Hide Your Fires

Chapter Seventeen: Sheep's Clothing

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Smoke. Then fire. Then the scent of the char that comes from overcooking our dinner for good measure. My companion seems unafraid of disease. He's far too fond of blood sauce for my liking.

"Now?"

I nod, cringing when Pyrrhus slides the larger of the two rodents from the spit without concern for its radiating heat. It sizzles, hissing at his touch, balking at the thought of being eaten.

Teeth tear flesh from bone. I prepare for him to strip it in an instant, then turn his sights on my lunch. Only he doesn't. He chews slowly, expression blank.

"Yeah. I wouldn't choose roast vermin off a menu either."

He gestures to his face, then his throat, down to his stomach beneath that awful wound. "I can still feel it burning."

"Star spice will do that to ya."

Eyes flit to the bindle glowing in competition with our fire.

"Aren't you full yet?"

"Never." He shrugs, turning to me. "I made drops of Nectar sustain me for days up there. Your feedings don't go nearly so far."

"Can you quit saying feedings-"

"Can you cease trying to change the subject? Playing dumb doesn't suit you, Nin." He sighs and gestures toward the shrouded lantern. "I value your counsel. Should I... as you say... 'fill up'?"

"As I said, you'll lose your tongue."

"A tragedy for you, I'll sure. And being unable to enjoy your homecooked fee-"

"Meals."

"-Would break my heart. But there remains the issue of the Fetterlings."

I imagine the rest of them, those severed children with their savaged bellies and savage grins. I imagine them at home, sitting at my grandmothers' table.

"No issue. You can just take the duner's handlebars and-" My stained hand spreads like a blossoming flower: pink and purple and golden. The juicy splat accompanying it is far less delicate. "Mow 'em all down. Like you did All-Seeing. Or you can get yourself a nice sword to skewer- or are you more of a slicing type? You never told me what you did to-"

Wings spread wide, slapping my face. When my vision clears, Pyrrhus' blurs with hateful tears.

I stand down. "Hey, I'm just joking."

"I'm not." He rakes a hand back through his hair, shakes his head, stares at the ground instead of me. "You know how if you harm one bee, it leaves a scent on you?"

"I guess."

"Well, they do. That scent frenzies other bees until they can't stand to be near you-- until your mere presence inspires them to attack. What I did to Ankit, what I did to Lene... it's like that. My siblings will swarm us before too long."

"You said you could protect us."

"I'd be better equipped now if it'd grant me-"

"No. We need to move, and I'm not giving your prone and useless ass the sidecar." Shideh agrees, tossing one pigtail. "Maybe when we make it into a city, we can rest without risking discovery."

"Then you'll take care of me? Feed me soup?"

"Wipe the drool off your chin?"

"Skies, was it that bad?"

"We're not doing that again." I take a bite, pausing to chew. "Why'd you do it?"

"Self-defence." He follows suit, chewing, wiping his mouth before starting again. "...In case you haven't noticed, there's no love lost between my siblings and me."