.

I catch your knife hand by the wrist. We struggle. You might've been stronger than me, five stabs and so much blood earlier, but now? Now, I overpower you.

It took Juliana minutes to drown on her own blood; but she was better than you, Windrunner. It takes you half-a-minute to fall to your knees, another for you to give up on your feeble punches.

I watch you die. I watch the life-light leave your eyes, pull the knife from your cold hand. I leave you there, Windrunner, dead on a narrow, rutted trail. Thank you for the lesson.