Malachai's Arc

Chapter 7 of 11

By morning the fire had burned low. Deborah slept curled under his coat. Malachai knelt beside the bed and pulled the stiff shirt free of her arms. The blood on the cloth had dried the color of rust. He worked the trousers down her legs and set the whole bundle on the hearthstones. He bent to the ruined shirt first. He lifted it to his mouth and pressed his tongue to the crust. The taste opened in him like a door. Four kills sat in that cloth. Four men she had put down herself. He tasted each of them through her sweat and their blood, and he understood her better than any confession could have told him. He licked the shirt clean where he could. He licked the trousers where the blood had soaked deepest. When he had taken what he wanted, he fed the clothes to the fire. The cloth caught fast. He watched it blacken and curl. From a chest at the foot of the bed he pulled a spare shirt of his own and folded trousers. He dressed her while she slept. The shirt hung loose on her. He rolled the sleeves twice at each wrist. He buttoned it to her throat. He was careful with her, the way a man is careful with a tool he intends to use for a long time. She woke as he tied the last lace on her boot. She looked down at herself in his clothes. She looked at the ashes on the hearth. She did not ask. "Your old life burned with the shirt," Malachai said. "You wear mine now." "Yes," she said. He brought her water. She drank without taking her eyes off him. The wound in her side was a pale seam under the borrowed cloth. She touched it through the shirt and pressed, testing. She did not wince. "Tonight I will show you the work," he said. "You will bring them here. I will teach you where to put the knife." "How many?" "As many as I need." He counted in his head. The number under a thousand sat close now. Close enough to see. "You will not stop until I say." She nodded. She reached for his hand and held it against her cheek. Her skin was warm. She was well. She was his. Malachai stood and went to the shuttered window. He listened. No horns this morning. The knights had moved on to count the dead at the temple. The forest around the cabin was quiet. The cabin sat where no road led. No one would come here unless she led them. He turned back to her. She was already on her feet, waiting. "Good," he said. Her clothes were ash. Her name in the villages was ash. What was left of her belonged to him, and through him, to his master. The work could begin.