whatever’s happened, we will find them.’
Chapter 3
Rasten turned the leather sling over in his hands.
‘You must have used one before,’ Sierra said. ‘I had mine the moment I could throw a stone straight.’
It came to him in a flash — a man with warm, calloused hands showing him how to pinch the knotted end between thumb and fingers. For a moment, he saw his face, deep grooves around the man’s eyes crinkling as he smiled encouragement. Rasten tossed his head like a fly-stung horse, and when he turned to Sierra with her hand outstretched, a few rounded stones in her palm, it was all he could do not to slap it away.
Her face fell. ‘What’s wrong?’ she said, reaching for him.
‘Don’t touch me!’ he snarled, recoiling. The sling tangled around his fingers and he flung it away, a pathetic length of brittle leather. That face filled his mind and he could almost recall the voice that went with it, the smell of his clothes.
Rasten’s chest clenched, a sudden, visceral pulse, as though he’d taken a punch to the gut. He raked his hands through his hair, and the sting as his fingers snarled on tangled curls was a welcome distraction. He turned away from Sierra while his power flexed, enraged at the sudden pain tearing into his head and his heart. For years, the only way he could deal with that pain was by turning it on another, and he refused to let it fix upon her as a target.
He didn’t want to remember. He’d buried those memories years ago. Why was she torturing him by dredging up the faces of those who had loved him, who had died to protect him? If they could see what he’d become they would spit on him, repudiate their sacrifice and curse him from the next world.
Rasten dropped to his knees. The face lingered in his mind’s eye, the voice just beyond the edge of his hearing, and Rasten knew that if he heard it his world would shatter and his sanity would melt away like snow. In front of him was a large rock, and the urge swept over him to smash his head against the stone until the face and voice was lost forever like blood spilled into the sand.
Then, he felt Sierra’s hand on his shoulder, warm against the chill evening air. ‘Rasten?’ Her voice was small, quiet. He tried to speak, but made only a choking sob, and she dropped down to wrap her arms around him. Focusing on her warmth and the scent of her skin, he crawled back from the crumbling edge of memory, breathing through the pain as he had so many times.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said at last. ‘I had no idea it would take you that way.’
‘No more did I,’ he said, his voice thick and rasping. He still couldn’t let himself look at her. In the last few months he had grown too used to using her as a refuge, letting sex and sensation drown out fear and pain. The time for that had passed; with Kell’s death a new age had begun. He couldn’t go back, no matter how desperately he craved sanctuary and respite.
The circle of her arms loosened, but she remained at his back. ‘I … I should find us some food.’ It was dusk, prime time for hunting, but the light would fade fast. ‘Will you be alright alone?’
Rasten nodded, but he covered his eyes with his hand. ‘Go.’
‘Shall I take the sling?’
‘No. Leave it.’
‘Alright, then. If I don’t find you back at camp we’ll collect you as we ride out.’
She pulled away and he heard her retreat. Rasten slowly uncurled from his huddle as his back twinged; a touch of dampness at his shoulder suggested that he’d torn a stitch, but Rasten ignored it and crawled across the dirt to retrieve the sling.
It lay in a sad tangle. The hide was old and worn, but Sierra had done her best and he’d given her scant thanks. Rasten steeled himself to pick it up. Though his hands shook, he kept his mind fixed on her and pushed aside the memory of that weatherworn face and smiling eyes.
The sling was a child’s weapon. Sierra had honed her skills when she was a herder-girl watching
Donald Luskin, Andrew Greta