Django Wexler - The Shadow Throne

“I was gone by the time you got there,” Winter said.

Her throat clenched under a sudden, crushing wave of guilt . All this time, she’d felt like a traitor for her failure to set Jane free on that last night. She’d cursed herself as a coward. But what happened afterward is worse . I ran away to Khandar like all the demons of all the hells were after me. I never even considered going back to look for Jane, helping her get away from Ganhide, or all the other girls I left behind. I just ran until I found somewhere I thought no one would ever find me.

“It’s good that you ran away,” Jane said, still staring at her glass and oblivious of Winter’s moral crisis. “I wouldn’t have wished you another minute in that fucking place. When I got back there, though, and they told me that you were gone, and no one had any idea to where. .” Her grip tightened on the glass, as though she meant to shatter it against her palm.

“I’m sorry,” Winter said, in a whisper.

“No. I told you, I don’t blame you for anything. You did what you had to do.”

“I’m sorry.” It felt like all Winter could do was repeat it. “Jane, I’m-”

“Would you stop apologizing?”

“But-”

Jane turned, grabbed both of Winter’s shoulders, and jerked her close. Winter shut her eyes and cringed, in automatic expectation of a blow, but received a kiss instead.

It went on for a long time. She could taste the wine, smell the sweat on Jane’s skin, feel a tickle where a tear had run down Jane’s cheek and ended up hanging from the tip of Winter’s nose. Jane’s hands slid down to the small of her back, drawing them together, and Winter could sense the warmth of her through layers of leather and linen.

Jane finally pulled away, breathing hard, but she kept her arms wrapped tight. Winter’s whole body tingled, and her head swam as though she’d had considerably more than one glass of wine.

“It’s all right,” Jane said. “You’re here. That’s all that matters now.”

Winter, staring into those hypnotic green eyes, nodded.

Eventually the moment ended, as all moments do. A muscle in Winter’s leg, weary from the long day of walking around the city, chose that moment to register its complaint with a vicious cramp, and Winter stumbled and nearly fell. Jane took her weight and swung her toward the mattress, where Winter sat with a thump. Jane flopped down beside her, stretching her arms above her head and arching her back like a cat.

“God,” she said. “Just talking about it makes me feel better, you know?”

“I should. .” Winter shook her head, still dizzy. The softness of the mattress was suddenly unbelievably attractive. “Sleep, I think. It’s been a long day. I don’t suppose you could spare a bunk for me?”

Jane looked at her sidewise. “I can have them make up a room. There’s plenty of space.”

“Thank you.”

“Or,” Jane said, “you could stay here.”

“Here?” There was a long, stupid moment while Winter cast about the room to see if there was another bedroll tucked away somewhere. Then, belatedly, she understood. “Oh. Here, with you.”

Jane smiled again. “Here, as you say, with me.”

Some part of Winter wanted to. Her body fairly ached where Jane had been pressed tight against her, in ways that had nothing to do with hours of walking around town. But she couldn’t stop the panicky feeling that welled up when she thought about it, the ground-in need to flee from even the possibility of contact.

“I. . can’t,” she said, after a moment.

Jane nodded levelly. Winter searched her face.

“It’s not that I don’t want to,” Winter said. “I do. I mean, with you. Just not. . now. It’s hard. I’m sor-”

“I told you to stop apologizing,” Jane said. “It’s all right, really.”

“I’m just. . tired.” Winter took a deep breath and got a grip on herself. “Just give me some time to get used to things.”

“Of course.” Jane stood up and extended a hand. “Come on. We’ll find you a room.”

Winter took her hand, tentatively, and allowed herself to be led out into the hall, wobbling like a drunk on her way home from the tavern.

She barely remembered the room they’d put her in, or undressing. It might have been the best night’s sleep she’d ever had, dark and silent and blessedly free of dreams.

MARCUS

The heavy Armsmen carriage rumbled down Fourth Avenue, toward the intersection with Saint Dromin Street. Marcus twitched aside the curtain to look at the houses going by and wondered what the hell he was doing.

Here, at least, he didn’t require an armed escort. This was the far north of Northside; too far from Bridge Street and the Island to be truly fashionable, but well insulated from the teeming crowds of Southside and the poverty of Oldtown. It was a neighborhood of big, low houses with well-landscaped grounds, with flower gardens and small groves of birch and willow. The buildings were set back from the street, behind screening trees and gravel drives flanked by stables and carriage-houses. The people who lived here were moderately well-to-do merchants, as Marcus’ father had been, or the upper crust of well-payed artisans and professionals.

Marcus was accompanied only by his driver and Staff Eisen, fresh from the cutters’ care. The young man looked only a little the worse for their attentions, with his left arm neatly trussed in a linen sling and swathed in bandages. Looking at him reminded Marcus of Adrecht, who’d lost an arm to a similar wound at Weltae-en-Tselika. He suppressed a shudder.

“You’re certain you want to take up your duties so soon, Eisen?” Marcus said. “If it’s a matter of money, I can make sure-”

“No, sir. I mean, yes, sir, I am, and it’s not about money. I don’t like sitting around, sir.” He touched his bound arm. “The cutter told me it wouldn’t be a problem. No bones broken. Not much of a wound at all, really. I oughtn’t to have passed out.”

“Just shock,” Marcus said. “It happens, if you’ve never been shot before. Not your fault. And you still didn’t have to come all the way out here with me.”

“Vice Captain Giforte assigned me to look after you, sir,” Eisen said, as though that explained everything.

Marcus wondered if the Staff’s enthusiasm was genuine, or if he was simply buttering up the new captain. He’d never been good at telling the difference. Another new problem-nobody had bothered to cozy up to him in Khandar. He shook his head and looked out the window again.

“Did you grow up in the city, Eisen?”

“Yes, sir,” the Staff said. “Not so far from here, as a matter of fact.”

“Really?” Marcus glanced at him. A position in the Armsmen, especially starting from the bottom, was an odd choice of career for the son of a wealthy family.

Eisen cleared his throat. “Servant’s boy, sir. My mother was a housemaid; my dad was a coachman. I used to help out with the dogs until I got sick of it and signed up to wear the green.”

“I see.” Marcus paused. “How old are you?”

“Twenty-three, sir.”

That would have made him four at the time of the fire. Just about Ellie’s age. The carriage lurched as it turned the corner onto Saint Dromin Street, revealing-

History. The street unrolled in front of him like a memory, as though it had been days instead of years. The landmarks of his childhood flashed past the windows-the beech he’d fallen out of when he was ten and nearly cracked his head open, the raspberry bushes where he’d found a mother cat watching her kittens, the stretch of cobbled street where he’d first learned to ride-

He rapped on the wall, and the carriage slowed to a halt. Before he was quite aware of what he was doing, he’d hopped down, with Eisen following awkwardly behind him.