Page 32 of Nansar
Behind the scrub brush I'd hastily arranged as camouflage, we crouched and listened.
"—tracks just vanished," a voice growled, frustration thick as blood. "Like they vanished into thin air."
"Maybe the Welati took them." The second voice trembled with barely suppressed terror.
"There'd be more blood," the first male countered. "The Welati don't clean up after themselves."
"They went higher." A third voice, harder than the others. "Only place left to go."
"Then you climb after them. Persico wants that female bad enough, he can come get her himself."
A sharp laugh cut through the darkness. "You volunteering to tell him that? Because I'd pay good coin to watch."
Boots scraped against stone. Leather creaked. I could smell them now—sweat and smoke and the metallic tang of weapons.
"The Welati don't come down this far," the gruff voice insisted, though doubt crept through the words like rot.
"Don't they?" The laugh came again, cruel and cutting. "Tell that to the prisoner they dragged in last month. What was left of him, anyway. They'd peeled his skin off in strips, and he was still screaming when—"
"Enough." The command cracked like a whip. "We're not going higher. Not for one human slut."
"Persico will have our heads."
"He's got enough females warming his bed to keep him distracted. We tell him she's dead. Fell off a cliff, got torn apart by something with teeth—doesn't matter which story we pick. She's not worth getting flayed alive by those mountain savages."
My pulse thundered in my ears. Beside me, Chloe shook like a leaf in a storm, and every instinct screamed at me to pull her close, to shield her.
"What about the Aljani?" someone asked.
"Dead too, probably. Tried to play hero. Makes the story better—Persico might even respect him for it."
Murmurs of agreement rippled through the group, followed by the blessed sound of retreat—boots crunching gravel, voices fading into the wind.
"Let's get back before full dark. I don't fancy meeting whatever hunts these rocks after sunset."
Their voices dissolved into the mountain wind. I remained frozen, every sense straining, until I was certain they'd truly gone. Only then did I let myself breathe.
We retreated deeper into the cave's belly, where shadows swallowed us whole. The moment we were far enough from the entrance, Chloe's fingers found my arm, her grip tight enough to leave marks.
"Nansar." The whisper barely carried, but the tremor in it spoke volumes. "What they said about the Welati—the skin peeling. Is that real, or were they just trying to scare each other?"
I held her gaze, weighing comfort against truth. She'd earned honesty.
"It's real," I said, keeping my voice low and steady. "The Welati don't take kindly to trespassers. Their methods of... discouragement are effective."
Her nails dug deeper into my arm. "And we're heading straight into their territory?"
"Skirting the edges of it." I covered her hand with mine. "We'll keep to the borderlands, well away from their settlements. We should be able to make it to the rendezvous point without them ever knowing we passed through." The words came out more certain than I felt.
"A few days ofcarefultravel," she repeated, her tone flat.
"A few days ofsuccessfultravel," I amended, injecting confidence I didn't entirely possess.
She searched my face, looking for the lie. After a long moment, her grip loosened and she stepped back. But doubt still clouded her eyes.
I shared it, truth be told. At least Persico's hunters had abandoned the chase. One threat eliminated from an ever-growing list.
Night claimed the mountain with ruthless efficiency. The temperature plummeted, turning each breath into visible proof of the cold's bite. Chloe hunched into herself, arms wrapped tight, trying to trap warmth that kept slipping away.
