Vow of Thieves (Dance of Thieves 2) - Page 87

Gunner didn’t move, but his voice lowered. “What did you mean when you said she was your wife?”

“Just like it sounds. We’re married. We married on the first day of our trip back here.”

“A Vendan marriage?”

Wren stepped forward defensively. She and Synové were barely controlling their rage. “You have a problem with a Vendan marriage, beetle brain?”

He didn’t answer, meeting her angry glare with his own, but he stepped aside, and we continued walking to the vault, disappearing behind a stand of trees, disappearing behind a waterfall, disappearing into the darkness of caves.

* * *

A torch flickered in my hand.

Left. Left. Right.

Our horses were stabled in the last cave, a smaller one than the greenhouse but with a roof hole large enough to let in some light, and there was water.

Left.

We hiked up the last incline. It was nearly impossible to see the door. It was covered with the same kind of algae that covered the cave walls.

Aram squeezed past me with a rock in his hands. He pounded on the cave wall. A code.

We heard the low, grating turn of a wheel, and the door pushed open.

Hawthorne, one of our tower guards, stood behind it. He startled when he saw me and raised his sword. With my heavy fur cloak and stained face, I was a tall, hulking menace he didn’t recognize.

Aram put his hand out to reassure him. “It’s Jase,” he said.

“Patrei?” he whispered.

I clapped his shoulder as I went past him. Everyone followed behind me.

The first room, a wide hall just outside the bunk room, was lined with workers, guards, groundskeepers, stable hands, and children, some curled in balls sleeping, others tucked next to each other for warmth, their faces gaunt, weary—Omar, Tamryn, Kwan, and Emma. There was a rumble of whispers as I walked in. Patrei. Two children took one look at me, Wren, and Synové, and ran. One of our oldest employees, Judith, a caretaker at Riverbend, sat against the wall, her usually perfect braided hair now wild around her face. Her pink-rimmed eyes were watery, and she lifted her hand toward me. I knelt and embraced her. She clung to me and cried into my shoulder. “You’re here, Patrei. You’re here. Good boy, Latham. Take care of things now.” Latham was my grandfather’s name. He died before I was born.

“I’m here,” I whispered back to her, as if that would make everything all right. But it wouldn’t. I was only a man and barely that, struggling myself. She had three lifetimes of experience over me, but I knew to her the whispered name Patrei was more than a single man. It was a history, generations of promise, determination: We will survive this. We will make it through as we always have.

But determination was not what I saw. Instead I saw weariness and despair. These were the ones who had made it into the vault. Who hadn’t?

I moved on to the bunk room. It had been cleared of the old bunk frames. In fact all of the broken girders and dust were gone. It wasn’t a historical relic anymore but an active shelter. More who had escaped the blast and invasion lay on blankets, pallets, cloaks, piles of straw, anything to keep them off the cold floor.

Eyes opened. Heads turned as I passed. Freya, Tomás. A few were injured. Dressler, Mishra, Chane. Their heads were wrapped with rags, or their arms were in slings. A murmur rose. Fear. A few rushed from the room.

“It’s me,” I said. “Jase. And these are my friends. It’s all right.”

Wren, Synové, and Paxton all held their hands up, indicating they weren’t going for their weapons.

The murmur grew to loud chatter rolling through the room. Several stood, stunned, and then Helen and Silas stepped forward to embrace me as I passed. They touched my face and looked at the ring in my brow. Then a large man leaning heavily on a cane stepped forward. It was Tiago. His previously round face now had hollows beneath his cheekbones. I looked down at his leg. “Damned blast,” he explained. “Flying debris severed half my calf.” He shrugged. “But I still have all my toes.” He threw his arms around me. His leg may have been weak, but his grip was still fierce.

“A hundred and thirty-four,” Titus said. “That’s what’s left in here now. But there were more. Twenty have died so far.”

So far.

The study was more of the same, but in the sickroom were the more seriously injured. I went to each of their pallets. A few of them moaned, but most didn’t know I was there at all. I didn’t even recognize them at first but Aunt Dolise and Uncle Cazwin were among them. Titus said they rarely came to and then shook his head as if he didn’t hold much hope for their recovery. Synové stooped to pull a blanket over one of our archers, who lay on the floor, half covered, his skin sallow and his lips cracked.

The storeroom was next. The shelves were mostly stocked with overflow from other storerooms on the grounds, crates of candles, lantern oil, a few blankets, dates. So many dates. My mother had always stocked too many. They had been my father’s favorite. But most of it was just a dusty collection of items that had accumulated over time, not edible, and useless for daily survival.

A few basic food supplies were kept there as a matter of tradition, mostly sacks of grains, and crocks of honey and salt that were rotated in and out every few months. In my entire life, they had never been put to active use in the vault. We had a long-standing joke in the family that when some food tasted off, it must have been made with supplies from the vault. The shelves were mostly empty now.

Tags: Mary E. Pearson Dance of Thieves Fantasy
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