The Void of Muirwood (Covenant of Muirwood Book 3)(102)

Closing her eyes, she sank to the stones on her trembling knees, overcome by an immense feeling of gratitude. The Medium had never deserted her. It had guided her path all along.

Thank you, she whispered in the silence of her mind. Her heart was overflowing. Collier was alive. And he was not as injured as she had supposed. You did not have to bless me this much. I would have served your will regardless.

Rising from her prayer, her arms stinging with pain, she walked up the ramp to the doors, determined to face the kishion and seal the hetaera’s lair forever.





CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE




Hunted





When Maia emerged from the tunnel after revoking the door Leering’s power, which would prevent others from entering the lair, the sun shone down on her in blinding rays, forcing her to raise her uninjured arm to shield her eyes. She strained for sounds to help her understand what had happened, but the story was laid out before her. There was a dead man guarding the porch. Her kishion had won the battle.

She stepped away from the corpse, sick of death, and wandered a short way from the entrance. The kishion approached her from a distance, his face hardened with determination and strength. In one hand he clutched the chains of several kystrels, the medallions swaying as he walked. She had fastened the one she had taken from Murer to her girdle, and it hung against her leg. His rucksack was slung over his shoulder. The kishion stared at her as he approached, his grave expression shifting to one of worry.

“You are bleeding,” he said, rushing up to her worriedly. He looked over her shoulder at the dark tunnel, as if expecting another enemy to emerge.

“Murer is dead,” Maia said.

The kishion stared at her in astonishment. “You killed her?”

Maia could read his thoughts in his expression. He could not believe she, of anyone, would harm another person. She gripped her cut arm tightly, wincing from the pain. “She fell on her own blade.”

“After stabbing you, it seems,” he said. Then, taking her by the arm, he led her away from the opening, back toward the little garden they had visited on their first journey. “The Dochte Mandar are all dead, even the one who ran away.”

She was appalled by his brutal efficiency. They reached the small stone enclosure, and he quickly knelt in the soft turf and swung his rucksack loose. Inside, she saw a blue-stained leather bag of powdered woad, some needles and gut thread, and small strips of cloth for bandages.

“Sit here.” He gestured next to him.

She obeyed, but she did not feel at ease. As she watched the sinking sun, a feeling of urgency thrummed inside of her. She had to return to Muirwood. Collier was still alive. Her people were in grave danger, and she felt the Medium warning her that it was time for her to leave the kishion.

He looked at the wound on her shoulder first, grunting at the size of it, and told her he would need to stitch it. He offered her a piece of root to dull the pain, but she shook her head no.

“If you will not chew it, then hold perfectly still,” he warned her. “The needle will hurt as it goes through.”

She nodded and shifted so that her back faced him. He undid some of the lacings of her gown and pulled the fabric down to expose the skin of her upper back. Then, with deft and experienced hands, he began to stitch the gut strings through her flesh. She flinched and hissed at first, but he worked quickly, and the pinch of pain became familiar. Once he was finished, he dabbed the area with woad to help stifle the bleeding and covered it with a bandage. He then covered her up with the dress.

“Let me see the arm. Those look painful.”

Indeed they were. Maia untied the cuff string and pulled the sleeve up to reveal the angry red slashes on her arm and elbow. Taking out his water flask, the kishion undid the stopper and bathed away the dried blood. His eyes looked so determined as he bent over her wounds. How could a man with violent hands use them in such a tender way? Images swarmed in her mind of their many journeys together. She was no longer disgusted by his severed ear and his grim scars. There was a man behind the hard flesh. A man who had somehow, despite years of killing, managed to grow the semblance of a heart.

His gray-blue eyes glanced up at her once, but when he caught her gaze on him, he glanced away and scowled down at the gashes he tended. He scrubbed one of the cuts clean and began stitching it, his fingers handling the implements with skill and precision. How many of his own wounds had he treated the same way?

“You must let me go,” Maia said softly, daring to speak the words that burned on her tongue.

His eyes flicked up again. He finished tending to one of the cuts and leaned back on his heels, eye level with her. He wiped his nose, his expression stony.

“There is plenty of food here,” he said, sweeping his hand toward the gardens. “Strawberries. Peaches. The greens poking up over there are carrots, I think. The Leerings in this garden produce food. We have enough to survive here forever.”

Maia looked into his eyes imploringly. “I cannot stay!”

His mouth turned angry and wrinkled into a frown. “It may take some time before you see I am right,” he said flatly. “Perhaps it will not happen until the Medium has destroyed everyone else. You are safe here.”

“I am not safe here,” Maia argued, shaking her head. “The Medium brought me here to stop Murer. But now it bids me to go.” She stared at the sun, watching as it slowly dipped across the trees, the light still blindingly brilliant. Suddenly, starkly, she knew something terrible would happen if the sun went down and she had not yet departed.