Page 92 of Nemesis Mine
But whatever they could lay hands on was better than nothing. A few jars in the kitchen had escaped the attack, the ones stowed at the back of his shelves. They wentinto Gutgrabber’s saddlebag. The pots of herbs had been thrown to the floor, but Cyrus scooped them up, tucking the little plants carefully back into their bed of soil. Whilst Max rescued a quilt and a couple of shirts from the corner of the wardrobe, Cyrus salvaged what he could from the vegetable patch. Someone had trampled over it, the tomatoes splattered like a murder scene, but the root vegetables would survive. Small mercies. They would eat well enough for the next few days off this, whilst they figured out what to do next.
As he knelt among the carrots, tugging them free of the clinging soil, a familiar whirring reached his ear. Cyrus looked up. It took him a few seconds to spot the sprite watching him from behind a splintered bamboo cane, its tiny face creased with anxiety. Once he focused on that one, he saw the others clustered behind, hiding among squashed tomatoes and snapped stems and drooping leaves.
“Survived, did you,” he said. He wasnotgoing to give them the encouragement of sounding relieved about it. Their kin might have helped him in Durov, but this particular horde had still been the bane of his life for four years.
The first sprite buzzed closer at his voice, then suddenly flitted straight to his shoulder. It grasped a lock of his hair to anchor itself and tilted its head, staring intently at him. He could sense its concern.
“I’m fine,” muttered Cyrus. It was unnerving, being the subject of such thorough inspection.
He pulled the last of the turnips, then sat back. After a second of hesitation, he held his hand out. The creature hopped onto his palm and smiled at him. Through his new,strange awareness, Cyrus felt the sprite’s concern for him morph into happiness that he had returned, though its chattering remained incomprehensible.
“No idea what you said.” The sprite frowned at him, then stamped its foot against his palm in frustration. Ooh. This one had attitude. It said something else, so high and fast it almost made his ears itch. “Going to presume it was a compliment, though.”
“What compliment? Are you talking to yourself again?” Max appeared around the corner. He stopped when he saw the sprite. Cyrus quickly stood and dusted himself off.
“Nothing,” he said. He expected that the sprite would zoom back to its companions, but instead it returned to his shoulder and sat down.
Max raised his eyebrows. “Made yourself a little friend, have you?”
Embarrassed, Cyrus tried to flick the sprite off his shoulder. It swiftly dodged his attempts and settled back down, grasping firmly at his hair to anchor itself again.
“Well,” said Max. He looked like he was trying very hard not to laugh. “As long as it doesn’t try to kill me again, I suppose I can share you.”
“Don’t be such a baby.” As if Cyrus hadn’t found them coming after him with a pair of scissors. “You’re not sharing me—go on, go back to your family.”
But the sprite wasn’t having any of it. When he tried to flick it away again, a minuscule hand gave his hair a surprisingly hard tug.
“Ow!”
“It seems you’ve met your match,” Max commented. “You’ll have to name it. Not something like Soulripper or Gutgrabber, ideally. You might give it ideas.” He held out an arm laden with Soulripper’s spare reins and saddle. “Speaking of. Found these.” With his free hand, he tapped his pocket. “And you’ll be pleased to know I managed to rescue a single bottle of peppermint oil. Not that we have a usable bath, but still.”
They gathered their belongings into the saddlebags, the sprite finally relinquishing its grip on his hair to cling to Gutgrabber’s reins instead. Cyrus ventured to stand by his door one last time, looking out across the familiar sight: the lush greens of the leafy north, the Bek mountains throwing up a spiky barrier to the southlands. There, the Federation would be plotting their revenge. Champions would hate them; wrongdoers too. Their types were not supposed to mix. Any semblance of peace in Athaca would be hard to come by.
What was left for them? His thoughts veered towards a future he hadn’t expected to face, one where they had to lie low and live a life out of the public eye. Not a wrongdoer and a champion, equally infamous. Just Cyrus and Max.
He expected to baulk at the thought of it. The reputation he’d worked so hard to build, the lifestyle he’d honed so carefully. He would lose them.
But he would have Max.
“Ready?”
Cyrus turned. Max was waiting for him by the horses, threading his fingers through Soulripper’s mane. Cyrusthought suddenly of the first time Max had come to his lair, wary and unsure, but ready to suggest a ploy that would change everything.
Who would have thought?
“Ready,” Cyrus said. He joined Max, ghosting a hand over his arm in passing and giving it a quick squeeze just because he could.
Cyrus led the way down the mountainside path. His thoughts were on the future, trying to sketch out the shape of it. He was not expecting to round the final corner and come face-to-face with a stranger.
It was Max’s turn to bump into him as Cyrus froze. The stranger froze too, a red-headed youth of about twenty with a spattering of freckles and a Federation tunic. And a sword in his hand.
His eyes widened and darted between them. Then, without warning, he lunged for Cyrus.
Max was on him in an instant. Cyrus hadn’t heard or seen him draw his sword, but it was there in his hand, knocking the youth’s weapon flying across the path. He grabbed a handful of red hair, wrenched the young man’s head back, and shoved him to his knees, a sob squeezed out as Max forced him to stare up at the sky. His sword had already come up to rest against the man’s jugular, a thin red line beading along the edge of the blade.
“Who the fuck do you think you—”
The rest of Max’s furious words were lost under a wild yell as somebodyelselunged out of the trees, making both horses rear in surprise. Cyrus whipped round, startled.
