Blood Runner: Book Three of the Empress Saga

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

The train car was stifling. The passage through the southern woodlands of Althandor allowed for long straightaways on the rail lines. The steam engine pulled the cars along at a brisk pace, too fast for the windows to be opened without causing a gale within the compartment. Therefore, Krayson sweltered.

Easy to remedy, he thought idly. Single word incantation. Cordek or Ishai would suffice. Alternatively, a two-point single somatic. Fire and abjuration essences. Either method would ward against heat and allow for comfortable temperature.

Through his numbness, Krayson couldn't summon the will to expend the effort. His shirt felt clammy against his skin, damp with sweat, as he sat in the window seat. He hadn't bathed in almost two weeks, not since leaving the Palace of Towers to begin his contract. Likely as not, he stank.

He didn't wear his red half-robe. It was stashed in a travel bag somewhere above him on the luggage racks. He wore a clean shirt, trousers, and suspenders Maya had thrown at his head that morning. Tinted-glass spectacles also, to hide his red eyes from casual inspection.

He sat, unfeeling. But when had it been different? If there had ever been such a time, he couldn't remember it. Thunders, but what it could be to have even a memory of happiness. Only a ghost. Dead, and never to return.

The train crossed the kingdom back and forth along the rail lines. It wasn't an express train and made twice-daily stops in rural villages or waystations. Travel south was taking longer than Starra and Maya wanted, but neither of them were willing to risk exposure to save a few days travel time. The end of the line was coming up, a substantial village near the southern border. Krayson had heard the name Leyrshore being mentioned.

The last seven days since the tower fell had passed in a blur. He listened to Starra and Josy speak of ambiguous plans, to Maya's looming presence, and to Saveen trying to coax him back to life. Krayson listened, but he didn't care to hear. The others no longer felt real to him. Nothing that moved with such purpose and passion could truly exist, and he merely drifted in their wake. Perhaps they were nothing but ghosts, too.

Krayson ate what was placed in front of him, he slept when the light faded, stood and walked to the train car's privy when nature called, and watched the rolling hills and scattered woods of rural Althandor slide past through the window. He didn't speak. Didn't contribute. Most of all, he did not feel.

"Survive, even when it hurts. Especially when it hurts. Survive, and you've won."

Krayson smiled. What his father hadn't understood was that without the hurt, it wasn't worth surviving. How ashamed of his son Joshuan Jak'm would have been.

His dreams were no refuge either. Each night, Krayson dreamt of falling towers and beasts' eyes. Lifeblood and dragons. Sometimes a king appeared in them, one that looked down on Krayson for his lack of power before shaking his head and proclaiming him dead. Krayson wanted to laugh at that. Didn't Cathis know? Krayson had always been dead. He died the night his mother was put on her pyre.

What had walked alone out of Teularon had only been a ghost. The blood magic was just a formality. There'd been nothing left of him for it to take.

Krayson jerked in his seat and put a hand to his cheek. It stung. Thunders, but it hurt.

"Snap out of it!" Saveen shouted at him. "I've had enough of watching you sit there and brood."

Krayson looked up at her. She was in human form and disguised pigmentation, dressed in the clothes he'd bought her and standing with her fists planted on her hips. The thundering lizard had slapped him!