Braid of Sand Read online

  A girl who could frighten off a sea monster with a wave of her hand probably had a few tricks up her sleeve he’d never encountered before. Either way, he would tread carefully until he knew more.

  “You mentioned something about catching fish for dinner.”

  She made a disgruntled sound deep in her throat.

  “Do you see this?” She held up a section of her damp hair. “It will take all night to comb through this and braid it again. I won’t be going anywhere tonight but back upstairs.”

  Disappointment socked him low in the belly. After fighting for his life he was hungrier than ever, but he didn’t need her to tell him she’d have her hands full dealing with all that hair. When she straightened from trying to wring out what water she could, her head was tilted strangely, and he realized the wet weight of the braid was dragging on her head.

  Without waiting to see that he was behind her, she stomped off for the stairs holding her wet coils with her arms to spare some of the strain on her neck. Castien fell into step behind her, debating whether to offer his help. Just watching her was putting a crick in his neck.

  “Here.” She kicked open a door to a dark windowless cell.

  Castien checked on the threshold. His eyebrow arched.

  “What? No shackles? I thought every dungeon came with a set of those.”

  “You’re lucky I don’t make you sleep out in the forest. If you’re afraid of Gursel, then you’d really enjoy the creatures that roam around out there.”

  At the word ‘afraid’ Castien’s pride reared its head. As if there was something wrong with him for wanting to keep a healthy distance from a monster with two-inch daggers for teeth. Besides, he’d gone back for her when he thought she needed his help, hadn’t he? She was the one trying to defend the creature as if it was no more harmless than a pet goldfish.

  Still, he conceded, this was her home and he wasn’t in the position to make demands about where he would sleep—not if he wanted to stay on her good side. However, he’d rather sleep outside on the ground than in a pitch-black hole where he couldn’t see two inches in front of his face. With effort, he turned his grimace into a smile.

  “My apologies, Priestess. This place unsettles me.” To his surprise, even more suspicion sparked in her gaze at his words, as if she knew that cowardice didn’t come naturally to him. Good. At least there was that.

  Her mouth puckered.

  “As it should. You don’t belong here.”

  She turned on her heel, but he leapt toward her to catch her wrist. She froze when his skin touched hers. Castien held his breath, afraid he’d dared something sacrilegious. Were mere mortals permitted to lay hands on Naiara’s High Priestess?

  Tension vibrated along her arm as she gathered her strength to tear herself free.

  Castien released her, remembering too late she’d had no human contact in at least ten years. A smart man could use that.

  “I would rather not be alone until I know more about this place. Is that so hard to understand? Where are we? Who are you?” He gentled his voice, trying to coax a way through the suspicious barrier she’d thrown up against him.

  Her eyes remained hard and flat.

  “Do you have any idea the rats nest that awaits me if I don’t untangle my hair before it dries?”

  It was such an inconsequential concern that he almost laughed. Since the moment he’d seen the dark braid fall from the window like an invitation, he’d been strangled, held at sword-point, and nearly drowned by a sea monster. Every instinct he had was telling him to seize control of the tower and subdue any more potential threats. It was a mantra chanting on a constant loop inside his head. Seize. Subdue. Survive to see another day.

  This girl had no clue she was skirting the edge of his restraint.

  Instead, she hurled that idle concern at him as if tangled hair was the biggest problem she had to deal with.

  Well, she did have a lot of it. He caught himself before he cracked a smile.

  When she saw that he was on the verge of laughing, her black eyes ignited like burning coals.

  He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been so tempted to grin. He composed his face by pretending to scratch the side of his nose with his thumb.

  “Well Priestess, since your hair got wet coming to save me, it seems only fair that I help you comb through it before it becomes the briar patch you’re so afraid of. I’d hate to see you become even pricklier than you already are.”

  10.

  She didn’t know what to make of him. This could not be the same man who had killed that other one in the small hut with such detachment and no ounce of remorse. This man’s mind moved like the zephyrs—an irreverent whirlwind turning over every possibility or a crouching stillness made unnerving by its unpredictability. He couldn’t look at a crumb or speck of dust without his face betraying his every thought.

  As they wandered past the kitchens again, he lingered to take in the dried herbs hanging from the ceiling. His chest expanded as he dragged the smell of rosemary, sage, and thyme into his lungs. Emotion gathered around him like one of Mazin’s storms. Her first instinct was to offer comfort, but his temper posed a greater threat to her than one of the young god’s tantrums. She didn’t trust how quickly he’d let go of his suspicion that she’d deliberately set him up to face Gursel.

  “Is something wrong?” She balled her fist at her side, needing something to do with her hands that didn’t involve reaching out to steady him.

  “Was anything ever right?”

  It was a question that didn’t require an answer. Still she opened her mouth and closed it as she tried to...what? Justify her existence? Apologize for her good fortune?

  Thinking it over as she turned and continued up the steps, she realized that all she wanted to do was convince him that he could have all this as well if he would only let go of his hatred and let the Great Mother into his heart.

  Out of practice with dealing with people she might be, but even she recognized a futile effort when she saw one.

  “I have some salve for your leg if you need it. The water in the pools has some mild healing properties though. It won’t close an open wound, but you won’t have to worry about infection.”

  Another weighted silence descended between them. He blew air from his nostrils like a bull preparing to charge.

  “I was wondering why it didn’t hurt as much as it should.” The conversational tone seemed to cost him. She had the feeling he was hanging onto his civilized veneer by a thread.

  Rather than worry about whether the tether on his temper would snap, she turned her attention to the problem of her rapidly drying hair. The threat of it tangling as it dried was very real, and it would take hours of tedious combing to work her way through if she didn’t tend to it soon. Her arms weren’t up to that kind of task after everything else she’d been through that day. The race down the steps when she heard the Shadow Striker’s thrashing and gurgled call for help had sapped what little remained of her stamina. She swayed as she climbed the last three steps and had to steady herself with a hand on the wall.

  “You’re limping,” he observed. His expressions she had no trouble deciphering, but his tone was more difficult to read.

  “You aren’t the only one who’s had a hard day.”

  He reached up to push a damp lock of hair back off his forehead. His eyebrow arched again. He probably thought she couldn’t see his expression that said plainly, “how could your day possibly be any worse than mine?”

  She pushed open her door and took in the mess. Her shawl was spread across the floor where she’d dropped it being dragged across the room. The short sword still rested on top of the trunk where she’d left it. Her wet training clothes were piled beside her bed, and there were sandy footprints everywhere from his boots. It surprised her the zephyrs hadn’t been in to clean up. In fact, they had been suspiciously absent since he’d arrived.

  The muscles along her neck and spine were aching, tender, and hot to the touc
h. Now that her adrenaline was wearing off, an acute pain gathered behind her eyes and rolling waves of nausea sloshed in her belly.

  Fortunately, there were still logs in the grate from her last attempt to build a fire or else she’d have had to turn back around and go all the way to the little storage room she’d offered him to use as his own quarters. Picking up the flint, she stared at it as if she could will it to create a spark by itself.

  Weariness overwhelmed her. She sagged a moment, debating whether it was worth trying to coax a phoenix to her aid with bread. That required going back down to the kitchen, and he had seen enough strangeness for one day. Besides, even if she whistled loud enough for the birds to hear her, it wasn’t a sure thing they would come.

  “Here.” The Shadow Striker brushed her aside with a sweep of his arm. She couldn’t be sure because he was careful to keep his face turned away, but Raziela was almost certain he was smirking again. Great Mother scorch him!

  Seeing that he knew what he was doing as he began stacking logs in the fireplace, Raziela rifled through the chest at the end of her bed and picked up a coral comb made by Gursel and plopped down in front of the fire to unravel her braid. She hadn’t forgotten his offer to help, but she kept her eyes on her fumbling fingers.

  She worked her way up, undoing a link at a time so the black strands lay smooth in the orange glow from the fire he built. Balanced on his toes like a cat, he crouched in silence for a while watching her.

  When the comb’s teeth tore through a thick knot with an audible rasp, he winced and pushed his own hair back from his forehead.

  Silently, Raziela cursed him for having the luxury of shearing his hair so close to his scalp.

  “What is your name?” he asked at length. His tone was bored, as if the answer didn’t matter, but Raziela would have had to be a fool not to notice that he paid careful attention to everything about her.

  “Raziela,” she ground out as she worked through another thick knot. Because she was so absorbed with her task, she almost didn’t notice his small start except the toe of his boot was in her peripheral vision. When it jumped, she looked up to see unguarded shock.

  “Raziela—Ardelean’s daughter?” He couldn’t have looked more astonished if she’d told him she was the Goddess herself.

  “Oh no. What other crimes did he commit that he should still be remembered after all this time?”

  He cocked his head.

  “Remembered? How could anyone forget the man who tipped the first domino toward our self-destruction? What? Did you think he was dead?”

  Raziela paused her brushing.

  “How can that be? He claimed he stole from the Temple because he and his family were starving. If that was true, I can’t imagine he’s managed to maintain his good health after all these years. Mortal life spans are only so long.”

  The moment she said it, she wished she could take it back.

  “It’s only been ten years since the Temple disappeared.” It was almost a question, as if he wasn’t certain which of them was wrong. Raziela’s chest began to buzz. It was a hornets’ nest and he’d just thrown the biggest rock he could find.

  “That can’t be.” She lifted the end of her braid, of which she’d barely combed through the first two feet. “Do you think I grew all of this in only ten years?”

  He was quiet for a long time, linking his hands around his bent knees. That pause was for her to prepare herself, she could feel it. The stinging cloud of hornets swarmed up into her mind.

  Finally, he asked in a voice soft as smoke, “How long did it take?”

  “Over a century.”

  Something moved in his eyes then, something that reminded her that the murderer she’d seen wasn’t a figment of her imagination.

  “She’s trapped you up here for a century?”

  His eyes were twin oil spills and his rage ignited them like a match. Raziela felt like a shipwreck survivor clinging to a piece of debris while the remains of her world went up in smoke.

  No. The Great Mother wouldn’t do that to her. There must be some mistake!

  “I am not a prisoner.” She was shaking so badly she had to set down her comb. “I am here by my own choice. You see this?” Once again she raised the end of her braid. “Every inch of this I grew in the name of the Great Mother. The day I shear it off is the day I renounce her as the rest of your people apparently have.”

  “But what do you do with yourself?” His forearms flexed as if he had to exert physical force to keep from erupting into violence. Raziela blinked.

  “I train. I tend to the gardens. I live and work the same as anyone else.”

  “Alone.”

  “I am not alone! You saw that for yourself.” She infused the words with a mocking tone, trying to break through that icy shell of his that was beginning to unnerve her. He was furious—not at her, but for her. The novelty of it was enough to distract her from her horror. She ducked her head under the pretense of picking up her comb and hoped he didn’t notice.

  “How have you not gone insane?”

  “Who says I’m not?” She tilted her head to one side, copying him. “After all, any sane person would have thrown you out the window after you almost tore my hair out trying to climb up.”

  He aimed a crooked smile at her.

  Raziela froze. Naiara had never taught her how to defend against a weapon like that.

  “Sorry.” The word didn’t fit his mouth even when he meant it. “When it came flying down out of the sky to land right at my feet, what did you expect me to do?”

  “I would forgive you, except it’s because of you that I have to comb it out all over again.”

  “What was it doing hanging out the window in the first place?”

  “Drying.” She stuck her chin in the air. “Believe me, I won’t make that mistake again.”

  The amusement went out of his face and he folded his arms around his legs before looking away from her, almost shamefaced.

  “I came alone. If it’s easier for you to let it dry outside, I promise there’s no one else waiting down there to climb up.”

  His pity and compassion wounded her worse than anything else he’d said since he arrived. The swift sting it brought clogged her chest with tears she refused to shed. She cleared her throat and brushed the tip of her nose with the back of her hand.

  “As reassuring as that is, it’s too late. The ends are already dry. The damage has already been done.”

  He held out his hand palm up. She didn’t pretend to misunderstand him, but she stared at the offer in mute fascination.

  “Experience has taught me I’ll never hear the end of it if I don’t at least offer to help after I mess something up—particularly since you’re a woman.” He finished this with another of his dangerous, disarming smiles.

  The word ‘woman’ clanged through her. Was that how he saw her? Surrounded by immortals and elements who’d been around since the world began, it was impossible to think of herself as anything but a child by comparison. With dryads for companions, the flowering of her body as it matured had been no more momentous than green buds emerging at the turn of the seasons. She’d taken no notice other than to appreciate the advantages of more height and the extra strength in her limbs. Yet, he saw a woman when he looked at her? What a strange thought.

  “I suppose you can make yourself useful.” Feeling womanly and magnanimous, she dropped her comb into his hand.

  He undid three links in her braid and passed the comb through in slow, even strokes. She gave him her back and wrapped her hands around her knees. Her mind shied away from the revelation that she existed in a time that passed differently from his. She chewed her lip, determined not to let it matter.

  They didn’t speak. The rasp of the comb’s teeth through her strands was the only sound save for the soft crackle of the fire that threw their shadows on the wall so large they had no choice but to merge together and become one.

  “By the way, what would you like me to call you?” In
her mind she’d thought of him as the Shadow Striker, but he had to have a true name too.

  He hesitated before answering.

  “You know something, Priestess? You’re probably the only person to ever ask me that.” He was a hulking presence behind her, and she wrapped her arms around her knees, half-expecting him to make his attack. “My name is Castien. Pleased to make your acquaintance.”

  11.

  Castien woke surrounded by the scent of flowers and something soft tickling his nose. He swatted at it only to plunge his fingers into thick coils of hair. His eyes snapped open.

  A blanket of black hair lay stretched across his legs, tangling him in the strands like spider silk. At the heart of that web was the priestess—Raziela.

  The night’s events came back to him in a rush, and he bolted upright. Automatically, he scanned his surroundings for threats, but he was still in her tower bedroom with its circular walls swathed in feminine touches. The bed was an ornate thing of pale, polished wood. The soft, lavender blankets were still folded up to the fat pillows plump full of feathers. Jewelry and trinkets decorated the shelves and surfaces of her dresser and vanity. A clay bust rested on a chest of drawers by the window. It wore a coral headdress dripping strings of rose-colored pearls.

  Castien jerked his attention back to the girl stretched out in front of him. Did she have any idea the wealth contained within these walls?

  She lay on her side, her hip touching the toe of his boot. She’d fallen asleep while he combed her hair. Her neck bent at an awkward angle, distorted by the thick metal gorget she wore.

  He winced, envisioning the stiffness she’d face when she woke up.

  A sea of black hair swirled around them. Though he’d finished combing out the tangles, he’d been too exhausted to rebraid it. The combination of warm fire, full belly, fresh air, and the repetitive sweep of the comb had lulled him asleep too.

  With the first rays of dawn kissing the soft curves of her face, all the lines of wary suspicion were gone and he was struck by how young she looked.