"They provided me with a healer, and a. . . Chosen. "
"A Chosen?!"
"Aye. "
"Mayhap I should try to get stabbed. "
Throe had to laugh. "She was. . . like nothing on this earth. Fair of hair and skin and countenance, ethereal, though she lived and breathed. "
"I thought they had been fabricated. "
"I do not know - mayhap I have romanticized it. But she was exactly as rumors describe them - lovelier than any female your eyes have beheld. "
"Do not torture me thus!" Zypher grinned briefly, and then regained his seriousness. "Are you well. "
Not a question - a demand.
"They treated me as a guest for the most part. " Indeed, except for the shackles and the beat-down - although given that they were protecting a precious gem's virtue, he had to say he approved of what they had wrought upon him. "But aye, I am recovered fully, thanks to their healers. " He looked around. "Where is Xcor. "
Zypher shook his head. "He's not coming. "
"So you are to kill me then. " Odd that the male would task another with what surely he would relish.
"Fuck, no. " Zypher unshouldered one side of a rucksack. "I am to give you this. "
From out of the pack, Zypher produced a large, square brass box with ornate markings and inscriptions.
Throe could only stare at the thing.
He had not seen it for centuries. In fact, he had not known it had been taken from his family until Xcor had threatened him with it.
Zypher cleared his throat. "He told me to tell you he releases you. Your debt to him is settled and he is returning your dead unto you. "
Throe's hands shook badly - until they accepted the weight of his sister's ashes. Then they were steadied.
As he stood there in the wind and drizzle, poleaxed and unmoving, Zypher paced about in a tight circle, his hands on his hips and his eyes on the gravel that covered the skyscraper's roofing panels.
"He hasnae been the same since he left you," the soldier said. "This morning, I found him cutting himself to the bone from the mourning. "
Throe's eyes shot over to the male he knew so well. "Indeed?"
"Aye. He did so all day long. And this night, he has not even gone out to fight. He is back at the safe house, sitting by himself. He ordered everyone but me away, and then gave me this. "
&nbs
p; Throe brought the box even closer to his body, holding it tightly. "Are you sure I am the cause for such upset," he said dryly.
"Very much so. In truth, he is not like the Bloodletter in his heart. He wants to be - and he is capable of much against others that I personally am not. But to you, to us. . . we are his clan. " Zypher's stare was filled with candor. "You should come back to us. To him. He shall not act thus again - those ashes are your proof. And we need you - not just because of all you do, but who you have become to us. It has been but twenty-four hours and we are broken without you. "
Throe glanced up at the sky, at the storm, at the violent, churning heavens above. Having once been damned by circumstance, he couldn't believe he would even consider being damned by consent.
"We will all be incomplete without you. Even him. "
Throe had to smile a little. "Did you e'er think you would say such. "
"No. " The laugh that floated over upon the gusts was deep. "Not about an aristocrat. But you are more than that. "
"Thanks to you. "