The Last Namsara (Iskari #1)(38)
“Tell me why a house slave knows so much about hunting laws.” Now that they were in the crypt, Asha lit the lamp. The orange glow flickered over the rock walls. It cast shadows into long, narrow alcoves, revealing rows upon rows of sacred jars. Jars full of her ancestors’ remains.
“Greta was a hunting slave before my master purchased her,” he explained.
Greta. The elderly slave. Her name sank inside Asha like a stone. He didn’t know Greta was dead, she realized. He had been convalescing here in the temple. In his mind, Greta was safe and sound in the furrow.
“Everything I know about hunting and dragons, Greta taught me.” His fingers trailed along the damp, glistening walls, as if caught in memories. “Everything I know about anything, I know because of her. Greta raised me.”
Asha thought of that night in Jarek’s home. Of the tears in Greta’s eyes as she opened the door. She should have been in the furrow, but she’d stayed behind. Because she loved this slave, Asha realized now.
She swallowed. Someone had to tell him.
“Greta is dead.”
His footsteps faltered and an icy chill slipped beneath Asha’s skin. He was outside the glow of her lamp now and she couldn’t see him.
“What?” It was more of a breath than a word.
Asha stood still. “I—I watched her die.”
Silence seeped out of the darkness. And then a muffled cry echoed through the crypt as a fist struck stone. Asha’s throat constricted at the sound. Very slowly, she walked until her lamplight found him. He’d sunk to the ground with his elbows on his knees and his palms pressed hard into his eyes.
Asha couldn’t remember the last time she’d cried. She didn’t know what to say to him. But saying nothing felt wrong. Like her rib cage was suddenly too small and getting tighter around her heart.
“The tunnel is there,” she said when the silence started to claw at her. Lifting the lantern, she illuminated the slit in the rock. “Now you know. You can escape into the Rift. You don’t ever have to return. You’re free.”
And now Asha could add liberating a slave to her list of criminal activities.
He didn’t say a word. Didn’t even lift his head.
Asha, not knowing what else to do, left him there. She needed to find her shadow dragon. And then she needed to hunt down Kozu. She had only four more days.
She’d done what she’d promised. She showed him the tunnel. It was his own fault if he got caught there, sobbing like a child.
But the higher she climbed, the more she thought. Even if the skral managed to make his way up into the Rift, there were wild creatures, the elements, and of course, Jarek’s hunters. What if they caught him?
So Asha turned around and went back.
Seventeen
They hadn’t spoken a word since they made their way to the end of the tunnel. Which was fine with Asha. She didn’t need to talk.
When they stepped out into the moonlight, the soft whoo of an owl greeted them. Asha breathed in the cool night air just as the slave abruptly stopped. His arm shot out and Asha walked right into it. She was about to push it away when, in the cedar forest ahead, she saw what made him stop: two pale, slitted eyes peered at them through the darkness.
Asha let out a shaky breath.
Shadow dragon. So the hunters hadn’t found it.
“Keep walking,” she told him.
“What?”
“You’ll see.”
Asha moved into the cedars. Out of sight, the dragon crept along beside them. Above the hush of the wind, Asha could hear its bulk brushing against the leaves. Could hear the soft click of its scales rippling as it moved. Asha kept walking until the trees grew thicker and closer together, following the sound of trickling water. At the small stream, Asha stopped. It smelled like wet earth. Crouching down into the grass, she peered into the trees where the dragon stalked, staring back at her, wondering what in all the skies she was supposed to do now.
The slave sat down next to her, his eyes wide, his body shivering.
“I said you can leave,” she told him, sitting too and curling her arms around her knees. “I’m not going to stop you.”
“Do you know what the punishment is for freeing a slave?”
Asha knew.
“The loss of a hand,” he said, in case she didn’t.
Asha shrugged. They’d have to prove it was she who did it.
And she needed only one hand to kill Kozu.
“Steer clear of the hunting paths,” she told him. “They start here, in the lower Rift, and go west, toward the breeding grounds. If you stay east, you might make it to Darmoor.” But that was a very long walk on foot. And the Rift was a wild, dangerous place. The chances of his making it, alone, were slim.
He must have known this, because he said, “I think I’ll stay right here for now.”
Asha looked at him.
He reached for a long strand of esparto grass, twisting it around his fingers. “There’s a dragon in there.” He nodded toward the trees up ahead while plucking two more grass strands. He wove these together, fashioning a kind of braid. “And since you happen to be a dragon hunter, I plan to stick with you until it’s either dead or gone.”
“Unfortunately for us both,” Asha muttered, “neither of those outcomes is forthcoming.”