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The tavern door slammed shut behind them. Another cloaked figure leaned against the side of the building looking up in surprise as Meira stormed by.
“Dragons, you’re alive!” Quincy strode forward, attention darting to Remis curiously as he frowned and gripped the hilt of his sword. She reached for Meira, pulling her to a stop. “Where are you going?”
“I am not one of you anymore,” Meira spat, shrugging Quincy’s hand away. Her heart ached with such ferocity she was certain this was what it felt like for it to break so completely. “Let me go.”
“Meira. I don’t understand. What happened?”
Quincy was the closest thing she had to a real friend and maybe she’d feel a moment of relief telling her the truth, but she didn’t have it in her to watch the concern in her eyes turn so definitively into hatred.
“Ask Bram.” That was all she could manage before the first tear fell down her cheek. Meira tore herself away and ran. Wind dragged more tears from her eyes until her skin was damp and the drying tracks made her skin feel tight. All the while Remis’ steady movements followed closely behind her, trailing her. She didn’t slow until the small home they’d slept in last night came into view.
Remis caught up to her, his chest heaving. His shoulder brushed against hers as worry created shallow lines around his eyes, and she wondered if it could be confusion that pulled at his brow. Silence followed them even though his presence at her side felt more like a lingering question she didn’t want to get into.
A dark shadow passed over them, a familiar shape. Mrithun. She didn’t have to look up to know her dragon was growing near. Her senses and the bond they shared, recognized the dragon's soul above her. Of course, she’d feel Meira’s distress. The hurt of losing her family, the only people she’d had since her parents had been killed, felt like it was already eating away at her.
Remis took her hand in his. Surely, it was meant to be comforting but it only reminded her that he was the reason she’d ruined her entire life. She could live in her truth now but that didn’t stop her from grieving her old way of life. Being a scale rider was so deeply ingrained in her. It was part of her identity. Who would she be now? That was, if she even survived.
She slipped out of his touch. “Don’t touch me. This is your fault.”
He paused. “My fault?”
They were at the house now and she stormed up the path leading to the door. Part of her wished there would be another assassin on the other side so she could get out some of the aggression building up inside of her, but the house was annoyingly empty and quiet when she shoved through the door. Remis had caught back up to her now, trailed her with more of that sad confused look, though his mouth was starting to pucker with frustration too.
“None of this would have even happened if I didn’t have to leave to go find you. I was perfectly content with my life, happy enough, but to appease this curse, I had to abandon my mission. That’s as good as banishment from the scale riders.” Her nails dug into the flesh of her palms as she fisted her hands at her sides, refusing the urge to strike out and hit something.
“Meira, that’s ridiculous. I didn’t create this curse.” He was annoyingly calm, leaning against the now closed door.
Somehow his composed demeanor only fed the fire raging inside of her. She pointed a finger at him, coming close enough to jabbing him in the chest. “You were the reason.” She didn’t know exactly why, she only knew that he was. And she couldn’t let her mind wander back to the possibility that he was the ruin of Mrithun. Then her skin would start crawling with what she’d let him do and she’d want to run him through with her sword.
“How?” His voice was low, quiet.
“I don’t remember!” she shouted, raising her hands in frustration. He flinched slightly, frowned, but didn’t move. “I don’t know what, but you did something. Something bad enough that I would use enough power to travel back to this place, this time, and ruin my entire life.” Part of her wanted to sink her hands into her curls and pull at the strands until they ripped from her scalp. This was her anger. There were no answers, only loose vague memories without context, that confused her further.
“Blame me if you want, Meira, but I don’t even know you. I have no inkling of what may or may not be happening in the future or what I might do given the circumstance. Be mad but know that the man standing in front of you has yet to commit the crimes for which you wish to persecute him.” He took a slow breath in and steadied his gaze on her. “I don’t think I’m the real problem here. I think the issue is that you’re not just a scale rider. You’re a witch. That’s what had him so upset isn’t it?”
A fraction of her anger slipped away, though she wanted to hold onto it, hide from emotions that would come flooding next. Remis was right. Terribly, painfully right. His palm cradled her cheek and the last of her fury started to dissolve, dragging her down into the pits of her despair.
“I lived when most in my town did not. I have fought for every damn thing in my life. And I’m tired. I did not choose the power I have, but they’ll hate me nonetheless. Bram hates me. My legion”—what used to be her legion—“will hate me as soon as they hear the news.”
Still, they might never be able to hate her more than she hated herself. Guilt had plagued her for years. For living. For the lies she’d spun. For taking lovers who could not know who or what she truly was.
Now, for reasons neither she nor Remis knew, she’d brought him into her mess.
And the scale riders would come for her.
Remis
There were no words that could console Meira. The more he tried, the more irritated she appeared to be. So he settled for sitting next to her without speaking. After she’d cried, she too sat in contemplative quiet until eventually she leaned against him and fell asleep.
He didn’t know what all this meant for him. For either of them. Every moment with her was a new challenge, and he wasn’t sure he’d be able to make it through. He didn’t think he’d make it through the Deadwoods or that the witch would let him live either, yet he was still here. There was something to be said for not giving up. So he settled himself by resolving that they’d get through this too.
The parchment meant for him to document his bids was still clutched in one of his hands. A bit of ink transferred onto his sweaty hand, smudging one of the words under his touch. There was little else to do other than review and complete these documents. Meira had rushed him so urgently from the tavern and then they’d been bombarded with the other scale riders that he’d not given his father’s business negotiations much thought. Instead, he’d replayed the look on her face when that man—Bram, as she’d called him—had dismissed her from the legion again and again in his head. He’d known, somehow, about the curse. Though it had been quite apparent he’d not suspected her as a witch until then. Remis supposed that having the cursed mark on his hand revealed had cleared that up quickly.
A flurry of emotions had come and gone from Meira’s features in such a short time. Each one was a flicker that had been captured in his mind’s eye. Most of all he could feel the heartache of it in his own chest as though he’d been the one to lose something. The proximity of the curse and the strength of the emotion came together to bleed into his own psyche and body.
He rubbed the ink on his hand against his shirt, smudging a dark stain over one of his buttons. Pressing a hand over his aching chest, he sighed and brought the documents up to read the neatly written script.
The first was much as he expected. Detailed accounts of the requirements for the fabric and dye demands. It was simple enough, something that his father’s business could no doubt easily keep up with. He’d grown up reading his father’s ledgers and knew quite clearly what sort of numbers he was dealing with. The note his father had sent had been very plain in its explanation that Remis should offer a great deal in these bids. Skimming over the last of the details he knew he’d be able to come up with something quite beneficial to both parties, something his father might even be proud of.
