Shadow's Edge - Brent Weeks [88]
Was it like this for you, master? Is this where that ocean of bitterness began? Is giving up my humanity the cost of my immortality?
There was nothing else to do, nothing more to say. Kylar couldn’t even weep. As the first birds of morning began singing beauty to the waking sun, he filled the grave.
30
For two days, Uly didn’t speak or eat or drink. Vi drove them at a grueling pace along the queen’s road heading west and then north. The first night they passed the great estates of the Waeddryner nobility. By the time they stopped, a few hours after sunrise, they were in farmland. The fields were bare, the rolling hills covered with the irregular stubble of harvested spelt.
The first day, Uly waited until Vi had been breathing regularly for about ten minutes, then she bolted for her horse. She hadn’t even untied the beast before Vi yanked her away. The second day, Uly waited for an hour. She got up quietly enough that Vi almost missed it. Uly got the tether undone that time, and nearly jumped out of her clothes when she turned to reach for to the horse’s head and saw Vi standing behind her, hands on hips.
Both times, Vi beat her. She was careful not to injure the girl. No broken bones or scars for this one. She wondered if she was being too easy on the girl, but she’d never beaten a child before. Vi was used to killing men, used to giving Talent-strength to her muscles and letting her victims deal with the consequences. If she did that with Uly, the child would die. That didn’t fit Vi’s plans.
By the third day, Uly wasn’t doing well. She still hadn’t taken a drink. She refused anything Vi offered, and she was losing strength. Her lips were cracked and parched, her eyes red. Vi couldn’t help but feel a grudging admiration.
The girl was tough, no doubt about it. Vi could stand pain better than most people, but she hated not eating. When she was twelve Hu had routinely withheld her food, giving her only one meal a day “so she wouldn’t get fat.” He’d put her back on full meals when he decided it was all going to her tits. But worse than the starving were the times he’d withheld water because he thought she was being lazy.
The bastard never did grasp the concept of a woman’s cramps.
She’d had to pretend the thirst didn’t bother her, because she’d known if she let it show, it would have become his favorite punishment.
“Look, Ugly,” she said as she made camp in a small valley as the sun began to rise. “I don’t give a shit if you die. You are more useful to me alive than dead, but not by much. Kylar will follow me to Cenaria now either way. You, on the other hand, would probably like to see Kylar again, right?”
Uly stared back at her with sunken eyes full of hate.
“And I’d guess he’d kick your ass if you die for no reason. So, hey, if you want to keep starving, you’ll die pretty soon. Tomorrow, I’ll have to tie you to the saddle, and you might not make it through the night. That inconveniences me, but it hurts Kylar more. If you’d rather die like a kitten than stay alive and fight me, go ahead. But you’re not impressing anyone.”
Vi put a skin of water in front of Uly and set about securing the horses. She wasn’t worried about Uly escaping now. The girl was too weak. But Vi Talent-locked the ropes anyway. She was going to sleep today, dammit.
The rolling hills here were covered with forests broken now and then by a small village in a group of farm fields. The road was still broad and well-traveled, though. They’d made excellent time. There was no way to tell how far ahead of Kylar they were, but Vi had avoided villages and she had no doubt that had given Kylar precious hours on them. Yesterday evening, she’d traded the horses. If Kylar had somehow divined which tracks were theirs among the many, he’d be thrown.
Still, at the rate they’d been traveling, they’d passed numerous other parties, and though she could swaddle herself in a formless cloak that