bamftastik
in
zevran
Sad Tales and Strange Comforts
Previous Chapters (also NSFW): ONE, TWO, THREE, FOUR, FIVE
Title: Insufferable, pt. 6
Pairings: Zev/Rinna
Rating: NSFW (AO for references to rape)
Words: 2,900
Summary: Taliesin's suspicions increase. An unexpected discovery on the road prompts Rinna to reveal her past.
This was old death.
“Do you think it’s truly a Blight?”
At least two weeks by the smell of them. The road had turned narrow, winding, cutting close between a looming cleft in the rockface. A perfect place for an ambush. Apparently the darkspawn had thought so too. As he walked amongst the corpses - human, animal, the broken remnants of a wagon - he shook his head. There was no art here, no reason, no advantage… only death. He had never seen anything like it.
“Zevran.”
He turned, blinking back at Larin as he stepped in front of the others and moved to his side.
“Darkspawn?”
“It certainly looks that way, does it not?”
“There were rumors of it in Denerim, refugees fleeing the south, whole parties overtaken on the road.”
“Then perhaps we should count ourselves fortunate.”
He snorted. “So. Something you are afraid of at last?”
Zevran, though, only shook his head. “No. Fortunate to have found such an appropriate spot.”
* * *
“She’s got coin, that one.”
Zevran paused in midstep, glancing over his shoulder as Taliesin fell in beside him. The other man’s gaze was fixed on the road ahead, watching Rinna through narrowed eyes. Somehow he suspected he had not been enjoying the view so much as he.
Their path through the trees had run out days ago, sloping back down to join the main road. But still there had been no sign of their mark, the gentle inquiries made of passing travelers bringing no news. They would reach Treviso soon enough, would perhaps find something there.
Taliesin lowered his voice, but if she heard them she gave no sign. “I don’t trust her.”
“Because she has coin?” He tsked.
“Where did she get it? She didn’t have such fine things before, never… flaunted it at least. And where does she disappear to every morning, I wonder? I’ve caught her, you know, sneaking off.”
Zevran smiled at that. Truly he was surprised that they had been able to hide it long enough. But in these few weeks it had almost become… routine. Turning the grin to Taliesin, he shrugged.
“You said it yourself, Zev. She’s from here, knows the area. And what of the merchant? If he’s lying low, there has to be a reason. What if she’s reporting to him? Keeping him a step ahead.”
He laughed, dropping his voice to a whisper as Rinna glanced over her shoulder. “And how would she do that, my friend? You are paranoid.”
“Paranoid my ass.” Quickening his pace, he called ahead. “Hoy! Rinna!”
He turned, folding her arms beneath a withering glare. “Taliesin.”
“Lovely day, isn’t it? You’re looking quite well.”
“What do you want, Taliesin?”
“Why, just to compliment your outfit is all. Where did you get it?”
She narrowed her eyes. “I don’t think they make it in your size.”
“Funny.” As Zevran approached, he smirked. “You didn’t tell me she was clever. Too bad they don’t pay for wit.” Turning back to her he, he lay a companionable elbow on Zevran’s shoulder. “Me and Zev… we were just talking about how nice you always look, how you have such nice things, like. Wondering where you got the coin is all.”
Rinna tilted her head toward Zevran with a curious smirk. He could only hold that gaze a moment before rolling his eyes away.
“I took a job. In the city, just before we left.”
“I didn’t hear about any job.”
“And you hear about all of them, do you?” She folded her arms. “Nothing for you to worry about anyway. It was… beneath you.” Her eyes strayed to Zevran at that.
“Ah well, I’m sure that explains it then.” Straightening, he elbowed Zevran in the ribs. “Satisfy your curiosity does it?” He stepped round, continuing up the road.
The urge to apologize came sudden and strange, but Rinna only shook her head, a small smirk spreading there. “I don’t see how you tolerate him sometimes.”
He shrugged, falling into step beside her. “He has his merits. Truly. I suspect I shall recall them any time now.”
She smiled.
They walked in silence for a time, allowing Taliesin to set the pace. The trees hung low here, knitting above the road, effectively hiding the coast from view. Soon enough they would see the first signs of the city, but here there were only broken bits of fence, the occasional crate or discarded wagon wheel. Anything of value would have been long since picked away.
So accustomed was he to the feel of her at his side, to the easy rhythm of their steps, that it took a moment for him to realize that she had stopped. Turning, he saw her framed beneath the trees, eyes fixed on something beyond the roadside.
“Rinna?”
She moved without looking back, lifting her skirts as she stepped over the brambles. There was a path there, narrow and almost lost beneath the trees.
He spun round once before following. “Taliesin!”
The clearing was overgrown, the grasses wild and grasping, but still she moved with ease. He could hear Taliesin cursing, crashing through the brush behind. “What in the-?”
It sagged broken, blackened, half of the roof fallen away. A fire perhaps, the rest the work of long-forgotten years. “An… inn, it seems.”
Rinna had paused at the door, starting as his hand fell on her shoulder.
“I think they’re closed.” Taliesin bent to pull the thorns from his boot.
But her eyes were wide, holding to Zevran’s as she slowly shook her head. They roamed now, up and over the building, her fingers tensing against the pocked wood of the door.
“Taliesin.”
“What?”
“Give us a moment, my friend.”
“Why?”
He turned with a glare.
“Alright, alright.” Unstringing the bow from his back, he shook his head. “Thought I saw a deer back there. There’s gotta be something living in all this at least. But if you fancy sleeping here, I’d just as soon return to the road.”
Turning back to Rinna, Zevran let his hand fall over hers. “You know this place, do you not?”
With a shake of her head, she let the door swing wide, hesitating a moment on the threshold before stepping through.
It took his eyes only a moment of adjust to the gloom. The place had been visited before, thoroughly scavenged, but still the wreckage of tables and chairs remained, a pile of half-collapsed planks that might once have served as a bar. There was a hallway off of the main room, a set of sagging stairs leading to the floor above.
Among them she moved, the shadows and the wreckage and the dust, white-knuckled hands clutching at her skirts. “I do not know… this place.”
“Oh? And I am queen of Antiva.”
She whirled, eyes pinching shut as her face seemed to come to life again. “Not this place, but one… similar.”
“Your home, yes?” He stepped close, hand hesitating before falling to his side. “You said that you lived at an inn. I take it you were not a guest?”
Her eyes opened slow, deep and dark as he remembered, but there was nothing wicked there. “My mother… she was a servant.”
“Ahh.”
She tilted her head at that. “What do you know of it?”
“Elven servants? There are tales enough. But in a place such as this…” He gestured round. “…far from - shall we say - polite society? I hesitate to imagine.”
She scowled, but there was surprise there. “Lucky you.”
“I grew up in a whorehouse, my dear. Surely we all have a sad tale to share.”
“You didn’t tell me.” But the softness lasted only a moment, her smirk hardening. “Shall it be a competition, then?”
He snorted, hand coming to rest on her arm as he shook his head. Rinna stared at it a moment before turning away with a sigh.
“You’re not wrong. She was a serving girl in an inn just south of Brynnlaw. Worked the common room, served the wine, and as an elf…” She laughed. “Place was owned by a man named Alric. Old and fat and lame, but he was a good enough man, never asked anything of us, certainly never... But things have a way of happening.”
“And your father?”
Glancing over her shoulder she shrugged. “Never knew him. He died before I was born, so she said. Really, I suspect it could have been anyone. All I know for sure is that he was an elf. Lucky me.” She bent to right one of the broken chairs before continuing. “But… I remember she fought it at first. At least I think she did. And always she made sure I was hidden… from the moment the guests arrived. It was close enough to the main road, but Brynnlaw’s inland, not well traveled. The travelers that we did get were idle soldiers, poor merchants, out-of-work mercenaries, that sort…”
Moving deeper into the room, he shadowed her.
“Only customer we got with any consistency was Ol’ Vic. Friend of Alric’s, farmer of some sort, they said. He would stop over on his way to market, come in for the holiday meals. He was a quiet man, lived alone; I think he might have honestly enjoyed the company.”
“And he…?”
She laughed at that, surprising in the gloom. “Oh no, not at all. Vic sort of… well, he sort of watched out for us. Me, in particular. He would tell stories, stories of women, stories of elves, doing great things. I never believed him, of course, but he showed me other things too. Every visit he would take me out behind the barn. He showed me how to use a blade, shoot a bow. I was quite skilled with throwing weapons, he said.” There was a smile there, crooked and half-sneered as she shook her head. “But that was all before.”
Trailing a hand along the bar, he rubbed the dust between his fingers.
“They were soldiers, I think. Three of them, human, drunk, the same as always. But she hadn’t been quick enough this time, had pushed me into a tiny cupboard behind the bar. I’d known what they did; I’d heard it before. She was practically falling into their laps by that time, not fighting, not doing anything. It made it easier, she said. But I hadn’t seen it before, hadn’t… had to watch.” Her hands tightened on the chairback, the splintered wood biting.
“How old were you?”
She looked up from beneath the fallen strands of her hair, eyes cold, dark. “Eleven.
“They… they were laughing as they took her, bending her over the bar. I could see her face, I could…” Whirling, she flung the chair against the wall. “There was nothing there, nothing! Dead… her eyes were just… dead. But one of them followed her gaze. ‘What are you looking at?’ he said.
“So they grabbed me. I kicked and I screamed but the cupboard wasn’t big enough and they grabbed me and they were laughing-”
“-Rinna…”
“And do you know what she said? Do you know what she said to me? ‘Close your eyes. Stay still,’ she said. ‘It will all be over soon.’”
“Rinna…”
“But… in the cupboard. I hadn’t even thought about it but it was there… in my hand. One of Alric’s old knives. And I knew, knew what I had to do. What I could do. He saw it, I think, and still he only laughed. Still he put his hands on me. But I was quick, too quick.” She turned her face away. “I remember thinking how soft it was, his throat, how easily the skin gave way.”
He was standing before her now, a hand on each of her arms, but still she would not meet his eyes, would not even flinch. She was lost to it.
“And I fell, pulling it free as the second one came at me. I ducked, I turned away, I did everything that Vic had taught me. The man had taken his armor off when he took my mother, everything was exposed. I didn’t even realize that I was crying as I cut him, opening him up to watch his belly spill out. But the other one… still he had her, pulling her up to put his blade to her throat. I didn’t even see the fourth.”
Only now did she raise her eyes to his, liquid unlike any he had ever seen.
“He was in the doorway, had a crossbow. The bolt fired as he fell and there behind him was Ol’ Vic. But he wasn’t looking at me, he was looking past… behind… Never had I seen anyone move so fast. He spun behind the last man as he dropped my mother, bringing his blade quick across his throat. And I watched him, fascinated, horrified, I don’t know. It was a long time before I realized that he was still looking past me.
“It had taken her in the chest, the soldier’s last bolt. And still she stared, still she was… repulsed… afraid… of me. And I just stood there… I just… watched her die. With her skirts around her waist, the stains of them still…”
She collapsed against his chest, heaving as he stroked a hand through her hair. There they stood, amongst the shadows, the filth, all the things best left forgotten. He whispered kisses against her forehead. “And this old man, this ‘Vic’ as you call him…?”
“Master Victarian.”
He snorted. “And they say there are no old Crows.”
Pulling away, she blinked up at him. “He took me to the guild at Seleny. I couldn’t stay, he said. I don’t know what would have happened to me otherwise. I… killed two men that night.”
“It was well deserved.”
She shook her head. “The guild was unimpressed. I was old, they said, almost too old; I would need to be broken quickly or not at all. But they knew, I think… they saw. There was nothing more they could do to me. Their work had already been done for them.”
Again she settled against his chest, burrowing her cheek there as his arms wrapped round. “And what of you?”
He snorted. “I am an orphaned son of a whole, purchased on the slave market. While I’m told the price was good, there is not much of interest in the tale.”
She buried a laugh against his chest. “And if I said it was of interest to me?”
“Ahh, I would not be able to resist.”
“That so?” Straightening, she took his hand, pulling him toward the shadowed hall. “Come. There is more of this place to explore.”
With a smirk he followed, noting her bemused expression as she pushed aside the door of the nearest guestroom. A fire there had been, the window broken and blackened, the threadbare mattress sagging and burned.
“Familiar?”
“Not at all.” Turning to him, she pressed close, leaning up and into the kiss as her hands slipped beneath his tunic.
“Rinna…” He had to turn his face away, gasp for the words. “Are you sure you…”
Her hand snaked behind his head, drawing his mouth close again. “Yes. Absolutely.”
His hands slipped up her back, making quick word of the laces there, straying to her shoulders as they slid the silks slowly down and away. Already she was stepping back, drawing him to her as she lay back upon the broken mattress. Why then did he hesitate, why did he still imagine something of that wavering sadness lingering behind her eyes?
Propping himself on an elbow, he let the question come unspoken, one hand cupped against her cheek. But she smiled, leaning into it, gaze holding steady. Sadness, yes, but also need. It was slow that she raised herself to meet him, slow that he pressed himself close.
* * *
He untangled his fingers from hers as they approached the door. The smile came sheepish, reluctant, but she met it with one of her own.
Taliesin was waiting as they stepped outside. “Well?”
It was with effort that he stilled his features, shaking his head to clear it. “Nothing.”
“Great. Fabulous waste of an afternoon.”
“I would not say so.” He nodded to the string at Taliesin’s feet, the rabbits piled there.
“Yeah, well, you’re welcome. There’s a root garden round the corner too. Probably overgrown but worth a look.”
“I’ve got it.” Nodding, Rinna moved away.
Taliesin smirked, watching. “Well?”
“Did you not already ask that?”
He snorted, nodding in Rinna’s direction. “I’m not stupid, you know.”
Zevran blinked.
“It makes sense. Long journey, man’s got needs.”
“Yes, that’s it exactly.”
Taliesin, though, did not catch the bitterness in his voice. There was a grin spreading there as he watched her bend to the garden. “Aye, needs it is.”
* * *
He had not seen, had not thought to see even now. Rumors of the Blight, what little sign there had been of other travelers on the road… what had it mattered? What to him?
Crouching now on the edge of the clearing, he shook his head. Again, Larin approached, the others behind him turning to watch nervously. But still the man was proud, smirking down at him.
“We’ll be leaving soon, I take it?”
Straightening, Zevran shook his head. “No. No… I think that we will stay. As I said, it is an ideal spot.”
He stiffened. “And the bodies?”
Already he had turned, making his way up the hill. Glancing back across the clearing, the wreckage of the half dozen lives that they had counted, he sneered. “Leave them. Just as we found them.”
Title: Insufferable, pt. 6
Pairings: Zev/Rinna
Rating: NSFW (AO for references to rape)
Words: 2,900
Summary: Taliesin's suspicions increase. An unexpected discovery on the road prompts Rinna to reveal her past.
This was old death.
“Do you think it’s truly a Blight?”
At least two weeks by the smell of them. The road had turned narrow, winding, cutting close between a looming cleft in the rockface. A perfect place for an ambush. Apparently the darkspawn had thought so too. As he walked amongst the corpses - human, animal, the broken remnants of a wagon - he shook his head. There was no art here, no reason, no advantage… only death. He had never seen anything like it.
“Zevran.”
He turned, blinking back at Larin as he stepped in front of the others and moved to his side.
“Darkspawn?”
“It certainly looks that way, does it not?”
“There were rumors of it in Denerim, refugees fleeing the south, whole parties overtaken on the road.”
“Then perhaps we should count ourselves fortunate.”
He snorted. “So. Something you are afraid of at last?”
Zevran, though, only shook his head. “No. Fortunate to have found such an appropriate spot.”
* * *
“She’s got coin, that one.”
Zevran paused in midstep, glancing over his shoulder as Taliesin fell in beside him. The other man’s gaze was fixed on the road ahead, watching Rinna through narrowed eyes. Somehow he suspected he had not been enjoying the view so much as he.
Their path through the trees had run out days ago, sloping back down to join the main road. But still there had been no sign of their mark, the gentle inquiries made of passing travelers bringing no news. They would reach Treviso soon enough, would perhaps find something there.
Taliesin lowered his voice, but if she heard them she gave no sign. “I don’t trust her.”
“Because she has coin?” He tsked.
“Where did she get it? She didn’t have such fine things before, never… flaunted it at least. And where does she disappear to every morning, I wonder? I’ve caught her, you know, sneaking off.”
Zevran smiled at that. Truly he was surprised that they had been able to hide it long enough. But in these few weeks it had almost become… routine. Turning the grin to Taliesin, he shrugged.
“You said it yourself, Zev. She’s from here, knows the area. And what of the merchant? If he’s lying low, there has to be a reason. What if she’s reporting to him? Keeping him a step ahead.”
He laughed, dropping his voice to a whisper as Rinna glanced over her shoulder. “And how would she do that, my friend? You are paranoid.”
“Paranoid my ass.” Quickening his pace, he called ahead. “Hoy! Rinna!”
He turned, folding her arms beneath a withering glare. “Taliesin.”
“Lovely day, isn’t it? You’re looking quite well.”
“What do you want, Taliesin?”
“Why, just to compliment your outfit is all. Where did you get it?”
She narrowed her eyes. “I don’t think they make it in your size.”
“Funny.” As Zevran approached, he smirked. “You didn’t tell me she was clever. Too bad they don’t pay for wit.” Turning back to her he, he lay a companionable elbow on Zevran’s shoulder. “Me and Zev… we were just talking about how nice you always look, how you have such nice things, like. Wondering where you got the coin is all.”
Rinna tilted her head toward Zevran with a curious smirk. He could only hold that gaze a moment before rolling his eyes away.
“I took a job. In the city, just before we left.”
“I didn’t hear about any job.”
“And you hear about all of them, do you?” She folded her arms. “Nothing for you to worry about anyway. It was… beneath you.” Her eyes strayed to Zevran at that.
“Ah well, I’m sure that explains it then.” Straightening, he elbowed Zevran in the ribs. “Satisfy your curiosity does it?” He stepped round, continuing up the road.
The urge to apologize came sudden and strange, but Rinna only shook her head, a small smirk spreading there. “I don’t see how you tolerate him sometimes.”
He shrugged, falling into step beside her. “He has his merits. Truly. I suspect I shall recall them any time now.”
She smiled.
They walked in silence for a time, allowing Taliesin to set the pace. The trees hung low here, knitting above the road, effectively hiding the coast from view. Soon enough they would see the first signs of the city, but here there were only broken bits of fence, the occasional crate or discarded wagon wheel. Anything of value would have been long since picked away.
So accustomed was he to the feel of her at his side, to the easy rhythm of their steps, that it took a moment for him to realize that she had stopped. Turning, he saw her framed beneath the trees, eyes fixed on something beyond the roadside.
“Rinna?”
She moved without looking back, lifting her skirts as she stepped over the brambles. There was a path there, narrow and almost lost beneath the trees.
He spun round once before following. “Taliesin!”
The clearing was overgrown, the grasses wild and grasping, but still she moved with ease. He could hear Taliesin cursing, crashing through the brush behind. “What in the-?”
It sagged broken, blackened, half of the roof fallen away. A fire perhaps, the rest the work of long-forgotten years. “An… inn, it seems.”
Rinna had paused at the door, starting as his hand fell on her shoulder.
“I think they’re closed.” Taliesin bent to pull the thorns from his boot.
But her eyes were wide, holding to Zevran’s as she slowly shook her head. They roamed now, up and over the building, her fingers tensing against the pocked wood of the door.
“Taliesin.”
“What?”
“Give us a moment, my friend.”
“Why?”
He turned with a glare.
“Alright, alright.” Unstringing the bow from his back, he shook his head. “Thought I saw a deer back there. There’s gotta be something living in all this at least. But if you fancy sleeping here, I’d just as soon return to the road.”
Turning back to Rinna, Zevran let his hand fall over hers. “You know this place, do you not?”
With a shake of her head, she let the door swing wide, hesitating a moment on the threshold before stepping through.
It took his eyes only a moment of adjust to the gloom. The place had been visited before, thoroughly scavenged, but still the wreckage of tables and chairs remained, a pile of half-collapsed planks that might once have served as a bar. There was a hallway off of the main room, a set of sagging stairs leading to the floor above.
Among them she moved, the shadows and the wreckage and the dust, white-knuckled hands clutching at her skirts. “I do not know… this place.”
“Oh? And I am queen of Antiva.”
She whirled, eyes pinching shut as her face seemed to come to life again. “Not this place, but one… similar.”
“Your home, yes?” He stepped close, hand hesitating before falling to his side. “You said that you lived at an inn. I take it you were not a guest?”
Her eyes opened slow, deep and dark as he remembered, but there was nothing wicked there. “My mother… she was a servant.”
“Ahh.”
She tilted her head at that. “What do you know of it?”
“Elven servants? There are tales enough. But in a place such as this…” He gestured round. “…far from - shall we say - polite society? I hesitate to imagine.”
She scowled, but there was surprise there. “Lucky you.”
“I grew up in a whorehouse, my dear. Surely we all have a sad tale to share.”
“You didn’t tell me.” But the softness lasted only a moment, her smirk hardening. “Shall it be a competition, then?”
He snorted, hand coming to rest on her arm as he shook his head. Rinna stared at it a moment before turning away with a sigh.
“You’re not wrong. She was a serving girl in an inn just south of Brynnlaw. Worked the common room, served the wine, and as an elf…” She laughed. “Place was owned by a man named Alric. Old and fat and lame, but he was a good enough man, never asked anything of us, certainly never... But things have a way of happening.”
“And your father?”
Glancing over her shoulder she shrugged. “Never knew him. He died before I was born, so she said. Really, I suspect it could have been anyone. All I know for sure is that he was an elf. Lucky me.” She bent to right one of the broken chairs before continuing. “But… I remember she fought it at first. At least I think she did. And always she made sure I was hidden… from the moment the guests arrived. It was close enough to the main road, but Brynnlaw’s inland, not well traveled. The travelers that we did get were idle soldiers, poor merchants, out-of-work mercenaries, that sort…”
Moving deeper into the room, he shadowed her.
“Only customer we got with any consistency was Ol’ Vic. Friend of Alric’s, farmer of some sort, they said. He would stop over on his way to market, come in for the holiday meals. He was a quiet man, lived alone; I think he might have honestly enjoyed the company.”
“And he…?”
She laughed at that, surprising in the gloom. “Oh no, not at all. Vic sort of… well, he sort of watched out for us. Me, in particular. He would tell stories, stories of women, stories of elves, doing great things. I never believed him, of course, but he showed me other things too. Every visit he would take me out behind the barn. He showed me how to use a blade, shoot a bow. I was quite skilled with throwing weapons, he said.” There was a smile there, crooked and half-sneered as she shook her head. “But that was all before.”
Trailing a hand along the bar, he rubbed the dust between his fingers.
“They were soldiers, I think. Three of them, human, drunk, the same as always. But she hadn’t been quick enough this time, had pushed me into a tiny cupboard behind the bar. I’d known what they did; I’d heard it before. She was practically falling into their laps by that time, not fighting, not doing anything. It made it easier, she said. But I hadn’t seen it before, hadn’t… had to watch.” Her hands tightened on the chairback, the splintered wood biting.
“How old were you?”
She looked up from beneath the fallen strands of her hair, eyes cold, dark. “Eleven.
“They… they were laughing as they took her, bending her over the bar. I could see her face, I could…” Whirling, she flung the chair against the wall. “There was nothing there, nothing! Dead… her eyes were just… dead. But one of them followed her gaze. ‘What are you looking at?’ he said.
“So they grabbed me. I kicked and I screamed but the cupboard wasn’t big enough and they grabbed me and they were laughing-”
“-Rinna…”
“And do you know what she said? Do you know what she said to me? ‘Close your eyes. Stay still,’ she said. ‘It will all be over soon.’”
“Rinna…”
“But… in the cupboard. I hadn’t even thought about it but it was there… in my hand. One of Alric’s old knives. And I knew, knew what I had to do. What I could do. He saw it, I think, and still he only laughed. Still he put his hands on me. But I was quick, too quick.” She turned her face away. “I remember thinking how soft it was, his throat, how easily the skin gave way.”
He was standing before her now, a hand on each of her arms, but still she would not meet his eyes, would not even flinch. She was lost to it.
“And I fell, pulling it free as the second one came at me. I ducked, I turned away, I did everything that Vic had taught me. The man had taken his armor off when he took my mother, everything was exposed. I didn’t even realize that I was crying as I cut him, opening him up to watch his belly spill out. But the other one… still he had her, pulling her up to put his blade to her throat. I didn’t even see the fourth.”
Only now did she raise her eyes to his, liquid unlike any he had ever seen.
“He was in the doorway, had a crossbow. The bolt fired as he fell and there behind him was Ol’ Vic. But he wasn’t looking at me, he was looking past… behind… Never had I seen anyone move so fast. He spun behind the last man as he dropped my mother, bringing his blade quick across his throat. And I watched him, fascinated, horrified, I don’t know. It was a long time before I realized that he was still looking past me.
“It had taken her in the chest, the soldier’s last bolt. And still she stared, still she was… repulsed… afraid… of me. And I just stood there… I just… watched her die. With her skirts around her waist, the stains of them still…”
She collapsed against his chest, heaving as he stroked a hand through her hair. There they stood, amongst the shadows, the filth, all the things best left forgotten. He whispered kisses against her forehead. “And this old man, this ‘Vic’ as you call him…?”
“Master Victarian.”
He snorted. “And they say there are no old Crows.”
Pulling away, she blinked up at him. “He took me to the guild at Seleny. I couldn’t stay, he said. I don’t know what would have happened to me otherwise. I… killed two men that night.”
“It was well deserved.”
She shook her head. “The guild was unimpressed. I was old, they said, almost too old; I would need to be broken quickly or not at all. But they knew, I think… they saw. There was nothing more they could do to me. Their work had already been done for them.”
Again she settled against his chest, burrowing her cheek there as his arms wrapped round. “And what of you?”
He snorted. “I am an orphaned son of a whole, purchased on the slave market. While I’m told the price was good, there is not much of interest in the tale.”
She buried a laugh against his chest. “And if I said it was of interest to me?”
“Ahh, I would not be able to resist.”
“That so?” Straightening, she took his hand, pulling him toward the shadowed hall. “Come. There is more of this place to explore.”
With a smirk he followed, noting her bemused expression as she pushed aside the door of the nearest guestroom. A fire there had been, the window broken and blackened, the threadbare mattress sagging and burned.
“Familiar?”
“Not at all.” Turning to him, she pressed close, leaning up and into the kiss as her hands slipped beneath his tunic.
“Rinna…” He had to turn his face away, gasp for the words. “Are you sure you…”
Her hand snaked behind his head, drawing his mouth close again. “Yes. Absolutely.”
His hands slipped up her back, making quick word of the laces there, straying to her shoulders as they slid the silks slowly down and away. Already she was stepping back, drawing him to her as she lay back upon the broken mattress. Why then did he hesitate, why did he still imagine something of that wavering sadness lingering behind her eyes?
Propping himself on an elbow, he let the question come unspoken, one hand cupped against her cheek. But she smiled, leaning into it, gaze holding steady. Sadness, yes, but also need. It was slow that she raised herself to meet him, slow that he pressed himself close.
* * *
He untangled his fingers from hers as they approached the door. The smile came sheepish, reluctant, but she met it with one of her own.
Taliesin was waiting as they stepped outside. “Well?”
It was with effort that he stilled his features, shaking his head to clear it. “Nothing.”
“Great. Fabulous waste of an afternoon.”
“I would not say so.” He nodded to the string at Taliesin’s feet, the rabbits piled there.
“Yeah, well, you’re welcome. There’s a root garden round the corner too. Probably overgrown but worth a look.”
“I’ve got it.” Nodding, Rinna moved away.
Taliesin smirked, watching. “Well?”
“Did you not already ask that?”
He snorted, nodding in Rinna’s direction. “I’m not stupid, you know.”
Zevran blinked.
“It makes sense. Long journey, man’s got needs.”
“Yes, that’s it exactly.”
Taliesin, though, did not catch the bitterness in his voice. There was a grin spreading there as he watched her bend to the garden. “Aye, needs it is.”
* * *
He had not seen, had not thought to see even now. Rumors of the Blight, what little sign there had been of other travelers on the road… what had it mattered? What to him?
Crouching now on the edge of the clearing, he shook his head. Again, Larin approached, the others behind him turning to watch nervously. But still the man was proud, smirking down at him.
“We’ll be leaving soon, I take it?”
Straightening, Zevran shook his head. “No. No… I think that we will stay. As I said, it is an ideal spot.”
He stiffened. “And the bodies?”
Already he had turned, making his way up the hill. Glancing back across the clearing, the wreckage of the half dozen lives that they had counted, he sneered. “Leave them. Just as we found them.”