Bloodchild. Anna Stephens

blushed and retreated again until his back was against the wall. ‘I didn’t, it wasn’t, it’s not what you think,’ he tried, but Ash reached out a long arm and hauled him close so that Dom was forced to look up at him.

      ‘You better not have been doing what it sounded like you were doing,’ he snarled. ‘I came back because Crys sent me to fetch you, because he wants to find a way forward, a way for you both to live with what you did to him – aye, and what he did to you. Though if he hadn’t cut that hand off, it would’ve killed you. But he sent me here because he’s not healing and neither are you and we need you both if we’re to have any hope of winning this. And I was starting to think we had a chance, that today was the beginning of something, and then I walk in here to find you cutting yourself and praying to the Red fucking Gods.’

      Dom couldn’t meet his eyes. Shame and the hollowed-out emptiness of grief churned uneasily together. His vision blurred with tears and he kept his head down, blinking savagely. He brought me into His presence. So desperate is He for companionship that He’ll snatch at anything offered Him. Even me.

      Ash’s arms came around him, one hand pressed to the back of his head, an embrace Dom neither expected nor deserved. He hesitated, snatched out of his thoughts and into this most surprising of moments. Gingerly, he hugged Ash back. More tears, and a wrenching pain deep inside that would never go away.

      ‘I’m broken, Ash,’ he whispered, and the confession was a catharsis. ‘There’s nothing left of me, nothing inside but hurt and hate and death.’ He tightened his arms, wanting to hold Ash to him even though he knew the archer must be disgusted. ‘I crave Her, Ash, Her touch, the … delight of the agony She brought, as wrong as I know that is. I don’t know how to live without Her. Everything the Dark Lady did to me was cruel, evil, but … I still love Her. I always will.’

      He heard Ash swallow, felt him lean away, just a finger’s width, but one that threatened to become a chasm they could never bridge. ‘But you have to live without Her,’ he whispered. ‘Because She’s gone and She’s not coming back, no matter what crazy plans that blue-clad bitch has. We’re going to stop the Mireces, stop Lanta, and then send Gosfath into death after His Sister. And you’re going to help us do it, because that’s what we do, it’s who we are.’ He pushed him away to arm’s length, hands on his shoulders. ‘It’s who you are, as well, deep down.’

      ‘Is it?’ Dom whispered, the remembered expression in Gosfath’s face mirrored now in his own. ‘When all I can think of are ways to help the Blessed One? When every night is haunted with dreams of Her even though every day all I long for is to see Rillirin again? There’s even a part of me that would offer up her and our child if it would bring back the Dark Lady, and I hate it, I hate myself, but I can’t stop.’

      Revulsion flashed across Ash’s scarred face and now he did let go, took a decisive step away. To the other side of that chasm. ‘Yeah? Well, we don’t always get what we want, do we?’ He touched the notch in his jaw, another scar just visible through the open neck of his shirt. ‘I got killed by Galtas; didn’t want that. Crys got tortured – by you; he didn’t want that. The man I love above all others is a fucking god, and one that you prophesied would have to die to end this war, or have you forgotten your own words? “And the godlight will lead us, to death and beyond.” Do you really think either of us want that? Because Crys knows this will kill him, he knows there’s no coming back from this, and he’s doing it anyway. Because he understands.’

      ‘Understands what?’ Dom whispered across the gulf, trying to reach his friend. Failing.

      ‘That sacrificing his life to save Gilgoras is worth it. That doing everything he can to spare innocents from the horrors of the Dark Path is worth it. That’ – Ash swallowed again, thickly this time – ‘that me losing him is worth it.’

      He cleared his throat and blinked hard. ‘You killed Her, which was the only good thing you did in those months of your madness, and you’re not going to return there no matter how much you want to. I’ll kill you myself rather than see you lost to Blood again. So you’re going to help us make sure She stays dead, and you’re going to repent for the lives you took and the betrayals you perpetrated, because otherwise—’ He broke off, perhaps knowing that no threat he made could ever scare a man who wanted to give himself, body and soul, to madness.

      ‘And believe me, you have no idea how much courage it’s taken Crys to send me here with the prospect of forgiveness. It’s certainly not something I suggested, because I have seen every last one of those scars you put into him, and those that live only on the inside, too, that even he might not know are there.’

      Ash paused to get his voice back under control. ‘Those are the scars we’ll have to deal with when this is all over, if any of us are alive to do so. Those are the ones that will define the rest of his life, his ability to sleep peacefully, our chance at happiness. Those are the ones I don’t want you to ever forget inflicting. And with all that said, he’s still trying to find a way to forgive you.’

      Dom’s chest was heaving with repressed sobs. ‘Can he? Can you?’ he choked out.

      Ash’s face twisted. ‘No. Maybe. I don’t know. But I do know he’s the one you pray for,’ he added, jerking a finger out at the night. ‘Pray for Crys, and pray to the Fox God. Not Her, never again Her. Got it?’

      ‘Got it.’ Dom licked his lips and nodded, looking away. ‘Are you … going to tell him?’

      ‘Are you going to do it again?’

      Dom shook his head – and meant it.

      ‘Then no. But don’t let him down like that again.’

      Ash picked up the knife Dom had used and examined its edge, then shoved it deliberately through his belt. Dom fidgeted, wanting to ask for it back, knowing how it would sound. No hand, no weapons, no way to hurt himself or others. Bitterness rose in him to mingle with the guilt, the hope, the grief.

      Ash wiped his hands on his shirt as though they’d touched something foul. ‘Come on, then,’ he said in a voice cold as an axe blade. ‘He still wants to see you.’

       CRYS

       Seventh moon, first year of the reign of King Corvus

       The Belt, Krike

      Green Ridge could field two hundred warriors, and all of them followed Crys when he left the town three days later. He’d expected to leave them behind, pick them up on his way back through towards Rilpor, but they elected to follow him instead.

      ‘And by follow,’ Crys hissed to Ash on the fourth day out of Green Ridge and through the thick pine forests known as the Belt, ‘I mean everywhere. I’m pretty sure I saw one watching me have a shit yesterday.’

      Ash glanced behind at the Krikites; Crys didn’t. He knew what he’d see. Cutta Frog-dream walked half a dozen paces behind with Dom, and behind them were ranged the warriors. They watched his every move like stoats watching a rabbit burrow. Unblinking.

      ‘Yeah, that’s creepy,’ Ash said when he turned back. ‘But they’ll get used to it. I have, despite the yellow eyes lighting up the night when I’m trying to sleep.’

      ‘You think you’re hilarious, don’t you?’ Crys demanded, tapping his fingers on the pommel of his sword; he’d traded the axe he’d brought with him and the new blade was decent quality, well weighted. However curious about him they were, the Krikites at least boasted some talented smiths. The pine needles underfoot were springy, lending energy to his steps, the rich scent sharp in his nose. He had an urge to sprint off ahead and leave them all behind – leave everything behind. Prophecies and legends and the prospect of war.

      Ash pressed his lips together but couldn’t suppress a hoot of laughter. ‘It’s not their fault,’ he said with an air of implausible seriousness, ‘they’ve