Night Shift (Kate Daniels #6.5)(106)

She snorted and swatted him again. “I don’t want them taking their coin elsewhere. Go on.” More quietly, she said, “I’ll join you shortly.”

With a nod, he started across the common room. Best to wash, anyway. Mala had talked of tasting him if not for the stench—even though she hadn’t smelled much better at the time.

By Hanan’s shaft, it mattered not. He’d have tasted her even if she’d been dipped in dung.

And here was the gods’ answer to that. He just had to think of dung and one of the soldiers rose from his table and pushed into his path. Kavik stopped only when another step would have pressed their noses together. He knew this measle. A brute, Delan was one of the few men who stood level with him. But like all of Barin’s soldiers, he took Kavik’s unyielding gaze as a gesture of disrespect.

They were right. It was disrespect, mixed with the same hatred and rage he felt for their warlord. Fueled by it, Kavik had stared down Delan before. Doing it again would be no effort. He could stand here all night.

But Delan had been distracted by the burden on Kavik’s shoulder, and he called out, “Look at this! She’s already saddled him.”

A burst of raucous laughter came from the soldiers. Someone shouted, “Then we’ll all ride the beast!” and then abruptly fell silent when Kavik glanced in that direction.

No one would ever ride him again.

And he would stay his fists. Maybe. He looked back to Delan and saw the sudden unease in the measle’s shifting eyes.

“Now move aside, little pony, so I can take this piss in my belly outside.” Delan’s overloud command rang through the room. “Or continue standing in my way so I can piss on you.”

Unsmiling, Kavik waited. A span of breaths passed. Finally, Delan muttered and shoved past him.

Shaking his head, Kavik moved on. Pissing on him? Hardly a threat. Kavik couldn’t smell worse than he already did.

He couldn’t be wetter, either. The rain was to thank for that, and for the basin of wash water. As a brewer whose inn was favored by Barin’s soldiers, Selaq had freer access to the city’s wells than most citizens did, yet even she didn’t waste a drop. The downpour of the past few days offered a few luxuries, however.

Four basins would be needed just to clean his blood-encrusted hair and beard, so he took care of the matted strands with a few sweeps of his blade. Stripping down to skin, he lathered up and rinsed, careful to catch the runoff in an empty bucket. His brocs and tunic went into the rinse water to soak before their scrubbing. Furs, boots, and breastplate wiped clean with a damp rag.

His belt and furs went back around his hips, leaving his torso and legs bare. He hung the linens to drip from the ceiling beams near the ovens and was cleaning his saddle leathers when Selaq finally joined him.

He kept his gaze on his saddle and tried not to sound like an eager boy. “Is the Krimathean woman staying here? The one who wears the questing cloak.”

“Yes,” Selaq said, but the response seemed hollow. When he glanced over, her normally bright eyes were shadowed in the firelight. “And I pray you will forgive me.”

Kavik frowned. “Forgive you?”

“I should have turned her away.” Arms crossed beneath her breasts, she averted her gaze from his. “But you know I could not.”

All public houses had to follow the law of the road. Long ago, Selaq’s own parents had taken in Kavik and his father for the same reason. No innkeeper could turn away someone in need of a bed and with money to pay, even if it meant putting them in the stables.

Yet why would she have turned Mala away? Even if the other woman hadn’t helped protect the caravan, Mala was Vela’s Chosen—and there were few in Blackmoor more devoted to the goddess than Selaq. As a girl, she’d wanted to be a Narae warrior. Later, she’d hoped to become a priestess and rebuild the city’s temples. But when Barin had forbidden any temples but Enam’s, establishing an inn and adhering to Vela’s rules of hospitality was as close as she’d come . . . until Mala had arrived. If someone had told him Selaq had paid Mala to take a room here, simply to ask the other woman about her journeys, he’d have believed it.

Now Selaq wanted to refuse her lodging? “Did she not tell you that Telani sent her here?”

Confusion filled her voice. “Telani did?”

So Mala hadn’t said anything of it. He gestured to the raw wounds on his arms and thighs. “We were set upon by revenants. The Krimathean saved your sister’s boy.” And many others. “Then she gave her a healer’s potion to spare them the fever.”

Selaq’s face paled and she whispered, “She didn’t tell me.”

“She shouldn’t have had to.” And none of this made sense. Frowning, he slowly rose. “What are you not saying?”

Swallowing hard, she turned her face away. “Do you know who she is?”

Of course he did. In dreams, he’d seen the palace where she’d eaten and slept. He’d watched her don a hauberk of glittering green dragon scales, and stand in front of a cheering crowd before bowing her head beneath her mother’s sword. “She is the High Daughter—and second to her sister.”

“Second to her cousin,” Selaq corrected softly, and still she wouldn’t look at him. “And she is here to form an alliance with Barin.”

Ice filled his gut. “No.”