Song of Ashes

26: Tooth and Claw

Sarka could not permit herself to sleep. She went abovedecks for a time and tried to make herself useful, but it was all she could do to stand upright. At last, she set her work aside and focused on staying awake. She paced the deck, resting now and then where she could feel the mist of the salt brine on her weary face.

By the time night had fallen, fear had settled into her gut with a vengeance. By the time she went back belowdecks to face what was to come, she was shaking. Maybe it was fear, maybe exhaustion-probably both. It was late, later than she usually came down to sleep, and the sailors on their rest shift were snoring. She skirted past them, watching where she walked to avoid tripping over boots, and made her way to the corner where she had been sleeping.

When she looked up, the creature was sitting calmly on her canvas bed. There was precious little light to illuminate him, but his moon-pale features seemed to glow. He was crouched there like some wild creature, his hands and his feet on the ground. His eyes were twin flames, fixed on Sarka.

The shock of seeing him suddenly there, so real, took Sarka's wind out of her. Her knees threatened to give way. She frantically mustered her wits.

"You did not jump," the apparition said in that frayed, faded voice, an echo from another world.

"No. I didn't. You will not have my soul."

"Perhaps not this day. But sooner today than yesterday." Sinuously, the creature crawled out of the corner. With instinctive disgust, Sarka connected the feline movements of the muscles beneath the skin of his naked back to the rolling, predatory steps of the wildcat she had fought in the ashlands.

She stepped back from him, groping for any sort of weapon, but there was nothing at hand. Even if there had been, she knew she could not overcome this creature with strength; a weapon would not help her. She had to fight back with the only weapon she had: her mind. "Wait. Please."

The ghostly thing stopped, its splayed toes and curled fingers lightly resting on the planks of the deck, and looked up at her with smoldering eyes. Did she see something human there? Suspicion?

Sarka filled her lungs with air that was redolent of unwashed sailors. She forced her feet to move and closed the distance between herself and the creature. Watching him, she sat on the canvas bed.

The creature turned, crouched, to regard her. His face was impassive, but his gaze flickered over her as if he were searching for something.

"Are you the one who killed the others?" Sarka asked. She whispered, although even the commotion of being nearly strangled the previous night had not woken the sailors nearby. It seemed her interaction with the Beloved took place outside the space and time of normal men. She was in some kind of private hell.

"They killed themselves. All of them. As you must." He looked her in the face. "But I did not drive them to it."

"Why must it be like that-suicide? You could easily kill me, if you truly want my soul." Sarka lightly touched the ring of bruises around her neck. The skin, the muscles, her throat...everything hurt.

"You must make a sacrifice to undo your betrayal."

Sarka resisted the urge to rub her exhausted face, to push her disheveled curls back from her brow. She sat still, willing herself to be calm. "The others-why not you? Who did Kogoren send, if not you?"

The burning eyes narrowed and the creature hissed. "No more questions. Focus on your sins, Absconder. Cleanse your spotted soul with tears of regret and make the sacrifice. The Lady is merciful."

Sarka bit back the urge to make a fierce rebuttal, to insist that "merciful" was the last word she would use to describe Kogoren. Breathe. Breathe and use your weapon.