Страница 63 из 65
"I told you I don't want you wandering off alone."
"Stop talking to me like I'm a little kid. You're the one who left me."
Naji fell into step beside me. "You left the water jar behind."
"Kaol and her sacred starfish!" I stopped in the middle of the woods, whirled around in the direction of his house. "Damn it, I'm not going back there." I pushed my hair out of my eyes. "At least he gave us something to drink."
He snorted and took off into the woods, paying no mind to the snapping of branches. I trailed behind him. "So now what?" I said.
"We go to the shack," Naji said.
"That ain't what I meant." I ran up beside him. "I mean with the curse. You know a way off the island? You said the Order was protecting you – why couldn't they just bring us both back? Don't tell me it ain't possible, I know the stories."
He stopped. "How did you know?"
"Know what? About the Order?" I almost laughed. "You mean they can actually do that?"
"Of course they can." But then his expression changed. It went from hard and anger to… almost sad. "I spoke to them this morning. Magic is strong here. They'd certainly be able to send an acolyte through Kajjil."
Water dripped out of the trees and landed in dark spots on my new coat. "They aren't coming, are they?"
Naji looked at me, and then he shook his head.
I should have known it wouldn't be that easy.
He walked off, his face tilted down to the ground.
"And why not?" I called after him. "They don't want to bother with you when the Mists are on your tail? Or are you damaged goods now that you got that curse?"
He stopped. The wind rippled his hair and his new clothes. When he turned around his face was a mask.
"They wouldn't have rescued you," he said. "They wouldn't risk bringing an outsider through Kajjil."
"Guess I just ruin everything for you, don't I? Give you headaches and keep you from getting rescued–"
"I told them no," he said, "even when I thought – when I hoped – that Eirnin would have cured me."
The entire world suddenly seemed to stand still. Naji and me were statues. The forest was no longer shaking with wind and rain. Even the dripping had stopped. But my heart was still beating, pounding too fast inside my chest, threatening to break me open.
"What?" I whispered.
"Give me your hand," Naji said, and then he walked over to me and grabbed it without waiting for me to move. The shadows crowded in around us. I didn't quite understand what had happened until we were standing in the shadow of the pine trees that grew beside our shack.
"I didn't feel like walking through the woods again," Naji said, and he stalked into the shack, leaving me shaking outside.
"Hey!" I shouted. My voice disappeared on the wind. "Naji!"
He didn't come back out, and so I went in and found him staring at the fire.
"Did you mean that?" I leaned up against the doorway. "About staying with me even if you were cured–"
"Yes." He looked at me over his shoulder. "Close the door, please. The wind will blow the fire out."
I stepped inside and sat down on the floor beside him. The fire crackled in the hearth.
"It was the only decent thing to do," he said.
My heart warmed, and for a moment I thought about leaning over and kissing him on the cheek.
The first impossible task.
"Besides," he said, "the Mists would have snatched you up the moment I left. Even if you didn't give in," and he looked away from me as he said this, "even if you weren't tied to me because of the curse, they would have used you. Somehow."
The warmth in my heart froze over.
"I can take care of myself," I snapped.
Naji fed another stick into the fire.
"I bet I can get us off this island."
Naji didn't say anything.
"Any Confederation baby knows how to build a signal fire," I went on. "I would have done it sooner but I figured we should get your curse cured first."
"And we still haven't done that."
I glared at him. "You know how to do it now. It just ain't anything we can do on the island. We'll have to build a bonfire on the beach," I said. "And feed it green wood so it'll let off plenty of smoke."
"It's going to be difficult to keep a beach fire burning here," Naji said. "Because of the storms."
"Long as we keep the fire going in here, we can relight it."
"That's not very efficient." He sighed. "I know a way, but–"
"A way to what? To keep it burning?" I looked at him. "Then why haven't you done it? Why didn't you do it as soon as they told you they wouldn't rescue us?"
The look he gave me was sharp as his sword.
"Kaol," I said. "You like it here, don't you? You like cold rainy islands half out of the world. No wonder you're an assassin."
He opened his mouth. Closed it. Then he said, "Scars don't spontaneously emerge overnight, Ana
It took me longer than it should've to figure out what he was getting at.
"Oh," I said. "Oh, then you don't have to… I can just relight the fire–"
Naji stood up and brushed past me. He stuck a stick into the hearth and yanked it back out with a spray of ash and sparks.
"It's fine," he said, in a voice that suggested it wasn't.
"Naji–"
He walked out of the shack, and for a moment I sat there, not knowing if he wanted to be left alone. The wind picked up and knocked tree branches against the side of the shack, and I thought about how if it wasn't for me he'd be off the island right now, back in the dry fragrant heat of Lisirra. And then I wondered what exactly had happened when he got his scars, if he'd had someone to help him when it all went wrong.