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“Banished Gods, what did he do to you?” Serel’s hands were at my shoulders.
I didn’t hear him. I was still looking at Esmaris’s lifeless eyes. They stared through me, past me.
“Look at me, Tisaanah.”
Look at me. Look at me. Look at me.
Warm, calloused fingers tilted my chin. Serel’s big, watery blue eyes were the opposite of Esmaris’s in every way, and the sight of them was a gulp of fresh air that rattled through my soul.
I said the only thing that came to mind: “He’s dead.”
Serel flicked his gaze to Esmaris. He didn’t ask me what happened. Perhaps the scene — the pile of coins on the desk, my blood, the whip, the crash that had drawn him into the room — told him everything he needed to know. But he didn’t so much as flinch at the sight of the body. Sometimes I forgot that my sweet, kind friend was no stranger to death.
“Can you stand?”
I nodded but didn’t move. Esmaris’s clenched fist still tangled in my hair. With shaking fingers, I pulled it free. His hand was so warm that I thought he could grab me at any moment.
I killed him.
I killed Esmaris. Me.
The terror hit me like a wave, knocking the breath from my lungs.
Serel helped me stand up. The movement set my back on fire, and I let out an involuntary whimper. Tears stung my eyes, though I refused to let them fall.
“I know,” Serel murmured, voice clenched. “I know.” “What am I going to do?” I whispered.
I always had a plan, always had a goal. Even in the darkest moments of my life, I could count my options. Now I couldn’t even think. Couldn’t breathe.
I would never have my freedom. Esmaris was dead.
They would know that I killed him. I would be executed.
And so would—
My eyes shot to Serel. “You shouldn’t be here. They’ll know, they’ll—”
“Sh,” he murmured, a small, comforting noise. He was looking from Esmaris, to me, to the whip, mouth drawn into a tight line.
Think, Tisaanah, I willed myself. Think. This isn’t where it ends. It can’t be.
But my thoughts were mush. I just kept seeing the look in Esmaris’s eyes as he fell. That whisper of betrayal.
I was so consumed that I didn’t realize what was happening as Serel drew his sword and plunged it through Esmaris’s chest. The sound it made wrenched me back to reality. A sickening, wet crunch that I knew, even in that moment, I would never be able to forget.
“Serel, what—”
“The blood could be his. Anyone could have killed him. Now they won’t know who.” Serel yanked his blade from Esmaris’s body. More blood spurted onto the floor.
I gagged, swallowing acrid bile. Serel picked up the whip and coiled it tightly, hanging it at its place inside the closet as if it had never been touched.
The puzzle pieces began to assemble in my mind. I realized what he was doing. What we were doing.
I caught Serel’s wrist, my fingernails digging into his skin. “This is dangerous. You shouldn’t be here.”
“Of course I should. We are going to fix this.” He offered me a smile that, despite the blood on my back and the body at our feet, managed to be so effortless, so genuine. It boggled me. Then he looked me up and down. “Your clothes. You need something else. If you stay here, I’ll go to your room—”
I looked down at myself, realizing that I was practically naked. The shredded silk of my dress barely held together. Blood ran all the way down the backs of my legs.
“I have some jackets here. In his closet.”
What I didn’t say: Please please please don’t leave me here with him.
Serel nodded. He went to the closet and selected a coat that would be long enough to conceal most of my body, and, hopefully, thick and dark enough to hide the blood.
Esmaris had kept my clothes in his office, alongside his own. Another strange intimacy. I barely held off the urge to vomit again.
Serel stood behind me, coat in hand. For a moment he surveyed me in silence. “I’m going to have to bandage your back, Tisaanah. And then I’ll put this on you.” The pained, apologetic tone of his voice said that he knew exactly the scale of what he was asking of me.
Oh, gods.
Just the movement of putting my arms behind me knocked the breath from my lungs, made my vision go white. And that was just moving, just slightly — never mind sliding that stiff fabric over whatever was left of my skin. Never mind pulling bandages around it.
I can’t, I can’t, I can’t. I never ever uttered those words, but all that damned fabric almost broke me.
“Just do it,” I muttered instead, bracing myself against the edge of Esmaris’s desk.
“Sorry,” Serel’s whisper was punctuated by the tearing of fabric.
And then, pain.
It took everything I had in me not to scream. My knees buckled, but I clung to the stability of that desk as Serel wound his makeshift bandages around my torso.
Ara, I reminded myself. The Orders. Freedom. You will do this. You have no choice.
The agony was so intense that I almost didn’t hear Serel when he told me, what felt like ages later, to straighten. I swayed as I extended my arms so he could slide the stiff fabric of the jacket over my skin.
I was going to vomit. I was going to collapse. I was certain I would do at least one of those things, or both.
By some miracle, I didn’t.
“You did it,” Serel whispered, at last. “You did it.” If I could do that, I could do anything.
I still thought I might faint, but I forced myself to focus on standing straight. My eyes fell on the coins, still piled on Esmaris’s desk. “We’ll need some of those,” I said, hoarsely.
At least they wouldn’t go to waste.
Serel complied, grabbing a couple of handfuls of gold and putting it in my silk bag. Then he knelt down at Esmaris’s body and unfastened the brooch at his lapel: a silver lily, his sigil.
“Smart,” I wheezed, swaying. That pin served as Esmaris’s blessing in his absence. He would give it to slaves or servants to represent his approval when they needed increased access.
Serel shot me a concerned glance. “You alright?” “Yes.” Maybe I could will it into truth.
“Just a little longer.” He straightened, but for a moment he didn’t move, staring down at Esmaris’s body.
“Serel—”
“One thing.”
A sneer cracked the bridge of Serel’s nose as he lowered his chin and spat. The spittle rolled down our master’s — former master’s — cold, unmoving cheek.
“Now we can go,” he said. And together, we slipped out the door.
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I WAS NOT NORMALLY the type to unquestionably follow, but I had no choice but to trust that Serel knew what he was doing as he led me through the familiar halls of Esmaris’s estate. Simply remaining upright consumed all of my focus. “Do I look normal?” I whispered to Serel, after we
nodded a greeting to another passing slave. “You’re doing great.”
I felt blood rolling down the back of my legs. I wondered how long I had left before it began to pool in my steps.
“Hurry,” I said, and we quickened as much as I could bear.
Soon I realized where Serel was taking me: the stables. One of Serel’s fellow bodyguards, Vos, was stationed at the entrance. He grinned a greeting as we approached, which I returned as enthusiastically as I could muster. Vos was a friend, and I prayed that our relationship would be enough to distract him from how suspicious I surely looked.
“We have some terrific news today, Vos,” Serel said, proudly. “Tisaanah is leaving us. She just bought her freedom.”
What a good actor he was. I, on the other hand, only barely remembered to hold my smile.
Vos’s entire face lit up. He’d always been like that: his emotions took over every feature with breathless enthusiasm. “Really? You finally did it?”
I nodded, faking a beam. “Told you I would.”
“You sure did. Wow.” Vos shook his head, visibly amazed. His happiness for me twisted a knife in my guts. I wondered if he would be punished when it was discovered that Esmaris was dead — and that Serel and I were missing.
“That’s wonderful news,” he said. “You’ll be missed.” “You will too,” I replied, meaning it. The world titled.
Serel’s fingers tightened around my shoulder, disguised as an affectionate pat.
A breeze pressed my clothes to my body, and I realized that dribbles of blood were crawling down my calves. I couldn’t stand here much longer.
“I need to go before sunset,” I said to Serel, who immediately got the hint.
“Yes, she’s too good for us now.” Serel held out his palm, showing Vos Esmaris’s silver lily. “He said one of the lesser horses is fine. Not the pure breeds, of course.”
Vos barely looked at the sigil. “Of course, of course, just go talk to the stablemaster,” he said, then looked at me and grinned. “Congratulations, Tisaanah. Good luck out there.”
“You too, Vos. Good luck.”
He would need luck. I tried not to think about was Vos’s back would look like if he was punished for letting us go. What his body would look like hanging from the gallows.
Pull yourself together, I hissed at myself. That isn’t helping anyone.
We didn’t see the stablemaster, of course. Instead we went straight to the stalls where the workhorses were kept
— the ponies and mutts that no one kept a close eye on. It was empty. Late in the day for a lot of stable hands to be around. It turned out, in a twist of bitter luck, I had picked a terrific time to accidentally murder my master.
I steadied myself against the wall as Serel selected a horse and threw a saddle over its back. After he bridled the animal and quietly opened the stall door, I held out my hand.
“I’ll hold him as you get yours,” I whispered.
Serel paused for a fraction of a second before nudging me out of the way. “I can’t go, Tisaanah,” he said, as if he were rejecting an invitation to lunch.
He and the horse continued down the hall, but I froze. “What?”
“Sh.” Serel looked at me over his shoulder. “You don’t have time to waste.”
“Of course you’re coming.”
I wasn’t about to leave him here. That was simply not an option.
I hobbled after him, struggling to catch up until we were standing at the back door of the stables. I glanced outside, at the palms and ferns giving way to an unbroken blue sky tinged with the beginning of sunset. Glimpses of rippling golden grass peeked through the leaves. The famous Threllian plains.
Miles and miles that way, beyond the grasslands, there was the sea. And then across that sea was Ara.
The Orders.
I turned back to Serel, who was tightening the strap over the horse’s ears. “Of course you’re coming,” I said again, definitively.
“Everyone knows that you wanted to buy your freedom, but I have drills in an hour. If I’m not there, they’ll go looking for me. It’s not enough time. Besides, we’ve now established that I escorted you here, leaving Esmaris temporarily unguarded. I’ll go back and discover him. He had so many enemies. I could claim I saw anything.”
“That will never work.”
“It will work better than us both making a run for it. Someone would realize what happened within hours. This
way, they might not even look for you. If they do, I can buy you at least a day.”
Buy me a day. At what price? Just like Serel, always believing the best, even in the face of a much harsher reality.
“Stop being a martyr and get on the damned horse.” “You don’t have time for this.”
“You’re right, we don’t.”
“You deserve every possible chance to make it. I’m not going to ruin that. I’ll be fine here. I promise.”
Deserve. I hated that word.
Serel was not the type to raise his voice. Every word he spoke was always light and calm, and these ones were no exception. But I felt his resolve, a solid wall between us.
“Please,” I begged, pulling his fingers into my palm, clutching them. I could never let them go.
I can’t, I can’t, I can’t.
“I’m going to put you on the horse. Ready?”
I wasn’t, but he did it anyway, gently lifting me by my waist. My hand felt cold where his skin used to be, and my body writhed in pain from the movement. By the time I was on the horse, the world was spinning.
“Here.” He handed me his sheathed dagger, strapping its belt around my waist. Then his hand squeezed mine. “If I find out that you died in those plains, I’ll kill you.”
I looked down at him, at those clear eyes, more striking than ever now as they glittered with tears that wouldn’t quite overflow. I thought of the day I met him for the first time. I knew now what that little slave girl must have felt like. How precious that gift of bittersweet, gentle comfort was.
There were so many things I wanted to say to him. So many that the unspoken words strangled me.
“You’ve got to go,” he said, and pulled my face toward him, pressing his lips against my cheek. “Say hello to Ara for me.”
I can’t.
He sent my horse cantering, yanking me away before I was ready. The tangle in my throat released just enough for me to choke out, “I love you,” but the words were lost in hooves and wind and almost-sobs that I smothered in my lungs. I would wonder countless times if he had heard me. If he, my friend, my brother, knew all that he meant to me.
His kiss burned on my cheek, joining the one my mother had left on my forehead all those years ago — twin scars branding me as someone who left behind the people most important to her.
I pushed through the ferns and the grasslands opened up in front of my vision, blurring and rippling from blood loss. I didn’t look back. I couldn’t. Otherwise I would turn around. Even as it was, a powerful part of me was dragging her fingernails into the ground, trying to crawl back to Serel, screeching in my ears, You can’t leave him, you have to go back, you can’t leave him.
But the hoofbeats quickened.
It would be worth it. I would make it worth it — make myself worth the sacrifice, not just to Serel, but to everyone.
And I inhaled the tears that clawed at me before they reached the surface.
I had everything I needed.
I had a handful of gold coins in my purse, enough to buy or bribe my way to Ara.
I had a power within me that was strong enough to kill one of the most feared men in Threll.
I had twenty-seven fresh scars that would never let me forget what I was capable of surviving — and I would, I would survive.
And, most powerfully of all, I had a debt to repay. I would do whatever it took, except cry.
