Free Stonewiser by Dora Machado Page A

wouldn't get their due and the executioners could wreck Sariah's search, claim Kael's assurances and Ars. No wonder the mob despised her. She was taking their profit from them. What Sariah had never known was that Domainers, or at least these Domainers, abhorred executioners to the point of refusing aid to a wounded woman. Perhaps they were right to resent someone who performed duties as foul as Delis's, but as much as Sariah despised her assailant, could she walk away knowing the woman was dissolving slowly in the agony of the dead waters?
    Sariah waited for the man to return to his deck before retracing her footsteps. She found Delis half-sunk and struggling, holding her head out of the water but too weak to climb out by herself. Sariah grabbed her arms and pulled her back onto the deck with some difficulty. She thanked Meliahs for the night's darkness, the only real protection they had.
    Delis was shaking from shock. “Why?”
    “Why what?”
    “Why are you helping me?”
    Why indeed? “Wait here.”
    The woman clutched Sariah's wrist with unnatural strength. “They'll tear me apart in the morning.”
    “I'm going to find help. Let go. I promise I'll be back before daylight.”
    By the woman's expression, Sariah could tell she didn't believe a word she said.
    Sariah had barely gone a few lanes when she spotted a group of people coming up behind her, engaged in animated conversation. She tucked herself against the wall of a darkened shelter and waited for them to pass.
    “A banished criminal?” a woman was saying. “Here?”
    “That's why they've called a search,” a man said. “Didn't you hear the explosions?”
    “And the flames,” someone else said. “Didn't you see the fire? Hurry up!”
    Perfect. The survivors of the men who attacked her must have told their story to Nafa's marcher. Now the entire settlement was out searching for her. What else could go wrong this night?
    “Look!” One of the men in the group pointed. “Do you see something there?”
    The rest of the group turned to look in Sariah's direction.
    A brutal push shoved her face-first against the deck shelter. “Don't move.”
    As if she could.
    “I don't see anything,” someone said. “Come on. We're missing all the fun.”
    The group walked on. Sariah dared to breathe.
    “Are you all right?” Kael whispered. “You've got rents and burns all over you.”
    “How did you find me?”
    “Stay as you are.” She heard him rustling through his shoulder bag, looking for something. “I saw the fire and figured your night was busier than mine. So I thought, if Sariah had to abandon the deck in haste, where would she go? That's how I ended up on this side of Nafa, wondering how by Meliahs’ dung heaps I was going to find you. But then, you made it easy for me.”
    “Easy?”
    “You're glowing.”
    Sariah looked down to see her bracelet's red radiance seeping through the scorched fabric. “By the rot, the light burned through again.”
    Kael wrapped his summer mantle around her arm, folding it many times over to a good thickness, until her arm felt like an enormous sausage packaged for sale.
    “That should hold for a while,” he said. “What happened?”
    They huddled in the dark while Sariah gave him a quick account of her night. “That group from the mob found me only because Delis broke through the window and allowed the light to escape,” Sariah finished.
    “They sent Delis?”
    “You know Delis?”
    “I know of Delis. Where is she now?”
    Sariah guided Kael to the abandoned deck where the woman lay.
    “Wicked goddess, Sariah, the things you do.” Kael considered the unconscious woman. “We have no time for this. We've got to go.”
    “We can't leave her to die.”
    “She tried to kill you.”
    “But then she smuggled me a stone. I can't leave her here. They hate her.” Just like they hated her.
    Kael shook his head. “All right. Let's see what we can do.”
    “I've got your medicine pouch.”
    “Good thinking.