“Thank you, Artemis.”
She ducked her head and pretended to examine her bow. While he finished cooking his meal, she paced out several wide circles around the ruins, listening as much as watching. By the time she returned, the fire was out, the remains of the rabbits had been buried and Garret was fast asleep.
He trusts me, she reminded herself with more than a little wonder. It was likely that he hadn’t intended to sleep, but his body had insisted, and his instincts...
His instincts told him that she would be there to wake him if any danger threatened them.
Squatting beside him, she studied his face. Now that he was asleep, she was even more aware that his usually calm demeanor was only a kind of mask. He mumbled something that sounded like a name. She couldn’t quite make it out, but his muscles were tense, and she could feel distress radiating from him along with his body heat. Grief beat against her new and fragile mental barriers.
“Garret,” she whispered. “It is only a dream.”
His eyelids fluttered. He expelled a short, harsh breath and then relaxed into normal sleep. The pressure inside her head disappeared, and she realized that learning to block him was no longer a matter of mitigating the uncomfortable turmoil his emotions created in her thoughts. It had become a necessity.
Still, a part of her longed to stroke the damp hair from his forehead, to tell him that all would be well and there was no need for bad dreams.
If she surrendered to such impulses, anything that happened afterward would be entirely her own fault.
An owl hooted somewhere above her and glided out of the trees. It dived into the tall brown grass, and something squealed. The strong taking the weak. The world fell into a deep hush, as if in mourning for the fallen. Another sound came faintly to Artemis’s ears. No animal had made it.
She entered the woods on the other side of the ruins and listened for a repeat of the cry. It came again, softer than before, a moan of someone in pain.
Unbearable pain, forcing its way into Artemis’s mind. She paused to brace herself and searched for the source.
She found the Freeblood lying half tangled in a mass of blackberry bushes, one arm caught in the brambles and his body twisted awkwardly. There was a gaping wound in his neck, too severe to heal on its own. The bite of another Opir.
Dark eyes rolled toward Artemis as she approached cautiously. He made a sound in his ruined throat. Most Opiri maintained the appearance of the age they’d been when they were converted, and this one appeared to have been turned in his late teens. Perhaps, she thought, after the end of the War.
“I will not hurt you,” she said, though she knew such an assurance would probably mean nothing to an exile. He jerked as she drew nearer, his hands clenching and unclenching.
She didn’t try to ask him what had happened. She could guess well enough. He might have been dying for hours, and his body’s attempts to heal would have driven him to starvation.
“Brother,” she said, dropping to her knees beside him. “Can you hear me?”
If he did, she thought, she had a feeling that things were going to get a lot more complicated.
The boy’s mouth opened, but all that emerged was another groan.
“I know you suffer,” she said. “But I can ease your discomfort.” She laid her hand on his cool forehead and bent over him. She placed her mouth on his neck, releasing a little of the healing chemicals she had used on Garret. He tried to resist her, but he didn’t have the strength to fight for long. After a few moments he relaxed and closed his eyes.
Artemis withdrew and sliced her wrist with her smaller knife. While the blood of a pure Opir could not nourish another full Opir, it would temporarily ease his raging hunger. She offered her wrist and let him take what he could.
When he was finished, she pressed her palm to her wound until it began to close, and then touched his forehead again. It was slightly warmer, but she knew he had little time left.
“Listen,” she said, stroking the boy’s pale hair out of his face. “I am seeking a pack of Freebloods who might be carrying a human child with them. Have you seen such a pack?”
Confusion crossed the young Freeblood’s face. “Human?” he mumbled.
“A child, who never did any Opir harm.”
“Why...you care?” he whispered.
“Because I believe that it is not our true nature to kill each other over humans, or take life, even human life, simply because we can.”
With unexpected strength, the Freeblood grasped her wrist. “I...saw...the child,” he said. “I was...with...”
She covered his hand with hers. “Where?”
Both she and the Freeblood heard the approaching footsteps before he could answer. The young Opir flinched. His fear nearly paralyzed Artemis, and only her rational assessment of Garret’s essential character permitted her to keep her objectivity.
“Stay back,” she called to Garret without looking away from the Freeblood’s panic-stricken eyes. “He won’t hurt you,” she said to the boy.
Disregarding her warning, Garret circled around the bushes to stand just on the other side. “He was with them?” he asked. There was no pity in his voice.
The young Opir pushed against her, the urge to flee warring with his body’s need for blood. Artemis held him down.
“What is your name?” she asked him.
“P-Pericles,” he croaked.
“Pericles,” she said, “this human is called Garret Fox. He saved my life from other humans who would have killed me.”
“Where is my son?” Garret demanded.
“Garret,” Artemis said sharply. She cupped the dying Freeblood’s head in her hands. “Pericles, where did you see the child?”
Pericles closed his eyes again. “Make the human go.”
Ruthless in his suspicion, Garret moved to stand behind her and gazed down at the boy with his hand on his knife. “Where is he?” he repeated.
Shifting her body, Artemis placed herself between human and Opir. Garret felt like a looming thundercloud at her back.
“Don’t come any closer,” she warned.
“Answer me,” Garret said, stepping around her.
Artemis stood and turned, her face only inches from his. “It would be very foolish if you and I were to fight now, when we may learn something of use to us,” she said.
They stared at each other until the Freeblood gurgled in a way that sounded very much like death. Darkness swirled up in Artemis’s mind.
The boy’s time had run out.
Pushing all thoughts of dying aside, Artemis knelt beside him again. “It’s all right,” she said gently, cradling his head in her arms. “Garret, if you provide him with a little blood, he may be able to speak.”
She expected refusal. Instead, he crouched beside her and gazed at the boy, his jaw working. He began to draw his knife from its sheath. Artemis caught his arm.
Garret jerked away and cut his wrist. “Tell me where I can find my son,” he said to Pericles.
“Take it,” Artemis urged. “His blood cannot cure you, but if you help us, at least one of your people will remember you with honor.”
Licking his dry lips, the boy stared at the dripping blood in fascination. “North,” he said. “Beyond...Oceanus’s