Kai's Memories

Bad people. There had been plenty of those. The bandits. The wights. Even those people who had held knives to her throat as they snatched food from her hands, leaving her snivelling in the dirt.

She'd learned to pick them out almost unconsciously. The closed way they held themselves, the darkness in their eyes.

This one was different. He was dressed like the woman who had threatened them. He spoke like her. But the feigned darkness in those pale eyes was fake, a lie.

"Who?" Dezzy was monstrous, a green snarling beast spitting in his face. "Sacrificed to who?"

"Osmara," he sneered back even as he was pinned beneath her. "Before long, you'll all go to meet our master."

He's lying, Kai thought.

Even after Alistair slung him up and tossed him into the fountain, they couldn't get anything out of him. More lies about Osmara. But as the cold water seeped into his clothes, he was softening, their angry questions driving deeper. Even when Dezzy finally morphed back into her old self, she was still shaking with rage, demanding answers until she and Alistair had to walk away.

They hauled him out of the fountain, leaving him tied up, and left Kai to watch over him until the guards could come to pick him up.

He was supposed to be bad. If Alistair saw her, he would have yelled. But she couldn't help pressing closer, until she sat carefully down in front of him. "What's your name?"

He'd been watching her, by now that false righteous anger long faded. With stringy wet brown hair falling into his face, he didn't look like an evil cultist. He just looked tired. "Balmin."

She shifted in place, uncertain. She had to understand. Why was he doing this when he was different?

When she asked, he just stared at her a moment. "It's not Osmara," he answered quietly, the first truth he'd told. "This is the only way to break away from her..."

He wouldn't say any more no matter how much she pressed. But watching the guards pick him up and drag him away, it confirmed what she was thinking.

There was something more to all of this. Something only he could tell them.