“Well, then, there you go. Don’t worry about it.” He stretched out on the ground with his head in Alec’s lap. “Wake me when you get tired.”

“Then you promise not to hurt him?”

Seregil looked up at Alec. “As long as he stays as he is, then he has nothing to fear from me. But Alec, if he turns dangerous-”

“He won’t!”

Seregil caught his hand and held it firmly. “If he does, then you’re going to have to make that choice, aren’t you?”

“I will.”

“And if it comes to a choice between that, and me?”

Alec raised their joined hands and pressed his lips to the back of Seregil’s. “You. But I won’t let that happen.”

Seregil closed his eyes and was glad to feel Alec’s hand on his forehead. As he drifted off, however, he thought he felt cold silver eyes watching him, too.

CHAPTER 41 Blood and Flowers

IT WAS AFTERNOON when Seregil woke up to find his head pillowed on the bundle, with one of the musty cloaks draped over him. Alec sat a little way off, with his sword across his knees and the rhekaro beside him, staring over at Ilar, who was pacing at the back of the barn, trying to ignore Alec.

“Any sign of trouble?” asked Seregil.

“I’d have woken you.”

Seregil sat up and stretched. “You should have woken me anyway. Do you want to sleep some more?”

“No, I’m fine. You’d better eat. There’s not much left.”

Seregil settled for a mouthful of tepid water. “We have to find more food, and fast. Maybe we can steal you a bow somewhere tonight.”

“Do you really mean to walk all the way to the southern coast?” Ilar demanded. “It could be days, weeks even, for all you know!”

“It’s not that far, a few days at most,” Seregil told him, though he wasn’t so sure.

Alec tugged at his braid. “This has gotten me into trouble a few times already. Guess we’d better cut it off. My knife is better for the job than yours.”

Alec handed him the black-handled dagger and turned his back. Seregil gripped the braid at its base and brought the knife against it.

“What are you waiting for?” asked Alec.

Seregil lowered the blade, caught by the warm, familiar weight of the plait against his palm. “What’s the point? Long or short, that hair will give you away. You might as well just cover it up for now. Cut some cloth off that sling of yours and make a head rag for yourself.”

Alec gave him a quizzical look over one shoulder. “You’re getting sentimental.”

“Probably.” He nodded at the rhekaro, whose hair fell well below its waist. “We’ll have to cut his shorter, though. I don’t think we can hide that much.”

He turned to the rhekaro to find it staring at the knife, fear clear in those usually expressionless eyes. “What’s wrong with him?”

Alec put a protective arm around its thin shoulders. “He doesn’t like knives much. Yhakobin hurt him a lot and cut parts of him off.”

“What parts?”

“Fingers. Skin.”

Even Seregil felt a little sick at the thought. “Why?”

“I don’t know. Here, let me do it. He trusts me.”

Seregil handed him back the knife and watched the rhekaro’s normal blank expression return. “But he has all his fingers.”

“I told you, things grow back. See?” He showed Seregil Sebrahn’s right hand. Thin scars circled the base of three fingers, and there was another around its wrist. “That’s where Yhakobin cut them off and they grew back. Drinking my blood helped him heal more quickly. The first one Yhakobin made…” He broke off and Seregil saw the shadow of something horrific in Alec’s eyes. “Yhakobin butchered that one, then made me heal it, so he could do it again. He destroyed it, piece by piece, until it died.”

Seregil touched the rhekaro’s cool little hand with a bit more respect. “The bastard’s no better than a necromancer.”

“He’s worse.” Alec reached out and picked up a strand of the rhekaro’s silvery hair, telling it quietly, “I’m going to cut your hair, but it won’t hurt, I promise.”

Seregil couldn’t tell if it understood or not, but it didn’t shrink away as Alec began carefully trimming its hair short above its shoulders. Handfuls of the silky stuff pooled on the ground around it. Seregil couldn’t resist picking up a lock and running it between his fingers. It was very soft, like a real child’s. It had its eyes closed now, and was almost smiling as Alec smoothed a gentle hand over its head.

“He really does like you,” Seregil noted with a resigned sigh.

“How do you know it’s a boy?” asked Ilar, coming closer. “It’s not like it has anything between its legs.”

“Neither do you!” Alec spat back.

“It doesn’t?” asked Seregil.

Alec paused in his barbering. “Well, no, but he looks like me, so we might as well call him that as anything.”

“Then how does he piss?”

“I don’t think he needs to.”

Seregil rested his face in his hands, trying again to imagine how they were going to manage.

Alec kept his gaze on his work, frowning. “No one’s going to hurt him again. Besides, if Yhakobin wants him so badly, then he must be important, right?”

“To make some medicine.”

“That didn’t work,” Ilar reminded them.

“I think we should take him to Thero and Magyana,” said Alec. “Maybe they’ll know what he is.”

“I know a little,” Ilar said, giving Alec an arch look. “More than you.”

“Would you care to tell us?” Seregil replied evenly.

Ilar shrugged. “Ilban says there are many different kinds of rhekaro. The ones made from Hâzadriëlfaie blood are the rarest of all. According to the alchemists’ histories, a perfect poison can be made of their blood, as well as an elixir of perfect healing, and that it possesses a power that can strike a thousand men dead on the spot when its master speaks the key.”

Alec glared at him. “Liar! He couldn’t even protect himself.”

“As I said, this one turned out wrong, too,” Ilar replied. “Neither of them even had wings like they were supposed to. He blamed your mongrel blood.”

Seregil struck Ilar across the mouth so fast the other man had no time to duck. “Shut your filthy mouth,” he snarled as Ilar went sprawling.

“His words, not mine,” Ilar whined, cupping his split lip. “Nothing he tried with it worked as it was supposed to. He tried making something from your blood, too, Seregil, but that didn’t work properly, either. That’s why he didn’t free me, as he’d promised.” He sat up and wrapped his arms around his knees. “I was so close!”

“At our expense.” Seregil gathered the rhekaro’s shorn hair and twisted it into a rope to go into the bundle. “What else did he tell you about it?”

“Not very much. But I did see something. I’ll show you, if-”

Seregil arched an eyebrow. “If I promise not to kill you?”

“Both of you.”

“Well, Alec? What do you say? He has been of some use.”

“We could have gotten away without him,” Alec muttered, trying to comb Sebrahn’s ragged hair into some sort of order with his fingers. It stuck out in long, ragged tufts, but he looked slightly more like a normal child now. But only slightly.

“Maybe, but I think he’s bought himself some time. So, Ilar, that’s the best you’ll get. What is it you have to show us?”

“I need some water, and that hog sticker of yours.”

“You can have the water.” Seregil pulled a cup they’d stolen from the bundle and half filled it from their precious store.

“Now draw a drop of its blood and let it fall into the cup.”

Seregil handed Alec his poniard. Alec pulled the rhekaro into his lap and took one of its hands between his. “Don’t worry. It’s just a little poke. Just one. Hold out your hand.”

And it did, gaze fixed on Alec’s hand. Alec carefully pricked the tip of one small finger. What oozed out was not blood, but something pale and viscous, like the jelly around frog’s eggs in the spring. When it fell into the water, a flash of soft light spread, reminding Seregil of a firefly’s glow. It quickly faded, and something dark formed and floated to the surface.