Chapter 9
Sebastian light footed it down an embankment.
The end of summer harkened in a chill that was made worse by the adrenaline in his body waning. These past months had felt like nothing but cold; the marrow freezing type that formed clusters on the eyelashes and pursed his lips together to keep the hot air inside rather than out. Donning a double set of cloaks made it nearly tolerable, as did the ski mask he wore taut around his jaw. What didn’t help, was the weather.
Rain blistered packed earth. Only a threatened drizzle at first, but the bullets were picking up speed. He trembled through a patch of briars, shook across the field and finally dropped to his knees where the girl had landed.
Sinai had seen the worst of it, he thought. The Deatheaters, particularly Regulus, lived next to horrors. The hell borne creatures which had tided through the underbrush were close to home for him. The Ouroboros, however fantastical and exuberant in their speech and narrowed eyes, were not quite accustomed to that level of shock. This was not a bad thing. In fact, if Sebastian were able to feel some drop of jealousy, he might. The Ouroboros’s condition wouldn’t last long, anyway. There were far too many miles to go, too much carnage to see. They’d be numb before it ended.
For now, Sebastian traced a line down the girls femoral artery. It had split, gushing blood all over her pants and pooling it in the pads of her shoes. He had watched her be dragged from the wreckage of the coach and carried off into the wilds. Watched, as a half-human took a chunk out of her leg and spit as if he were trying to rip stubborn plastic from a container. She fought like a coyote in a wire trap, gnashing, emboldened by each screech of their tongues. But, the fighting had stopped, and like all things, she bled.
Sinai Novak wasn’t long for the mortal world. Thankfully, they didn’t exist amongst mere mortals.
Sebastian closed her wound and rubbed a handful of gritty French clay over the gape. Her natural distrust wouldn’t allow him to further bind it with vines. After an expected bout of thrashing and threatening to bite him, he leaned back on his haunches. She would scar. A large gash that would snake down her thigh like a python in coil. Maybe, that suited her. Another trophy besides her nose that had broken as a young girl. That was the danger of playing in a river.
“If you don’t let me help, you’ll wear tonight for the rest of your life,” he breathed low, “And this scar, you won’t be able to hide.”
As if to make his point, she blinked rapidly with her right eye. The left one had lost most of its perception. For the last three weeks she had been eyeing shadows and loose forms, hoping that somehow her lenses would correct themselves. A misfortune beyond magic, though few things were. She didn’t have the courage to tell anyone that she was losing her sight, and Sebastian wasn’t going to inform her that she would awaken permanently blind someday. Though, he might yet tell her that seeing had nothing to do with vision.
Sinai stopped fighting him, and Sebastian tapered her wound. She stared at him, unblinking, and he knew what he must look like; just another vicious form crawling out of the darkness. To ease her mind, he lifted his hand and formed a ball of light at the fingertips so that she could drink in his eyes through the dank. Her breath quickened, then lulled.
“I know you,” she said, all of that beautiful strength flooding her lungs. “I know your eyes like the back of my hand.”
“At one time you did know me,” he returned.
“How? Where?”
“You don’t really want the answer to that,” he chuckled. “You’re just running through scenarios hoping that I am not someone you’ve done wrong to.”
She smiled, “Are you?”
“It wouldn’t matter,” he mused. “There are much larger things at play here. I believe you understand that, even though it irks you and makes you question every movement. Though, it frightens you down to your bones and breeds hate in your heart. When you look me in the eyes, you know that we have to be here.”
Across the field, her comrades called out for her. They split, searching every crevice and stalk for what they hoped wouldn’t be a lifeless body.
“You seem to know a lot about me,” she pursed her lips, then licked the blood from the cracks in them. “I don’t like it.”
“I’ll stop speaking if you start listening,” he offered.
This brought a crackle of laughter out of her. “I can’t make any promises.”
The chill picked up again. A flitter of wind touched the inner corners of Sebastians eyes and sent a stinging tear through his mask. He ached for the coach, for a set of walls and the heat of warmer bodies to keep it insulated.
“I thought this was the most terrible idea she has ever had,” Sinai remarked. “And christ, can she come up with some horrible plans.”
“He’s not any better,” Sebastian nodded toward Regulus, sauntering between the carriage wheels as he ordered recently reanimated Vitruvians into their places at the reins. “We just have to keep them alive for as long as they let us.”
Sinai huffed, and appeared to relent to the thought of it. She wouldn’t fully understand, not for weeks. The spark was enough.
Sebastian shouldered her from the ground, wrapping her into the outer layer of his cloak. Her arm met his waist and they stumbled foot for foot up the embankment.
A raven cawed from the tree tops. She made an effort to have her voice heard, but had only hatched last spring and was finding trouble in catching enough mice to keep herself fed. She would be plumper come November when the rains pushed gophers out of their holes and sent them scurrying through the fields. In May, she would nest and produce three eggs. Two would hatch.
Sinai grasped Sebastian tighter, using him as a sentient pole to heave herself through the rocks and rubble. He didn’t mind. Her hand had slinked between the cuffs of his robes.
Summer was almost over.
But god, she was so warm.