Brys glanced at the pot. ‘There’s wine in it, isn’t there?’
‘Indeed. Only the best, at that.’
‘Fine. Half a bowl.’
Tehol and Bugg exchanged pleased smiles.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Black glass stands between us The thin face of otherness Risen into difference These sibling worlds You cannot reach through Or pierce this shade so distinct As to make us unrecognizable Even in reflection The black glass stands And that is more than all And the between us Gropes but never finds Focus or even meaning The between us is ever lost In that barrier of darkness When backs are turned And we do little more than refuse Facing ourselves.
Preface to The Nerek Absolution Myrkas Preadict
LIGHT AND HEAT ROSE IN WAVES FROM THE ROCK, SWIRLED remorselessly along the narrow track. The wraiths had fled to cracks and fissures and huddled there now, like bats awaiting dusk. Seren Pedac paused to await Buruk. She set her pack down, then tugged at the sweat-sodden, quilted padding beneath her armour, feeling it peel away from her back like skin. She was wearing less than half her kit, the rest strapped onto the pack, yet it still dragged at her after the long climb to the summit of the pass.
She could hear nothing from beyond the crest twenty paces behind her, and considered going back to check on her charge. Then, faintly, came a curse, then scrabbling sounds.
The poor man.
They had been hounded by the wraiths the entire way. The ghostly creatures made the very air agitated and restless. Sleep was difficult, and the constant motion flitting in their peripheral vision, the whispered rustling through their camps, left their nerves raw and exhausted.
She glared a moment at the midday sun, then wiped the gritty sweat from her brow and walked a few paces ahead on the trail. They were almost out of Edur territory. Another thousand paces. After that, another day’s worth of descent to the river. Without the wagons, they would then be able to hire a river boat to take them the rest of the way down to Trate. Another day for that.
And then? Will he still hold me to the contract ? It seemed pointless, and so she had assumed he would simply release her, at least for the duration of the war, and she would be free to journey back to Letheras. But Buruk the Pale had said nothing of that. In fact, he had not said much of anything since leaving the Hiroth village.
She turned as he clambered onto the summit’s flat stretch. Clothed in dust and streaks of sweat, beneath them a deeply flushed face and neck. Seren walked back towards him. ‘We will rest here for a time.’